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TechnoratiThe Coming Capitalist Consensus
One important question, of course, is how decisive and definitive the break with neoliberalism will be. Other questions, however, go to the heart of capitalism itself. Will government ownership, intervention, and control be exercised simply to stabilize capitalism, after which control will be given back to the corporate elites? Are we going to see a second round of Keynesian capitalism, where the state and corporate elites along with labor work out a partnership based on industrial policy, growth, and high wages – though with a green dimension this time around? Or will we witness the beginnings of fundamental shifts in the ownership and control of the economy in a more popular direction? There are limits to reform in the system of global capitalism, but at no other time in the last half century have those limits seemed more fluid.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has already staked out one position. Declaring that “laissez-faire capitalism is dead,” he has created a strategic investment fund of 20 billion euros to promote technological innovation, keep advanced industries in French hands, and save jobs. “The day we don’t build trains, airplanes, automobiles, and ships, what will be left of the French economy?” he recently asked rhetorically. “Memories. I will not make France a simple tourist reserve.” This kind of aggressive industrial policy aimed partly at winning over the country’s traditional white working class can go hand-in-hand with the exclusionary anti-immigrant policies with which the French president has been associated.
Global Social Democracy
A new national Keynesianism along Sarkozyan lines, however, is not the only alternative available to global elites. Given the need for global legitimacy to promote their interests in a world where the balance of power is shifting towards the South, western elites might find more attractive an offshoot of European Social Democracy and New Deal liberalism that one might call “Global Social Democracy” or GSD.
Even before the full unfolding of the financial crisis, partisans of GSD had already been positioning it as alternative to neoliberal globalization in response to the stresses and strains being provoked by the latter. One personality associated with it is British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who led the European response to the financial meltdown via the partial nationalization of the banks. Widely regarded as the godfather of the “Make Poverty History” campaign in the United Kingdom, Brown, while he was still the British chancellor, proposed what he called an “alliance capitalism” between market and state institutions that would reproduce at the global stage what he said Franklin Roosevelt did for the national economy: “securing the benefits of the market while taming its excesses.” This must be a system, continued Brown, that “captures the full benefits of global markets and capital flows, minimizes the risk of disruption, maximizes opportunity for all, and lifts up the most vulnerable – in short, the restoration in the international economy of public purpose and high ideals.”
Joining Brown in articulating the Global Social Democratic discourse has been a diverse group consisting of, among others, the economist Jeffrey Sachs, George Soros, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the sociologist David Held, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, and even Bill Gates. There are, of course, differences of nuance in the positions of these people, but the thrust of their perspectives is the same: to bring about a reformed social order and a reinvigorated ideological consensus for global capitalism.
Among the key propositions advanced by partisans of GSD are the following:
- Globalization is essentially beneficial for the world; the neoliberals have simply botched the job of managing it and selling it to the public;
- It is urgent to save globalization from the neoliberals because globalization is reversible and may, in fact, already be in the process of being reversed;
- Growth and equity may come into conflict, in which case one must prioritize equity;
- Free trade may not, in fact, be beneficial in the long run and may leave the majority poor, so it is important for trade arrangements to be subject to social and environmental conditions;
- Unilateralism must be avoided while fundamental reform of the multilateral institutions and agreements must be undertaken – a process that might involve dumping or neutralizing some of them, like the WTO’s Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPs);
- Global social integration, or reducing inequalities both within and across countries, must accompany global market integration;
- The global debt of developing countries must be cancelled or radically reduced, so the resulting savings can be used to stimulate the local economy, thus contributing to global reflation;
- Poverty and environmental degradation are so severe that a massive aid program or “Marshall Plan” from the North to the South must be mounted within the framework of the “Millennium Development Goals”;
- A “Second Green Revolution” must be put into motion, especially in Africa, through the widespread adoption of genetically engineered seeds.
- Huge investments must be devoted to push the global economy along more environmentally sustainable paths, with government taking a leading role (“Green Keynesianism” or “Green Capitalism”);
- Military action to solve problems must be deemphasized in favor of diplomacy and “soft power,” although humanitarian military intervention in situations involving genocide must be undertaken.
The Limits of Global Social Democracy
Global Social Democracy has not received much critical attention, perhaps because many progressives are still fighting the last war, that is, against neoliberalism. A critique is urgent, and not only because GSD is neoliberalism’s most likely successor. More important, although GSD has some positive elements, it has, like the old Social Democratic Keynesian paradigm, a number of problematic features.
A critique might begin by highlighting problems with four central elements in the GSD perspective.
First, GSD shares neoliberalism’s bias for globalization, differentiating itself mainly by promising to promote globalization better than the neoliberals. This amounts to saying, however, that simply by adding the dimension of “global social integration,” an inherently socially and ecologically destructive and disruptive process can be made palatable and acceptable. GSD assumes that people really want to be part of a functionally integrated global economy where the barriers between the national and the international have disappeared. But would they not in fact prefer to be part of economies that are subject to local control and are buffered from the vagaries of the international economy? Indeed, today’s swift downward trajectory of interconnected economies underscores the validity of one of anti-globalization movement’s key criticisms of the globalization process..
Second, GSD shares neoliberalism’s preference for the market as the principal mechanism for production, distribution, and consumption, differentiating itself mainly by advocating state action to address market failures. The kind of globalization the world needs, according to Jeffrey Sachs in The End of Poverty, would entail “harnessing…the remarkable power of trade and investment while acknowledging and addressing limitations through compensatory collective action.” This is very different from saying that the citizenry and civil society must make the key economic decisions and the market, like the state bureaucracy, is only one mechanism of implementation of democratic decision-making.
Third, GSD is a technocratic project, with experts hatching and pushing reforms on society from above, instead of being a participatory project where initiatives percolate from the ground up.
Fourth, GSD, while critical of neoliberalism, accepts the framework of monopoly capitalism, which rests fundamentally on deriving profit from the exploitative extraction of surplus value from labor, is driven from crisis to crisis by inherent tendencies toward overproduction, and tends to push the environment to its limits in its search for profitability. Like traditional Keynesianism in the national arena, GSD seeks in the global arena a new class compromise that is accompanied by new methods to contain or minimize capitalism’s tendency toward crisis. Just as the old Social Democracy and the New Deal stabilized national capitalism, the historical function of Global Social Democracy is to iron out the contradictions of contemporary global capitalism and to relegitimize it after the crisis and chaos left by neoliberalism. GSD is, at root, about social management.
