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TechnoratiAnti-Capitalism in Five Minutes or Less
We know that capitalism is not just the most sensible way to organize an economy but is now the only possible way to organize an economy. We know that dissenters to this conventional wisdom can, and should, be ignored. There's no longer even any need to persecute such heretics; they are obviously irrelevant.
How do we know all this? Because we are told so, relentlessly -- typically by those who have the most to gain from such a claim, most notably those in the business world and their functionaries and apologists in the schools, universities, mass media, and mainstream politics. Capitalism is not a choice, but rather simply is, like a state of nature. Maybe not like a state of nature, but the state of nature. To contest capitalism these days is like arguing against the air that we breathe. Arguing against capitalism, we're told, is simply crazy.
We are told, over and over, that capitalism is not just the system we have, but the only system we can ever have. Yet for many, something nags at us about such a claim. Could this really be the only option? We're told we shouldn't even think about such things. But we can't help thinking -- is this really the "end of history," in the sense that big thinkers have used that phrase to signal the final victory of global capitalism? If this is the end of history in that sense, we wonder, can the actual end of the planet far behind?
We wonder, we fret, and these thoughts nag at us -- for good reason. Capitalism -- or, more accurately, the predatory corporate capitalism that defines and dominates our lives -- will be our death if we don't escape it. Crucial to progressive politics is finding the language to articulate that reality, not in outdated dogma that alienates but in plain language that resonates with people. We should be searching for ways to explain to co-workers in water-cooler conversations -- radical politics in five minutes or less -- why we must abandon predatory corporate capitalism. If we don't, we may well be facing the end times, and such an end will bring rupture not rapture.
Here's my shot at the language for this argument.
Capitalism is admittedly an incredibly productive system that has created a flood of goods unlike anything the world has ever seen. It also is a system that is fundamentally (1) inhuman, (2) anti-democratic, and (3) unsustainable. Capitalism has given those of us in the First World lots of stuff (most of it of marginal or questionable value) in exchange for our souls, our hope for progressive politics, and the possibility of a decent future for children.
In short, either we change or we die -- spiritually, politically, literally.
1. Capitalism is inhuman
There is a theory behind contemporary capitalism. We're told that because we are greedy, self-interested animals, an economic system must reward greedy, self-interested behavior if we are to thrive economically.
Are we greedy and self-interested? Of course. At least I am, sometimes. But we also just as obviously are capable of compassion and selflessness. We certainly can act competitively and aggressively, but we also have the capacity for solidarity and cooperation. In short, human nature is wide-ranging. Our actions are certainly rooted in our nature, but all we really know about that nature is that it is widely variable. In situations where compassion and solidarity are the norm, we tend to act that way. In situations where competitiveness and aggression are rewarded, most people tend toward such behavior.
Why is it that we must choose an economic system that undermines the most decent aspects of our nature and strengthens the most inhuman? Because, we're told, that's just the way people are. What evidence is there of that? Look around, we're told, at how people behave. Everywhere we look, we see greed and the pursuit of self-interest. So, the proof that these greedy, self-interested aspects of our nature are dominant is that, when forced into a system that rewards greed and self-interested behavior, people often act that way. Doesn't that seem just a bit circular?
2. Capitalism is anti-democratic
This one is easy. Capitalism is a wealth-concentrating system. If you concentrate wealth in a society, you concentrate power. Is there any historical example to the contrary?
For all the trappings of formal democracy in the contemporary United States, everyone understands that the wealthy dictates the basic outlines of the public policies that are acceptable to the vast majority of elected officials. People can and do resist, and an occasional politician joins the fight, but such resistance takes extraordinary effort. Those who resist win victories, some of them inspiring, but to date concentrated wealth continues to dominate. Is this any way to run a democracy?
If we understand democracy as a system that gives ordinary people a meaningful way to participate in the formation of public policy, rather than just a role in ratifying decisions made by the powerful, then it's clear that capitalism and democracy are mutually exclusive.
Let's make this concrete. In our system, we believe that regular elections with the one-person/one-vote rule, along with protections for freedom of speech and association, guarantee political equality. When I go to the polls, I have one vote. When Bill Gates goes the polls, he has one vote. Bill and I both can speak freely and associate with others for political purposes. Therefore, as equal citizens in our fine democracy, Bill and I have equal opportunities for political power. Right?
3. Capitalism is unsustainable
This one is even easier. Capitalism is a system based on the idea of unlimited growth. The last time I checked, this is a finite planet. There are only two ways out of this one. Perhaps we will be hopping to a new planet soon. Or perhaps, because we need to figure out ways to cope with these physical limits, we will invent ever-more complex technologies to transcend those limits.
Both those positions are equally delusional. Delusions may bring temporary comfort, but they don't solve problems. They tend, in fact, to cause more problems. Those problems seem to be piling up.
Capitalism is not, of course, the only unsustainable system that humans have devised, but it is the most obviously unsustainable system, and it's the one in which we are stuck. It's the one that we are told is inevitable and natural, like the air.
A tale of two acronyms: TGIF and TINA
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's famous response to a question about challenges to capitalism was TINA -- There Is No Alternative. If there is no alternative, anyone who questions capitalism is crazy.
Here's another, more common, acronym about life under a predatory corporate capitalism: TGIF -- Thank God It's Friday. It's a phrase that communicates a sad reality for many working in this economy -- the jobs we do are not rewarding, not enjoyable, and fundamentally not worth doing. We do them to survive. Then on Friday we go out and get drunk to forget about that reality, hoping we can find something during the weekend that makes it possible on Monday to, in the words of one songwriter, "get up and do it again."
Remember, an economic system doesn't just produce goods. It produces people as well. Our experience of work shapes us. Our experience of consuming those goods shapes us. Increasingly, we are a nation of unhappy people consuming miles of aisles of cheap consumer goods, hoping to dull the pain of unfulfilling work. Is this who we want to be?
We're told TINA in a TGIF world. Doesn't that seem a bit strange? Is there really no alternative to such a world? Of course there is. Anything that is the product of human choices can be chosen differently. We don't need to spell out a new system in all its specifics to realize there always are alternatives. We can encourage the existing institutions that provide a site of resistance (such as labor unions) while we experiment with new forms (such as local cooperatives). But the first step is calling out the system for what it is, without guarantees of what's to come.
Home and abroad
In the First World, we struggle with this alienation and fear. We often don't like the values of the world around us; we often don't like the people we've become; we often are afraid of what's to come of us. But in the First World, most of us eat regularly. That's not the case everywhere. Let's focus not only on the conditions we face within a predatory corporate capitalist system, living in the most affluent country in the history of the world, but also put this in a global context.
Half the world's population lives on less than $2 a day. That's more than 3 billion people. Just over half of the population of sub-Saharan Africa lives on less than $1 a day. That's more than 300 million people.
How about one more statistic: About 500 children in Africa die from poverty-related diseases, and the majority of those deaths could be averted with simple medicines or insecticide-treated nets. That's 500 children -- not every year, or every month or every week. That's not 500 children every day. Poverty-related diseases claim the lives of 500 children an hour in Africa.
When we try to hold onto our humanity, statistics like that can make us crazy. But don't get any crazy ideas about changing this system. Remember TINA: There is no alternative to predatory corporate capitalism.
TGILS: Thank God It's Last Sunday
We have been gathering on Last Sunday precisely to be crazy together. We've come together to give voice to things that we know and feel, even when the dominant culture tells us that to believe and feel such things is crazy. Maybe everyone here is a little crazy. So, let's make sure we're being realistic. It's important to be realistic.
One of the common responses I hear when I critique capitalism is, "Well, that may all be true, but we have to be realistic and do what's possible." By that logic, to be realistic is to accept a system that is inhuman, anti-democratic, and unsustainable. To be realistic we are told we must capitulate to a system that steals our souls, enslaves us to concentrated power, and will someday destroy the planet.
But rejecting and resisting a predatory corporate capitalism is not crazy. It is an eminently sane position. Holding onto our humanity is not crazy. Defending democracy is not crazy. And struggling for a sustainable future is not crazy.
What is truly crazy is falling for the con that an inhuman, anti-democratic, and unsustainable system -- one that leaves half the world's people in abject poverty -- is all that there is, all that there ever can be, all that there ever will be.
If that were true, then soon there will be nothing left, for anyone.
I do not believe it is realistic to accept such a fate. If that's being realistic, I'll take crazy any day of the week, every Sunday of the month.
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center http://thirdcoastactivist.org . His latest book is Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007). Jensen is also the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism, and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (both from City Lights Books); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang). He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu and his articles can be found online at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/index.html.
207 Comments so far
Show AllNew Element Discovered: Capitalisium
http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/brook010807.html
Smurfy, this may be too late for you to respond, but I think you are a bit confused. Karl Polanyi (might be spelled wrong, too lazy to check right now) wrote in "The Great Transformation" that capitalism, contrary to what people like you say, has NEVER existed without government. Never. The enclosure of the commons was done by elites in Tudor England, the social legislation of early 19th century was carried on by British elites and no country has EVER developed without massive state involvement. Like I said before, the vast majority of our technology comes out of the State Department and our public universities, not the "private market". The private market doesn't enter into it, usually, until after the technology has been created, swoop in and sell back to us what we paid to create. Bush is not capitalism gone wrong with the help of government, he is simply president when capitalism is becoming undone (he is obviously even more corrupt than previous presidents but most of his policies aren't big departures from previous presidents including Reagan) and is an idiot. There isn't a single part of the economy without massive state involvement and there isn't a single free trade legislation created that doesn't stipulate some sort of state protection for domestic corporations. CAFTA, for instance, doesn't allow Central American countries to buy generic cheap drugs for five years and forces them to buy from US firms (at three, four times the cost) & it doesn't end agri-business subsidies in the US.
Smurfy,
I think you and I are in fundamental agreement on a few points. The main one is this: societies work better when power is distributed.
In theory, free markets and federal republican forms of government both try to embody this principle. Sadly, there is a tendency in both spheres for power to become concentrated. I think this is natural -- the theory of evolution as applied to human affairs. I think you also agree with this at least in the government sphere, as indicated by your statement "What we're seeing is virtually a natural law - politicians are for sale."
I see this same dynamic playing out in the economic sphere as well. The tendency of unfettered capitalis systems to evolve toward monopoly or oligarchy is well documented.
As an aside, I will also mention that unregulated market economies are unstable due to positive feedback, leading to increasingly severe boom and bust cycles. The roaring twenties followed by the great depression were due in large part to the laissez-faire economic policies that enjoyed wide currency at that time.
But back to the point.
