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TechnoratiGlobal Poll: Widespread Dissatisfaction with Free-Market Capitalism
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC poll has found widespread dissatisfaction with free-market capitalism.
In the global poll for the BBC World Service, only 11% of those questioned across 27 countries said that it was working well.
Most thought regulation and reform of the capitalist system were necessary.
There were also sharp divisions around the world on whether the end of the Soviet Union was a good thing.
Economic regulation
In 1989, as the Berlin Wall fell, it was a victory for ordinary people across Eastern and Central Europe.
It also looked at the time like a crushing victory for free-market capitalism.
Twenty years on, this new global poll suggests confidence in free markets has taken heavy blows from the past 12 months of financial and economic crisis.
More than 29,000 people in 27 countries were questioned. In only two countries, the United States and Pakistan, did more than one in five people feel that capitalism works well as it stands.
Almost a quarter - 23% of those who responded - feel it is fatally flawed. That is the view of 43% in France, 38% in Mexico and 35% in Brazil.
And there is very strong support around the world for governments to distribute wealth more evenly. That is backed by majorities in 22 of the 27 countries.
If there is one issue where a global consensus seems to emerge from the survey it is this: there are majorities almost everywhere wanting government to be more active in regulating business.
It is only in Turkey that a majority want less government regulation.
Opinion about the disintegration of the Soviet Union is sharply divided.
Europeans overwhelmingly say it was a good thing: 79% in Germany, 76% in Britain and 74% in France feel that way.
But outside the developed West it is a different picture. Almost seven in 10 Egyptians say the end of the Soviet Union was a bad thing and views are sharply divided in India, Kenya and Indonesia.
66 Comments so far
Show AllProponents of free market capitalism do not understand the irrationality of greed. Wall Street talks of recovery while Main Street experiences growing unemployment, loss of homes and Hoovervilles.
Kaboom.
"Free market capitalism" is a contradiction in terms, because the free market relies on unrestricted trade between all countries. If one World currency existed, and there was a universal code of rights for workers everywhere, then a better system may be possible. As it is, the rich nations of the World, simply protect their financial institutions, whilst ignoring the fact that their industrial bases are suffering, or in the case of the UK, have vanished completely. Capitalism allows the rich elite to travel the globe in search of cheap labour, whilst ignoring the plight of the worker at home. Because of the advances in technology, the processes involved in manufacturing, have seen vast cuts in labour resources.
As long as there are humans on this planet, there will always be that most undesirable character trait - greed.
Capitalism by its very nature is fuelled by greed, a desire to beat the competition at all costs, irrespective of the damage caused to economies or people.
Even now, our leader, Gordon Brown, does not want to step in to regulate the financial sector, insisting that a loose grip on the reins is vital for it to function efficiently. We are also being told, that consumers must spend again, and presumably use credit to obtain goods, all this to get the great juggernaut Capitalism on the move again.
You can discuss governments all day and night. The problem with the u.s. is in the composite spirit. The Sioux Nation was the best for individual freedom and the purest type of socialism without words on paper, jails, or standing armies. The cream rose in respect through deeds. People were revered for generosity/sacrifice to others, the polar opposite of the perverted hierarchal capitalist americans where it matters not how the wealth is attained and the leaders are scraped from the bottom of the barrel.
Really, if you want to learn about a system based on individual freedom get "The Sioux" by Royal B. Hassrick.
Capitalism needs democracy to keep it in check, but capitalism has corrupted democracy through legalized bribery. Buying Congress is likely the world’s best investment, paying off at 1000 to 1, according to several sources, including Jack Abramoff, in the 3rd paragraph of http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/30/AR2005043000783.html
We should let citizens legislate in parallel with Congress, as the Swiss have since 1848 via NATIONAL ballot initiatives. Sen. Gravel has the best plan for here: http://Vote.org
Ballot initiatives are the origin of most reforms, such as women's suffrage (passed in 13 states before Congress went along), direct election of Senators (4 states), publicly financed elections (passed by initiative in 6 of 7 states with them), medical marijuana ( in 10 of 13 states) and increasing minimum wages (in all 6 states that tried in 2006). See http://Vote.org/initiatives for more examples and references. The media have seized on the problem initiatives. They generally kiss up to politicians.
How can anyone possibly believe there is or ever has been a free market? Corporations exist to maximize profits. Corporations buy legislation to ensure regulation that will benefit themselves at the expense of others in that market. Competition is not conducive to profit hence the monopolization of the market place. That was the reason the antitrust and racketeering laws were established. Free markets and corporations are the exact opposits. Reagan set in place breakers to cease trading when the market collapsed. How can that be called free? The plunge protection team was established at the same time to manipulate the market when collapse was inherent. How can that be called free? When finance collapsed the taxpayers bailed out the capitalist-no strings attached. how can that be free? The fact that markets require regulation to keep from collapsing proves they aren't free. The whole idea of free markets is pure mythology. There has never been one and there will never be one.
And this is the point that illustrates the working mechanism of the vertical and horizontal economic integrations that allows the few 'owners' to keep the few making the bucks and almost makes small business ventures a very nasty joke on reality and all the while maintaining the facade of a free market that is really a non-regulated economics that prevents more people from going far in their attempt at having their own business or the world for that matter where countries are not allowed to develop their on natural resources.
They'll still crash the world just to think they still can increase the profits to minimize the costs, and we still can't get them put in jail because in fair( and I mean legislatures, courts and 'officials' that aren't bribed) capitalism there are regulations, oversight and repercussions that are suppose to stop just exactly what is happening now, greed running rampant.
CAPITALISM at the TIPPING POINT
As Jean Jacques Rousseau said in his "Social Contract" in 1762, a social system can become so corrupt that it cannot be changed without a great catastrophe. That is what has happened to American capitalism.
This process can be understood as a series of positive feedback loops leading to a tipping point. Climate change and capitalism evolve in a similar way.
In the case of climate change the feedback loops are fairly well understood.
1) As arctic sea ice melts back, more sunlight is absorbed into the dark ocean rather than reflected into space by white ice, and the warmer ocean causes more ice to melt, absobing still more heat. A positive feedback loop.
2) As arctic tundra melts, underlying organic material releases CO2 and methane (23 times as potent as CO2) causing more tundra to melt. Positive feedback.
3) Rising temperatures encourage beetles which are killing millions of acres of sub-arctic forests, which then rot and release more warming CO2.
When the loops have gone on long enough a tipping point is reached so that NOTHING CAN BE DONE to stop them. Within 10 years, say most climate scientists.
Within capitalism, the elements of the feedback loop are unequal wealth, power and public opinion. As the rich get richer they use their wealth to buy more power, both in government and in the mass media. More power allows them to rewrite the laws and control the executive which gives them more wealth, which in turn allows them to buy more power. A spiral of wealth to power and power to wealth becomes unstoppable, especially as the organized power of the poor simultaneously declines (think unions and independent media).
The positive feedback is systemic. Thus Obama, regardless of what his intentions may have been, cannot "reform" the banking system without enriching and concentrating the banks, and cannot "reform" the health system without a huge windfall to the insurance companies.
