Is not the money being expended to prop up Wall Street which is in excess of the minimum required to prevent collapse a colossal waste? Most of the effort seems devoted to protecting from the consequences of their actions the very individuals and organizations that caused the problem. And all efforts have been taken to avoid extracting any price in terms of freeing the US Government from servitude to the financial sector. Is there not an enormous opportunity cost involved for that money, as opposed to money spent on infrastructure?
Has not the baleful influence of financial and business interests on higher education been well demonstrated, at least in part by the triumph and tenure of Neo-Classical Economics in the academy, in government policy and in the public mind? Have not Sinclair Lewis and Mason Gaffney shown in clear detail how this came about?
Is not the "externalization" of almost all of the environmental downside of the current Anglo Capitalism system an enormously effective device to reserve profits to a few and dump the cost on the vast majority? And has not this process brought the livability of our planet into peril? Can we conceivably continue on this course for another 90 years without catastrophic consequences? Can we conceivably alter course without altering the mindset and socio-economic organization that has given rise to this condition?
Is everyone convinced that the "barbarian mind" as so defined above, consisting of war and plunder abroad in the service of domestic virtue has been totally vanquished? Was Bush then correct in his assertions of the necessity of invading Iraq? Is Chevron then going to voluntarily pay to mitigate the damages it caused in the Amazonian basin of Equador? Etc? Etc? Have all of these corporations learned their lessons and will they voluntarily, and, out of a sense of their interest and that of the world as a whole, planning on doing a more responsible job going forward and supporting regulations that will require such behavior of all?
If all the above changes have indeed happened, then we might avoid even a four degree centigrade increase in average ambient temperature of the earth and may be able to keep some ice on Greenland and West Antarctica into the 22nd century. But I do not see that any of those questions can be answered affirmatively.
Just because one finds the tone of an article annoying doesn't mean that the substance claimed is invalid. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Market-fundies deify "the individual" and "the market" to the point of closing their eyes to extortion, oppression and even outright murder as long as it is profitable (according to their rather non-intuitive definition of profit...). But this tract - if we are to take it at its word - proposes that private ownership of, say, a windmill is irreconcilable with building a just and sustainable society. I fail to see how that is any more productive than blind worship of Wall Street.
And to add insult to injury, there is more than a whiff of anti-industrialism - a school of thought that is nonsense at the best of times, and more frequently worse.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Rabid anti capitalism is up there with all other rabid states, would I add diplomatically.
It turns protesters into mad dogs barking up the wrong tree. PA Patrice Ayme Patriceayme.com Patriceayme.wordpress.com http://tyranosopher.blogspot.com/
Even birds of paradise gather capital.
Huh?
attacking capitalism per se is as stupid as a war on terror. its an abstraction that has little to do with reality, which is trade.
there have been historical examples of wise rule and government where the populace was content enough to go along with the program, and even content to allow significant status difference and class systems, as long as they stayed within some bright line and scraps were plentiful.
extreme inequality is morally offensive as well as myopically greedy, but too often the drug of power feeds the sociopathy and hubris, till the inevitable blowback... when the elite get too far from the rest of the herd, the herd will teach them a lesson. one could speculate the herd even need an elite, as something to sacrifice, just as ancient civilisations fattened the prettiest boy and girl, festooned them with flowers, then threw them off a cliff. set up the skittles for the rush of knocking them over.
cleverness has displaced wisdom, grab the max now like a thief, because deep down there is a guilty knowledge, hidden in the subconscious, that the arc of justice would scythe sometime, so the more you could screw out of the system, the more you could hold the fear at bay with the intoxication of risk and the illusion of safety surrounded by paid thugs bought 'security'...
the dissolution of trust through the cancerous institutionalisation of mendacity has the consequences we now see unfold.
capitalism is a straw man being attacked, and while 99% of it maybe pure undiluted evil, pretending that tha concept itself is broken is to say no one is doing ethical business today, which is patently untrue.
absolutism run amok
this omission condemns the dissertation as less than serious, though the trust of the message -sans hyperbole- most assuredly is...
if you try and demonise the trust and mutual benefit of honest trade without suggesting anything systemically better that will realistically supplant a system-set that has taken millennia to evolve to the currently nasty mutation we see daily splashed across the media, not only will your argument be weakened, but you'll actively turn off people who would be ready to consider modulating their mindset, were it not for the globally accusative tone.
capitalism can't and shouldn't be extinguished or avenged, it needs to be pruned back to the quick. (and quick, lol). it's the only way to rediscover true value, something we have now wedded to spurious conceits.