So what to do? I certainly don't want the government to be making my Ice Cream. I do want it to establish and enforce food safety stndards though, which may mean inspecting the premises or obtaining samples of the product to check it for contamination. I don't see this as an unreasonable symbiosis -- the people get good ice cream, the ice cream maker competes (ideally) on a level playing field, and the government performs the function that it is properly constituted to perform. In a way, the government's role in this helps the Ice Cream industry. People feel reassured that Ice Cream is safe to eat, and so feel free to eat it with (reckless!) abandon.
The issue is concentration of power. I believe that evolution applies to social systems as well as biological ones, and so there is going to be a tendency for the law of the jungle to emerge at various levels. We cannot escape this by trying to abolish central governments. They arise as a natural consequence of the benefits of collective action and the need for protection against other hostile collectives.
And so then the question becomes: What is an appropriate government structure so that we can form societies and yet avoid the tendency toward concentration of power that can and will be used to subjugate the people. Our solution here has three facets: a regulated market economy, a federal government system that employs a system of checks and balances, and lethal force power being divided into police forces under local control and military forces divided into (orignally three but now four) services.
Of course there are still problems. As you say, politicians are for sale. We try to ferret out and extinguish the most egregious abuses, but there is a certain institutionalization of corrupting influences via quid-pro-quo campaign contributions, favorable or unfavorable media coverage, corporate ownership and control of the voting apparatus, and myriad other ploys by which the business community tries to influence or use government apparatus toward its own ends.
I'll quit on one last point: You stated
Yes, oil is a serious issue and yes oil companies make a few billion. You think they could afford the Iraq invasion and occupation though?
The answer is "yes", because they don't have to fund the invasion and occupation directly. They just have to get the right guys into office. The upcoming election is expected to be the first where total compaign expenditures will exceed a billion dollars. This seems like a lot, until one considers that Exxon/Mobil could fund the whole affair out nine days profits.
This is the kind of economic power that has life and death consequences for hundreds of thousands of people, as we have seen. We shall see if our government is up to the onslaught. Right now, the jury is still out.
Regulations, oversight and so on are needed, for sure. But why do we need a powerful monopoly doing it, funded by force?
Seems to me the problem with such thinking is you're thinking about the problem instead of the solution.
For example you consider the Bush problem as being "as much" to do with capitalism - but really? What we're seeing is virtually a natural law - politicians are for sale.
Yes, oil is a serious issue and yes oil companies make a few billion. You think they could afford the Iraq invasion and occupation though?
All the oil companies, motor manufactuers and Bill Gates combined would struggle to afford one year of this madness let alone 4 or 5.
But currently for the oil companies it's all profit - they get access to the oil, and if the oil supply dries up a little, higher prices. It's a win win, and funded by the taxpayer. You.
It's no secret that the oil companies and military industrial complex run the US government. It's blatantly obvious.
But somehow you think you can talk the oil company run government to put a barrier between itself and those who run it? This is going to work, right?
OK, simple questions - if what the government does doesn't cost money, why do we pay tax? Obviously their "services" DO cost money. If their services can be purchased, why won't they be? Obviously they WILL be. But if they can be purchased, why do we need a monopoly? Why do we need to fund it by force?
Examine those questions and you'll come closer to workable answers.
Let's try again with ice cream. Does ice cream cost money? Yes it does. If ice cream is available for sale, will people buy it? Obviously they will. But if ice cream is available on the open market, why do we need to create a monopoly on ice cream? Why do we need to fund such an ice cream monopoly by force?
Makes no sense at all with ice cream, right?
We know that when it comes to ice cream our individual tastes are best satisfied by the free market, with innovations, wider choice, lower prices, easy availability, friendly service etc etc etc etc.
It's a no brainer, government ice cream would be hideous and over-priced - and you'd need to force people to buy it. Heck it would probably come in flavors such as Floride, Depleted Uranium and General Toxic.
But the most important commodity of all, raw power, and we think we're best served with government-issue power on a stick?
We create a level of power that no private company could possibly afford, total absolute power. Once every few years we get together and cast a vote, presuming its even counted, to decide which bunch of lying darstards will pretend to be in control of the thing?
And then we look all crest-fallen and disappointed when the larger, wealthier companies purchase this power and use it for their own ends?
We sqeak in dismay when commies get it and do a Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot, we squeak in dismay when Halliburton or Blackwater get it.... ever considered that maybe "it" is the problem, not the solution?
Ah, you say, "but if it were balanced"...
HOW!!?
Put salt on its tail? Ask it nicely?
Whatever scheme or system you come up with will rapidly turn back into what you already have. The Constitution was a great document, people still use its name in vain today - but it didn't work, did it?
As long as the very concept of a monopoly central government is "legitimate" among the people, the problem will never be solved - because "it" IS the problem.
We moved from rabid religion to kings, from kings to government - let's move on to the next level. Freedom.
Low-priced Cornettos, not toxic sludge on a stick.
Yes it means thinking outside the box, which is the whole point of being "progressive". Seeking to "reform" or "reorganise" or "houseclean" government in ways of our liking is not progressing, it's doing the exact same thing and expecting different results.
S.
Glenn, after reading your previous post about sexual repression, I'm giving up debate on internet forums forever.
Grant, why is everyone trying to leave Cuba for the US?
Jonathan,
Out of fairness to your position, I'll look at it in more depth. I'd rather be wrong now and understand it than just be wrong. I'll look into it more.
Smurfy,
Well thanks for the effort but you're so far wrong I dunno where to start, and it looks like this post is going to vanish soon anyway.
Well, I guess you could always start with explaining where and how you think I'm wrong.
"Unregulated capitalism is tantamount to a return to the law of the jungle."
Total opposite, capitalism is a matter of moving away from that and towards mutually beneficial trade, as opposed to seeking power and taking by force.
Ahhh, if only it were so. But in a finite world, it comes down to competition for resources -- land, labor, energy, capital, raw materials, and markets. We thus find ourselves in a position where someone else "owns" and therefore controls the very piece of ground that we are born on. Take a trip to India if you want to see the end game. A few own all; hundreds of millions own nothing and never will -- ever. They will spend their entire lives toiling to pay rent to the top 1%-ers.
Simply being rich doesn't give that much power by itself, but when there's a powerful government to be bribed you only really need bribe a few people to have the entire tax-funded military or other such things at your disposal.
Once again, it just ain't so. Money buys power, whether that power comes from buying sympathetic government officials, funding a private militia, locking up resources, funding propaganda organs, or acting to restrain free markets.
Yes, Bush is a poster-boy for capitalism gone bad, because of the mix of capitalism combined with powerful government. You squeak in dismay at the capitalism yet remind blind to the fact only a powerful government gives Bush the power he has.
I view this as being a problem with unrestrained capitalism as much as I do a problem with government.
Of course big corporations are anti-capitalism, no-one LIKES competition but corrupt government gives them leverage they'd never have in the marketplace alone.
News flash! It is the government that creates the legal in which corporations exist in the first place. It is the government that creates and manages the very "fiat currency" as you call it that lubricates the market economy. Without governments, there are no corporations and market economies remain primitive.
Reagan was full of hot air and his actions and polices defiled his alleged principles but he said it best when he said "Government is not the solution, government is the problem".
Kinda makes you wonder why he wanted to be president, doesn't it? I have my theories, none of them particularly complementary to Mr. Reagan. At least we agree on one thing -- he was full of hot air.
How can you have a powerful central government and NOT have it taken over by someone like Bush or Cheney?
We could start by sunsetting the Bush tax cuts. I'm not holding my breath...
We could go with public funding of elections. At this point, however, corporate interests in government are so thoroughly entrenched that I don't see that happening. Informing voters is another alternative, although corporate control of the media is so thoroughly entrenched that I don't see that happening either. Fair elections by voter-verified, permanant ballot would be a huge step, but corporate control of the voting apparatus is now so thoroughly entrenched that I really don't see even that happening.
I could go on, but you know what? Corporations have a lot more money than I do and thus a lot more power, so what I think doesn't really amount to much.
Politicians are ALWAYS a lying bunch of darstards, you KNOW this...
Wow! You and I agree on TWO things!
... but still cling to some fantasy that if only they had a bit more power, a bit more funding, some "reforms" and other such gibberish that somehow "the system would work"…
Yeah, that's me! Always the optimist! Atually, I don't think they need more power. Just a firewall between them and their corporate sponsors. But you know something? It really does require a minimal dollup of corporate oversight and regulation for that to happen, and right now, corporate America has bought the US government, so that's not gonna happen. I would call it a hostile takeover, but it was actually more like a mob hit.
Newsflash - it never has worked properly and it never will do, and the more power it gets the worse it gets.
But the more power that the captains of industry get the better it gets? Then riddle me this: Why was gasoline $2.15 per gallon the week before the November 2006 election and it's now $3.00? In October 2006, oil prices hovered around $60 per barrel. Yesterday, it was $63.72. And yeah, I've hard all the lame crap about tight supplies, etc. I've also noted that Exxon/Mobil now regularly turns $10 billion in quarterly profit. Isn't it amazing that the local Exxon, Shell, BP, and Chevron stations all seem to be sporting the exact same prices? Prices that seem to include what can only be described as stupendous profit margins? You could almost start thinking that with so few players now, a round of phone calls on Monday morning could be all that's needed to decide what Americans will be paying for gas this week. That never seemed to happen when there was a little more REGULATION.
You cannot have a "little bit" of central government any more than you can have a little bit of cancer or be a little bit pregnant.
Sure you can. Government isn't binary, like pregnancy. There are degrees of centralization that go everywhere from laissez-faire to complete socialism. The lesson of the ages seems to be that neither extreme works very well -- both lead to various forms of repression and servitude. Think "Niger Delta" on the one hand and "North Korea" on the other. The question is always the balance.
Sure, Bush is the bogeyman today but give it 10 years and you'll be wishing the republicans would get back in…
Well, if the GOP does some serious housecleaning...
Personally I say throw the whole lot out and go for local governments only, with a handy bathtub kept full of cold water nearby.
That would be nice. The problem with local-governments-only is they tend to get pushed around by larger neighbors. Especially those larger neighbors whose corporations want their resources or access to their markets. And given the military advantages tha come with centralization (coupled with the interest that their larger corporations have in keeping costs low, there is a tendency to obtain these resources at prices that can be obtained only at gunpoint, if you get my drift. Think "Iraq".
In a way, the capitalism-vs-socialism question is a form of the individaul-vs-society question. Humans are social creatures. We give up some personal perogatives in order to obtain the benefits and protections afforded us by collective action. We want a social structure that facilitates this collective action while at the same time preventing the collective from subjugating the individual. It's a workable balance that we strive to find. In my view, that implies a regulated market economy.