Eventually, mass impoverishment leads to greater and greater debt crises and the system begins to unravel. And since human beings have more consciousness than polar bears, more and more of us conclude that capitalism, "is fatally flawed and a different economic system is need," and that it CANNOT be "addressed through regulation and reform."
At the point of breakdown, however, consciousness of a flawed system will not be enough to lead us into a better one. The only way to escape the "man on horseback," of the right or of the so-called "left," is to build up our habits of co-operation and solidarity. The storm is coming. Feedback loops lead to a tipping point. We have to start to prepare, NOW.
VERY WELL-STATED LAURENCEofBERK.
despite the incomparably more advanced Fascism , institutional population control of capitalism, especially in the USA , it is still like with Monarchical France...where the rich , the nobility , kept taxing the people to support the rich lifestyles..and eventually - the people had enough , confronted even the immediate reality of their OWN bloody death , imprisonments, torture, etc...simply used their MASS and overcame the wealthy no matter how much the wealth surrounded themselves with their armies. the cumulative MASS of the people, like in physics simply followed the laws of nature.
if for example - the US ARMY itself was to be coerced - as with other repressive regimes - such as in south america - to do the bidding of the rich and powerful...not just to continue to protect them and "maintain order" - but through the VERY ACT of "maintaining order" against accumulating and rising discontent that pushes the MASS of people to do the "unthinkable" --
revolt and actually do what even Thomas Jefferson actually ENCOURAGED "every now and then - when governance has become untenable - the people shall shed blood of the nobility" or something like that --
exactly what is the US armed forces in all their manifestations...NSA , CIA, FBI, POLICE, NATIONAL GUARD, ARMY, PRIVATE MERCENARIES....
going to do against the MASS of people? they are going to BOMB americans? use tens of thousands of what? snipers? surround 100,000 people EACH in 50 cities and more in 100 - 200- 300 towns, 1,000 villages?
as each attempt to "crowd control" what the government and their corporate backers will TRY to paint as "terrorists"....
become fodder for MORE americans elsewhere seeing they are INDEED the victims of their own leaders and corporatocracy that is then become so desperate to hang on to power it uses brutalities OPENLY ?...
and that this spreads throughout the land ...town after town, city after city,?
exactly how MANY CONSCRIPTS can the corporatocracy and its "government sanctioned" violence monopolists get to "put down the terrorism?"
which would in reality be a REBELLION?
they'd be LUCKY if they survive the wrath of the american people if americans actually did that - beyond a mere week before it's over and these corporatist Fascists can't even PEEP out of the windows of their mansions - with their grand army spread out everywhere trying to tamp down a rebellion everywhere UNABLE to protect all of them...
until the armyt ITSELF is rendered useless...considering that a great number of the FAMILIES of army and "armed forces" institutions WILL likely have become PART of the rebellion.
if one has to describe potentials like that - this is certainly one of them. it is frightening because of the blood that WILL be shed ...which is so unnecessary.
but people - in their masses - are capable of that - if they are pushed so far against the wall and they increasingly see that THEY could be the next victim of their own oppressive leaders..which in the USA - is comprised of the triumvirate of
CORPORATIONS - THE US ARMED FORCES , both "public by name only" and Private mercenaries - and of course the "law making bodies" all the way from the presidency , through the congress , to the judiciary and the local levels...depending on WHICH SIDE they stand on -IF or ONCE the american people have had ENOUGH .
Can liberals and progressives ever beat conservatives at their own rigged game?
Free-market capitalism? How can people be dissatisfied with something they have never seen or taken part in? We have not had free-market capitalism in any of our lifetimes. We have corporatism aka fascism as our government/economic system. Mussolini, the father of fascism, said that it should be called corporatism because all fascism is is a merger of government and corporate power. Now with all of our elected officials on the payroll of corporate America, doesn't that sound to you like what we have? Stop ripping free-market capitalism until we've actually tried it.
Capitalism would work fine if it weren't for greed and corruption.
That's where the problem basically starts. When Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations he envisioned an idealized world of private entrepreneurs striking out for freedom from the aristocracy, something Europe had never really known before. In that world self interest wasn't greedy or corrupt. It was liberal in a most charming Enlightenment way. And Smith was among the first to voice those new advantages.
But then Marx came along, and pointed out all of Capitalism's failings. No small matter, considering how much the working man suffered in the industrialized world. This was a mere half century after Smith.
But the struggle between capital and labor is founded upon these ancient issues. In the US capital has won, in more ways than one. It has even co-opted the loyalty of millions of working men. Many believe in laissez faire even if it is to their own disadvantage because they believe in the capitalist myths. Listen to the resonant arguments against universal healthcare today: that it will lead to a loss of individual freedom.
A guarantee of good healthcare, tax supported, is a loss of individual freedom? Only in America.
Well, to make an extremely long story instantly short, government regulation protects consumers, workers, the environment, minorities, many good things. Those who would like to exploit such resources - labor, natural resources, etc. - cry out their freedom is abridged by tyrannical government whenever they are blocked.
It is truly sad that capital has won the propaganda war here in the US. Capitalism has its attractive aspects. But unchecked it is a monster.
THANK YOU, QUINTY , for your very thoughtful , and calm way of explaining .
What do polls matter anyway when all the damage is done with more to come?
Btw Teddy, thank you for those extra helpers. ;)
you're welcome , Jennifer. I'll keep trying to find relevant news that might help us get better informed.
The Germans like capitalism the most because out of the group surveyed they are the most economically successful. If the survey included Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China, those would probably agree with the Germans. Their preferences are largely driven by self-interest. If the other countries in the survey were as successful as Germany, their preferences would be similar.
So really, preferences driven by self-interest are wacky, so the survey is flawed, which isn't surprising, coming from the BBC, with its rightwing bent.
Germany/Japan are good at making things. But they are also aggressive about making things, things the world can largely do without. Germany/Japan have had a peculiar partnership with the USA over the past sixty years. Bizarrely, the USA gave Germany/Japan special trade preferences in exchange for the USA's "right" to maintain military control over them, and the geo-political "prestige" that came with that. USans were pushed into a consumptive role to advance this supremely stupid scenario.
