Either extreme? Hmm. I do not think it is FATED to be peg-meter polarized in either direction. As I said, we regulate far too many things. We seem unable to achieve either perspective or clarity. Regulation should largely be for those things which can be CATASTROPHIC to environment and society if screwed up. Nearly everything else should be UN-regulated. Yes, there can be guidelines, common practices, and all sorts of voluntary things which any good collective achieves, but mandates? Not for most things. In seeking to DO more, the society not only excessively complicates, but actually winds up with the effect of achieving LESS.
The problem is that we don’t see this. If law and regulation are good for one thing, the thinking goes, it should be good for another. This impulse, not universal, could be resisted better if it weren't for what I call the sensational events. The house falls down on its family and kills them because of faulty construction and materials. People call for “action” so something like that doesn’t happen again. The vehicle overturns and paralyzes a passenger. Out come laws and regulations to “make sure that doesn’t happen again.” Little Mary goes into her neighbor’s yard and falls into the pool and drowns. Requirements for fences, signs, etc. come out, so somebody else’s little Mary doesn’t die.
Yet none of these events are catastrophic. They are personal tragedies, but none of them are going to hurt the society to the point it might be seriously degraded perpetually and maybe not recover. Even a hundred thousand deaths are not going to take down the society. No, they are the inherent risk of living, and assumed by past populations without thought. Yet we legislate and regulate for our “safety,” and so the process of excessive, choking, maddening complexity begins, subtly and with good intentions.
This is not to say that voluntary changes or communal practices to remedy should not be welcomed; they most definitely should. But that is a far cry from introducing complexity into your society, which every law, every rule, every regulation (and the fear of all those) do. Too much complexity debilitates the individual and collapses the society.
The society should set standards to attempt to kow-tow the deviants; it can only be as successful as the general solidity and commonality of the culture. Too much law and regulation actually reduces both respect for and effectiveness of the law, not to mention the mental and emotional drags those put on individuals and the millstone they put on the economy.
I would say that tearing down muscle and building up is the sign of a healthy system that is making itself notably stronger but not making itself sick. It is certainly not a wrecked one. When it has wrecked itself, the body is not getting better. Sometimes it is maimed or infirmed for life. And sometimes life itself leaves.
I am not sure I follow your reaction to Chomsky’s comments. I thought his apprehension was because deep legitimate anger and frustration and desire for easy to follow solutions can be used by the nefarious for their own purposes. And I am also not sure I follow what you mean by “the assumption on the ‘left’…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.” Whatever “the left” actually is, it is certainly not a uniform “group” by any means, and so “always” would be a quite polemic term even if the other items were absolutely sequitir. And I do not believe they are. Chomsky, if I am understanding him correctly, is fearing the very loss of individual freedom that accompanies the subtle rise of Fascism (or really authoritarianism of any kind), and given that he actually lived through the rise of Nazism gives him a bit of credibility about that at least. And I do not think the elites on either “side” are caring much about the crushing debt being dumped on future generations. But those in regular America, of most all political stripes, ARE often concerned about it, although there are some ignorant or oblivious on all ends who blindly and narrowly don’t make the connection. But I will agree that libertarians and TEA party members seem more concerned than average.
And that IS largely what he means by “state capitalism.” But a bit more; he means that the state (in political terms, the government, not the way we usually use it) in reality merely functions to serve capitalism in its most predatory and exploitative form (corporatism), and is effectively controlled by that corporatism.
Don’t you think Panera’s success is in no small part because it reinforces the feeling of comfort, connection, and sociability that have traditionally been feminine strong points, and gives the impression (as best as a corporate business can) of a welcoming place? I wish them success in their experiment. I’m not certain I would infer the same meaning to “giving back” as you did, however, for it doesn’t seem to hold a zero-sum connotation. Isn’t there a biblical passage about “to whom much is given, much will be expected,” or something to that effect? I would thus infer the former CEO’s comments to a feeling of being fortunate and blessed, and feeling a desire from that blessing to share that fortune and blessing with others out of kindness and wish to help.
And if my reply has been unmercifully short on these subjects of great importance, I do apologize, my dear Madame. Time is the scarcest resource, and there hasn’t been enough of the unencumbered sort lately!
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