Well thanks for the effort but you're so far wrong I dunno where to start, and it looks like this post is going to vanish soon anyway.
"Unregulated capitalism is tantamound to a return to the law of the jungle."
Total opposite, capitalism is a matter of moving away from that and towards mutually beneficial trade, as opposed to seeking power and taking by force.
Simply being rich doesn't give that much power by itself, but when there's a powerful government to be bribed you only really need bribe a few people to have the entire tax-funded military or other such things at your disposal.
Yes, Bush is a poster-boy for capitalism gone bad, because of the mix of capitalism combined with powerful government. You squeak in dismay at the capitalism yet remind blind to the fact only a powerful government gives Bush the power he has.
Of course big corporations are anti-capitalism, no-one LIKES competition but corrupt government gives them leverage they'd never have in the marketplace alone.
Reagan was full of hot air and his actions and polices defiled his alleged principles but he said it best when he said "Government is not the solution, government is the problem".
How can you have a powerful central government and NOT have it taken over by someone like Bush or Cheney?
Politicians are ALWAYS a lying bunch of darstards, you KNOW this but still cling to some fantasy that if only they had a bit more power, a bit more funding, some "reforms" and other such gibberish that somehow "the system would work"...
Newsflash - it never has worked properly and it never will do, and the more power it gets the worse it gets.
You cannot have a "little bit" of central government any more than you can have a little bit of cancer or be a little bit pregnant.
Sure, Bush is the bogeyman today but give it 10 years and you'll be wishing the republicans would get back in...
Personally I say throw the whole lot out and go for local governments only, with a handy bathtub kept full of cold water nearby.
S.
Helix May 3rd, 2007 12:52 pm -
THANK YOU!!!
AMEN!!!
Smurfy,
Oh my lordy.. I skipped the article as I knew it would be garbage and came straight to the replies - and what a pile of misunderstanding they are!
Let me get this straight. You skipped the article, so you don't even know the context of the discussion. Yet you pass judgment on the replies. You're kidding, right?
99% of the bad stuff you blame on "capitalism" is nothing of the sort beyond the fact that governments are corrupt and sell their power on a daily basis to the highest bidder.
Well, ya know everything is connected, even business and government. It's part of human nature. A part of human natture that should be clearly understood when formulating social policy.
Earlier someone mentioned copper mining and bemoaned the plight of the copper-mining community. Yet capitalism is their best hope for finding alternatives while making the extraction of copper safer and cleaner.
I couldn't agree less. In a free market, businesses -- especially corporations -- will cut costs in all ways possible in order to be as competitive as possible. Not that copper is a free market, given the small number of players, but that's another story. Cutting costs in the case of a mining industry implies a) Using public resources as a private asset whenever possible. b) Pushing as many costs associated with waste off onto the public sector (tailings) or other industries (health care) as possible.
The problem, of course, is that man does not live by bread alone. Their are other social values other than economic ones that must be balanced when formulating policy. This is something that capitalists would very much like us to forget.
And if people privately owned the areas affected by "externalities" then the 'tragedy of the commons' wouldn't be the problem it is today.
You mean, there should be no such thing as common wealth? Everything should be owned by individuals or corporations? Rivers? The air? No national parks or seashore? Every road is a toll road? How about the military and police? Should we have militias instead?
I find it quite awesome that a bunch of the richest people on Earth are sitting there on their hi-powered but affordable computers, on their mass-produced chairs in their cosy heated or cooled homes, with their stuffed tummies and affordable clothing, affordable shoes and possibly their affordable TV or music system in the background, stating capitalism has "failed".
I think most people here think that some kind of regulated market economy is a good workable solution. Unregulated capitalism, however, leads to concentration of wealth, and thus power. In such cases, the common wealth tends to be viewed as a resource to be exploited rather a resource to be shared and collectively cared for. Concentration of power is also an uneasy fit with democratic government system.
Capitalism is the greatest thing that ever happened - its main problem is governments control it, which makes it corrupt as all heck.
Capitalism can be a good thing, but its main problem is not that governments control it, but that it concentrates wealth and power, which pursue even more wealth and power to the exclusion of all other social values. The bottom line is that we value clean air and water, we want to live in a decent environment, and we want a market economy which means bona-fide competition. Capitalism is hostile to every one of these values, including a free market. Thus a degree of regulation is in order. The argument turns on the appropriate balance.
Why will you lot never learn that giving government even MORE power is not the answer? Even when you end up with someone like Bush you still clamour for giving him and his ilk even greater power, even more say in our lives, even more control over the people.
I don't know very many people who want Bush to have more power. If anything, Bush is the poster child for the problems associated with capitalism, given that his entire administration comes from and represents the intersts of the oil industry. He's the perfect illustration of the power of capitalists to subvert the social apparatus to serve their ends. At this point, it is probably appropriate to think of the US military as the oil industry's militia. A militia that they've arranged for you and me to pay for. Now that's power. And it was all made possible by the DEREGULATION that took root during the Reagan administration, and has now come to full flower.
The greatest thing that ever happened to humanity was the industrial revolution, which allowed people such wealth and independence that royalty has to change rapidly or lose control completely. That gave us the Magna Carta and every hint of democracy since.
Sorry, but the Magna Carta predated the industrial revolution by, oh, three centuries or so. In fact, it may have been the other way 'round. The Magna Carta paved the way for the industrial revolution. You should read it, by the way. It's really quite astounding how much of that document addresses the balance between government and private property.
The free market is democracy in action, vastly more so than casting a vote for Dumb or Dumber amidst a few million other votes. I've just noticed the post above mine mentions inflation and blames GROWTH for inflation! That shows how uninformed about economics you lot are - government's fiat money causes inflation, growth brings prices DOWN!
Yep, the free market is quite democratic in theory, but only in the economic sphere. Experience has shown, however, that unregulated capitalism leads to monopoly or oligarchy, which puts an end to the very free market that gave rise to it. Furthermore, the power concentrated thereby can and will be used to subvert the common wealth for personal gain and suppress other social values.
Unregulated capitalism is tantamound to a return to the law of the jungle. Humans long ago found that the only way that we could survive there was to band together. Ever since, we've strived to strike a balance.
And we're still at it.
wvernon1981 -
eurobelle -wvernon1981 -
eurobelle -
I am for the Liberation of the soul from the clutches of tyranny.
What I failed to mention is that the mechanism of Capitalism, in the hands of Corporations, pander to the baser ego. They are allowed to run rough-shod where ever they please without any checks or balances. In this arena, for the ego, the sky is the limit. Enron and WorldCom have been shinning examples of this condition. There are more! These are only the visible ones that fallen from the weight of their deceit.
1913 was the pivotal year. That year Democracy was hijacked and replaced by Corporations. In that year the bulk of all corporate laws were passed, including the sinister Federal Reserve Act, which centralized the power of money into fewer and lesser hands. Today, it is the noose of Usury, the bit in every individual's mouth, which binds them to this power as debt slaves.
The Privileges offered by a Corporation, laid out in their Corporate By-Laws, trump Constitutional Rights. It is why Bush Inc. was so aptly able to shout a reporter down, telling him to - quit shoving the Constitution in my face, it's only a piece of paper. But, let me add that, Corporations are simple creatures of the state and have no Constitutional validity, and because of this, rest on very fragile ground, and can be confronted on this principle. The title 'Federal Reserve' is a misnomer and has absolutely nothing to do with the Federal Government. It is a privately owned, for-profit Corporation, whose majority of directors are not necessarily all American citizens. The regional board of governors, from time to time, meets secretly to determine what the value of printed paper will be.
As I concluded earlier, it is a ship that is slowly grinding against the rocks. The other world members, China, Russia, India etc, who buy into this system will too, eventually, grow weary once the egos of the masses have become over satiated, begin questioning the purpose, because internally this will not provide freedom, but instead build a cage, as the world corporate military beast savages the surface of the planet, in attempt to maintain ever higher levels of necessary satiation, from where ever it can plunder it.
By this continued feeding of the Ego, seat of the senses, tethers to the material world, the wisdom and understanding of the inner higher-self will remain blinded.
Maat, Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
yes, he is probably one of those militant egoists
zeitgeist, you sound like a libertarian?
Grant May 2nd, 2007 6:29 pm
If my previous post sounds way too simplistic, it's because the solution is simplistic. When I speak of individual Sovereignty, I speak of the Sovereignty in each individual that it calls upon and answers to; that which is the higher self, the self that is not blinded by the ego, or bound by organized religious dogma. From this flows wisdom and understanding, something completely foreign in today's political and religious landscapes. The ancient term for this was Maat, or simply, balance and harmony. In today's ego/greed driven systems, harmony is not even part of the mental spectrum. Everyone has their own predatory scams and get rich quick schemes simply to satiate the ego. The motto being, as one economist once said, "if you've got the meter running on the American people, you've got the best game in town". No family can survive long within this frame of mind.
Regardless of which social economic structure is contemplated, one must enter into the equation the individual, whose unchecked frail human nature falters when the ego becomes intoxicated by its position of power, within a matter of time becomes a recipe for disaster and a weight to those below, a tyrant, despot and a predator.
It has been a lack of individual vigilance that the ship is now grinding slowly against the rocks. Personally, I wonder if it hasn't drifted beyond the point of return.
Maat, Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
"..and receive not a red cent from the IMF or World Bank?"
Please don't mistake capitalism with the IMF or World Bank!
They have helped gut the economic core of more countries than I can count and have nothing to do with the free market.
Far from being simplistic I'd say the libertarian view is just too darn subtle for most people to understand. It requires actually thinking things through instead of kneejerking and demanding God/Bush/Hillary/Hugo "do something!"
In contrast we'd rather the above types QUIT doing stuff, because virtually everything they do either does not have any real effect, has the opposite effect of the stated aim and in fat too many cases was never meant to do that which was stated publicly in the first place.
Yes, some large companies have way too much power and not enough accountability - because they share power with governments, a power that wouldn't be there if it were not for people such as yourself eagerly handing as much power as possible to governments in the first place.
There is no logic to a centralised powerful government.
It makes no sense to give some people power in order to protect us from some people unless those people are very local and held directly accountable. Government is none of that.
I favor large companies over unions because companies seek to be productive in ways that are profitable to all parties, including the customer. In contrast unions rely on threats and force to get their own way. I view unions as little minature governments, with all the same inherent problems, except the "opposition party" are the legitimate owners and making a profit, the union party simply wants power and cash - beyond that which the profit-making owners can or are willing to supply.