We're moving beyond rightwing laissez-faire and globalist dogma now, which is the real news of the day. We're building a system to replace laissez-faire global capitalism that is not rationalized by self-interest. We're doing it in the interest of universal equity/justice, and the capitalist elites will just have to deal with it.
you're certainly right about that rtdrury.
any of us would, individually and collectively - be tempted - that's why it's a word :'temptation' (imagine that: one can still recall that word with its biblical connotation in terms beyond the common ones of "sex" and "lust" etc...and try to apply it also to matters of consequence beyond "personal" desires) .
we would be tempted or inclined to try and "preserve" whatever advantages we believe we have acquired due to certain circumstances.
but that is just the problem , which is no different from the challenge of going beyond one's self when much of one's personal needs to exist in some decent life has been met, and the "instinct" for "selfishness" begins to grow beyond its own shadow - leading to just the kind of consequences that we , personally, can not see beyond our PREFERED , CHOSEN, worldview and personal life view:
and these are:
the PRICE that as to be paid by OTHERS - beyond our immediate surroundings or what we choose to perceive as our immediate, consequential surroundings ("i am german, my hometown of baden-baden, my garden, my motorcycle to go to my weekend party to meet my artist/painter friend for his new gallery opening show of his paintings, my, this that...after I pick up my daughter from her friend's birthday party...")
in order to KEEP THAT LIFESTYLE that one enjoys.
and THOSE others are the billions of people who , in their own limited viewpoints of their lives -("i am afghani, i must finish this dough of bread before I go out to find water to boil for tea before my husband comes home from trying to sell some pieces of wood at the bazaar so we can buy more dough for the next week and save something for our contribution to her friend's wedding . and we have to save something aside for my little boy's sandals so he doesn't have to be teased by his friends in school")
will HAVE to endure making do with FAR, FAR , FAR LESS than a single german little girl ....
NATURALLY - the germans will LOVE the system that gives them their "advanced, high living standard" ....
even IF - in the world, that is the SAME ONE that has consequences elsewhere ...
just like the waves that wash on the shores from the ocean are also the consequences - small or large, insignificant or dramatic - of many small other waves...or many small waves somewhere are the consequences of a bottle thrown into the sea by someone somewhere.
NOTHING in this world is wihtout consequence somewhere.
but knowing that our lifestyles CAUSE some consequences - especially ruinous ones ELSEWHERE behooves each of us, and every society , especially advanced and more "knowledgeable" ones as a mark of their "advancement" to be more thoughtful about "choices".
it is EASIER for a german to "choose" capitalism and uphold it - while his stocks and dividends keep sending the checks home ...or while he has a job....or his children go to an opera performance of Richard Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung"...as the "most advanced expression of german creativity and art".......
than for a poor child from congo - covered in lice, and worms , and maggots eating her eyes and she is without energy to even wave them away from hunger - to "choose" socialism or capitalism.
it is the ONES that have POWER and STRENGTH in their condition who are - imo - as children of the earth - ENTRUSTED as part of our legacy and heritage as human beings - supposedly civilized - to TRY our best, first with our conscience and then our words and actions -
to CHOOSE between our MERE personal comforts and EGO trips -
and trying to alleviate suffering for those that are weaker, or weakened, or their conditions are weak , LARGELY because of OUR own "lifestyles".
is this NOT what jesus christ taught?
that we ARE our neighbor's keeper...but not to do it with violence..but instead, compassion, kindness, generosity and
even - he demanded - SACRIFICE ?
what HAVE rich nations, under capitalism , REALLY sacrificed?
nothing - they have instead sacrificed on their own altar of "prosperity" the LIVES and futures and lands and resources and humanity of OTHERS - whose resources and the theft of those resources are the VERY PILLARS of the prosperity that has been achieved under capitalism to support these rich countries, and within them - the rich over the less rich.
and when one looks at the entire globe - that is the same happening over and over again in all its different "levels".
the prosperity of the rich - and the prosperity of RICH COUNTRIES - is like that of a bubble. it is "safe" only within its bubble -- but is also removed from the realities of the suffering outside it that it causes and upon which it relies for its very existence.
take a CELL-PHONE alone....
news report say - that it is intimately tied to the suffereing and civil war in congo...because warlords enforce slavery and chaos - in order to maintain their control over the mines of a certain mineral - used for cell-phones.
what is the responsibility of a german, an asian, an american , regardless of politics, towards these poor, wretched people in africa , in congo ...who are suffering because their land happens to have such RICH MINERAL sources that the "advanced" prosperous world needs?
are WE not - in some way - responsible for these poor fellow human beings? who only want to drink water, or have a little comfort or sense of community rathrer than the wars and fear and depravation visited upon them by their own brutal warlords who wish to partake of the "prosperity" induced by the "advanced world" through brutality because that is what they have which the west or advanced world doesn't wish to confront?. or if it did so - only so long as it can continue to depend on Congo producing what is wanted or "needed" and then leave them with nothing all over again to fight over what is left - which is NOTHING?.
just typing these things makes me weep uncontrollably all over again..i feel so guilty JUST existing while so many suffer elsewhere.
i am often reminded nowadays with the words from a conversation i had many months ago - with a very advanced-age gentleman from italy.
he had superb clear vision, no eyeglasses even, read at least five newspapers a day in five languages, spoke of history and culture and science, and politics - and had witnessed the rise fo fascism in italy as a teenager with his brothers, and was already a young boy in world war ONE - and was a nautical engineer in his global experience and travels.
and he said to me:
"WE have bad leaderships...i have seen wars, and civilizations ...i have seen how people become frightened of their security falling away to choose fascism...today that is now happening in the united states...the trouble with us westerners, us people of the west is that - we traveled abroad and lusted after the riches of other cultures and people - and then we conquered them to take their resources away from them and leaving them nothing - nor to help them be prosperous like us...and then we complain that they are coming to our shores ...I know about Empires. i have studied history of cultures all my life ...i know about the Roman Empire - because i AM Roman...and what the USA and the capitalist world has done is not different from that".
when i had that privilege to talk with him about a year ago or so - he was already a SPRITELY 103 years old.
teddy,how you entered those three beautiful heart wrenching posts in a few minutes time (with blurry eyes )is beyond me, thanks !That was amazing !I am in awe of your writing skills.In fact this piece without your commentary would have been a waste of time.The graphs are confusing and the questions vague enough for misinterpretation. peace
Thank you , Johnny Hempseed.
I am mainly and mostly just "venting", i guess. I have no real solutions or suggestions that are better than anyone else's ...and it's merely that what I know is our reality in this world of so much UNNECESSARY , unjustified suffering of our fellow human beings , through the news, through trying to learn for myself , simply makes me want to express what I FEEL ..rather than as something out of "knowing" things.
i am no different from anyone that way - and the news and what I learn just emphasizes for me the SADNESS of the lot of so many people , including ourselves, and so when i write - i don't "think" really - whatever i have read or recall - it just comes out in my writing in a mishmash of sentiments about what I feel is so unjust and so cruel...most especially because there are millions of people everywhere whose suffering we can't even imagine.
do you know that in western china - the terrain is so brutal that people in the hinterlands have to travel miles by foot everyday - just to be able to sell a BASKET of strawberries to earn something - just a SMALL basket because a small farmer has lived his life in a very arrid area and his produce is so small...
or that a young man - a mere 15 year old - looks so OLD - because he has to carry a VERY heavy bundle of wood or some produce up and down the forested hills and mountains - from dawn till dusk WITHOUT stopping merely to reach places where he might be able to deliver? for a few pennies worth of earnings?
or that poor people in africa, many of them women and children, have to walk barefoot ALL MORNING to a place where they can find water...and carry pails on their shoulders BACK to their homes -- and do that EVERY DAY?..
are they being reached by the "magic of capitalism?"