Obama has a talent for rhetorically bridging different political discourses. He is also a “blank slate” when it comes to economics. Like FDR, he is not bound to the formulas of the ancien regime. He is a pragmatist whose key criterion is success at social management. As such, he is uniquely positioned to lead this ambitious reformist enterprise.
Reveille for Progressives
While progressives were engaged in full-scale war against neoliberalism, reformist thinking was percolating in critical establishment circles. This thinking is now about to become policy, and progressives must work double time to engage it. It is not just a matter of moving from criticism to prescription. The challenge is to overcome the limits to the progressive political imagination imposed by the aggressiveness of the neoliberal challenge in the 1980s combined with the collapse of the bureaucratic socialist regimes in the early 1990s. Progressives should boldly aspire once again to paradigms of social organization that unabashedly aim for equality and participatory democratic control of both the national economy and the global economy as prerequisites for collective and individual liberation.
Like the old post-war Keynesian regime, Global Social Democracy is about social management. In contrast, the progressive perspective is about social liberation.
70 Comments so far
Show AllStarting with rtdrury and continuing with wc652, zmann, and Greq R there is a complete misunderstanding of Bello's essay. Please go back and read more carefully.
rtdrury writes:
"What in hell is wrong with Mr Bello? I guess he lost a marble. Genetic engineering is NOT needed. And NOT wanted. Get outta here! We are spreading the heirloom open pollinated varieties! We don't need the capitalist or ANY of his warez! Sheesh!"
Bello is NOT advocating GSD theory or genetic engineering.
For example, the following tenet is not his--rather it is a tenet of GSD :
"Globalization is essentially beneficial for the world"
Bello is DESCRIBING the basic assumptions and arguments of GSD so you will understand the differences between their program for globalization and the neo-liberal paradigm that has been dominant for the last few decades. He is alerting progressives that they will soon face a new globalization program and they should be prepared for it.
In his conclusion he tries to alert progressives to the new ideological formulation that they now face:
"Reveille for Progressives
While progressives were engaged in full-scale war against neoliberalism, reformist thinking was percolating in critical establishment circles. This thinking is now about to become policy, and progressives must work double time to engage it. It is not just a matter of moving from criticism to prescription. The challenge is to overcome the limits to the progressive political imagination imposed by the aggressiveness of the neoliberal challenge in the 1980s combined with the collapse of the bureaucratic socialist regimes in the early 1990s. Progressives should boldly aspire once again to paradigms of social organization that unabashedly aim for equality and participatory democratic control of both the national economy and the global economy as prerequisites for collective and individual liberation.
Like the old post-war Keynesian regime, Global Social Democracy is about social management. In contrast, the progressive perspective is about social liberation."
I cannot blame Mr. Bello because the essay is written clearly if one takes the time to read it carefully. If one rushes through it then one can easily become confused and believe that the author is advocating what he is simply describing.
I notice this kind of sloppy reading a good deal on political forums--even by intelligent commentators. It is a kind of "rush to judgment" by readers who are more interested in jotting down their own reactions than actually understanding the points of the essay.
Mr. Bello has a long career as a distinguished advocate for social liberation--particularly in the so-called global "South", and deserves a more careful reading.
I wasn't commenting about the author or the article, I was commenting on the belief that GM crops are 'needed'.
You are correct. Point taken.
How will China handle this?
http://henryckliu.com/page177.html
This is an excellent website!
ahem ..i and others here have been presenting HenryCkLiu's stupendous writing...
TOO voluminous, exhaustive, historically sweeping, so detailed and organized in explanations -- to even attempt to explain here.
but i've always said HERE-- Henry CK Liu - whether in matters of history or culture, or the history of ideas such as "capitalism" - and how they became blurred and misleading over time - is NOT someone Alan Greenspan , Robert Rubin, Obama, etc....WANT on a public forum with them in debates...he will DISSECT and lay their claims so easily for the FRAUDS that they are.
heck -- he will REMIND them which SPECIFIC ideas they have managed to "emphasize" by picking and choosing from history , and WHEN and FROM what school of thought..and WHY..and they'd just get red-faced ...
his series of articles on "Banking Bunkum" explaining clearly and in detail exactly what is the trouble with the fraudulence of the so-called "accountable world's greatest financial system" of the USA , fedmonetary policies , fiat money and how it basically allowed the USA to "unjustifiably hold the world hostage financially"....
is one reading i DARE anyone to refute.
SHOULD the chinese leaders - digging deeply from their own thousands of years culture - towards modern times - SEE and agree with Liu's concerned suggestions on how china can Avoid the poison from imperial USA and the west -
watch out. they WILL give the world something to behold that the western colonialists and imperialists and capitalists have NEVER offered -- and is the very thing western imperialists have always sought to UNDERMINE in other societies....
a more equitable, humane, society . ..by going back to what Henry CK Liu calls the "TRUE WEALTH of NATIONS" -- PEOPLE...
"without people there is no nation..the well-being of the people is the nation's true Sovereign credit..not money capital".
and in short :
"money capital , through HIGHER and ever rising wages, in a FULL employment economy guided by a good government ..should be IMMEDIATELY consumed for the welfare of the people ...rather than HOARDED in banks and vaults for the few where they , as money are USELESS as wealth".
of course his discussion is more complex than my simplification ...but if people read the writings they will understand the utter logic and truth of it all.
Nature and the planet are all about diversity.
Globalization, in all its forms, and the corporation, its backbone, are all about concentrating wealth and power, centralization and mono-culture.
My money's on Nature.
< Nature and the planet are all about diversity.>
< Globalization, in all its forms, and the corporation, its backbone, are all about concentrating wealth and power, centralization and mono-culture.>
< My money's on Nature.>
Silly argument: what is the nature of nature? Chaos? Not likely, nature changes slowly and constantly in a systematic way. In fact, we call it the natural order of things ---that includes hurricanes and volcanoes.
The nature of Nature is, to me, a living being. Not likely Chaos.
How is it that life has organized itself in such a way that you and I and everyone have come into being able to ask the questions, "who are we and where do we come from?" ?
Recommended reading?
On the corporation: Unequal Protection, Hartmann; When Corporations Take Over the World, Korten. The book of Revelation, old John.
On Nature: The American Replacement of Nature, and, Evil and World Order, Wm Irwin Thompson. Black Elk Speaks, Neihart.
Thanks for your reply, it's good to know people are reading.
Elegantly Stated!
Nice work, in that it manages a sensible critique of the all-too-attractive option labelled GSD.