it's too big a job for tiny humans though, way above our paygrade.....that's ok, it'll happen anyway, force majeure, no need for martyrs and demagogues, no need to crash a plane that's already in its death glide, fuel gauge in the red.
honest trade and trust has morphed into a sci fi horror flick, it's probably futile to expect different, people have been so thoroughly programmed.
when will we ever learn? any way but the hard way, that is? ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
The problem with the article is that it pretends that capitalism is fundamentally irreconcilable with survivable social development. It has the same fundamental problem as the market-worshippers, only with the opposite sign convention
I will concede that the title of the Tikkun piece might be a bit hyperbolic. But I have read the article from which the quote was taken without offense and with general agreement. Asserting the need to preserve a viable biosphere certainly implies significant change in how we conceive and execute industrial production and the current version of Anglo Capitalism has proven very resistant to such change. It appears to me that it is this existing form of Capitalism that is particularly the object of the question "can capitalism be saved?" and "should capitalism be saved?" The actual title of the Tikkun article is "Why Capitalism Shouldn't Be Saved." Again I believe he is referring to Anglo Capitalism.
My own answer to the question "can capitalism be saved?" is "Perhaps, depending on how it is regulated." To the question "should capitalism be saved?" I would answer "not in its current US form. It is a cancer that is destroying the society, the economy and the biosphere." My own view of the prospects is that the existing system will lurch from disaster to disaster over the next two or three years and that, should it survive intact, it will eventually take the entire biosphere down with it. The prospects for moderating the behavior of the existing system seem to be on the same order as those for wresting control of the US Government from the grasp of the existing financial elite.
While I do not believe "that capitalism is fundamentally irreconcilable with survivable social development", I do not see such a reconciliation occurring within the framework of the existing system, where the US Government is a captive of the financial elite. I would prefer to be wrong than to see the existing system take us all where it seems to be headed, but I fear that I am right.
Perhaps I have not been sufficiently exposed to "Frankfurt school PC cultural marxism" to develop the intellectual antibodies that seem to have been aroused in yourself and, to a greater extent, Starvid. I do not see that the author ruled out all forms of capitalism or private ownership or even proposed a specific solution. I have to wonder if you are not imputing positions to these authors that they have not themselves stated. Or perhaps the authors are known to you from other works or circumstances.
It seems to me that the views expressed by the two authors cited in De's diary are quite similar to those that many have stated here and that they should be seen as allies, not enemies. If not, please explain why. Geezers want to know.
As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
The point is that either bankers are our lords and owners, or we consider them quasi employees of the State, complete with fiduciary duty and tightly regulated with something like a Hypocratic oath.
The present form of political-financial system in the USA has zero future, be it only because it is destroying the USA, and can subsist only through subsidies from the poorest to the richest (which goes not through taxes, but by depriving most of the population of basic services.)
PA Patrice Ayme Patriceayme.com Patriceayme.wordpress.com http://tyranosopher.blogspot.com/
Fractional Reserve banking introduces a fiduciary duty and calls to make bankers officers of the State. Because only the State, as the will of the People, should have the power of creating money and giving newly created money to whomever it pleases. Patrice Ayme Patriceayme.com Patriceayme.wordpress.com http://tyranosopher.blogspot.com/
I agree that levies on privilege - which operate as taxes on wealth - would assist in redistributing wealth so that purchasing power is more widely spread and people become more credit worthy. But such fiscal remedies have almost nothing to to do with monetary problems.
Finally, while I agree with ownership in common (whuich is not necessarily ownershipby the State), I doubt whether a publicly operated clearing system would be any better than a privately operated one. Indeed, in some respects, it would probably be worse. I advocate a new form of Public/Private partnership model for utilities, as you know.
Making a Mint "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
yes they do. By preventing concentration of capital, and eliminating the ability to concentrate capital simply by capitalising interest, you prevent attempts at exponential growth of money. It's highly relevant. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
And if so, how do you propose to apply a Wealth Tax to it? "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Jerome a Paris:
you prevent attempts at exponential growth of money.
AFAIK nothing other than defaults and debt deflation prevents exponential growth of money based on interest-bearing debt. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
but I see no reason why we can't continually create more value from the same material resources available to us, by being smarter about it.
I agree with that: Knowldge is key.
I think that the introduction of a truly connected knowledge economy will unleash colossal value, and provided these gains are spread equitably then there should be no problem.
As things stand, they would not be, of course, but if the broken status quo continues, these gains will not be made, since IMHO the key to unleashing knowledge value is a collaborative and open enterprise model.