I can throw it straight back at you - why do you oppose corporations while supporting unions?
Let me give you 2 different examples. 2 people approach you and say they'd like to buy your bicycle. You say you don't wish to sell it but by clubbing together they produce enough money that you decide what the heck, that's more money than the bike is worth so you cheerfully take the money.
They get the bike, you get the money, everyone's happy.
Example 2 - two people approach you and say they want your bike. "It's not for sale" you say. So they hold a vote, 2:1 you lose, so they take the bike by force, leaving you a dry cleaning bill because some of your blood got on their clothes.
That's a simplistic - BUT ACCURATE contrast between the free market and government.
That alone should suffice for you to see that union or government power is something you should be extremely wary of - but in truth it is indeed much more subtle than that.
Here's a more realistic example:
Your employer buys resources from people, all of whom had to pay a lot of tax and so had to raise their price. Nevertheless your employer buys this stuff and also hires you. He has to pay you a lot more than you get because you also pay tax, and he pays tax too, and all his customers pay this tax thing. But, painfully, you scrape by. Then you spend some of your money on a bike, the price of which includes tax, tax on the seller, the maker etc etc etc etc etc.
Then 2 people come up to you and wish to purchase your bike. They offer things called "dollars". You know dollars can be exchanged for other stuff but you also know they keep losing value, because the people you pay tax to keep producing more and more of them. So now you have to calculate how much your bike is worth, in today's money. You set a price high enough to buy a new bike and a nice meal. You make the exchange.
On the surface that looks like the free market, in reality it is nowhere near it.
Change the word "tax" for "protection money" and "government" for "mafia" and you'd see instantly that there's no free market here. If the local mafia builds a school, a bridge and promises to dress you in a uniform and send you to fight their turf wars in the event of anyone intruding on their turf, does that make them legitimate?
Bottom line, government is force. It's not God, it's not Geea, and it's not nice.
The only way it would be legitimate is if you had a choice. if you could pick and choose the government service providers you like and respect, declining the ones you don't. Too expensive? Use someone else. Poor service? Use someone else.
Ironically we're often told we need a government to prevent monopolies!
It is in fact a very deep and complex subject but the basic principles are easy enough - force is bad, mutual exchange is good.
True progress would be finding ways of removing government and opening the market wherever possible. Instead we are too deeply entrenched in the idea that if there's a problem we should turn to government and ask them to use force.
We forget that the power we give King George will be sold to the highest bidder, we forget that for every government action there is a reaction, we forget that most government actions actually create the opposite of the intended aim (often deliberately), we forget the most basic aspect of civilisation - the lack of force and the threat of force.
No government plan will make things better - because it relies on a government.
Regardless of the hot air and fake smiles, all governments at heart are the same thing, well-established large scale versions of the mafia. Looking for ways to restrict their power makes sense, conjuring up ever newer ways of giving them more power does not.
S.
"This must be left up to the individual!
Are corporations "individuals" or a group of rich and powerful individuals, created to legally care about nothing at all but their own self interest and, at the same time, given the right of "limited liabaility"? Why do you allow people to combine in the private marketplace like this, as the case with corporations, but not to individuals to form unions? Is it possible that this extreme advantage you give to private power makes freedom realistically impossible for most people? If not, give an example where what you are saying THEORETICALLY works has worked in practice and not caused misery for the majority.
Your post is what I am talking about, way too simplistic.
No system is likely to satisfy the sovereignty of each individual equally. Any system where the public is willing to invest power into the hands of a hierarchy of individuals, whose frail human natures fail at the intoxicating heights of power, will eventually be crushed by the weight of that hierarchy.
The founders had the wisdom and understood this fallibility, by their placement of checks and balances. Mankind has proven itself incapable and untrustworthy in the pulling down of spiritual abstractions, concretizing them into religious and political dominions, without perverting those abstractions in the hands of human nature. It is like casting the pearls to the swine. The founders understood this! It is the result of a sleepy public, whose egos, satiated with baubles and trinkets, having dropped their guard, that despotic and errant ideologues reign free today.
Given this frailty, organized governments or religions can not be trusted, must always remain suspect, neither can they be expected in providing the idea of Utopia. This must be left up to the individual! In this wisdom and understanding, of like minds, resides true individual sovereignty...echoed in the words - Give me Liberty, or give me death.
Maat, Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
Here's a quote from that lefty Adam Smith:
"the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin."
Smurfy, Latin America and Africa must not have gotten that memo. Which leader, outside of right wing paramilitary run Colombia, has gotten elected calling for "free market" policies since their democracies have opened up? How has the "free market" been treating Africa lately (crap, since before there was a US)? I'm sure they went into the hills of these countries and asked these people, not simply called people who could afford phones and the power to run the phones, and asked them. I don't doubt that many people would like the US lifestyle, who wouldn't? The problem (outside of our lifesyle not being sustainable) is that it isn't possible world wide, as I brought up in regards to consumption levels, and it isn't possible for ANY country to improve their material well being without negatively effecting another. We live in a world of finite resources and material well being has a ceiling. I gave an example a few posts up about this.
Here's a poll done by Latinbarometro, it says that Venezuelans are the second happiest of any citizens with their democracy behind Uraguay and have seen, by far, the biggest increase in happiness with their government across the board since 1998 (just by chance the year Chavez took over).
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2179
I meant to say that China is importing not exporting raw materials, which they are, to minimize domestic ecological and economic costs.
Let's be real about what will happen if every bit up Earth is bought up by rich people, we will have an end to upper income mobility and the rich will have, forever, absolute power over the non owners of that land. How is that at all economically efficient? Tell me, if the market is the answer to these problems, why is Haiti the way it is (with no vegetation and, as a result, a very poorly functioning economic system) and the Dominican Republic, who has about 27 more times the amount of vegetation and a much higher standard of living? Well, the DR created many, many times more national parks than Haiti (which was horribly exploited by capitalists for Haiti's raw materials along with the elites in Haiti's government) and went after the logging industry. According to you, and your "tragedy of the commons" platitude, this should have been the opposite. The DR state took a more active role in protecting the environment, expanding the commons and have, they should have more ecological problems than Haiti…but they don't, they have a much healthier eco system. But yeah, let's try your ideas like yours which have yet to ever work in practice because they fit into YOUR philosophical world view. What about China? Obviously China isn't purely capitalist but its recent growth has been a result of very pro-market policies (the costs of this, like I mentioned in a previous post, don't go into the pricing mechanism), yet its environment is in horrific shape and getting worse quickly. Deforestation, soil erosion, ghastly pollution (China has 6 of the top 10 most polluted cities in the world), and a quickly sliding per capita resource availability. China has done this with the expansion of property rights, the opposite of what you are TRYING to say. What has China done to minimize these effects (besides going against SOME of the market policies they've enacted recently)? They're exporting more raw materials from other countries like Brazil, passing the consumption costs onto those countries. It would be nice if "libertarians" would just let go, so we could be begin to have honest discussions on the environment, instead of trying to convert everyone to your religion.
Much of the wealth of america was built upon the labor of slaves and the theft of lands from the native americans. Where does that model fit into capitalism? Those who profited were successful capitalists or should we say thieves and murderers? I guess the plantation owner in his mansion wouldn't want to share too much with the slaves...thats socialism. Given who you are today and the way you think today...who would you have been back then?
wvernon1981:
As to human nature, parecon deals with that rather brilliantly I think. I don't think humans are inherently greedy, aggressive or individualistic, and neither i suspect do you. certainly humans have the capacity for those negative things, but we also have the capacity for solidarity, kindness and emphatic behavior. I would argue that only under constrained conditions do we exhibit the negative side, but either way why would we want a system that rewords the greedy, aggressive or individualistic behavior? That is what we have now. Under parecon you are rewarded for the positive behaviors, a tall claim in know, but one i think holds up when you look more deeply into the vision. Noam Chomsky has a great short story for arguing for positive human nature, which you can find at this link to chapter 24 of the ParEcon book.
chapter 24 - Human Nature?
http://www.zmag.org/books/pareconv/Chapter24.htm#_VPID_133
The whole parecon book free online:
http://www.zmag.org/books/pareconv/parefinal.htm
Smurfy, I'm sorry but there is an economic calculation in capitalism just as much as any other system. For the pricing mechanism to be truly accurate you have to include much more information than currently goes into it. Does the costs of consuming goods that have an absolute scarcity go into the pricing mechanism? No, relative scarcity, but not absolute scarcity. Does pollution go into the pricing mechanism? There is an almost endless amount of information that is ignored by market economics, which is why we have failed to account for things like CO2 emissions and massive deforestation in the prices we pay for goods. The economic calculation problem is actually more of an issue with capitalism than any other system, especially the capitalism that we have which is based on endless growth, ignoring the ecological costs that growth creates. How do YOU answer to that problem? Please don't respond about "internalizing" the costs of externalities because, on the surface, it sounds like a good idea. Read up on it and its pitfalls. Doing so is virtually impossible. The economist Herman Daly explains the problems well if you're interested. Here's his best book, which tackles this problem:
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Growth-Economics-Sustainable-Development/dp/0807047090
wvernon1981:
I don't think you are giving the parecon model and fair chance, it seems to me that you are confused about the way the model operates and the why the current system operates. This could be because its impossible to describe a whole new economic is a 10 min youtube video. Try listening to this longer and more detailed talk, I think it might clear up some of the misunderstandings.
http://www.tank.ws/clients/bsf/audio/default.asp?q=f&f=/Michael_Albert_@_UQ_on_ParEcon
Yes Smirfy the public is made up of individual human beings so that means there is no Public.
10 is made up of individual numbers so there is no sum, only single didgits...thanks for clearing it all up.
Jim
NEW RULE: You don't get to call your economic model a success if it sets the stage for the extinction of half the planets species.
A good point - but I disagree anyway, for there is no such thing as "public ownership", just the illusion of it.
Show me any "public" and I'll show you individual human beings.
It's easy to confuse "society" with "the public". There certainly is an entity we can call society at large, but there is no "public" as a separate entity from the people that make up the society.
Yes, that's splitting hairs perhaps but how can you have a society of individual private citizens, each with their own rights, and then point to any one of them or a group of them or indeed all of them and claim they are "public"?
Frankly it's like claiming the casinos and speakeasy's of the mafia are "public property" because "we pay our protection money!"
It's just a nice way of saying the government lays claim to owning it, while allowing us private individuals, each with our own individual rights and self-ownership, to use and abuse it.
There's a classic example close to where I live - 2 different beaches, both open to "the public", one privately owned by the local Holiday Inn. The other is entirely "public".