The trouble with most of these overarching theories is that while clearly well-intentioned, nearly all are built in a false assumption: that technocratic thinking can solve all of our dilemmas. The horrors of atomic weaponry and "miracle drugs" suh as Thalidomide caused many folks in the sixutes to look askance at the scince-fixes-all paradigm, but I'm afarid that we have come t believe, again, that all social and economic problems are at heart engineering issues--just create the right type of genetically modified seed, bioengineer the necessary drug, fabricate the essential new plastic.
Our troubles transcend such eminently rational solutions, which, you'd think we might have learned from now, are not going to be birthed in the think tanks; these are politico-religious (in the widest sense of the term) dilemmas that are going to require a wholesale change in consciousness, the kind that generally happens very, very gradually, but that, unfortunately, we don't have that kind of time for now.
m horan
http://www.nosuppertonight.com
Thanks for the superb comments
Until labour has the same rights as capital the author is just pissing in the wind.
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
Touche! -- PERFECTLY STATED!
The CORPORATION as currently defined is at the root---no, IS the root of all this bad, even evil, economics.
The corporation is very well described in in Thom Hartmann's "Unequal Protection". Also D. Korten's and John Perkins' books.
Check them out. It's a real schooling. It's like those lost ark movies when they discover the missing piece of the key to the treasure. Know this, and it all clicks into place.
I can definitely agree with that. it is that "Entity with all the rights and more of a human being but NONE of the responsibilities". it's the WORST single invention coming out Western Civilization. it should have been killed at birth.
but then - it was partly also the fault of the first american nation builders who gave it shape..until by the time of abraham lincoln who , himself, was instrumental in firming it up - even HE realized with horror at the implications of what they had all wrought and warned about what "it" could do. now -- it is like the MAD horse that has gotten out of the barn...
it's the global version of the Frankensteing creature that humanity has lost control of. and behind it all?
are INDIVIDUALS: human beings who hide behind its facade and legalities to shirk responsibility towards society while sucking blood out of its commons like a Vampire.
it is useful in terms of organizing human endeavors but should never have been given the power to be "free of responsibility" to society. ..in terms of shielding its board members, owners, and investors from the consequences of their decisions or actions when things go wrong....while most of them quietly "transfer" their investments under a new corporate body...and plenty of "hide-outs".
It may go wwway back, even pre-Hudsons Bay and East India Co.s.
One of my pet conjectures in need of scholarly backup is that the dreamer of the Revelation (John?) was subconsciously working out the conflicts and character of his times in the middle of the Roman Empire and coalesced the Beast/Anti-christ as the be-all end-all bad guy. Most of the characteristics attributed to this Anti-christ fit quite neatly over the "Corporate Entity" and its footprint on our world.
It may be that large scale commercial activity---where the actors cannot directly see or experience the dirty side of their decisions, only the bags of loot brought to their feet, or the options/coupons brought to their finger tips/swiss bank statements---leads to the deadend societal effects we see today.
Commercial activity at the tribal or town level shows results locally and temporally (7th Generation), so is more responsible. Our own folklore with its Scrooges and Potters gives clue to that, and certainly, most (ours obviously excluded) native and aboriginal cultures surviving the last ice age best demonstrate that*. (Aren't we special?)
There is no profit in Nature.
Check it out.
I haven't heard much response to these ideas...which is a sign that they are either way off, or right on.
* "Black Elk Speaks", by Neihart---"The only things that work well are those that work the way Nature works."---Black Elk.
Crapitalism is as crapitalism does.
of course one can always opt for the more straightforward equations:
Capitalism ="highly , expensively, exclusively educated" STUPID, CRAVEN people LEADING society in these things:
Capitalism = THEFT
Capitalism = LIES
Capitalism = Ponzi Schemes
Capitalism = genocides
Capitalism = Hypocrisy
Capitalism = Robotic "individualism"
Capitalism = Exploitation
Capitalism = Slavery
Capitalism = Deception
Capitalism = Rape
Capitalism = Pillage
Capitalism = Hypocrisy
Capitalism = Contradictions
Capitalism = Torture
Capitalism = SPying
Capitalism = Thugery
Capitalism = Cruelty
Capitalism = Inhumanity
Capitalism = Authoritarianism
Capitalism = Fascism
Capitalism = Dictators
Capitalism = CorporatoKleptocracy
Capitalism = Earth Destruction
Capitalism = Culture Destruction
Capitalism = Blind Faith
Capitalism = Unaccountable "accountability"
Capitalism = Imperialism
Capitalism = Mass Poverty
Capitalism = Famine
Capitalism = Greed
Capitalism = Selfishness
Capitalism = War
Capitalism = WMD's
Capitalism = Mendacity
Capitalism = Cravenness
Capitalism = Parasitism
Capitalism = Fakery
Capitalism = Racism
Capitalism = Ignorance
Capitalism = Corporate Welfare
Capitalism = Thieving Banks
Capitalism = Waste
Capitalism = Shallowness
Capitalism = Inefficiency
Capitalism = Profligacy
Capitalism = Debt
Capitalism = Make believe wealth
Capitalism = Undeliverable promises
Capitalism = National paranoia
Capitalism = "security" police state
Capitalism = STATE TERRORISM
Capitalism = Bad Ethics
Capitalism = Bad Economics
Capitalism = UN"god"line$$
Capitalism = Demon Wor$$$hip
Capitalism = Unjustified, Unearned "riches"
Capitalism = Destructive "competition"
Capitalism = Barbarism
Capitalism = Low Culture
Capitalism = INsincerity
Capitalism = Crises
Capitalism = Unnecessary Suffering
Capitalism = Profit over People
Capitalism = Low Common intelligence factor
Capitalism = Human Slaves to Machine
Capitalism = Shortsightedness
Capitalism = Global Warming
Capitalism = Destruction of Species
Capitalism = Cannibalizing Consumption
Capitalism = FAT shallow Intellect people
Capitalism = Profitdriven Redundancies
Capitalism = uninnovative "innovation"
Capitalism = "creative" Destruction
Capitalism = Stunted Conservatism
Capitalism = Frightened People
Capitalism = INsecure "security"
Capitalism = Intellectual, Moral Bankruptcy
Capitalism = Cultural, Financial Bankruptcy
Capitalism = Supernationalistic Hubris
Capitalism = Blood for Money
Capitalism = "God, Country and Guns" -- and Death
Capitalism = Loss of Liberty
Capitalism = WElfare for the rich, TAX the Poor
Capitalism = Gluttony
Capitalism = Artificial "scarcity"
Capitalism = Worthless PAPER wealth
Capitalism = "added value" out of thin air
Capitalism = Robbing of the Commons
Capitalism = Privatizing the SUn, Moon, Air, the Universe...
