Monday, September 27, 2010
Meanwhile Back at the Ranch...
All right class, now's your chance to catch up if you've fallen behind in the discussion as Professor J is taking the week off. Yes, even professors need a break from time to time. Class will resume next week and I suspect a change of the discussion topic.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Step One: Remove Lens Cap
Professor J,
It isn't necessarily the system that is responsible for advances in the things I mentioned, but capitalism and freedom seem to go hand in hand and it's in countries where freedom flourishes that we see new discoveries most often take place. Other nations with various systems then implement those things that are beneficial to their citizens as a whole but rarely have we seen in the past great new advances come out of totalitarian regimes (which in the past haven't favored capitalism). Like this quote from an article on China and green energy points out: "While the U.S. is known for radical innovation, China is better at tweak-ovation." Your point about capitalism being dominant during times of great progress is valid but there still seems to me to be a connection between the creative producer and an atmosphere where individuality/freedom is revered. Stifling conformity rarely leads to new ways of thinking about things, which is naturally a first step in problem solving and inventiveness.
It's easy for them to "seed the discussions" because few people have the time or the inclination to move beyond the information dished out by our sound bite driven media. The nightly incendiary shouting matches that pass for discussion these days, are likely to hold inordinate sway in a culture where 58% of people never read another book after high school (42% after college). It is sometimes interesting (and unnerving) to switch between several news channels and hear EXACTLY the same words and phrases used by different pundits and commentators .
I'd agree with you about the "cut taxes" crowd except that a lot of those people are willing to see some massive and painful changes take place. It isn't so much about cutting the taxes as it is not wanting to pay any more money into a mind numbingly wasteful system and many now see starvation of the monster we have let run away from us as the only real power they have left. In addition many times it feels as if we are funding our own destruction instead of making a contribution that is going to improve anything.
I agree that we have let things get too big. In his book How Good People Make Tough Choices, Rushworth Kidder has this to say: "What's new then, is not simply our knowledge. It's the sheer scale and power of our systems- scientific, technological, financial, governmental, educational, and so forth." Incredibly difficult to rein in the giant systems we are lumbering under.
As for cutting spending far more than anything imagined, well that depends on who is doing the imagining. I can imagine doing away with the first three of your Big Four over time and as for "Defense", abiding by the Constitution (HEY, there's an idea) would eliminate a large unnecessary portion of it. I can also imagine abolishing Dept. of Education and the IRS. Do all that and deal with the Federal Reserve and we'd be far along the right track. I like your idea of a budget voucher system for Medicare. Knowing there was a LIMITED amount of money might encourage people to be more responsible for their health and promote healthier lifestyles.
Howling? Well, yes. Loudly. People have become so accustomed to these gargantuan government entities they cannot imagine how the country would operate without them. Talk of dismantling the current failing education system is met with "What would all those teachers (and administrators, bureaucrats, and union leaders) do?" Notice how the objective has shifted from education to employment, a massively ineffective jobs program.
People do feel discouraged, (and the more truth you see the more discouraging it is) you are right. It is more than many people can bear to imagine that the entire thing, the way that they have thought about the world and what they thought they believed in, is little more than stage setting. That somewhere, disguised and out of the public view, the whole thing is being directed by a powerful few.
I think for the first time in a long time people are angry in a way that (if they are thoughtful and pay careful attention) could bring about some real change instead of what we have seen for decades; the same people in power behind the scenes watching gleefully as we trade the donkey and elephant masks back and forth every so often. The pendulum swings back and forth but the problem is that the clock is on a train traveling at breakneck speed toward destruction. Next stop: Rome.
Part of me can't help but be encouraged though. Over 20 years ago when anyone discussed abolishing the IRS and instituting a new tax system, or asked questions about the Federal Reserve ala Ron Paul, few people took it seriously. But now, those things are at least part of what is considered a reasonable line of thought and are often up for discussion.
Many are waking from their party politic stupor, rubbing their eyes, and getting a good look around for the first time. And asking, "How the hell did we get HERE?" A good question to start, but the real one is going to be where are we trying to go and how painful is the journey going to be? It may be true that doing the things you mention and finding real solutions isn't on the public mind, but recognizing the problems and the fact that the remedies will be painful is at least a first step. The person pointing out that the building is on fire is serving a useful purpose even if he doesn't know at the start which fire extinguisher is going to work best.
It isn't necessarily the system that is responsible for advances in the things I mentioned, but capitalism and freedom seem to go hand in hand and it's in countries where freedom flourishes that we see new discoveries most often take place. Other nations with various systems then implement those things that are beneficial to their citizens as a whole but rarely have we seen in the past great new advances come out of totalitarian regimes (which in the past haven't favored capitalism). Like this quote from an article on China and green energy points out: "While the U.S. is known for radical innovation, China is better at tweak-ovation." Your point about capitalism being dominant during times of great progress is valid but there still seems to me to be a connection between the creative producer and an atmosphere where individuality/freedom is revered. Stifling conformity rarely leads to new ways of thinking about things, which is naturally a first step in problem solving and inventiveness.
