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Moving Further from the Common Good
If we have a pool we want to fill with water, does it make more sense to turn on a faucet and fill it up, or to hire pilots to seed the clouds and try to make it rain? Cloud-seeding, like our current approach to dealing with unemployment, would be discredited "trickle down" theory with a vengeance! --"Let's End Unemployment Once and for All" by Paul deLespinasse
In the past thirty years we have been persuaded by a Grand Fable that the central freedom of democratic capitalism is the freedom of the rich to broker their money to get richer, because that makes everyone richer.
There are some satellite myths: only the private sector creates jobs and wealth; deficits are always bad and a burden on our children; poor people have to "take responsibility" for their own health, welfare and retirement; people are poor because they are lazy, selfish, stupid, or greedy; the rich must be free of taxes so they can create more jobs and then we can tax the "little people" who do the work; private schools provide better education than public schools; private capital is necessary to underwrite the innovations in science, technology and manufacturing necessary to meet the present challenges of food, energy, and natural resources. Any questioning of these myths is met with accusations of "socialism" or "nanny state."
So we have a health insurance industry that doesn't provide any health care, diagnosis, surgery, nursing, or therapy and doesn't do R & D. They only sit in the middle and broker the cash between you and your health care providers, while skimming off about a third of that cash in profits.
So taxpayers underwrite building nuclear power plants because private entrepreneurs won't risk their fortunes on such hazardous ventures.
So big oil and coal mining companies generate huge profits for their shareholders while the costs - of both success and failure - are paid by taxpayers and consumers, and the risks to life and livelihood are borne by countless humans and wild creatures.
So we hear calls for raising the age to collect Social Security to 70 in order to save money on the deficit, even though a major consequence will be that fewer jobs are freed up for young people entering the job market.
So we are constantly pushed to "Go Green" by paying bills online. It may save some trees; even more it will save money for profits - not so much from paper and postage as from jobs - jobs of people with mortgages and children and aging parents.
So large private contractors profit from wars supported by the taxes of "little people" and the lives of youth who can't find jobs.
So now, although there are presently five unemployed workers for every job opening, Congress will not pass an unemployment benefits bill that would increase the debt-to-GDP ratio from 65.3% to 65.4% by the end of 2011.
Congressional Republicans seem to have hitched their wagons to unemployment in order to protect the tax cuts and profits of the rich, to preserve their ability to profit from Earth's resources and from weapons and wars of empire, and to keep the unemployed out of a job and broke until they vote for more Republicans. Likely outcomes: more unemployment, further declines in government revenues, more public costs for emergency health care, crime, domestic violence, and prisons, and more homelessness and hunger.
Predatory capitalism also has major goals for education: access to public money (local or national taxes) to make public schools into a new market for corporate development, and to get local school boards and teachers' unions out of all decision-processes for schools.
But it's not just the rich:. A dissatisfied letter-to-the-editor writer recently complained "[Politicians] care about power, greed, personal agendas and getting their way, regardless of their impact on people" and then went on to suggest that each person ask "Am I better off than I was in 2008? Have my taxes gone up? Is my income down? Do I still have a job? Do I feel safer? Have I lost some of my freedoms? "
To me, those questions are exactly about power, greed, personal agendas and getting one's way - not least because they are all expressed in terms of "I" and "my".
Where is the concern for the impact on others? Are our neighbors better off? Our community? The people of Afghanistan? Is everyone paying more taxes, or just those without tax loopholes or offshore tax havens? Has everyone's income increased? Or kept pace with the cost of living? Are there jobs in our communities? Are we all safer - including people who work in coal mines, or on the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico? Have we restricted some freedoms without due process of law?
Seeding the clouds of the rich to make it rain and fill all pools hasn't worked yet, but we seem to be further than ever from any consensus that we must maintain a public water supply from fair taxes, and use it for the common good: to invest in jobs, medical care, education, renewable energy and public infrastructure.
Worse, though consensus is emerging that the war in Afghanistan is not working, no one seems willing to stop that off-budget drain on our tax revenues and divert the flow back into our communities and nation.
21 Comments so far
Show AllThis is an excellent article that I strongly recommend even for us progressives and liberals as even our side has been falling into the YOYO trap. We are all independent people in so many ways but it is not a "dictatorship" to share ideas and do things together. If solid progressives, moderates, and liberals would unite and work on what we have in common, and it is more than what most realize, we wouldn't be in the doldrums by now.
AMEN SISTA!
America has to discover community. Right now, the idea of competition, always preached, rarely practiced, has led us to the point of facing extinction. Mostly the game has been fixed and power, monopoly and twisting justice have been the rule. Just like we as biological beings are here because of the cooperation of a multitude of different cells, the idea that we are all in this boat together hopefully will dawn on some of our representatives - in time to avoid total collapse.
Aptly put. Below is an example of confused people. You may think this is cute, in fact it is really a sad state of affairs. My commentary is below the link. Gods help us...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10588850.stm
These “dumbasses” can get together for this. However, they cannot get together to save their own asses. That is when it comes to stopping wars, and demanding that the taxes that they pay for supporting the madness of war, and the waste of war, be use for the people of this country.