Capitalism = Legalized Thievery, enslavement and murder
Capitalism = George Orwell's worst Nightmare
Capitalism = Debasement of Language
Capitalism = Corruption of humanity
Capitalism = whatever, anything else , but NONE of it is GOOD.
Capitalism = Conservatism
HOW could i have forgotten THAT? hehe.
THANKS!!
CapTHEFTalism
CapiTHEFTlism
CapEXPLOITism
CapitaLIEsm
CapiTHUGism
CapiFASCISM
CapiWARism
CapTORTURism
CapMURDERism
CapSNAKEOILism
CapitSCAMism
CapiFAKEism
you can always think up of SYNONYMOUS variations .....
"Globalization is essentially beneficial for the world"
The term globalization is far too general to be useful. Mr. Bellow fails to distinguish the good from the bad. The bad is global capital flows into power centers. The good is global enlightenment, equity/justice for all. So global justice yes, global capital no. Mr. Bello fails to distinguish.
"It is urgent to save globalization from the neoliberals because globalization is reversible and may, in fact, already be in the process of being reversed"
Let global capital be reversed. Let the neoliberals reverse it, kill it, bury it. Again, Mr Bello fails to differentiate between global capital/power concentration/abuse and global equity/justice. Obviously we don't want the former and we do want the latter. Can Mr Bello please get specific?
"Growth and equity may come into conflict, in which case one must prioritize equity"
Good for Mr Bello. He got specific and chose the correct priority. Why didn't he before?
"Free trade may not, in fact, be beneficial in the long run and may leave the majority poor, so it is important for trade arrangements to be subject to social and environmental conditions"
Let's clarify this statement: Free trade is generally NOT beneficial to the people so it is crucial to place strong social and environmental conditions on trade.
"Unilateralism must be avoided while fundamental reform of the multilateral institutions and agreements must be undertaken – a process that might involve dumping or neutralizing some of them, like the WTO’s Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPs)"
In more general terms, Mr Bello is saying let's avoid win-lose aspirations and aspire only to win-win. Ehh? Very simple, very fundamental. This is the progressive way. It fixes a zillion problems. No need to muck with details.
"Global social integration, or reducing inequalities both within and across countries, must accompany global market integration"
Global market integration is very low on the progressive priority list. Top priority is local self-sufficiency, and local economic/political power. Second priority is free dissemination of all information everywhere. In contrast, global trade is a trivial superficial luxury. We only need it on a very small scale. It is not very zen. it is highly vulnerable to abuse and is thus highly dangerous. It's obvious.
"The global debt of developing countries must be cancelled or radically reduced, so the resulting savings can be used to stimulate the local economy, thus contributing to global reflation"
Of course. Nobody needs debt. Everyone get the hell out of debt, NOW.
"Poverty and environmental degradation are so severe that a massive aid program or “Marshall Plan” from the North to the South must be mounted within the framework of the “Millennium Development Goals”"
Let' the people take care of themselves. We don't need any Marshall Plan from any elite chimpdom. Kick the elites in the river!
"A “Second Green Revolution” must be put into motion, especially in Africa, through the widespread adoption of genetically engineered seeds"
What in hell is wrong with Mr Bello? I guess he lost a marble. Genetic engineering is NOT needed. And NOT wanted. Get outta here! We are spreading the heirloom open pollinated varieties! We don't need the capitalist or ANY of his warez! Sheesh!
"Huge investments must be devoted to push the global economy along more environmentally sustainable paths, with government taking a leading role (“Green Keynesianism” or “Green Capitalism”)"
Wrong. We don't need huge investments. We don't need capital. We don't need debt. We don't need concentrated power. We spent the last eight years smelling this crap stink. Where has Mr Bello been for eight years? There are only three legitimate resources on this planet: natural, human, and information. Mammon ain't a resource!
"Military action to solve problems must be deemphasized in favor of diplomacy and “soft power,” although humanitarian military intervention in situations involving genocide must be undertaken"
No military needed. Not even involving genocide. We can stay with old dead failed ideas such as this one or we can rise above them. Take a look. Past failures should not be repeated. The people of the world know the correct direction. Of course Mr Bello seems to as well by his conclusions. So people, the ball is in your hands! What have you accomplished to support the people, victims of the elite's class war aggression?
""Military action to solve problems must be deemphasized in favor of diplomacy and “soft power,” although humanitarian military intervention in situations involving genocide must be undertaken"
No military needed. Not even involving genocide. We can stay with old dead failed ideas such as this one or we can rise above them. "
I must say, I disagree with you on this. My major research paper this year before I graduated was putting together an international relations theory for the justification of humanitarian interventions. If you're not going to support relatively short-term action to prevent people from being wiped out, what's the point of supporting long-term action to stop climate change and prevent people from either dying or being severely harmed by it?
rtdrury,
Thanks for your followup;
these are very good responses to Bello's assertions.
Im sorry, but the GSD theory retains serious injustices and inequalities as part of the foundation.
1) The very basic structure of the 'World Order' serves the Western powers first and foremost. Meaning, the formation of tiny nation states in regions such as the Middle East and Africa, as well as southeast Asia, serves to weaken inhabitants, denying them self sufficiency within a realistic circumstances. The existing nation state line up is in large part a product of the colonial empires. Maintaining and sustaining these tiny, inefficient nations is contrary to the interests of the people of the region.
2)Developing nations are victims of the predation by American and European multinational corporations and industries and the international institutions such as World Bank, IMF and even the UN (certainly the WTO) have facilitated this predation. When a multinational corporation like Archer Daniels Midland or Monsanto have greater assets than the govt of a nation, then the people of that nation are going to fall prey to the interests of that corporation. This is exemplified by ADM's engineered crops taking over grain markets in the developing nations of Africa and elsewhere by that nation deregulating and dropping trade restrictions and reshaping their economies according to World Bank requirements.
3)Developing nations need to develop self sufficiency first before economic specialization to fit into the global economy. Self sufficiency requires reshaping the actual state itself, including allowing a state to grow, or annex, or partner with other nations. For example, the combined GDPs of all the North African nations from Morocco to Egypt are less than the GDP of the Netherlands alone. And the primary trading partners of each North AFrican nation are NOT each other- neighbor to neighbor- rather it is a European nation: Spain, France, Italy; or America. This serve to perpetuate the oppressive, decrepit, incompetence linked to the first point of nation states incompatible with the interests of the people of the nation and of the region.