It's easy for them to "seed the discussions" because few people have the time or the inclination to move beyond the information dished out by our sound bite driven media. The nightly incendiary shouting matches that pass for discussion these days, are likely to hold inordinate sway in a culture where 58% of people never read another book after high school (42% after college). It is sometimes interesting (and unnerving) to switch between several news channels and hear EXACTLY the same words and phrases used by different pundits and commentators .
I'd agree with you about the "cut taxes" crowd except that a lot of those people are willing to see some massive and painful changes take place. It isn't so much about cutting the taxes as it is not wanting to pay any more money into a mind numbingly wasteful system and many now see starvation of the monster we have let run away from us as the only real power they have left. In addition many times it feels as if we are funding our own destruction instead of making a contribution that is going to improve anything.
I agree that we have let things get too big. In his book How Good People Make Tough Choices, Rushworth Kidder has this to say: "What's new then, is not simply our knowledge. It's the sheer scale and power of our systems- scientific, technological, financial, governmental, educational, and so forth." Incredibly difficult to rein in the giant systems we are lumbering under.
As for cutting spending far more than anything imagined, well that depends on who is doing the imagining. I can imagine doing away with the first three of your Big Four over time and as for "Defense", abiding by the Constitution (HEY, there's an idea) would eliminate a large unnecessary portion of it. I can also imagine abolishing Dept. of Education and the IRS. Do all that and deal with the Federal Reserve and we'd be far along the right track. I like your idea of a budget voucher system for Medicare. Knowing there was a LIMITED amount of money might encourage people to be more responsible for their health and promote healthier lifestyles.
Howling? Well, yes. Loudly. People have become so accustomed to these gargantuan government entities they cannot imagine how the country would operate without them. Talk of dismantling the current failing education system is met with "What would all those teachers (and administrators, bureaucrats, and union leaders) do?" Notice how the objective has shifted from education to employment, a massively ineffective jobs program.
People do feel discouraged, (and the more truth you see the more discouraging it is) you are right. It is more than many people can bear to imagine that the entire thing, the way that they have thought about the world and what they thought they believed in, is little more than stage setting. That somewhere, disguised and out of the public view, the whole thing is being directed by a powerful few.
I think for the first time in a long time people are angry in a way that (if they are thoughtful and pay careful attention) could bring about some real change instead of what we have seen for decades; the same people in power behind the scenes watching gleefully as we trade the donkey and elephant masks back and forth every so often. The pendulum swings back and forth but the problem is that the clock is on a train traveling at breakneck speed toward destruction. Next stop: Rome.
Part of me can't help but be encouraged though. Over 20 years ago when anyone discussed abolishing the IRS and instituting a new tax system, or asked questions about the Federal Reserve ala Ron Paul, few people took it seriously. But now, those things are at least part of what is considered a reasonable line of thought and are often up for discussion.
Many are waking from their party politic stupor, rubbing their eyes, and getting a good look around for the first time. And asking, "How the hell did we get HERE?" A good question to start, but the real one is going to be where are we trying to go and how painful is the journey going to be? It may be true that doing the things you mention and finding real solutions isn't on the public mind, but recognizing the problems and the fact that the remedies will be painful is at least a first step. The person pointing out that the building is on fire is serving a useful purpose even if he doesn't know at the start which fire extinguisher is going to work best.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Focus
Madame M,
Eradicating diseases? I am not following the connection. The general advance in disease control, water and food hygienic improvements, and general public health improvements, has been across the board, regardless of economic system. Communication and transportation have made many advancements under capitalism, and have a bit more standing there than public health, but again, are not system dependent. However, some technological advancements can certainly claim that capitalism is the system that allowed/encouraged them to flourish, and with such rapidity. Of course, capitalism has also been the dominant system in that period, so there is the ever-present data dilemma of distinguishing causation from just correlation.
The disconnection you so ably speak on is another sub-area which I will include in a future post that we can expound on. Very important subject!
Genuine solutions that leave things in better condition for the next generation? Capital idea! But the Anaconda/Boa Constrictor bunch who hold power (economic/political/social/communicative) don’t care about that.
Observe how they seed the discussions in America. From the top of the big businesses and their allies come carefully formulated planted comments about anyone or anything that could truly be a potential threat to their power, wealth, or influence. Those comments trickle down until they infuse the lexicon of everyday America and so shade most discussion. The comments are reinforced powerfully with a media they largely already influence, channel, or even control, and so they secure their power. Add the anonymous assassins of forwarded emails across the internet. All this keeps people both off-balance and misdirected, and furthermore, and perhaps most telling, keeps them either angry with little articulable concrete substantiation at someone or something (often a president or party in power), or keeps them divided against each other. And so those people are in reality easily “conquered.” Appeals are made to selfishness, and cleverly. While those people “fight” amongst themselves about all sorts of ultimately near-meaningless things, the controlling owners of this country take satisfaction that their own positions are secure. And it doesn’t matter what “side” gets “the blame,” because the whole thing is just designed to be cyclically repeated to keep the focus off the real roots. Especially because those people that aren’t “conquered” are often so discouraged they become disempowered. And the enfeebling continues…
If we got away from our manic buy and rebuy consuming economy, we would bring a new way to how we relate to our society. It would be a far better one I think. THAT has the seeds for remaking capitalism for the better, perhaps even supplanting it with a better system (or a better hybrid). Changes in the human condition have always been the greatest promise for the general advancement of humankind.