Guess which one is strewn with broken glass, general trash, used condoms and a couple of burnt out cars?
Clue - it's not the one privately owned.
Same with mines. If someone owns the mine it tends to be well looked after. If government "public" land it gets mined on short-term leases and with a short-term mindset, leading to strip-mining, extremely wasteful, and often toxic waste dumping to boot.
Same with forests - if you're leasing the land for 5 years, why plant trees?
Time after time the best means of preverving a resource, making the most efficient use of it while retaining long term viability, comes from the fact someone owns it. When "we the people" somehow "own" it, we literally use it as a rubbish dump.
We can waffle on about "public stakeholders" but ultimately no-one actually has a stake in it, literally, so it gets peed on.
Give that some thought.
S.
Since this article and discussion was supposed to be about something that could be understood around the water cooler let me try to simplify here:
First we learn in economics 101 at Ohio state anyway, that all economic systems are mixed.
There is no pure socialism and no pure capitalism.
They are being used today as straw men to keep us fighting about which to choose when they are both myths.
All societies are a mix of Public ownership and Private ownership...that is reality folks!
Now what all this intellectual sniping at each other amounts to is that we forget that the way the world was meant to work and can if we try to remember is that it is the right for every country to decide and adjust for themselves what the balance of Public and Private ownership should be.
You can call it anything you want but that is reality and this should help keep the conversations around the water coolers helpful for our future.
Jim Glover
Recalculating the price of some commodity whose production or existence has damaged an unowned environment (eg. the atmosphere) doesn't help fix it.
Price mechanisms work brilliantly if all the included variables are owned and that their owners are involved in any transactions which concern them. Woe unto anything else.
OK, something in the way of a response regarding calculation, cool.. allow me to pick it apart...
"One simple, and very quick, example is a car. The buyer wants to buy low, the seller wants to sell high, they are trying to fleece each other (not a good start)."
Why is it not good? My Dad always tought me the fairest way to divide something is one person cuts, the other one chooses. Such a transaction is mutally beneficial, meaning the car is worth more to the buyer than the money, to the seller the money is worth more than the car - no different from when you sell your own car second-hand. It's a GOOD start, mutually agreeable, no force is used.
"But beyond that lets look at the things that are not considered as part of that transaction in a market."
OK then...
"There is no mechanism for consideration to the people and conditions that build the car"
There isn't? you mean workers and equipment and factory land and all that sort of stuff are FREE? Damn, who knew?
You should tell Ford and Toyota this, as they're spending millions on this stuff..
"the people effected by the mining of raw materials"
If A. someone actually OWNS the land and materials we avoid the 'tragedy of the commons'.
B. The workers do actually get paid ya know.
C. If you don't own the mines or land and don't work there, it's not really any of your business.
"or the people effected by the pollution created by the car and its manufacturing (just to name a few)."
Mmm. Seems to me you now have the most powerful government in US history, you've even lost habeas corpus. Remind me again of how they've stopped pollution?
They haven't, in fact this administration has gutted the enforcement of the laws against it. Remember Point 2 - a government that can give you everything you want has the power to take everything you have.
If you pollute MY own private property, I can sue your ass. The problem is large areas not owned by anyone..
"This is a immoral system as well as being highly undemocratic. I believe that wherever possible, people should have say in decisions in proportion to the degree they are effected."
Erm, that IS the price mechanism you want to do away with!
Earlier you stated that some central authority could determine prices, seeming to cheerfully accept the idea of $45.00 for a gallon of gas. That would plunge you below the lowest of 3rd world countries, and this is your idea of a viable alternative to capitalism?
If gas were actually "worth" $45.00 a gallon, then people would cheerfully pay it. Trust me, they wouldn't be cheerful. Yet you think this idea is more "democratic"?
You think that people should have a say in that which affects them, such as the price of gas? While forcing them to pay 20x that market price, for their own good of course?
I suggest you dig out a little essay entitled "I, pencil". You will learn that there is no person on Earth who knows how to make one, due to the many different stages and skill sets required over a large geographical area. And under your scheme, no-one in America would be able to afford one either.
Like I said, you're not allowing for the calcultation element. Somone earlier claimed financial traders don't produce anything of value - yes they do, they produce prices.
Prices are vital.
Sadly such companies are only allowed to use government licensed auditors, which is why Enron went the way it did. The price was wrong. Prices, I repeat, are vital.
Some silly voucher scheme or tokens or whatever, will soon become black-market money - if you're lucky.
If not, your brave new world economy would collapse.
S.
Oh, and thanks for mentioning market externalities. I couldn't remember the term.
Sorry, second comment wasn't intended to add onto the first, thus the confusion. Poor wording on my part. I still maintain that his ideas seem juvenile. I was just giving my first impressions after watching the first part. I have since watched the full thing and fully believe that his theory is flawed because it fails to take into account human nature and the nature of markets.
For example, he doesn't think it's okay for workers to be dominated by managers and owners. First, workers choose to work under managers and owners of businesses and depending on the manager or owner may have great latitude in offering advice on how to run the business. Second, any such worker can go out and start his own business, thus becoming a manager and an owner. Third, I believe such business organization arises naturally because it is the most efficient way to run a business for 2 reasons. First, because of comparative advantages and second, because low level workers cannot be efficient if they must spend part of their day in a mini-democracy deciding how to run the business.
It's almost hilarious to me that he criticizes the so called "planned" after the fact market economy for being planned by elites, when in reality production in a market economy is not planned but occurs rather organically, except when government interferes, as the result of millions of producers and consumers making self interested decisions. And of course, what is his alternative to a market economy? Why a market economy under a different name with slighty different business structures! How did this guy get to be a Professor of Economics anywhere? I swear, I've listened to that segment 5 times and each time, I was waiting to make sure he wasn't still explaining what a market economy is. This is first year economics.
"What participatory economics does is it does plan the economy but who plans the economy is not an elite above the population but the population. The workers and consumers in a cooperative negotiating process plan their activities. And it's continually refined. It isn't what you say on January 1st happens for the whole year, none of those models are like that. But rather, it's refined, it varies, and it's massaged, but when you get to December 31st, you get a years worth of activity. That was your plan for the year. And that arose from this workers and consumers counsels cooperative negotiation of participatory planning" He describes basically a market economy but then calls it participatory planning. Brilliant. He shouldn't have passed Introduction to Macroeconomics.
The US has had many socialistic endeavors and when they were properly funded they have done a great deal to advance the society. Public Schools, public libraries, public parks, public hospitals, social security that provides a decent retirement and helps those who are sick, well designed and well run public housing, public highways, public utilities, museums, community YMCA's, etc, etc. These are all examples of socialism that have been excellent when properly funded and committed to. So many elites hate the idea of sharing things with the "common" person.
wvernon1981:
I'm not sure i follow your logic on market externalities. The point being made I think is that even if a transaction did in fact benefit the buyer and also the seller (which is does not most of the time, instead benefiting the actor with the most bargaining power to leverage) that transaction often negatively effects many more people than those main two participants.
One simple, and very quick, example is a car. The buyer wants to buy low, the seller wants to sell high, they are trying to fleece each other (not a good start). But beyond that lets look at the things that are not considered as part of that transaction in a market. There is no mechanism for consideration to the people and conditions that build the car, the people effected by the mining of raw materials or the people effected by the pollution created by the car and its manufacturing (just to name a few). That could be tens of thousands of people, who are left out of the transaction but who are greatly effected, more effected in real terms than the buyer or seller. This is a immoral system as well as being highly undemocratic. I believe that wherever possible, people should have say in decisions in proportion to the degree they are effected.
"Rather juvenile"? Thats a kinda silly thing to say, especially in reaction to a 5 min youtube video, which can't begin to do the theory justice. Parecon is built on the work of two very accomplished economists one went to Harvard the other attended MIT. Micheal Albert and Robin Hahnel, Michael is in the video, Robin is Professor of Economics Education. Ph.D. at American University and has written some amazing book on economics including "ABC's of the Political Economy" and "Economic Justice and democracy" which I would recommend. I'd recommend any of Alberts dozens of book as well.
Anyway, take a look at some of the more in depth parecon info, you might be surprised. http://www.zmag.org/parecon/indexnew.htm
However, so far, in the first six minutes of the video, parecon seems to be rather juvenile. For example he says that only a few benefit in a market system at the expense of the many. However, since people typically only act in their own self interests, or perceived self interest, then such transactions in a market economy, though I cannot rule them out completely, highly unlikely to occur because both participants in a transaction should be beneficiaries.
Jonathan, you do have a good point. It is also known as a market failure where the costs of a transaction are not fully bore by the buyer and the seller.
Smurfy:
In a Parecon things are in fact "priced", that is they are assigned value based on their true social costs and impacts. You would know this if you had actually followed the link and sent a few minutes reading the theory. In a market system (either capitalist or socialist) "prices" or value is determined by power, or more accurately by bargaining power, this leads to a system where everything is mis-priced. The price of gasoline for instance is about $2.95 per gallon, it should be about $45.00 pg - if we factor in all the social and environmental impacts etc. So markets only mis-price gas by a factor of 15. If gas is mis-priced, than everything containing or using gas is mis-priced also.
Parecon is a market abolition theory. Markets may in fact one day be considered the most destructive human invention of all. The devastation caused by a construct where-in only the buyer and seller have a say over decisions incalculable. Those effected most of most ofen not the buyer and seller.
Check out these youtube videos if you don't have time to read more in-depth about parecon.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=537AAD20722F8C3C
I am beginning to be pessimistic again
-The liberals have missed many things, including the triumph of fundamentalist thinking (and nobody talks about it), namely anti-historical thinking. In fundamentalist thinking everything one has to know is ... yes, in the Bible, so no need for history. They have been successful (with the help of authoritarians and liberals).
-the result (once again) scary historical illiteracy of many. I have many anecdotal evidence,
but there are many examples here of pure ignorance. I have the impression, that some don't know that communism followed capitalism, are not familiar with such basic concepts as causes and consequences, or propaganda (yes, many Soviets were brainwashed by Voice of America, preaching about American paradise and suffering of Swedes, for example), etc. Not to mention, of course, that nobody, nobody knows anything about Social-Democracy)
Really scary.
Still complaining that nobody wants to play with you
Why don't you play with each other, Gld & Smurfy?