4)America's wellbeing has unfortunately been tied to unhealthy economic interests which serve to perpetuate America's global position as an imperial power willing to use hard power- military intervention, covert operations, embargoes, sanctions to collectively strangle peoples. The American economy is overwhelming serving the interests of the financial industry ( which does not actually product anything) over the basic needs and interests of the actual people of America (actual meaning human beings, as opposed to the "legal persons" of corporations). the US govt, including the Federal Reserve, has spent close to 2 trillion in bailing out the evil corruption of financal and investment firms while the govt does nothing for the cost of living for actual human beings is becoming unbearable for increasing numbers of people, including people with health problems, excessive debt, unemployment, and depleted or lost savings.
The entire World Order, an Order designed by the European colonial empires and sustained and maintained NOW by the American global empire, has to be rebuilt from the very foundation in order to rectify major inequities, injustices, and corruption.
TOUCHE! excellently , sharply observed!
"even a dead fish can go with the flow"
genetically modified seeds are sterile, they cannot be saved for replanting.
When USA invaded & occupied Iraq we sent Paul Bremer to govern, one of his first
acts was to issue 17 laws, one of which was that all Iraqi farmers had to use g.m. seeds.
Anyone caught "hoarding" natural seeds faced fines/imprisonment.
Just another scam to fill monsanto & other huge agribusiness pockets.
We here in the USA have been eating products made with g.m. seeds for years, there are no laws that force disclosure to the public.
And they wonder why we're dumbed down and fat.
It may have been a scam, but more likely the real reason is if Iraq causes trouble the seeds don't come and everyone starves. I bet the Iraqis saved their seeds somewhere, nobody would be so stupid as to go along with that.
Actually I have heard that there are laws that PREVENT the disclosure of GM ingredients.
the Iraq invasion - using the 9/11 and "terrorism" as pretext - was really about SHOCK CAPITALISM.
SHOCK AND AWE -- and after the "creative destruction" so BELOVED to the neo cons -- "rebuild in the image of america" as these capitalist exploiters would have -- not JUST america - but the WORLD.
these are evil people. PERIOD.
this is a spectacular example of the old saying - from the time of Socrates:
"ALL WARS are waged for MONEY and POWER..they are pillage, rape and theft".
I bet Madoff wishes he was George Baily in "It's a Wonderful Life" and he was never fricken born.
Paul Siemering
don't know much about economics, but i do know "third world debt" and i know the wto, imf, and world bank, and free trade, and farm subsidies.
so i say go get 'em Walden- he's always been the man, and it's great he is not caving in to this sham.
Right? Anybody who does something as minimal as backyard wild bird feeding for a sustained period notices in short time a dramatic decline in harmful insects in a home vegetable garden, for example. A handful of hummingbird feeders in any yard eliminates mosquitos and gnats in a big way. Insecticides just don't "cut it" in the same way. Nature delights to lift us up when we work with her in any small way.
As for the "new day", we'll only have as much as we put into it. The question now is going to be who drives the public sector, the working class majority or the capitalists with their grabbing tubs. That's the struggle in the new period, and it won't be resolved until we start moving into higher and more democratic forms of socialist organization. Obama and the rest is horse shit.
The avaerage yield of barley using modern methods and GM seeds with all those tons of fertilizers, pesticides and all that mechaanization is around 80 bushles per acre.
Records from Ancient Sumeria show yields near the city of Lagash of some 100 bushels per acre. This some 4000 years ago.
GM seeds are NOT all they are cracked up to be and as I have linked to before, there serious concerns about the health issues they will cause.
Some of the modifications in the DNA make it impossible for the human body to digest.
What we have to learn is knowledge we have lost, that being rather then trying to remake Nature on our own image, we try and MIMIC nature and work with her.
and the core of any 'new' capitalist consensus will be the intensifying of their violent warfare against ordinary people as they attempt to maintain their power and privileges.
public ownership of the means of production. that is the core of any workable alternative to the present mess.
Personally, I think worker owned businesses would be better than public ownership. I'd like to hear good reasons why public ownership would be better.
COMMENT:
Worker-owned businesses can be very good for the workers, may or may not be good for society. Publicly owned businesses can serve the nation best or can turn into state capitalism. I think there are valid reasons for a mix of public ownership, worker-owned businesses, and family businesses.
IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BOTHER READING THE DETAILS, SKIP DOWN TO "SUMMARY" AT THE END.
Public ownership:
I suspect that the regimentation of a nation where all businesses were publicly owned would stifle creativity and be unbearably oppressive for many, certainly me for one. Such a world would seem little different than the world of ants laboring for their common industry, the nest.
I shudder to think of such a life. I also believe that no amount of theorizing could prevent such a nation from being ruled by a bureaucracy (Marx's big worry) that could easily turn into a form of state capitalism similar to the Stalinist Soviet Union.
Worker-owned businesses:
I believe that worker-owned businesses are a good model for businesses of modest size. The model seemed to work well in Yugoslavia in Tito's time, and is being implemented in Venezuela. The advantage is the workers get what they earn, they don't have to share the fruits of their labor with some fat cat investor. There are perils, however.
Workers who own their business want the same thing the investor capitalist does: profit. General-Dynamics owned by the workers would still make weapons for the world, Monsanto owned by the workers would still create a stranglehold on foodstuffs and agriculture. The only difference would be the workers pay would be a lot higher, but the evil would not change.
Investor-owned businesses (capitalism):
Hardly any need to go into this here: capital allows those that have it to get more of it from the workers who thereby get less. Every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. The result is a percentage of the population lives in luxury off the rest of the population who eventually become wage slaves - truly slaves with little option but to work for "the man."
A mix:
Publicly owned businesses currently include some public utility companies, public transportation companies which are usually local. Publicly owned national businesses include a health insurance industry: Medicare. Another is a publicly owned retirement industry: Social Security. Most Americans who have been polled like these publicly-owned industries.
The local and regional publicly owned bus and light rail systems work well as do those places that have publicly owned public utilities. To these I would have all interstate transportation including air, rail, and bus be publicly owned. An integrated system could provide far better extended service, use less energy, and money could be spent where best used such as on rail service instead of subsidizing the air industries airports, the bus industries highways, and all the executives, and stock holders.
I would make the entire pharmaceutical industry publicly-owned so that research could go into what is needed, not to what is profitable. Take away the outrageous profits from the investors and CEOs and no one who needs medicines would have to go without. I'd point out that much of the research for medicines and many other things are already publicly-supported through research in universities which receive public funds and then the funds are given to private enterprise to make some rich off the many.
