Re: Branches of Clarity

Professor J,
I was taken aback at the brevity of your previous post. I trust that all is well.

Did you think I thought Capitalism a perfect system? No system, economic or otherwise, can ever be so. Although didn't Rand point out that it hasn't actually been tried anywhere, really? So perhaps we've never seen an authentic version to use for comparison. No organization, system, or institution is ever going to be able to solve some of the problems you name because you cannot legislate or regulate the heart of man. (A Biblical world view leads me to expect that while one system may work better than another, they are designed and utilized by fallible individuals and thus all hopelessly flawed.) You simply cannot make someone honest or trustworthy. How to legislate greed out of existence? How to make people want to do the right thing instead of the easy thing? All that can be done is to make them pay after the damage is done; we'll see how that turns out with BP. We can only hope that other oil (and chemical, etc.) companies are watching carefully and taking note of just how badly it could go.

Isn't some of this the result of regulation and our inability to drill where the oil is most accessible? The dream of course is to get off of oil altogether but we are still years from that so what to do in the interim? You make a good point that total lack of regulation can lead to excessive exploitation, but which is worse? They both seem equally problematic, dangerous even, and whatever thin line of balance exists somewhere in the middle cannot be theoretically worked out but would be found by a painful process of trial and error. Those who are looking to their own short term best interest will invariably find a way to make the most of, or get around, either extreme.

Perhaps the system wrecking itself and repairing itself is the way it ought to work. Is it possible that real Capitalism would work like building muscle? Working and tearing, letting it rest and repair, on and on until strength and the correction of faults is the result?

Chomsky's comments: In the spirit of full disclosure, my first reaction upon reading those comments was " How condescending." I think he's "reaching for the simplistic" at the other end of the spectrum. The things he names that he thinks are the impetus for the anger are indeed things that went awry badly and caused so many of the problems we see now. I agree with him if he is talking about a general feeling of frustration among the populace. His relating the anger of the TEA party members to that and comparing what he hears from them to Nazi mobs, however I take issue with. I find it very interesting that the assumption on the "left" (you used it first :)) is always that the anger is a result of anything except them being angry over the loss of individual freedom and crushing debt that will be dumped on future generations. He hints that they don't really know what they are angry about, which may be true in some cases (my toxic cocktail at work), but he has lumped the entire movement together and demeaned it under the guise of understanding it. If by "state capitalism," he means an over-reaching government whose subsidizing of big business is responsible for much of the system failure, then he is probably right on the money. ;) The prospect of slavery, whether in chains made of debt, centralized power, hopelessness, or anything else, does, in fact make some of us very angry and as you know, strikes terror in the heart of a certain Libertarian housewife.

"Corporations have no big view or commonality with the larger society." Mostly true, but did you see the stories about the new Panera Bread opening in St. Louis? It's working on the honor system, allowing people who can afford to pay more to take up the slack for those who can't quite afford it that day. (A charming idea when individuals CHOOSE to do it;, not so when a government forces it upon people). I had a problem with the former CEO's use of the term "giving back," which subtly implies that one person's ingenuity and hard work have robbed someone else of something, or that he should in some way feel guilty about it, but I otherwise found his plan innovative and inspiring. I'm always fascinated by unusual business models and love that company anyway, so I'm watching to see how it goes over.

No, I haven't read "The White". I'll add it to my very loooong list. :)

Gatto: The Prussian goals for public education were the real point. [Keep prodding me to be specific, perhaps eventually I'll catch on. :)] I do like much of what he says, but I think it mostly applies to the K-12 system where there is little choice about anything unless parents can afford private school. (Even then you are just paying for a different set of rules and means of control) At the university level there is more freedom. You get to decide where, when, and how to continue your education even if it takes years and includes long gaps. As I've mentioned before, I agree with Gatto on some things (I do like his style,) and disagree with him on others.