Capitalism has excelled in the "West" because the under-developed countries have not, well, developed. They are doing now what they have done historically, be a fund of raw materials for the already developed countries. Chile, the poster child of "libertarian" capitalists, has historically gotten about 90% of their export revenues from raw materials, more than anything their state copper company. So even they haven't truly developed. Think of all the raw materials we need to have a functioning economy, think of how cheaply we get these raw materials from these countries (many times thanks to coups and corporate takeovers) and think about what would happen if it stopped or we had to pay much more than we have in the past for these raw materials. Think about it this way: Americans are about 6% of worldwide population. We consume about 26% of all natural resources. If China consumed at the same per capita level as the US, they ALONE would consume every resource on the planet. So there is a ceiling as to how much these countries are going to grow using capitalism or any other economic system, there is an ecological wall that is not going anywhere. I can't see "capitalism" as we know it surviving the coming years of decreasing per capita resource availability around the world, without constant wars in order to control those resources. The system that replaces capitalism might have a lot in common with capitalism (just like feudalism did with early capitalism) but the difference will be big enough that you will no longer be able to call it "capitalism". The change from feudalism to capitalism didn't happen overnight and the changes were, at first, very subtle, just like now.
Eco-capitalism is better than the current paradigm, but there are major problems with that philosophy. How, within a market where there's always someone who can afford to consume precious natural resources, can you truly internalize ecological costs? How can you place an economic value, or a tax, on over consumption? Or pollution? Realistically, you have to figure the laws of the environment out and adjust your economic system to those laws, not determine your consumption by some neo-classical theorem and make nature adjust to that theorem. Societies who've failed to do this didn't survive very long and neither will we if we if we fail to do so. Take it to the bank.
Thank you eurobelle for that well thought out rebuttal.
I'm "complaining" that it's hilarious watching people earnestly discussing alternatives to a working but flawed system without acknowledging what that system actually does.
I've asked before and will ask again - how do you get past even that 1st issue, the calculation thing?
How are you going to do that without the price mechanism?
It's not possible. So I'm guessing any of your ideas will indeed involve pricing - but by definition if you screw with natural prices you're screwing with the price mechanism in ways that damage it. That cannot be avoided.
So whaddya gonna do, huh?
You don't have a clue, so keep avoiding the subject. Like I said, it's laughable.
S.
Mt Goat,
I suggest that capitalism is not inherently flawed, in theory, neither is socialism, in theory. Can you show me one socialist manifesto where the big scary socialists are called to steal your home and your ideas and force you to work for the greater good of society?
What humanity needs is a balanced approach that limits the power of organizations; both corporate and social. Should the KGB or the CIA be able to subject us to their wills? Should a big corporation be able to completely detroy and pollute a river in my hometown and then, after making millions, go bankrupt and close down? The CEO's got rich and moved to Florida. Now what are we supposed to do with the toxic river?
All of the rivers of this planet must be protected from greedy corporations and capitalist dreams.
The little people should come first and then the environment. The elite can handle themselves.
I disagree with anyone who suggests we harm the wealthy. I don't believe in excessive wealth a la Bill Gates, until every child on earth has sufficient health care and education. Then, let the rich rise up to a certain degree.
Greed and power will always going to be a problem.
Cuba has a near self sustaining agricultural system, average calorie intake is about 2600 and the starvation rate is bellow the US. In addition, a good portion of their agricultural system is based around organic farming. I have yet to hear a country in the region come close to comparing, and the ones who can on output alone export most of what they produce, which results in much higher starvation rates. Their healthcare system is well known (ranked two spots behind the most privatized healthcare system in the industrialized world according to the WHO, the US), has taken a hit recently, thanks in large part to the US and the EU. Let's not discount the thousands of Cuban doctors helping poor people around the world. The US, with all its money, doesn't do a fraction as much. The educational system blows most in Latin America away, and compares favorably with the US, again a much richer country. Cuba has done this without receiving a single cent from the IMF or World Bank, the only country in the region to do so. Please compare Cuba to our allies in the region and tell me of a country who has done better on these fronts (and include access to these services in your analysis). Cuba's human rights record isn't stellar but neither is ours and neither is our biggest ally in the region Colombia.
The Indian state with the highest living standard, as measured by health and literacy is Kerala under the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The rest of indians live in deep poverty. Get the Bollywood movies out of your head.
The living standard in Nicaragua (admittedly never so good thanks to capitalist Somosa) dropped to rock-bottom levels (only Haiti is worse) in the 1990s under the capitalist Chamorro and her successors. If they are doing so well, why did they vote the Sandinistas back into power.
The living standard in Venezuela, a country that, for a while has substantial middle class, plummeted under capitalist Perez. Or were the bloody Caracazo riots in 1989 actually a big party celebrating their new-found wealth? Now, with the socialist Bolivarian government - are we seeing any bread riots?
Argentina formerly enjoyed a living standard comparable to much of Europe, but under the brutal pro-capitalist junta, then as a star-pupil of neoliberal structural adjustment, both wages and jobs went way south. Under moderate-socialist Kirchner, and the worker-cooperative takeover of factories and businesses, things are finally improving.
And I don't know why kind of guilded enclave you are living in, but if things are doing so well in Mexico, why the record numbers of people coming north seeking work? Why the uprisings in Chiapas and Oaxaca? Why the massisive support for moderate-socialist AMLO, while Calderon has to resort to bush-style fraud to win the election?
It should be no surprise that many people leave a country after transformation to socialism. Go on, take your money and run.
For the record, I have travelled to Cuba and have met numerous citizens who had been middle to upper class and proudly chose to stay after the triumph of the Revolution. Amilcar Cabral, the great anti-colonialist leader of Guinnea Bissau, rightly called it class suicide. Even with the effects of the fascist blockade, the majority of Cubans were and continue to be better off because of the Revolution. I've been to several Latin American countries, and Cuba is the only one without homeless and unschooled children begging on the streets. Cuba is not perfect, but it is charting its own course. And the people will not return to neo-colonialism without a fight.
The question posed should be: What system best secures the sovereignty of the individual?
Maat, Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
All systems are Capitalist. The determining factor is who controls the production, distribution and allocation of goods and services. It is the scam of Usury that has become the scourge of all Capitalists and the Corporate structures from which they reign over their debt slaves.
The great political issue of our times is not liberalism versus conservatism, or capitalism versus socialism, but Statism – the belief that government is inherently superior to the citizenry, that progress consists of extending the realm of compulsion, that vesting arbitrary power in government officials will make the people happy – eventually.
The primary building block for this political ideology is the individual willing to enforce his/her beliefs on others. Motives may range from genuine idealism to an arrogant contempt for the rights of others. The 'good of the many' – as interpreted by the self-appointed experts and social planners – will inevitably result in the destruction of the liberty of the individual.
Maat, Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
Tijuanalibre, capitalism has excelled in the "West" because the under-developed countries have not, well, developed. They are doing now what they have done historically, be a fund of raw materials for the already developed countries. Chile, the poster child of "libertarian" capitalists, has historically gotten about 90% of their export revenues from raw materials, more than anything their state copper company. So even they haven't truly developed. Think of all the raw materials we need to have a functioning economy, think of how cheaply we get these raw materials from these countries (many times thanks to coups and corporate takeovers) and think about what would happen if it stopped or we had to pay much more than we have in the past for these raw materials. Think about it this way: Americans are about 6% of worldwide population. We consume about 26% of all natural resources. If China consumed at the same per capita level as the US, they ALONE would consume every resource on the planet. So there is a ceiling as to how much these countries are going to grow using capitalism or any other economic system, there is an ecological wall that is not going anywhere. I can't see "capitalism" as we know it surviving the coming years of decreasing per capita resource availability around the world, without constant wars in order to control those resources. The system that replaces capitalism might have a lot in common with capitalism (just like feudalism did with early capitalism) but the difference will be big enough that you will no longer be able to call it "capitalism". The change from feudalism to capitalism didn't happen overnight and the changes were, at first, very subtle, just like now.
Eco-capitalism is better than the current paradigm, but there are major problems with that philosophy. How, within a market where there's always someone who can afford to consume precious natural resources, can you truly internalize ecological costs? How can you place an economic value, or a tax, on over consumption? Or pollution? Realistically, you have to figure the laws of the environment out and adjust your economic system to those laws, not determine your consumption by some neo-classical theorem and make nature adjust to that theorem. Societies who've failed to do this didn't survive very long and neither will we if we if we fail to do so.
Capitalism arises naturally from each individual doing what seems best for himself. It may be that an individual chooses that it is in his best interests, or his desire, to act benevolently towards others. This is not prohibited by a capitalist system. It may be enhanced by it because in a capitalist system, each individual on average will have more to give to the less fortunate than in a non-capitalistic system. Rather than forcing benevolence on people through taxation or other means, each individual should be allowed to choose for himself what is best in his eyes. Charitable giving should be encouraged, not forced. When one is forced to give up part of their income, in general, they will become less productive, as has happened in Europe. Less productivity shrinks the financial pie, thus decreasing total wealth, and harms everyone in the process.
A non-capitalist economic system must ultimately be centrally controlled. Otherwise, capitalism, since it arises naturally, will inevitably take over. A centrally controlled economy is less productive because prices are cannot fluctuate rapidly enough to accomodate changing supplies and demands and thus ends up with either excessive supply of goods or excess demands of goods: an excess supply of goods being incredibly wasteful and excess demand causing shortages.
Ultimately, non-capitalist systems must force man to act against his own desires, his own natural state, limiting his freedom. I believe that all non-capitalist economies will eventually collapse due to the inherent problems I have mentioned. Russia is now a capitalist society. China is embracing capitalism and the people are beginning to prosper. Capitalism does not concentrate wealth. It benefits everyone. Because the Chinese are embracing capitalism, many millions of people are beginning to have previously unknown lifestyles in China.
As for using up all resources on earth because capitalism requires continued growth, a capitalistic economy is the best fitted to deal with such problems. Capitalism drives innovation. That people can profit from their inventions leads to great innovation. I firmly believe that by the time we run out of resources on this planet, we will be utilizing the vast resources of our solar system. There have been many new inventions even recently that should lead to dramatic improvements in the quality of life on this planet, all while reducing the amount of resources we consume.
Non-capitalistic systems are doomed to misery for people living under them and ultimate collapse becase of the inherent denial of freedom to its citizens and that by its very nature tries to exist contrary to the natural laws of economics.
We're far, far beyond the capitalist/socialist dichotomy. Is China "socialist"? If so, the US is utterly dependent on socialism. China (along with Japan) owns the lion's share of the US debt, Big Box american companies like WalMart, Best Buy, Home Depot, etc. wouldn't exist without Chinese manufacturing. Essentially we couldn't celebrate a traditional American Christmas without the "godless Communist" Chinese. Our way of life is neither capitalism nor socialism. It's just plain ol' exploitationalism.