I would make the airways all publicly owned like they were before the friends of the fat cats gave them away.
I believe family farms are more productive in the long run and better for society. I also think that worker-owned small businesses and possibly even some fairly large worker-owned businesses can be more beneficial to a society as well as the individuals in business.
The ability of some to amass sufficient capital and the means of production to control access to what people need, to control government, and therefore control people who become renters, wage slaves, debtors, beholden to bosses, who lose their civil rights during working hours is little different under capitalism than it was through those medieval and ancient times of Kings, Emperors, Czars, Barons, Counts, serfs, and slaves. Same systems, different nomenclature.
National publicly owned businesses, local publicly owned businesses, worker-owned businesses, small-businesses in which the owner is a worker, and family farms all provide for the needs of society and options and opportunity for the individual. Private capital-owned businesses offer no advantage over these except to those who have capital who can exploit those that don't have capital.
Without allowing individuals to get power over others through the amassing of investment capital, and through a true bottom-up constitutional representative democracy - what Marx called the "dictatorship of the proletariat", the US wouldn't overtly appear much different than today: some folks would go to work on a farm, except it would be their farm; some would go to a factory just like they do today, but it would be their factory - they would be owners.
Some would fly aircraft, some would operate trains, some would drive buses, some would work in factories, some on farms, some in offices, some operating machines, some digging ditches, some assisting doctors or dentists, but whatever they would be doing, a large part of their labor would be retained by them, not given over to owners, bosses, stock-holders and multi-millionaire CEOs.
SUMMARY:
National public ownership can be better for enterprises that serve all the people across the nation: health insurance, retirement insurance, national and international transportation. Public ownership can be better for businesses that are very large and vital to public needs such as pharmaceuticals, energy systems such as the electrical grid system, and mining.
Whatever system a nation has, there will never be a fair system where the needs of all people will be met equally until capital to exploit and control the many is kept out of the hands of a few and kept in the control of the many.
Wonderful post, thank you.
"I would make the entire pharmaceutical industry publicly-owned so that research could go into what is needed, not to what is profitable."
I couldn't agree more! I wonder how much of the price of all these medications is from the advertising costs from marketing them?
WORKERS DEMOCRACY vs STATE CONTROL
Yes Carol, I agree, worker and worker/community co-ops are the way to go. State ownership of the entire economy is state capitalism, and Karl Marx himself didn't like it. He wanted workers' control at the point of production.
History has shown that state ownership is often at war with direct workers' democracy. That was the case in the early Soviet Union, when from 1918 to '21 the party/state expropriated factories which had already been taken over by workers' committees; it was true in Civil War Spain (1936-'39) when the Communist Party literally massacred anarchist and alternative Marxist party members, guaranteeing fascist victory; and it was true at the end of the Soviet Union. When Gorbachev proposed that factory managers be elected by workers to take the place of managers, (the "nominklatura") appointed by the Party, the Party apparatus first forced him to change this policy and then overthrew him. (The irony here is that many of the "nominklatura" then went on to own factories under the capitalist restoration which they had managed under "socialism.")
There is also a complex struggle going on now between state ownership and workers' control in Venezuela. The state oil company does not do very much to aid the thousands of new workers' co-ops, and resists "co-participation" by workers in its own facilities.
In the United States surveys have shown that direct workers' democracy is much more popular than state control. Obviously this is not a question which is asked very often, but in 1975 the "Peoples' Bicentennial Committee" found that a strong majority wanted to elect their own bosses, but less than 10% wanted to work for the government.
So if we are going to have a "revolution" in this country, let's not do it in the name of state control which a) nobody wants, and b) hasn't worked very well. In America, worker/community democracy has a much greater chance of success, and leads to true liberation. And when we talk to "socialists," it is important to find out right away what they mean by the word.
correct. that is so simple -- but strong forces try to keep people from acknowledging and accepting that it is TO THE GOOD of all that it ought to be so -- and BACK to the COMMONS
where NO ONE really OWNS anything of THIS EARTH...and the ONLY REAL WeALTH created is that THROUGH PEOPLE with THEIR collective, aggregate work ON the land that the earth has given us....NOT the "wealth" created by capitalists RIDING on the backs of the labor of people by WITHHOLDING from people not ONLY their common ownership of land and earth -- if "ownership" it can be called (such as the artificiality of the "private property rights") - since we really are just "renters" ALL OF US on this earth - but also denying people the TRUE value of THEIR labor by arbitrarily placing themselves (like bankers, etc.) as the DECIDERS of "value".
...when in fact they are JUST PARASITES upon the larger society and PARASITES upon land that really belongs to NO ONE.
I agree completely with all you have said here, Teddy, but good grief, man, it is annoying and difficult to read through all those unnecessary upper case words.
I, and I suspect others might, tend to avoid reading comments that seem to shout with capitals. No offense meant, just a suggestion.
I agree, I skip reading his posts just because of the mix of capitalized and not words. I will capitalize a whole phrase, but that's about it.
while capitalism continues on its journey of corrupting EVERYTHING it touches...whether it's the earth, or people, or ethical instincts...one thing to be optimistic about is:
IF we survive its consequences of WAR, Imperialism, famines, exploitation, resentments, selfishness, greed, waste, inefficiency, consumption to no end for its own sake, the DEHUMANIZATION of humanity, capitalism , marx WAS correct, and it was also further analyzed by others such as Schumpeter - INDEED CREATES the conditions for ITS own demise. and PART of that is how people, the thing that we all hope and wish for :
from all walks of life, cultures, histories -- GRADUALLY come around to the SAME conclusion -- capitalism IS destructive and WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.
until eventually -- its "adherents", evenutally, fewer an d fewer of them , will be LIKE islands in a storm of not just defiance, but be the ones treated as OUTCASTS of the system of human society .
it will take time, obviously.
but even people who have lived and functioned all their lives in the capitalist system, perhaps never even imagining it to be even a discussion -- or evne IDENTIFY it as such - eventually come around to the MONSTER that it is, as well as the people who adhere to it as their way of being "important".