I think that levies on privilege - particularly the privileges of exclusive rights of use of land/location; non-renewables; and knowledge - are the best way that this evolution may be achieved. I would drastically cut taxes on earned income - to maybe 10% - remove all other taxes entirely, and replace means-tested benefits with National Dividends.
No chance of any of that of course because privileged turkeys don't vote for Christmas, but I think that the evolution of P2P finance can and will have the same outcome. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
So you would get rid of the estate tax and capital gains taxes?
Could you describe or point me to an example of how you would levy an exclusive right of use of knowledge? Would you levy exclusive right of use of artistic work? An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern. -- Tony Benn in Sicko
Indeed I would, since the levies I propose would capture the relevant value more certainly and more efficiently, I believe.
marco:
Could you describe or point me to an example of how you would levy an exclusive right of use of knowledge?
The mechanism I would use is a Limited Liability Levy on gross revenues of Corporations collected simply and unavoidably via the clearing system.
After all, an increasingly large part of the value of such Corporations consists of the intellectual capital of knowledge, experience and gumption residing between its employees' ears and the objectified intellectual property it owns.
I would also get rid of Corporation Tax, VAT and tax on dividends. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
is this minimal taxing aspect of your thinking a recent development, or did i miss it when you have presented it earlier? An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern. -- Tony Benn in Sicko
I have long been convinced by the Georgist rationale for a Land Value Tax - ie a tax on the privilege of exclusive rights of land use - but I had not extended the logic of taxation of privilege much further until the last few months.
For a while I thought that tax on earned income might be unnecessary and maybe unjustified, but I think that a tax on earned income could be considered as a levy made on the privileges of security, education and good healthcare which a decent Society provides to all.
If a Location Benefit Levy; Non-Renewables Levy and Limited Liability Levy etc were applied, then I doubt whether taxation on earned income need be set too high. It would be interesting - but a major task, I suspect - to run the numbers.
By way of example, in Hong Kong, land taxation raises around 35% of the tax take, and until the current government capped it about 8 years ago, I understand that Denmark's land tax raised about 30%. In the absence of these taxes, then taxation of earned income would have to rise to levels which would probably be unacceptable -in Hong Kong at least. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Would you levy exclusive right of use of artistic work?
In relation to copyrights owned by individuals (rather than corporations), I think that a levy on gross revenues would be appropriate.
I'm not sure about patents: certainly a levy on revenues received by individuals. I would also wish to encourage the use of patents through a "use it or lose it" provision, perhaps. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Fractional reserve banking is (with the "For Profit" Corporation) one of the chief drivers of inflation
There is nothing wrong with inflation that cannot be solved by index-linking wages and public transfers and pursuing an active exchange rate policy.
and also of unrestricted and unsustainable economic growth.
The monetary system is the tail. The dog is the fact that our societies fail to price in externalities and seek to punish everyone who does not clock a full 40 hour work week.
If you have to pay the real cost of things the whole capitalist investment concept falls apart. The Fates are kind.
Asserting the need to preserve a viable biosphere certainly implies significant change in how we conceive and execute industrial production
That depends on what you mean by "significant change." Inasmuch as you mean "simply" that we have to cut back on our consumption of useless crap, that we have to redesign our cities to be habitable to people without a car and that we have to start making the stuff we do deem it desirable to make in ways that do not prevent our children from making that stuff in the same ways, then I'm all with you.
But none of this requires abandoning capitalism, nevermind industrial production.
and the current version of Anglo Capitalism has proven very resistant to such change.
No argument there. The American version of capitalism should be shot in the back of the head and dumped in an open ditch.
But the American version of government should also be shot in the back of the head and dumped in an open ditch. As Jerome never tires of pointing out, this does not mean that government has screwed up American - it means that Americans have screwed up their government.
Again I believe he is referring to Anglo Capitalism.
Thereby conceding to the Fukuyamaites that Anglo capitalism is the only form of capitalism. That is the part that bugs me most.
I do not see that the author ruled out all forms of capitalism or private ownership or even proposed a specific solution.
OK, that's a significant difference in reading. If your reading is correct, then my critique is largely nonsense.
I have to wonder if you are not imputing positions to these authors that they have not themselves stated. Or perhaps the authors are known to you from other works or circumstances.
Not the authors per se, but the style and tone is. And it rubs me the wrong way. But I'll admit that rubbing me the wrong way may have caused me to read it in a way that does not quite do it justice.
It seems to me that the views expressed by the two authors cited in De's diary are quite similar to those that many have stated here and that they should be seen as allies, not enemies.
Valid point. As practical politics goes, I suspect that we'll find a lot of common ground.