The inverse of our economy is a trade/barter/local/gift economy with no monopolies (whether public, private, or their real corporo-government hybrids).
Someone in another thread here made a brilliant observation -- that America's ueber-elite basically adore socialism. That is, they love to socialize the marginal and non-profitable aspects of their enterprises. Whether writing laws to force the public into building sports stadiums, training a new generation of workers, providing medical coverage for them, handling airport security, evicting the poor, etc. And they keep the profit-making ends of their enterprises for themselves.
We need to really drop the old harmless/platonic/dualistic analysis and starting reading the situation on the ground itself.
PJD, INDIA??? is a star pupil capitalist country? Come on, hide your ignorance. India, from Nehru on down has prided itself on socialism. They are now, finally, starting to shake of this malaise, but to call India capitalist is like calling South Korea Communist. As to Mexico, El Sal, Nicaragua and the rest, they never really tried capitalism, nor were ever democratic.
It is the only country were people are bragging that they work hard. In other countries people
are intelligent and educated enough to work intelligently, competently, and efficiently.
It's not surprising since, judging by the quality of some of the posts, a significant percentage is purely illiterate, without knowledge of history, no knowledge of other cultures, no knowledge of other languages.
PJD wrote a few things:
As far as Capitalism leading to the highest standards of living, all the poorest countries in our hemisphere are or were star-pupils of capitalist privatization yet their worker's and farmers living standards have declined precipitously
They have declined precipitously from WHEN??? 1980? 1970?
The standard of living in Latin America has been terrible from day one. Democratic capitalism as we know it in the Anglo Saxon world or in Europe had basically NEVER been tried their before the last 25 years or so. Anyone who had any experience with, say, the Mexican phone company, TELMEX 20 years ago is very unlikely to quibble with its privitization.
Now that countrys south of the border are trying to join the market economy, incredible things are happening. Absolute poverty in Mexico dropped precipitiously during Fox's presidency. Home ownership soared. Private enterprise is thriving in Brazil now that inflation is no longer a problem, and poverty is plummeting.
Cuba, on the other hand, despite billions of dollars of soviet subsidies continues to be a hellhole. With one sixth of the population in Miami sending remittances to keep the other 5 sixths from starving. Give me capitalism, please.
"Participatory Economics (Parecon for short) is a type of economy proposed as an alternative to contemporary capitalism. The underlying values are equity, solidarity, diversity, and participatory self management. The main institutions are workers and consumers councils utilizing self managed decision making, balanced job complexes, remuneration according to effort and sacrifice, and participatory planning."
Socialism in drag.
How can you have, for example, "self-management" and "solidarity" along with "equity"? That would require every individual to be an equally competent manager - which just aint the case.
How can you have "remuneration according to effort"?
I work long and hard at making my little baby business grow. If I were to give up and take a McJob does someone "owe" me money for the effort I put in? No, rewards will only come as I discover what people want and exchange my efforts for the most exchangable commodity available, which sadly enough is them damn dollars things, for now.
If I work really hard at producing something you DON'T want, should you pay me for it anyway? Suppose no-one except my pet dog wants it, does "society" owe me money for it? Of course not.
But if lots of people DO want it, at the price I'm willing to sell it, then why the heck can't we make that exchange? What's it got to do with you?
Someone might give me 2 loaves of bread, perhaps a hamster or a cartoon of eggs, because to them my widget is worth any of the above - to them, at this time. Once they have such a widget, they don't want another one. Should I stop making them?
Suppose I work really hard at making them?
No, the labor theory of value is long defunct. Things are worth, to 2 decimal places, what people are willing to exchange for them with the commodity of mutual agreement, be it dollars, oil or hamsters.
S.
E, I agree with what you're saying but your writing style is off-putting even to me.
"Does anyone want to take a look at parecon (participatory economics) at least and discuss its features?"
Not entirely, that's like asking if I want to look at an alternative to gravity. Before I waste any further brain cells, pray tell, does "parecon" answer any of the 4 points already raised?
S.
All "isms" are reactionary. Marxism is a reaction to capitalism, Socialism is a reaction to Capitalism, national Socialism is a reaction to Communism, etc., etc. The key is to manage and direct the reactions, thus the Hegelian dialectic wherein thesis + antithesis = synthesis. Fiat currency, and the power to issue the money of a nation (the Federal Reserve is neither Federal nor does it have "reserves) imposes an overarching system of energy control - a "switching system," which directs the flow of energy or lack thereof within the "grid." A fiat money grid functions similarly to an electrical grid. A good metaphor is the scene in Just Visiting in which the servant switches the lights on and off, while explaining "night, day, night, day." Indeed, those who control the currency or current of the grid may conjure booms and busts simply with a flick of the "switch." The controllers of the grid, can support one "ism" against another, or many isms at once to reach a "synthesis," or "solution" of their making. Often, in a system of managed conflict, the "solution" exists before the problem which justifies the "solution." Thus, the fabrication of pretext for social, political and military action is legion among the management class, oligarchy, plutocracy etc, throughout history. The CFR, Bilderbergers, Yale's Skull & Bones, The Federal Reserve and many other "secret" societies and cults, including the CIA intelligence cult, and sexual cults like "gay" activ'"ism," come to mind. During the early days of the American Constitutional Republic (not democracy), Corporations were issued with charters of limited duration and renewed only at the prerogative of the people through their lawfully elected representatives. When Justice Waite, a Bonesman, changed all that when he endowed Corporate FICTIONS with human rights and an unlimited life, which in many cases extends into perpetuity, far beyond the life of any free will man or woman. The Rockefeller Trusts come to mind. Once again, in time, the people come to mirror the pathological nature of the Corporate FICTION, which has no life of its own and serves only ITSELF. With small exception, Corporate FICTIONS undermine the community and destroy freedom, regarding human beings as so many items of inventory, or in Corporate lingo, intellectual "capital," which are often included in the sale OF Corporations, which means Corporate FICTIONS engage in slavery, or the selling of human beings under the guise of intellectual capital. Of course, if one consents to become a servant of the FICTION, then one is without remedy under the terms of contract law. On the other hand, if one was pressured into slavery through legal trickery, then various human rights codes, the Magna Carta etc, which prohibit slavery, are available. Legal FICTION conjures an organized system of smoke and mirrors wherein the average free will man or woman is at a loss to decipher the "code" which is the UCC, or Universal Commercial Code. All Courts today, are Courts of equity, rather than Courts of law or Justice. This is why one is increasingly at a loss when searching for a lawful remedy within the US Justice system. The Constitutional Republic has been overwhelmed by legal FICTION (trickery), which travels hand-in-hand with a system of fiat currency, the issuance of which by design lies beyond the oversight of the American people and their lawful representatives. A people or nation which lacks control over the issuance of their own currency has no control whatever.
I say to Siouxros that Malinowsky discovered in the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea that the free love of adolescents became monogamous as a result of the economic institutions of the Dowry and Marriage, and not as a matter of personal choice. Margarent Mead also discovered in her early work in Somoa that free adolescent sexuality comes to an end because of these same economic arrangements. Monogamy and marriage have to do with securing and augmenting property, which is the true love of Capitalism.
Does anyone want to take a look at parecon (participatory economics) at least and discuss its features? The conversation seems to be moving away from real alternatives to market-capitalism or market-socialism.
http://www.zmag.org/parecon/indexnew.htm
That would explain the lack of responses to the 4 simple points I raised? No, perhaps not. I suspect the lack of responses is simply because anti-capitalists don't have any answers to them. Nor do I, short of drowning government in a bathtub, slowly enough for private firms to take over.
And I mean private, not "privatised" which is just another way of saying government corruption.
OK, let's just try with the first one on my list, calculation without the price mechanism.
Who want's to start?
And no euobelle, let's not change the subject or ignore people who's opinions differ.
S.
The interesting thing after reading above, it seems most invloved here agree that change is required in one form or another. The disagreement is with the different means to achieve these changes.
Many involved above show skill in debating and dismissing the ideas of others, but fall short in providing their own ideas regarding solutions.
Smurfy is close with #4 above, which is the looming issue under the surface too abstract for most to even identify. Its like a splinter you can't see, but can feel with every step.
The Reserve is a problem beyond the view of average society busy with daily existence, but its correction should be considered as the first step towards a solution.
Have a look for yourself, a general video summary is available here:
http://www.poodlecrap.com/Hateliars/HL_Video1.asp?Part=0
The goal should be tp provide your ideas and solutions to problems, not simply discrediting the views of others (whether they are correct or not).
Wher are the droves of recent illegal immigrants from socialist countries - like Cuba, Venezuela, or say, Sweden or Norway.
Cubans are desperate to get to the U.S., and have been for 40 years. They're will to die trying. Where do you think the 2 million in Florida alone came from?
The latest wave does indeed come from Venezuela, and they are coming to Florida for the most part. In the last year, Venezuelans seeking asylum have increased 500%, and those that just pack their bags and come are in excess of hundreds of thousands.
Go back a little further, Allendes Chile was the source of more than 50,000 refugees, most of these having left under threats of death.
Let's talk about Social-Democracy. I know nobody in this country is familiar with this term;
textbooks don't mention it, but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I once opened a sociology textbook which gave as an example of capitalism this country, and as an example of socialism the Soviet Union (still existed). And nothing, nothing else.
It's not surprising that people are so embarrassingly ignorant.
Its one thing to own your house your car, computer and furniture etc. its another thing to own the land.Land treated as just another commodity or factor of production leads to gross imbalances for obvious reasons.
http://geolib.com/
Its one thing to make money by working its another to actually make it and loan 'it' as a owner in the banking industry.Money treated as commodity is a deadly joke... 'money is an immaterial measure which has been packaged as a commodity'.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279
To me its a matter of design and balance- the system we contend with is poorly designed in its most basic institutions.That does'nt mean it has no strengths or that socialism is the answer. Who here has heard of Silvio Gesell or Henry George?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7987612343225687713
Sorry Don and SQ, my post was in response to eurobelle.
Yes, the destruction of sound money is a very major issue, and ties into No1, calculation.
How do you calculate or measure with a rubber ruler that stretches the more you use it? Or more to the point perhaps, shrinks.
Commodity money, or gold, IS exactly the same as bartering, except commodity money, ie real money, is simply the most exchangeable commodity. For a long time that was gold, and with good reason. You can't print it.
Sadly the world is now using US dollars, with the rest of the world's oil supplies as security, despite the fact the US government prints them at an alarming rate.
And it's still not enough to finance the empire or even service the debts of such a large powerful government.
S.