FUNNY -- JUST TODAY -- i overheard a quick exchange between a very old lady in a nursing home and the "boss" or CEO ...
the old lady , being wheeled around, noticed the "boss" walking around doing his usual rounds of "ensuring the efficiency" of things - in his well-tailored suit and tie...
the old lady remarked to the "boss" --- "excuse me, can you tell me who you are?"
the boss replied:
"oh i'm the boss here, the main manager".,....
the lady gave a quick huff and said: ?"Really? of WhAT? because you walk around with your chest out like that over your big belly? you think you're important? because you have titles and an office? ...the trouble with the system is some people think you're all more important than you REALLY are, listen.....the ones that are REALLY important here are the women whose backs and arms are breaking to wipe us and bathe us and carry us to and from bed because there are not enough of them that you employ and pay properly...not people like YOU!!! ".
i don;'t know if her visitor was embarrassed for HER or for the "boss" - coz , the old lady certainly KNEW and saw right through things. lol.
I was so shocked to hear her give him an earful! it is LIKE the way people gradually SEE RIGHT THROUGH the "importance" of capitalism.
Thank you Teddy, and thank you "Very Old Lady." There is a good chance, though, that our nursing home hero has been a socialist or a labor militant all her life; truthtelling and courage like hers rarely spring up in an instant.
What an opportunity for some powerful organizing! An active organizer seizes the moment. What are the worst grievances of the clients, and of the staff? How can they be brought together to communicate, plan and protest? How can they reach out to family members, unions, newspapers and radio stations? How can all of us learn to see the connections between our immediate suffering and the larger system?
If more of us can learn how to connect people with each other, and not just electronically but face to face, then we can all move towards Walden Bello's democratic and decentralized society, and there will be no need to wait for a meteor.
Good will to all,
Laurence
Great strides have been made in documenting the direct relationship between the globalized agribusiness model and starvation of millions. To conflate ignorance of the research with a religious perspective is a projection of a sales pitch with a double standard - at least it is consistant with the globalization industry norm.
Millions of people, millions of square miles are suffering from over use of chemicals, loss of biodiversity, slave and degrading labor, destruction of long standing resilient and evolving local and regional economies for the top-down power oriented juggernaut.
Globalization is hitting the ecological wall, destroying societies, water systems, (like ours for instance???) - the green revolution has been an ethnocentric anthropomorphized wolf in sheeps clothing. Even a wolf in its natural habitat is a desireable creature; it does not dress up in sheepskin. Globalization is a profoundly destabilizing religion.
Why is there only one accepted form of science? Could it be because it only recognizes its own cultural roots? Transnationals are not being scientifically honest. The privelege of skewing research ... to what end after the facts come out? Non-nutritive GMO corn for ethanol cross polinates with food stocks, etc...
Note that those who are proposing the monoculture model are the same ones who have built an impermeable seed bank near the artic circle.
Sioux Rose
OLD GOAT: Of all the goals listed, what troubled me the most (as apparently it did you) was the aggressive interest in the use of biogenetically engineered products. Thank you for pointing out just some of the flaws of these Frankenplants.
Rose ,you and Old Goat both picked up on that too.They want to save Capitalism from itself so that they can patent all life.Then they control all food water energy money creation.Decentralised organic agriculture with saved heirloom seeds,is what Africa indeed the world needs.We don't need thier stinkin' GMOs and roundup ready crap.This plan has been contaminated by international bankers. peace ,happy solstice ,Merry Christmas,
Against these observations must be posed the most valuable assets owned by capital: the identities (hearts and minds) of persons in the developed world which are too stunted to produce bottom-up solutions, but can be mobilized against top-down solutions that would not benefit capital. With each passing day, the world can be seen coming closer to its final end: choking to death in a toxic atmosphere.
Pray for the asteroid at 12-20-2012, 30:45, 101:20.
If you're praying for the end of the world, why not just kill yourself now and spare yourself the suffering? Since you don't seem inclined to do anything to improve it.
Ouch, zmann, that's a bit harsh!
On the other hand you do seem to have a valid point.
As for me, I must confess, like ClassAct I tend to see more doom and gloom than light for the world, but don't see a good reason for wanting it to end soon, at least not until I can find a bakery in this town that knows how to make a light flaky pie crust. I'm resigned to living a long time waiting for that to happen:)
If ClassAct did kill himself, I wonder if that could be considered a class act?
Well, it's because my brother acts in a similar fashion, claiming his illness prevents him from doing anything with his life...I don't have any sympathy for people who refuse to do anything to improve things. I plan on trying to improve the world my entire life, I can't imagine doing anything else. Why doesn't this guy do something?
"# A “Second Green Revolution” must be put into motion, especially in Africa, through the widespread adoption of genetically engineered seeds.
# Huge investments must be devoted to push the global economy along more environmentally sustainable paths, with government taking a leading role (“Green Keynesianism” or “Green Capitalism”);"
Contradictory propositions.
It's a promising form of collective capitalism though, but the most important proposition was left out:
Bring human populations back to carrying capacity humanely by providing universal birth control programs instead of leaving population reduction to famine, disease and the military. Without this proposition, all others will fail.
A reduction in famine, disease and the military IS a birth control program. As soon as ordinary people have enough wealth to educate their children and provide for their old age they no longer need to raise an army of children to ensure social security, and birth control becomes a reasonable idea. This has been shown positively in many Latin and Asian countries, and negatively in Africa, where poverty and fertility go together.
Sioux Rose
EZE: I agree with the humanitarian nature of this proposal, and salute you in working your mind to come up with egalitarian means for sharing the planet's wealth, and spreading power around. You are true to the calling and privileges associated with the Zodiac's 11th kingdom, and it's hour is near upon the great cosmic stage.
Thanks Sioux Rose. In Army ROTC, we were taught a ridiculously simple 3 step problem solving process which was to recognize the problem, consider solutions and take action. Too many get hung up on the first step and never proceed to the 2nd and third.
Gee, if only our elected officials were taught that.
Agreed ...
A "Green Revolution" with GM crops is also contradictory.
And if we don't control our population then nature will do it for us at great suffering.
The first green revolution has been hyper-dependent on fossil fuel and centralized mega capital.
If a second green revolution looks anything like the first, it will make a few people very rich at the expense of the people it purports to help.
If a second green revolution is based on a low fossil fuel, decentralized power production, decentralized capitalization paradigm it would be viable.
"A “Second Green Revolution” must be put into motion, especially in Africa, through the widespread adoption of genetically engineered seeds."
What the hell? That's the most retarded thing ever. Why not try focusing on food crops for domestic consumption rather than cash crops for hard currency and exports? Not to mention organic farming to eliminate reliance on chemicals and fertilizers.
My guess at the author's intent is that genetic enhancements of seeds is the quickest and best way to get improvements in yields in the often harsh African environments. Great strides have occurred with corn yields and the same is possible with most other plants. I realize that a lot of progressive liberals are anti-science just as many fundamentalist Christians disdain science when it conflicts with their core beliefs. But science will march on whether we like it or not. We can but slow it or speed it up depending on our collective inclination.