Why aren’t they showing their asses and demanding , such things as healthcare, and fixing what is broken in America. A-holes like these should be challenging and demanding that our government bring back manufacturing to this country so that we have jobs and people can make decent livings again. Instead ….here they are “bending over” taking the stance like an already lost and submissive animal. Welcome to another brainless American nightmare.
CA lets them do all that? No wonder that state is going broke financially and in some ways morally. Trains are supposed to be one of the symbols of collective and cooperative action which would help avert global warming while gas guzzlers on the highway support individualism gone haywire to the point of damaging the environment. Do those people doing this to passing by trains want to tell us that they hate public transportation but have nothing against gas guzzlers on the highways? This is one symptom of many indicating the brainwashing of this nation with the Reagan/Bush2 ideology.
I do not really care about people's morals as long as what they do doesn't hurt anyone else.
However, their ignorance and choice of past time or rather waste of time in pursuing such a trivial use of the collective power of the human specie is terrifying.
Tough to have a nation or even a village when the official ideology is so libertarian, so every man for himself. Maybe we should bring in an international aid agency to set up the water supply and run it-- The way they do in Haiti.
Correct. The structure caters to our basest genetic wiring. Capitalism ensures that social evolution stagnates at the level of army ants. Or less.
We are living on table scraps of the wealthy. We should feed them better food!
"Trickle Down" theory: When they piss down your back and tell you it's raining. The same theory was used on the slaves in the south. Just bear these harsh burdens today and you will get your reward in heaven. Praise Jesus! Manyana! It's always manyana.
"Let's End Unemployment Once and for All"
Sounds sane enough. We are living the alternative. Ever increasing unemployment. Politicians boldly telling us that "those jobs are not coming back" (John Mc Cain). What is the end game here? What are decision maker's thinking? Or, is their strategy simply - to increase profit.
In Einstein's book, "The World As I See It", he predicted, in 1932, that in the future people would have to share jobs. There would not be enough work for everyone because of advances in technology. Automation has taken many workers jobs in the name of progress. To give "we the people" more leisure time, the theory went.
Jobs have been sent out of the country to save money on labor and skirt environmental regulations. The low wage work force has ballooned as a result of illegal immigration. Labor rates have been drive down across the board. HB1 visas have been issued to allow foreign professionals into the job market and depress skilled wages.
We are living capitalism gone wild. The jobs have left the building. The jobs that remain don't pay that well. Now what? What are we going to do with all the unemployed? We are going to feed and clothe them. Give them subsidized housing. We are going to treat them in emergency rooms. We are going to go further into debt until everything implodes.
Why not do what the Chinese do? They are a really wise people. (Read Confucius. He is like Jesus on steroids. (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/24055)). Example: The Chinese make use of manual labor. They understand that all their people were not meant to be engineers and doctors. They also recognize that all their citizens have basic needs. They use labor in place of machinery. Their people have jobs. Their people work for their subsidized housing, food stamps, clothing and socialized medicine.
In the USA we have bred a subculture of dependents because some MBA left "we the people" with no jobs at all. What were these "smartest guys in the room" thinking? What is their final solution? I'd bet they were only thinking of themselves and have no solutions at all. Where are those shovel ready projects Obama? We're still waiting for those to trickle down. No jobs. No recovery. No second term.
You seem to be completely unaware of labor conditions in China, and the nexus of that cheap labor to the companies who have taken American jobs overseas to exploit that same labor.
Ask yourself what our government would look like today if it (every branch and at almost every level) was under the effective control of powerful corporate interests. Ask yourself what a people fed a steady diet of bread and circuses would look like. Overlay all of that with an economic system that REQUIRES continued exponential growth on a finite planet.
We see an unsustainable system that enriches the few at the expense of the rest of creation. We see a system with an internal logic that sets up a pattern of perverse incentives that turns everything into "resources" to be exploited. We are operating under a political and philosophical framework that is 300-500 years old. You don't make ice cubes in the oven and you don't create a peaceful, sustainable world with global corporate capitalism.
"Capitalism" by any other name would be "cancer".
This article ought to be required reading in all the business schools across the country. For it is in these indoctrinating centers for the corporate structure that the relationship between capital and the common good is no longer seriously considered. Instead, the dominant model being espoused and revered is the trickle up school of thought (without feeling) that favors the concentration of wealth for the investor class. As it stands, with the country's manufacturing infrastructure having been shipped to China, the emphasis is on promoting the service sector economy which basically translates into a shrinking pool of available job opportunities. We are in the TOTAL GENTRIFICATION mode in America, where the rich get richer and the poor start to disappear. Just look at the way politics is conducted in the nation's capital. It is the interests of the wealthy that can afford to purchase access to the halls of Congress which get prioritized. For the remaining growing faceless new poor the result is taxation without representation. But this time around these Americans left behind do not have an occupying foreign power to blame. The U.S. is now an occupying foreign power in many countries around the globe and the exploiters and extortionists are homegrown and operating right here within its shores profiting at the expense of a great many faceless citizens being left behind.