ONLY when their land - africa - geologists consider it the "MOST MINERALLY RICH CONTINENT ON EARTH" -- that makes all other continents PALE in comparison - and it is the very land of OUR BIRTH and perhaps even ALL life (even the "woolly mammoths" so famous , and the WOLVES , the precursors of our dogs - in SIBERIA came from africa) ..
is of "interest" to the lure of money?.
how can such a global society have been evolved?
in much of the world's less "impoverished" or famine stricken lands - we commonly concern ourselves with how we "enjoy" life - even the small enjoyments for those who are not super-rich -- we naturally , instinctively treasure our SMILES and joys....
COMPARE this with the children and mothers and fathers in africa --
living lives , years, and dying without even more than a few moments of SMILING just by being alive!
how can this be?.
and how can it be that a global financial system - an economics system - that we KNOW IS capitalism - fails so much in alleviating these needs? but instead CAUSES so much dissension, rivalries, wars, chaos, and NEED even if that does NOT have to be the case?.
CAPITALISM TEACHES and ENSHRINES the glory of DESIRE - desire to be "more than you can ever be"...desire to be your own little petty king or queen of your own little imaginary "kindgom"...so jealously guarded by each of us the more we are DRIVEN to "more, more, more"...
while the NEED of so many MORE is shown under capitalism as "the cost of doing business" and "collateral damage"...
from human beings, to other creatures , to the environment, and the earth itself
and above all
our own HUMANITY!
it seems true - what the buddhists say:
"DESIRE is the cause of all suffering".
and NO system promotes THAT relationship between :"desire and suffering": as buddhists view it - THAN
CAPITALISM.
the DESIRE of those that wish more power, more wealth, more "dividends" , more "return on my investment" , more profit, more houses, more fancy vacations to reward "myself for my hardwork while others are just LAZY BUMS" (maybe they should consider if a childm in africa withotu food is being lazy? if all she can do with her non-lactating weakened mother is look for a few tubers on teh ground for food , all day? ) ...
CAUSES so much suffering elsewhere whose NEEDS are not met.
this - capitalism - is a case of DESIRE by SOME ....CAUSING the FAILURE of ALLEVIATING NEED by MANY.
"In 1989, as the Berlin Wall fell, it was a victory for ordinary people across Eastern and Central Europe. It also looked at the time like a crushing victory for free-market capitalism."
Only if you drank the capitalist koolaid. But if you didn't drink the koolaid, then it didn't look like a "crushing victory". But at least the BBC decided to publish this article. It could have instead decided that this news isn't newsworthy. There's another story that goes almost completely unreported: Some 75% of the world economy is a REAL economy that would proceed without much change at all if the capitalists slithered back into their holes and left us alone. The people will do just fine without the capitalists, as long as the people consistently exclude the capitalists from their exchange cycles.
exactly.
CAPITALISM is really an ABERRATION.
it is like an INTERFERENCE whose only true achievement is to DISRUPT harmonious relationships - or worsen bad ones - and substitute itself as a "solution" when in fact - it is about as good and efficacious and benevolent as swallowing a stone and a chicken bone and a fish bone with your rice all at once.....
that's it America -- EAT MORE CAPITALISM.
have some MORE!!!
Unlike other countries, where "the market" is seen as a social construct, here in the US, The Market is seen as a god. If the rich get richer, if your pay is cut, if the CEOs get bonuses and pay increases even as their company goes down the tubes, it's "the will of the Market."
In the US, economics is more a religion than a science. Economists, including high priests like Alan Greenspan, preach that the Market is an infallible mechanism -- guided by the Invisible Hand and the eternal Law of Supply and Demand -- from whence eternal bounty will spring. But we must have confidence (that is, Faith). Consume to the max and all will be well.
And when the real world doesn't act that way, that's an aberation, one that's only temporary before a return to Equilibrium. Unlike science, where evidence that contravenes a hypothesis leads to the rejection of that hypothesis, in economics, no amount of evidence to the contrary can shake its adherents' belief that the Market's perfect and infallible. Amen.
Very well said!
One alteration, if I may. Monotheism riddles all understanding, all thought in America, even that of those who reject any idea of God. Consequently 'The Market is seen' not as 'a god' but as a God. There is much in the upper case. A god is seen by the believer as one amongst many and as such it is a very human and humorous understanding. A God is seen as The God of All. It is a monster.
Even the understanding of individualism, that great strength of American culture is derived from monotheism, for monotheism is worship of self.
After all, we can have no understanding of God that is not our own, which necessarily makes the believer God.
Monotheism is a classic insanity; an adorable part of any child's mentality but a monstrous aberration in an adult.
in the meantime -- in the Hallowed Bastion/Fortress/PRISON of Capitalism -- the USA .................
its own denizens --- being themselves the most vocal and braggart and "patriotic" about the greatness of
"america the capitalist home of the brave and free".......are.....finding out. though still in DENIAL perhaps...that the wonderful world of the Hallowed Temple of Capitalism is
SO ROTTEN that as they cry "UNCLE" -- uncle Sam , dear good 'ol uncle sam - the enabler of their capitalism tells them
"let's go to war to defend OUR WAY OF LIFE"....
and what is THAT exactly?
Capitalism and its Home foreclosures, Robber Barons, rising unemployment, falling wages, dead children sent to war, broken families, fearful population, ...and so many more MAGICAL gifts of their wonderful Capitalism.......
=================
AlterNet
As Foreclosure Nightmares Increase, Will More Homeowners Pay Off Their Bankers in Violence?
By Scott Thill, AlterNet
Posted on November 9, 2009, Printed on November 9, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/143813/
Anger and discontent are reaching a boil as a lethal combination of economic corruption and political collusion are deleveraged across the United States.
From recent rampages in Orlando, Fla., to mortgage-related torture in Los Angeles, certain members of the citizenry seem to have had their fill of being manipulated for the financial gain of others, and they're firing back with force.
And the situation threatens to burn hotter as the winter holidays -- always a peak period fof domestic violence, due mostly to financial stress -- approach to spark its frazzled strands. The economic crisis revealed late-capitalism's central offense: Human beings are being transparently treated if they were mere transactions. And they're going postal over it.
"They left me to rot," Jason Rodriguez said when asked why he went on a shooting rampage at the Orlando engineering firm Reynolds, Smith and Hills that had fired him two years ago.
That compressed vitriol is also found in the Los Angeles case, where Daniel Weston and Gustavo Canez allegedly imprisoned and tortured loan-modification agents Lamond Dean and Luis Garcia while three others -- Mario Soloman Gonzales, Marissa Parker and Mary Ann Parmelee, a realtor -- sat and watched.
According to the Los Angeles District Attorney's office, "Weston and Parmelee live in a house that is in foreclosure," and they "allegedly sought loan-modification assistance from the victims but believed that nothing was being done and wanted their money back."
When they didn't get it, they evidently extracted their payback in violent revenge.
"That's not right," explained Kathleen Day, spokeswoman for the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending. "But clearly people are really mad about what's happened to them. This is the kind of thing that happens when lenders don't lend responsibly. You can't abuse your customers forever."