I still think it is wrong to think of the US as a model capitalist, free-market state, and it's wrong to think of USSR or China as models of communist states. Neither Adam Smith nor Karl Marx would recognize their work in ANY of these instances and would, in fact, repudiate them.
A friend of mine who is of Italian/Swedish descent pre-pre-Social-Democratic emigration), always cries when she comes back from ancestral countries.
It strikes that most Americans' ancestors fled ... well capitalism, similar to the one we have know.
"If socialism is good, capitalism bad, why did the Soviets give up their 70 year experiment in socialism for a gradual conversion to capitalism?"
Because, the crooked party cronies like the late Yeltsin decided that could get rich and control the post-soviet country better if they converted to robber baron capitalism. The standard of living in Russia has declined enormously since they took up capitalism, Their population is collapsing from an enormous death and disease rate and families are selling their children for adoption to survive.
If socialism is good, capitalism bad, why are people escaping socialist countries to come to capitalist countries?
Where is this happening???? every poor immigrant I meet where I live are is from star-pupil capitalist countries - like Nicaragua, el salvador, Guatamala, Mexico, Russia Croatia or India.
Wher are the droves of recent illegal immigrants from socialist countries - like Cuba, Venezuela, or say, Sweden or Norway
"This leaves me with a few iniquitous problems. If socialism is good, capitalism bad, why are people escaping socialist countries to come to capitalist countries?
If socialism is good, capitalism bad, why did the Soviets give up their 70 year experiment in socialism for a gradual conversion to capitalism?"
The embarrassing ignorance.
correction:
But I agree the poor always do well in the center.
should be:
But I agree the poor always do well in the centers or empire - even slaves lived well in ancient Rome.
Tijuanalibre May 1st, 2007 10:20 am
Interesting. In the last century, the capitalist countries have seen an uprecedented decrease in poverty, to the extent that even the "poor" in the United States have cable TV and cars.
Where are you getting your "unprcecedented decrease" statistics on poverty? Poverty figures in this country alone have risen over the last few years.
Don't the working poor need at least an old clunker to get to work? Don't they need a television that get's reception so they too will know if our country is under attack?
Poor='s poor! And poverty is a direct result of wages not keeping up with the rising cost of goods that are necessary to our survival.
This leaves me with a few iniquitous problems. If socialism is good, capitalism bad, why are people escaping socialist countries to come to capitalist countries?
If socialism is good, capitalism bad, why did the Soviets give up their 70 year experiment in socialism for a gradual conversion to capitalism?
If socialism is good, capitalism bad, why aren't capitalist victims risking life and limb to escape and seek out socialist paradises? It seems we are faced with the need of putting up walls to keep them out, while to socialists need to put up walls to keep them in. It doesn't really explain why we have over 2 million people out of a total of 12 million from this hemisphere's oldest socialist state, Cuba.
Well, I think that's enough questions for now, these certainly are ponderous issues. There are more, but I'd don't want tax anyone's mind.
Tijuanalibere wrote:
"EVERYWHERE Communism has been tried, want, oppression and even genocide run rampant. Cuba, Soviet Russia, China under Mao, North Korea, the list goes on and on"
First, you are making a wrong comparison. For every one of the communist-oriented dictarorships, there were many more eqally brutal capitalist-oriented ones. Let's just look at our own hemisphere. Any minor intrusion on people's liberties that Fidel imposed (most of the people he imprisoned were on the CIA payroll). pales in comparison with Capitalist Pinochet, the capitalist Argentine Junta, The capitalist Brazilian Junta, Capatalist Somoza, Capitalist Rios Montt, Capitalist El Salvador, the Capitalist Colombian death squads...and not to mention the biggest global mass murderer, with the blood of tens of millions on its hands since WW2 - the United States.
As far as Capitalism leading to the highest standards of living, all the poorest countries in our hemisphere are or were star-pupils of capitalist privatization yet their worker's and farmers living standards have declined precipitously.
In contrast Cuba, in spite of decades of economic war against it, compares very, favorably against it's latin American neighbors. While no one one is very rich there no one lives in anything near the grinding state of poverty common in it's neighbors like Haiti, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, or Nicaragua - it's life expectance and infant survival rates are better than the United States.
As far as you characterization of the US poor, let me assure you that here in Pittsburgh there are plenty of poor people without cars and cable TV. But I agree the poor always do well in the center.
The overall high living standards of the global north, have had little to do with capitalism, it has to do with their imperialist economic relations with the south and east. But, even there, the best living standards are in socialist (by US standards) countries like Sweden, Norway and France.
"Capitalism requires competition. Corporate monopolies destroy competition. Therefore corporate monopolies destroy capitalism."
I like that.
But the bastards will say that we need just two banks in the world to have competition, etc.
The trouble with the free market capitalist/socialist dichotomy is that both sides rely on a false idealization of the way humans are. The free-marketers see everyone as perfect self-interested rational actors (they aren't), and the socialists believe everyone will come to value other people's interests as much as their own (they won't).
Sharing and altruism are built into human nature. So is greed. If people are given free reign in a market system, some people will end up ruining the lives others who cannot do well in the market due to a lack of innate ability (charity is usually the proposed solution for this problem among free-marketers, but I'm not convinced). On the other hand, if people are given the opportunity to be freeloaders, many will take it, making everyone worse off in the long run.
Free market capitalists sacrifice all equality for freedom, while socialists sacrifice all freedom for equality. Niether option strikes me as the best one. Freedom and equality are both good things, and they are best in combination.
"I know I have it pretty good but it took a hell of a lot of Hard work"
You were lucky. You lived during the period when the consequences of the New Deal were the most palpable. My question is: "Why did you destroy the New Deal? Why didn't you defend it?
Why didn't you improve it (universal health care, for example)? in other words: "Why were you so selfish?"
Capitalism requires competition. Corporate monopolies destroy competition. Therefore corporate monopolies destroy capitalism.
Personally, I strongly favor a free market economy for the reasons that Smurfy 6:58am enumerates. But the US economy doesn't even remotely resemble a free market. The US economy is characterized by massive direct and indirect subsidies, cartels, externalized costs, no-bid contracts, corporate welfare, and corporate corruption of the legislative process for their own private gain.
So if the US is considered the model of a "capitalist" economy, then I consider myself a strong anti-capitalist.
I guess I'm suggesting that we need to define our terms a bit more tightly. I recommend that everyone read Amory Lovins "Natural Capitalism" which describes how to convert to a true free market system where prices are accurately reflected.
And I also suggest that MtnGoat be ignored entirely.
I must humbly say that I am good at catching the essence and describing it adequately,
I'll do more in the future.
Libertarians really irritate me, as do those liberals who still function hypocritically on the level: "I love you, you ...," "The fact that we disagree.." It was always despicable, but now
it's murderous.
I know I have it pretty good but it took a hell of a lot of Hard work. I was lucky too, could still save money while the Vietnam War was going on. What worries me is the rest of the US coming to develop (destroy) what little is left. This country is based on winner take all, by any means. It's Sad to live in this country.
eurobelle - thanks for the definition of Libertarian - I've been looking for a good concise description. They blithely ignore the benefits of society and its laws on their own attainment of wealth and its associated social position and treat labor as a commodity to be regulated by the almighty market. This fosters the kind of corporate capitalist thinking which Jensen (remember him?) calls out in his article.
"As Robert Jenson would say, we are complacent and obliging citizens of the empire, and the vast majority of us choose not to know how we affect other people and other nations. "
This is correct and there is a good recent example somewhere on CD.
Someone pseudocritically gives a list of "misbehaviors," but in a typical American
way forgot to mention .... surprise, surprise ... the workplace, where most people
spend their lives, commit their crimes against humanity, and allow the insane accumulation of
wealth and power for even greater crimes against humanity.
Everything but labor, unions, workplace. Even today. What's wrong with you, people.
Wow, what a deluge of postings within 24 hours to Robert Jenson's article.
And it should be, as in most cases it confirms an emerging higher consciousness that recognizes "free market" Western corporate capitalism as the real satanic force in the world today. In a way, you can call it Madison Avenue witchcaft.
However, contrary to despair, these are exciting times. In such turmoil, there is a great silver lining. As a species, we have finally reached a stage in our evolutionary development that a higher global consciousness is emerging that will hopefully prevail for a more just, sustainable and compassionate world.
I like Robert Jenson because his essays and books offer the essential clarity of thought and clarity of human purpose we as a society need so deperatly in these times.
Another author with similar clarity of thought and a great prohetic vision is David C. Korten. I suggest reading his latest book "The Great Turning", and his earlier book "When Corporations Rule the World.
As Robert Jenson would say, we are complacent and obliging citizens of the empire, and the vast majority of us choose not to know how we affect other people and other nations. And, for those few who do choose to know, we must join together with other similar like-minded people, and agitate, agitate and agitate.
May Day May Day. Wow, what an exchange this morning. I thought the article was good and wanted to print it, but now I'm not sure I can spare the ink.
Smurfy I think you should realize a country boy can survive. I live in an area where trade is made in goods or labor, no money involved directly. Sometimes the trade isn't even and both parties know that too, and it's made up the next time. When someone is down on their luck, their friends help out. I've only had a computer for the last year and a half, a gift from my parents, so I could e-mail my sister who left this country because she couldn't take it anymore. These are big city people. Now I moved away 30 years ago as I took the energy crisis and recession to heart back in the 70s, and paid as you go. There once was a back to the land movement, and living within your means.
Well, I often avoid an exchange of opinions, because after some exchanges I feel emptiness.
Not my witticism, but I like it, and I hope that the author, long dead, wouldn't mind my borrowing.
Eliezer: Excellent analysis! So many impassioned comments. One thing you do have to hand to mtgoat is stamina! My goodness... all those postings. Ultimately our minds are like flowers pollinated by the "bees" of others' perspectives, thus a cross-pollination here ensues. May it expand the harvests each brings to the human equation.
Can someone explain to these demagogues the difference between capitalist
Sweden and capitalist USA?
Can someone give to them data on poverty in this country?
Interesting. In the last century, the capitalist countries have seen an uprecedented decrease in poverty, to the extent that even the "poor" in the United States have cable TV and cars. EVERYWHERE Communism has been tried, want, oppression and even genocide run rampant. Cuba, Soviet Russia, China under Mao, North Korea, the list goes on and on. Wherever communist and free countries have been next to each other, it has not even been a contest. East vs West Germany, China vs Taiwan, North vs South Korea. And, now, a bunch of well fed, wealthy intellectuals want to force this on the rest of us? Thank goodness we live in a democracy and can merrily continue not voting them into office.