Here's how a rich friend of mine put it. He has his Fuck everyone else. To the pt. and honest. He boiled down their attitude and all that leads from it. ME ME and after ME ME. FU!!
My old Granny had a slightly different take on it and it shows how far things have gone downhill since. She used to tellme "Sonny after me you come 1st" That was honest as well but atleast someone beside her was in her thinking. Today, it's YOYO for everyone child, parent and dog. It's DOG EAT DOG.
There is no reason we can't have a 30-hour work week, national healthcare, free education through university, affordable housing, and modern transportation - except that the American people don't want it. At least not enough to actually DEMAND freedom, justice, and a decent life. Nothing will change as long as the majority of people are unwilling to risk what they have in the fight for freedom and justice. And most Americans value their material possessions so much that they will give up everything - including their children's futures - to try to hang on to that last little bit of material goods (even as it all slips through their fingers). Americans prefer wealthy multi-billionaire criminals to run their country - and they're getting exactly what they're willing to pay for - less than nothing. They know the score as well as us - and they just don't care enough to do anything 'risky' about it. In other words - they are cowards, and prefer the 'security' of serfdom to freedom. (By the way, real serfs owned their own land, and paid taxes to the feudal lords for security - at least that's how it started.)
Agreed, though I might tend to have a bit more sympathy for Americans who have been purposefully kept ignorant and fed a steady diet of propaganda since birth.
No one is 'kept ignorant' - it's a choice they make. Propaganda exists all over the world. Granted, we are isolated, and thus it's that much easier for the sociopaths to take advantage and abuse us - but we all are born with a sense of justice, and we know the system we have isn't just or fair. Anyone who doesn't look into this descrepancy is in denial.
"Congressional Republicans seem to have hitched their wagons to unemployment in order to protect the tax cuts and profits of the rich, to preserve their ability to profit from Earth's resources and from weapons and wars of empire, and to keep the unemployed out of a job and broke until they vote for more Republicans."
She forgot to add "Democrats" after "Republicans" ....
Land of opportunity my ass,
Have you ever tried to get patent an invention?
It will cost you over 10000 dollars for the best lawyers or else your invention will get stolen or never see the light of day.
All the laws and regulations are designed to help large corporations stop any small competitions from getting started let alone surviving.
And eminent domain has been used to steal land form Americans so that County's can rezone and allow development that puts more tax dollars in their county's coffers.
Most wall-marts get property tax free deals to build super sores for 10 years. Imagine, all the small business's that go broke every time a Wall mart gets a sweet heart deal.
FACE THE TRUTH , REPUBLICANS SCREAM SOCIALISM TO COVER THEIR CORPORATE FASCIST ALLIANCES.
WE ARE NOTHING BUT DISPOSABLE CHEAP LABOR, AND THE JOBS THEY SAY THEY CREATE WHILE IN POWER ARE NOTHING BUT MINIMUM WAGE JOBS, AS THE EXPORT OUR MANUFACTURING JOBS OUT OF THE COUNTRY TO LOWER LABOR WAGE COUNTRY'S.
REPUBLICANS = FASCISTS = RELIGIOUS CONTROL = UNCONSTITUTIONAL WARRANT LESS SURVEILLANCE = LOW WAGES = HIGH INSURANCE COSTS = BIG BANK BAILOUTS = TRILLION DOLLAR WARS OF OCCUPATION AND EMPIRE = PROPAGANDA INSTEAD OF EDUCATION
Mitch Daniels, Governor of Indiana and floated as a candidate for President, came into Office and immediately tried to privatize everything that he could. Texas had just given up on privatization of food stamps and medicaid as it was a disaster. But Mitch kept repeating that individual caseworkers had high errors and "colluded" to commit fraud. He thought that IBM/ACS would save Indiana money and "drag Hoosiers into the Future". The Wall Street Journal, in 2007, said that if Indiana privatized food stamps, and it was successful, that it would open the door for 35 other States to privatize their programs. Now, 3 yrs later, the privatization has been stopped by the Feds. Indiana has been fined 1.2 million for high error rates. The people of Indiana in the half of the State that was privatized, are not receiving the food money that they are eligible for.
"Worse, though consensus is emerging that the war in Afghanistan is not working, no one seems willing to stop that off-budget drain on our tax revenues and divert the flow back into our communities and nation."
Are you mad woman? Divert the money back into our communities and nation? OMG, that would mean we would have to have a Congress that actually cares about the citizens of this country [And by citizens, I mean those making less than $250,000 a year or the 95% of all Americans NOT in the top 5% of income earners]. I'm not sure how to do that with my one vote, but I do not badmouth candidates running for public office and especially independent and democratic office contenders. I also challenge these candidates on their tax strategies. We have to question everything, especially republican assertions, motivations and authority.