Or your tormenters, as Weston and Canez will no doubt realize, once the full force of the state comes down on them for venting their rage. Whatever their perceived or real injustices may have been, their attack on Dean and Garcia crossed a line laid down by the rule of law. But that rule, as everyone from voters to homeowners to municipalities and more have come to fully realize during the last decade, rarely applies in both directions.
article continued
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For those in power, it is used to shield them from the justice they often deserve. For those on the outside looking in, it is often used to oppress them further. The disturbing blowback from that growing inequality, mirrored by an ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor and a true national unemployment rate around 17 percent, can only get worse.
"Loan-modification scams are proliferating now because of the numerous foreclosure-prevention programs that have been announced," said Douglas Robinson, spokesman for NeighborWorks America, a national nonprofit created by Congress to financially and technically assist with community-based revitalization efforts. "Homeowners know that there is help out there for them, so they are more susceptible to scammers who sound legitimate. Unemployment is increasing, and homeowners are looking for answers that will save their homes. Scammers know this and tailor their approach to homeowners."
Until more details on the case come in, the jury is still out on whether Dean and Garcia were scamming the posse that allegedly imprisoned and tortured them or were legitimate operators.
But the convergence of malfeasance and blowback in their case is alluring: NeighborWorks announced a national campaign to combat loan-mod scams alongside Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the same day the district attorney posted its press release on Dean and Garcia.
Of course, there was little in NeighborWorks' campaign -- which designated November as "National Loan Modification Scam Awareness Month" -- that mentioned the actual banks whose densely securitized loans have crippled not just American homeowners, but also the global economy.
According to a series of brilliant exposes, McClatchy newspapers found that Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs peddled billions of securitized mortgages that it knew were toxic, and then capitalized on inevitable foreclosures through murky subsidiaries tasked with kicking distressed homeowners onto the street.
The callous practice was good for Goldman's bottom line: According to a recent report from the National Consumer Law Center, there's more money for mortgage companies in foreclosures than in loan modification. To reward itself for its purportedly legal duplicity for the holidays, when economic stress is at its peak, Goldman is giving its employees billions in bonuses, all while claiming to do "God's work."
Of course, Goldman Sachs isn't the only perp getting a free ride. According to Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur, over 95 percent of troubled mortgages in the United States "has moved to five institutions: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wachovia, Citigroup and HSBC. They have this country held by the neck."
All of those U.S. banks, excluding London's HSBC, have received bailout billions in American taxpayer dollars, and yet homeowners threatened with foreclosure, especially poor ones, are running out of lawyers to represent them in court. Ironic, considering that the unjust double-standard, judging by events in Los Angeles and probably coming to a city near you, is destroying what is left of the rule of law as we know it.
"There's a growing sense from people that they don't feel they should have to hold up their end of contracts," added Center for Responsible Lending's Day. "The banks and government have caused a breakdown in social mores. The Senate didn't pass the bankruptcy bill, which would have helped homeowners with their loan modifications, because of pressure from the banking industry. And that helped create the situation we're in.
"Lenders, lawmakers and regulators have really got to start thinking about how to help those who have been hurt by this and how to prevent this kind of thing from happening again."
For its part, NeighborWorks and its partners in Congress, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and more are trying to help homeowners avoid loan-mod scammers in hopes of stanching the bleeding. And they're not fans of the kind of frontier justice allegedly meted out by Weston, Canez and crew in Los Angeles.
"No matter how frustrating the circumstance, we urge anyone who feels they've been scammed to seek justice by reporting the scam artist or business to the legal authorities," said Robinson. "Knowing the signs of a scam and reporting a scam is our best defense."
But that's wishful thinking, and given the recent rash of violent events, probably exhausted as an alternative at this point.
article continued
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NeighborWorks' faith in "the legal authorities" has not been borne out by the facts of this unfolding economic depression, and Americans can see right through the hypocrisy of it all: From the housing bubble to the neutered bankruptcy bill and down to the highway robbery of the bailout, the collusion of the government and the financial-services industry has stripped the population of everything from its equity and savings to its dignity and options. And it's mad as hell about it, as it should be, given that what it is enduring is a perversion and ultimately erasure of authority.
"This isn't capitalism, it's the Wild West," concluded Day. "We have to heal the market."
The only way to do that is to give the American people's money back to them, rather than the white-collar vampires that are sucking them dry. The bailout, allegedly created to increase lending, has failed.
U.S. commercial and industrial loans declined 11 percent to around $1.4 trillion since September, according to the Federal Reserve, which itself, thanks to public anger, is busy trying to hide from audits to outright dissolution.
And so the plan to award banks that built the housing bubble on labyrinthine debt securitization doomed to failure has now fully backfired, and the pitchforks and torches are being brought out with mounting speed.
If the American people, to say nothing of those in much worse straits in poorer countries, don't get paid their due soon, they are liable to make what's left of the rule of law that has abandoned them an utter nightmare. You're likely to find reruns of Orlando and Los Angeles, as well as Fort Hood, replicating everywhere. And who is going to argue with them?
"For once," Day explained, "borrowers aren't seen as primarily responsible for products designed to bilk them of every nickel and dime. The fact is that all studies have shown if people can afford to stay in their homes, they will, even if they are underwater. But now there is a growing disrespect for banks and what has been a social norm -- if you incur a debt, you should pay it back.
"What the lending institutions have done is outrageous and has gone on for too long."
Scott Thill runs the online mag Morphizm.com. His writing has appeared on Salon, XLR8R, All Music Guide, Wired and others.
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/143813/
And that's as good a summation as I've ever read! Neatly said.
below - another damning, highly erudite and historically accurate analyses by Henry CK Liu of Asiatimesonline.
=====================
Nov 10, 2009
Failure written into 'too big' policy
By Henry C K Liu
The potential failure of banks deemed too big to fail (TBTF) presents unsolvable challenges for policymakers. The unacceptability of the systemic impact of such failures on the financial, economic and social order necessitates government intervention in a market crisis.
Thus far, the official response to the TBTF threat has been focused on unlimited government protection of big bank creditors from losses they otherwise would face from big bank failures. Yet creditor expectation of TBTF protection actually encourages big banks to take more risk, thus pushing them closer to the cliff of failure, resulting in significant recurring net costs to the economy and society.
The Barack Obama administration and the US Congress are now
trying to address the fundamental issue of TBTF, generally acknowledged as a key contributing factor to the near collapse of the global financial system in 2008. Yet, government bailout programs for big financial institutions have resulted in banks becoming even bigger than before the crisis. Apparently, the administration’s solution to "too big to fail" is to make banks bigger.
JP Morgan Chase is reportedly holding more than $1 of every $10 on deposit in the US. The four biggest super banks (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citibank) now issue one of every two mortgages and about two of every three credit cards in the US. Since the financial crisis, these four super banks are each allowed to hold more than 10% of the nation's deposits, having been exempted from a longstanding rule barring such market dominance. In several metropolitan regions, these new super banks are now permitted to take market share beyond what the Department of Justice's anti-trust guidelines previously allowed.