Greg R wrote:
"I realize that a lot of progressive liberals are anti-science...."
COMMENT:
The above statement suffers seriously from flawed logic and questionable statistics.
Statistics:
What is "a lot"? and where are the studies that support this contention of "a lot"?
Logic:
If there are "progressive liberals," it must follow that there are regressive liberals, or at least unproggressive liberals. And who are these regressive liberals? And how could you define them thus when the very word liberal means progressive. The word "progressive" is the first synonym for "liberal" given in Merriam Webster's International III.
Finally, that broad statement is both wrong and insulting to the many "liberal" or "progressive" experts in food production who produce food using organic methods and heritage seeds. Methods that have produced food crops on soil that had been considered too poor for growing anything.
"Genetic enhancements of seeds" is just one more way to support capitalistic usury. It is the capitalists' lip-service to their claim of being able to meet the world's food requirements while their motive is to seek high profits from the labors of others who they dupe with a false lure of profit and plenty.
These liberal/progressive food growers don't use the scientifically engineered products that chemical and genetic engineering companies have designed to enslave small farmers and give short-term, low-labor profits to agribusiness investors.
These "liberal" food growers are, however, very pro-science. They use science to study soils, diseases, productivity.
I recall Highway 30, the old "Lincoln Highway" running through Iowa's corn country. Fences along this highway were decorated like crows on a phone line with signs for DeKalb and Pioneer seed corn.
My granddad listened politely to the guy from the Agriculture Department extoll the virtues of hybrid seeds and artificial fertilizers. Granddad spit some tobacco juice off to one side, thanked the man for his suggestions and very wisely ignored them.
Granddad, like most of his Bohemian farmer neighbors, saved the best seeds from his crops every year, seeds that proved the very best on his land. He scooped up the droppings of cattle, pigs, chickens, horses - kept at least one team until he retired forty years after he got his first tractor. Then he used his manure-spreader to scatter the manure on his fields. Rotated his crops, retired at 65, and at the age of 103 died leaving behind a very fine farm and a lot of money in the bank.
I had an opportunity to study the accounts of a number of farmers who were about to lose their farms. I looked at the cost of fuel to run tractors and other machinery, the yearly cost of seeds, the yearly cost of chemical fertilizers, and even herbicides. These "modern" farmers failed: you could read of those thousands of family farms that were lost during the "oil crises" Nixon years.
Granddad who, like his old-time Bohemian farmer neighbors, had stubbornly continued in the all natural organic way lived a comfortable, financially secure life, leaving behind a very fine farm and lots of money to his heirs.
But, even if this weren't true, and it is, it has been shown over and over again that there is plenty of food in the world, plenty of land upon which to grow it.
As Francis Ford Lappe pointed out years ago, "feeding the earth's people is more profoundly a political and economic problem" than an agricultural one.
My use of the term 'progressive liberal' was meant to imply a mind-set left of the average moderate liberal. I've farmed my whole life: a lot of decades. Today's gm corn is an amazing (no pun intended) product. It yields. It stands. It handles drought. It dries naturally. It's been years since I've used any propane to dry my crops. Trying to save corn seed and re-plant it nowdays would drive you to bankruptcy. We used to save soybean seed, but now it's illegal. Adding roundup-ready technology to beans originally hurt yields. Now they're back to even, but it's only a matter of time until they're better. The whole issue of having a financial incentive to create better seed and the criminalizing of saving seed for re-plant is a difficult and troubling problem, and of course there are dangers. Our best hope is to elect smart, caring people, who help see to it that government regulates and works for us and not just for big corporations. It's a never ending battle. By the way, the best pie crusts are made with butter and/or Crisco, so go easy on the pie.
As Parallax mentioned, GM seeds have been proven to actually REDUCE crop yields...they are not a solution to hunger. And I am in no way anti-science, I just think introducing non-plant genes into a food crop is a foolish idea...and it has yet to be proven to provide much of a benefit (sure some rice or whatever varieties have extra minerals and such, but you can get those from eating more varied foods anyway). I am all for genetic engineering when it comes to curing diseases and such in people, but keep that stuff out of food.
Don't conflate "science" or "progress" automatically with "good".
Most reports I have seen fail to confirm much in the way of improved yields - unless it be into the coffers of the likes of Monsanto. These companies have something to sell you - they will tell you what you want to hear. Very few of their wares have been properly vetted.
Sioux Rose
PARALLAX: Thank you for sharing your wisdom and exposure to the facts, as opposed to the hype.
I don't think Walden Bello was endorcing the Global Social Democratic (GSD) propositions, he was just pointing them out.
Thank you, Stephen, that is exactly right.
This sounds too good to be true; so, of course, it's too good to be true. Capitalism, especially in this country, is the non-stop mantra of I want it, I want it, I want it. Consequences be damned. I want it. I must have it. I'm taking it. Try and stop me and I'll kill you and leave your body to rot in the sun and be eaten by vultures. Obama will have to be the political equivalent of Shakespeare or Da Vinci to put a stop to it. I hope he is. If he isn't, then Scorched Earth American capitalism will consume all the fuel, all the oxygen, then finally go out.
Mordechai, I loved the way you expressed this.
I think you will prove correct if it goes ON this way.
Capitalism CAN NOT BE SAVED. all the generations of "corrections" as the free marketers like to say - whether through eventual government interventions to "save" capitalism "for another day" , or through "letting the market correct itself" (which doesn't EXIST) - are all NOTHING MORE THAN trying to PATCH UP a body that is DISEASED from the very beginning.
IF its fundamentals: "compete, compete compete" under CLEARLY artificially induced "scarcity" - is already WRONG , added to the fundamentally self-destructive and self-consuming CANCEROUS state that it is built on , how can a DISEASED BODY survive ITS own cancerous self-consumption? it can't.
it JUST ISN"T Worth saving. NEITHER is it "too big to fail" -- NOR "the only way" .
if anything it is like parasitic INVENTION - it's like a tape-worm..it DOESN"T belong to a healthy body even as it lives in that body for years . and needs to be removed if the body it invades is to be healthy again.
but the TAPE WORM ITSELF can't be allowed to live.
\
humankind is a SOCIAL animal we all say. it is SOCIALIST in nature...where if an individual is REMOVED , detached from the larger body -- that individual will wither away eventually, alone, starved and having a meaningless life.
capitalism UNDERMINES this natural existence through its TWISTED economics.