The American banking system is now one of a handful of large global trading companies pretending to be banks, taking huge profits from high-risk proprietary trades with government-backed money, instead of one of a network of small conservative local institutions serving their domicile communities merely as intermediaries of money through local deposits for nominal fees.
Sheila C Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, described the TBTF problem as such, "It fed the crisis, and it has gotten worse because of the crisis."
article continued
================
The US financial system is looking more like a financial trust of a small number of super banks operating with deliberate moral hazard backed by ever-ready government bailouts, while consumers are increasingly faced with fewer choices for financial services from competitive providers.
The Obama administration's efforts to introduce a new regulatory regime to prevent recurring financial crises triggered by TBTF institutions leans towards imposing higher capital standards on these super financial institutions and empowering the Federal Reserve as a super regulator to take over a wider range of troubled financial firms to wind down their businesses in an orderly way with minimum loss to depositors.
While adequate capital is necessary for sound banking, the problem with the banking system today is that it is infested with high-risk propriety trading that conventional bank capital requirements cannot possibly handle.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner declares the dominant public policy imperative motivating reform as "to address the moral hazard risk created by what we did, what we had to do in the crisis to save the economy". Yet there is little evidence that moral hazard is being reduced or the economy is being saved. What has been saved is the elite segment of the banking and financial industry at the expense of the long-term health of the economy, while moral hazard is now the accepted operating mode for super banks.
Latest FDIC data reveal that the new super banks now can borrow more cheaply than their smaller peers because creditors assume these large institutions to be fail-safe. This trend will leave the financial market dominated by a gigantic trust of interlocking super banks.
Such concentration of market share will hurt consumers in two ways. It will keep the cost of credit high to borrowers for lack of competition, even when the costs of funds for banks remain artificially low. It will also push bank reserves upward to force banks to pass on costs to borrowers.
The White House plan as outlined so far would allow these super banks, whose failure would put the financial system and the economy at risk, to continue to exist, but would make it much more costly for them to provide financial services to the public. The plan would force such institutions to hold more funds in reserve and make it harder for them to borrow too heavily against their assets. The plan would require that these super banks come up with their own procedure to be disentangled in the event of a crisis, a plan that administration officials say ought to be made public in advance, presumably to impose market discipline on the largest and most interconnected companies.
Since banks exist to make profits, the bottom line is that the costs of banking services will increase for both corporate borrowers and the general public.
The administration's plan merely passes the cost of moral hazard to consumers. What needs to be done is to break up these super banks and the trading firms that pretend to be banks into regional institutions separated by financial firebreaks to prevent systemic contagion, and to impose strict limits on circular hedging. But the administration and its congressional allies continue to reject such proposals.
Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, and Paul A Volcker, former US Fed chairman, have separately suggested sweeping steps to force the nation's largest financial institutions to divest their riskier affiliates. King called for the revival of the Glass-Steagall Act, a New Deal piece of legislation that separated investment banks from commercial banks.
The solution to the "too big to fail" dilemma intuitively lies in preventing institutions from getting too big. Yet because of the interconnection of markets, even failure of small entities in large numbers can trigger systemic failure. This gives even entities of similar risk profile, but not too big individually, the ability to cause systemic failure.
In mathematics, the theory of large numbers includes the phenomenon of exponential growth which occurs when the growth rate of a mathematical function is exponentially proportional to the function's current value. Such exponential growth is mathematically unsustainable and will eventually implode.
Multilevel marketing is designed to create a large marketing force by compensating not only for the sales it generates, but also for the sales of other marketing forces introduced to the company, creating a limitless down-line of distributors and a hierarchy of multiple levels of compensation in the form of a pyramid, such as that employed by Amway Corp. The crisis in subprime mortgages was caused by massive network marketing, even as each subprime mortgage individually was only a small contract.
No bank, however big and well capitalized, can withstand the onslaught of a systemic breakdown of market-wide counterparty exposure built by multilevel marketing of liabilities, such as subprime mortgages and their securitization.
Thus the problem of systemic market failure is caused not merely by unit bigness, but also by the absence of firebreaks to prevent unsustainable exponential growth in risk exposure and the resultant systemic contagion effect of large number failures from chained counterparty reaction.
It is hard to understand why policymakers are not cognizant of this obvious fact sufficiently to focus on the need for firebreaks in interconnected financial markets both to prevent the buildup of risk chain reaction and to contain systemic failure contagion.
Henry C K Liu is chairman of a New York-based private investment group. His website is at http://www.henryckliu.com.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
The revolution against so-called free market capitalism will have its inevitable beginnings somewhere else in the world. It won't get started here, however.
the Lesson of a Great jew:
================
Text
Luke 20:45-21:4
[45] While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, [46] "Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. [47] They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely."
[21:1] As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. [2] He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. [3] "I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. [4] All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."
you are right in so many ways already , Mordechai Shiblikov.
if anything revolt against "market capitalism" had always been around -except that it was either coerced to become "state capitalism" as in the case of russia and then descended into a brutal modern version of an oligarchy reminiscent of Tsarism anyway - or what is in other cultures and histories - "kingships" that brutalize their subjects rather than govern with the welfare of the state (i.e., the people , the citizens towards a common prosperity) -
and the USA certainly , following in the steps of england - been the most ruthless in trampling down any revolt AGAINST capitalism.
after all - that is the entire history of the USA
really a history of trampling down any alternative, existing already or towards evolving - to what general smedley butler called
"OUR BIG BOSS - our supernationalistic capitalism...and our cultural and economic assault".
in certain ways - whatever their merits today and for the future, incomplete as their progress towards betterment for all is - such countries as Argentina and venezuela , brazil etc...
DEFYING the IMF , World Bank and other "washington consensus" and northern world fundamentalist capitalism dogma - by thumbing their noses at the illegal, criminal and rigged "loans" and "reform" programs which are DISASTER CAPITALISM - or rather : the AIM of capitalism which is DISASTER for gain for the few --
are examples of the "revolt"...incomplete as they yet are.
the creation of new "baskets of currencies" other than the dollar already ARE a symptom of that revolt - whatever else they may produce for economies globally.
the main point being:
CAPITALISM is RAPIDLY losing any , ANY , of its "hidden hand of the market" magic because it can't help exposing itself for what it is:
a BIG FAT FRAUD of an "economic system". ..with the USA EMPIRE the leading "magician" that is being recognized by more and more of the 'audience' members watching how its "hidden hand of the market" magic really works:
SUPPRESS fair competition for ideas and systems when it can't compete on what IT claims is a "level playing field".
for one thing - a simple truth should be clear to americans by NOW - that has been clear to OTHER countries for a long time now:
CAPITALISM and FREEDOM/democracy -- are NOT one and the same thing.
on the contrary - CAPITALISM BREEDS fascism because that is the only way private big business can really SURVIVE in the "market"...if people see its very real connections with THEIR impoverishment and loss of liberties - whatever THEIR cultural and political histories and systems have been or are.
CAPITALISM has ALWAYS, in all its previous inceptions and later "maturations" been the UNDERLYING , COMMON background NOISE behind all the world's great social upheavals and economic deprivations and political disasters.
CAPITALISM and its drive for endless , unrelenting aggression for PERSONAL aggrandizement through the accumulation of unreasonably great wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of the many.
FROM it flows wars , "competition" that is rapacious, and untold and unncessarcy suffering for the great majority of people on earth through its ENFORCEMENT of a system that shouldn't even EXIST to begin with ....and itself is really an ABERRATION in human history and human evolution towards greater understanding of our existence and realities of the planet to evolve better and more humane and equitable living for all.
by sustituting "wealth creation" which is really wealth accumulation by a FEW at the expense of the many -- for EQUITABLE wealth distribution for all
Capitalism dogmatizes and enshrines and then IMPOSES forcibly
the enhancement of the WORST instincts in humans..by teaching them to BE greedy and BE selfish .....and by doing that - capitalism - takes advantage of the disasters created (in the name of wealth creation) - so that the FEW can enrich themselves from the RESULTING economic disasters borne out of the "competition" for what capitalism teaches MUST be acquired.
If by "here" you mean CD, I've the depressed feeling that you're right. But a leopard can change its shorts, so 'hope' jeszcze nie zginela.
Luke 20:45-21:4
[45] While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, [46] "Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. [47] They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely."
[21:1] As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. [2] He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. [3] "I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. [4] All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."
This Jesus guy sounds like a major socialist. Where's he from, Denmark?
Free Market Capitalism: When your corrupt local government sells your only local source of fresh water to Coca-Cola, who in turn charges you a days wages for a can of coke.
Then when you get sick from dehyration wants to charge you to see the doctor.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
We see that it is the capitalist who supports the corrupt.
Robbins sez: "More than 29,000 people in 27 countries were questioned."
***
Unless 14,500 of them were corporate executives, then these poll results are fatally flawed. You're leaving out all the great free-market (sic) success stories.
"success stories" being largely about "succeeding" within the capitalist system - which of course begs the question that MAIREAD asked pointedly:
"success for whom?"
and based ON?
of course the same capitalist system of giving "success" through the impoverishment of so many others.
the whole process is one of "BEGGAR THEY NEIGHBOR" and whoever succeeds can not escape - no matter how innocently he or she has earned success - the SYSTEM itself which REMAINS one of
BEGGAR THY NEIGHBOR. capitalists FEAR the truth of what even Franklin Delano Roosevelt said:
"WE HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN THAT GREED IS BAD MORALS....WE NOW ALSO KNOW THAT IT IS ALSO BAD ECONOMICS".
it is the VERY system that the "greatest philosopher" according to GEORGE BUSH - the one person that the capitalist western society DEPENDS On for its "moral legitimacy"
JESUS CHRIST
gave one of his greatest parables when he sat from across a table at the temple and "market" place - yes the GREAT "FREE MARKET" capitalists love to bray about so much-- and Jesus :
watching the trade going on, the money-changing ...told the story and asked:
this is the lesson of humanity and ECONOMICS from JESUS CHRIST
that the capitalists MAY have learned but decided -- it is too MUCH to obey! for all they are about in the "success" is in fact -- to IMPOVERISH OTHERS in order for themselves to be "successful". or at least THAT is the LESSON of capitalism....western , "JUDEO CHRISTIAN" society's TOP DOGMA.
it most certainly is NOT that of Jesus Christ's!
Luke 20:45-21:4
[45] While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, [46] "Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. [47] They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely."
[21:1] As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. [2] He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. [3] "I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. [4] All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."
I'm pretty sure he's joking. I found his comment pretty funny.
and thank you zman for getting me straightened out.
i also thought that - it did seem to me that drosera was writing in a sarcastic way - but my disgust about the state of affairs got the better of me!.
my response was more about the notion of what drosera was likely being sarcastic about.
I want to apologize to drosera that I sounded off thoughtlessly like that.
"Success stories"? "Success" from whose perspective?
He's joking :-)
Oh of course...I'm a bit slower even than usual, today.
Mairead -- i BEAT YOU on that one -- i am SLOWER - hehe
please don't take my Medal from me..........
SLOWEST one of all! hehe
awright, I'll not contest you this time, but don't think to make it a habit :-) :-)
The global propagandists have worked hard to ensure that citizens in the third world have just the same definition of free market capitalism pumped into their heads as citizens of the first. When I was in Peru, I was staggered by the amount of material out there promoting the free market. Markets which used to be cooperative, stall-holders eating together in communal canteens say, split up into competing little businesses with even the canteens now fractured into separate mini kitchens. Slogans painted on walls. Bookshops full of pamphlets and pictorial guides to its glories and its heroes: Alan Greenspan and Milton Friedman, say, both the subjects of adoring profiles intended to persuade all readers that these new prophets of profit would make Peru rich.
It is the case that while most third world people are now familiar with the term Neoliberalism and know it to be somehow related to their daily life hardships. However, at least in Peru, most don't see it as a logical development in the context of current "free market capitalism". They don't seem to to see a causal connection between it and the political decisions of those in power and who benefit so hugely from the system.
It really is time for the guillotine and the noose. The greedheads evade all other discipline.
Was the term "free market capitalism" defined for the subjects? As a ninth grade teacher, I am aware of how much ignorance is out there. I am not sure the study's respondents would understand the term "capitalism" let alone "free market capitalism". The problem would be even bigger in countries like Pakistan. The majority of citizens there would not understand the concept of an economic system at all. Beware of cross-cultural comparisons in politics, economics or education. Words, if they are understood at all, carry different nuances across different countries.
Free-market capitalism is never defined in America, nevermind Pakistan. Basically, everything the conservatives support is "free-market capitalism", and everything the Dems support is social/Marx/Mao/fasc-ism, according to the media. Do you have a definition for it?
What a quaint, colonial world view you have. I have to assume you are American.
The dumb savages outside the USA could not grasp the concept of "free market capitalism" based on the low results you have from your ninth grade students?!?!?
I can assure you...as victims of "free market capitalism" I am sure the respondents are well aware of all of its implications.
And as a ninth grade teacher, I am sure you are also aware that the term "free market capitalism" was probably not used in the questionaire at all, but the equivelent in the local language, as the entire world does not speak "american"
But thanks for your post. I now have a better understanding of why your education/indoctrination system produces such idiots
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Whose definition of "free-market capitalism" would you use in surveying Pakistan - Chomsky's or Donohue's (the predator who heads the Chamber of Commerce)? If you asked a Russian, Chinese, or Indian whether they like "free-market capitalism", do you think the answer would be the same regardless of their occupation and wealth?
That's all drosera's talking about: making sure the term is defined as it's meant to be understood, not as whatever the respondent brings to the question from whatever their past experience or indoctrination might have been.
Thanks, Mairead, that is exactly what I meant. If you take a random sample of, say, Pakistanis, you will get a fair number who are barely literate, perhaps not literate at all. How will they respond to a question about "free-market capitalism"? Whatever the translation in--is it Hindi-Urdu--a lot of folks are not going to understand it. That was my point and why I said to beware of cross-cultural comparisons. Having lived in Japan for quite a while, I know how much cultural baggage comes with each concept.
excuse me - but you are basically projecting the western point of view of economics. which is really this:
MARKET IS EVERYTHING.
WRONG.
the "market" - as Henry CK Liu of Asiatimesonline CORRECTLY examines - which is suppressed under the "market fundamentalism" dogma of western capitalism -
"the MARKET IS ONLY A SUBSET OF AN ECONOMY...it is NOT everything"...
"the TRUE wealth of nations is NOT money, nor goods. it is PEOPLE..without people there is NO economy".
therefore - if one were to examine "market fundamentalism" it is QUITE clear that capitalism's "unregulated" dogmatism to which it INEVITABLY and ESSENTIALY arrives and aspires to -
produces INTENDED and SYSTEMIC injustice and inequality that is DANGEROUS, HARMFUL and WASTEFUL for "the market mechanism" - as espoused by capitalism to SUPPOSEDLY "spread and create wealth"
REALLY does NOTHING of the sort but only creates an ILLUSION of such a thing while effecting its TRUE nature and effect and intent - which is :
the GATHER "as much wealth as possible into the hands of as few as possible at the expense of as MANY as possible" ...
and this is called "market fundmanetalistm" -- "let the markets decides"...
WRONG.
and once more, to emphasize Liu's observation and HISTORICAL analysis:
"from time immemorial -- the MARKET is really ONLY A SUBSET of the economy - just as BANKING, once it appeared is ONLY a SUBSET of -the market itself..but NEITHER are the economy ITSELF".
capitalism dictates the opposite - that "the market" IS the economy.
WRONG.
even the market place - the "real" ones - where people buy and sell fish - are REGULATED by certain rules of behavior and exchange.
the SAME goes for "market fundamentalism" in its global recreation. it needs to be REGULATED. THAT is the role of governm,ents in order to PREVENT the "market" from subjecting PEOPLE -- the REAL WEALTH OF NATIONS - from being treated like "commodities" and their labor treated as commodities and monetized.
MONETARISM ITSELF is only an INVENTION, an ARTIFICIALITY that has gone beyond its original and PROPER moorings as merely a function of exchange and convenience but NOT the SUBSTITUTE for the WEALTH of nations which is PEOPLE and the wealth their cumulative labor creates.
if anything "monetarism" which is basically what capitalism amounts to - monetizing everything under the sun - is an ABERRATION in history.
it was merely created by the merchants in the principalities of ITALY during the rennaisance period - during the height of the italian mercantilist periods just over a thousand years ago.
there's nothing "inherently valuable" about it - nor even "natural" .
it's a CONCOCTION of BUSINESSMEN - when they realized that it was EASIEr , MORE CONVENIENT to "issue value" with CURRENCY rather than HOARD entire collections of actual goods in warehouses and ship them or cart them and pay for labor to take care of them - who themselves are ONLY PART of an economy and NOT the economy and then substitute THEIR means of "exchange" for things that the economies can do better WITHOUT such as had always been among people through history.
I don't think drosera is doing what you believe s/he is doing. Any cultural anthro will agree that translation is inadequate to "naturalise" complex cultural concepts. Do you think Chomsky and Obama would define "free-market capitalism" the same way?
And there is very strong support around the world for governments to distribute wealth more evenly.
---------
The above needs to be rephrased:
"Government should end the siphoning of working class wealth to the unproductive elite".
and your rephrasing, Cygnus - is BRILLIANTLY put!
it CLARIFIES once again and should be done so repeatedly :
IF THERE IS ANY REDISTRIBUTION of wealth that the capitalists rail so hard against - it is the redistribution UPWARDS
that the capitalists have NOT EARNED in reality, nor even JUSTIFIED.
it is simply put:
"THEFT of the common people's LABOR".
which capitalists TWIST around and CLAIM as the "labor of the rich" when in fact that is NOTHING of the sort.
the capitalist rich people , bankers and all - including their precious "investors" - are not about "earning" the wealth they accumulate through the RIGGED system of wealth DEFINITION (monetarism- monetizing and LOWERING the value of labor through it is one example, or monetizing and therefore PRIVATIZING the ownership of natural resources such as water through nothing more than just "building" infrastructure such as water pipes...as IF that were ALL it took to CLAIM ownership of WATER!!) -
they are about TAKING WEALTH accumulated through the aggregate , collective labor and resources of the people in the majority - unto a few
and that is CALLED THEFT!
exactly as Karl Marx said.
it's also funny that the only ones that REMAIN the biggest supporters of Capitalism are those that benefit from it at the expense of others -- or THINK they WILL someday do so ...
but who are THESE? they are in the SMALl, SMALL minority of the world and in ANY country or ANY community -- are themselves a MINORITY , a VERY SMALL MINORITY
THAT ALONE tells you what Capitalism IS.
whether it is in LOCAL level - only a FEW businessmen profit greattly from the AGGREGATE labor and situations of their VICTIMS - which they call "customers" but in reality are merely differently coercedly victimized participants to support a FEW in any given community.
whether it is in the NATIONAL level - that is the same.
a FEW BIG GIANT BANKS and corporations own everything much else.or a few "industries" hold OTHER industries hostage, and BELOW them the people hostage.
on an INTERNATIONAL level - it is the SAME
the USA and a FEW european countries that built their wealth through colonialism, theft of resources, cheapening and dehumanization of people and their resources and labor through MANIPULATIVE financial and legal illusions and LIES about "redistributing the wealth more efficiently" and "managing the economy better" and "PROPER shareholding"
are sitting on top of the rest of the world's resources and populations with their ILL-GOTTEN , UNEARNED and UNJUSTIFIED wealth.
and what is COMMON to ALL these?
CAPITALISM - "market fundamentalism" - "let the market prevail".
when in reality - theymight as well say:
LET THE FEW OF US PREVAIL who control "the market"
where the "market" is REALLY just a SUBSET of the globe's economy , any country's economy, any community's economy, any neighborhood's economy, and EVEN ANY FAMILY's economy.
CAPITALISM and its "free market" magic - "let the market prevail" is like the "hidden hand of the market" by Adam Smith: \
PURE DELUSION and MISREPRESENTATION of what a global economy IS or ought to BE.
PURE concoction for the benefit of the few...and is best summed up by John Kenneth Galbraith:
"CAPITALISM is just the modern way of playing a very, very old game: finding moral justification for GREED".
if one had 2 children - and the parent allowed the older one to GRAB and EAT the food of the smaller child - the smaller child will starve.
does the parent PERMIT this and "let the free market reign"?
or does NOT the parent REGULATE the older , stronger child's behavior?
that is the SAME as "the market" .
and the economy.
doing the opposite leads to FAILURE for ALL and untold harm.
"THE TRUE PURPOSE OF OUR US ARMED FORCES IS TO MAKE THE WORLD SAFE FOR OUR BIG BOSS: OUR SUPERNATIONALISIC CAPITALISM AND OUR CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC ASSAULT"....
GENERAL SMEDLEY BUTLER, US MARINES, 1933