In the interim, we are going to have to get smarter about how we are manipulated. Mindless mantras like “cut taxes, cut taxes,” when our taxes are already pretty low compared to the rest of the developed world, and which tax cuts benefit intensely disproportionally the already super-wealthy, are simplistic…and irresponsible. We have instituted this utterly disconnected-from-reality delusional pattern of too much spending, too little revenue. You can’t keep revenue low, lower taxes, and still have big government. That’s not reality. Vague prescriptions for cutting spending are also useless and irresponsible. No taxes should be lowered without corresponding decreases, specific ones, in spending. And the rub of it is: we need to cut spending far deeper than anything imagined, to not only erase deficit spending, but to create focused surpluses solely to pay off the debt.
Yes, you see a little more growth if you cut taxes, but after a while, the structural deficits you create overwhelm all that (as well proven repeatedly). We have let things get too big. The usual remedies will NOT apply. We have screwed ourselves. There is going to be pain.
Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, “Defense.” Government-wise, those are the Big Four, and they are NOT sustainable at anything even approaching present levels. Hard, realistic talk, from people who are going to go down in flames from angry, parochial publics who will punish them for speaking ugly truth, may be a necessary first step. Fringe diversion about other entitlements at this point are not only diversionary, but droplet-focused instead of bucket-focused. At this stage in Medicare for instance, we likely in the interim should switch to something like a budget-voucher system where we pay the individual a certain amount to get what they can (direct care or insurance) with, and no more. Watch the howl-meter go off the scale with that one! But the alternative is to keep chugging on in denial like Rome, until reality transforms you painfully, dramatically, and permanently.
Americans need to show they really can handle the truth. Because that truth is often ugly—and painful. We will start finding politicians who speak the truth, rather than carefully constructed evasions or pacifications, when we show we can handle it without becoming parochial.
All is not painful gloom, however. There are positive prescriptions we can take. Put simply, we need to tax things which are harming us as nation, society, and even individuals, and reduce (and preferably stop entirely) taxing things which are beneficial. That would be a sea change! Government should also be out of the business of regulating strictly personal behavior: if people want to make (often foolish or selfish) decisions that affect only themselves and their gene pools, why is government involved in that? That would eliminate a fair number of government programs right there. And certainly no more subsidizing of personal or societal harmful behavior! People and businesses are free to make their (again, often foolish or selfish) decisions, but not to ask us to pay for them.
We can also put the spotlight where it belongs. Ask the questions. Have the corporations explain why there is a greater than 7-10 times disparity between the highest paid worker and lowest one. “The market” is an evasive and deceptive response to that, btw.
Perhaps call into question anyone not already employed by an established (two+ years old) corporation who does or try to own more than 1% of that corporation. That would go a ways toward disentangling the interlocking boards we have today.
Dangle the carrot in front of the corporations: they pay no corporate tax if they satisfy the above conditions of ownership and compensation parity spread.
The above are only examples, and not particularly well mapped ones at that. There are a plethora of prescriptions from people, often academics or think tankers, about how to correct our corpocracy. Right now however, doing that’s not on the public mind. Too often, angry survival, aimless or misinformed discontent, and red herring fixation, are. That’s why I respond, when I do respond, to right-left baiting, with: “You and I are smart enough to know things are more complicated than that. I am more interested in talking about those who have the real power. Are you?”
Eradicating diseases? I am not following the connection. The general advance in disease control, water and food hygienic improvements, and general public health improvements, has been across the board, regardless of economic system. Communication and transportation have made many advancements under capitalism, and have a bit more standing there than public health, but again, are not system dependent. However, some technological advancements can certainly claim that capitalism is the system that allowed/encouraged them to flourish, and with such rapidity. Of course, capitalism has also been the dominant system in that period, so there is the ever-present data dilemma of distinguishing causation from just correlation.
The disconnection you so ably speak on is another sub-area which I will include in a future post that we can expound on. Very important subject!
Genuine solutions that leave things in better condition for the next generation? Capital idea! But the Anaconda/Boa Constrictor bunch who hold power (economic/political/social/communicative) don’t care about that.
Observe how they seed the discussions in America. From the top of the big businesses and their allies come carefully formulated planted comments about anyone or anything that could truly be a potential threat to their power, wealth, or influence. Those comments trickle down until they infuse the lexicon of everyday America and so shade most discussion. The comments are reinforced powerfully with a media they largely already influence, channel, or even control, and so they secure their power. Add the anonymous assassins of forwarded emails across the internet. All this keeps people both off-balance and misdirected, and furthermore, and perhaps most telling, keeps them either angry with little articulable concrete substantiation at someone or something (often a president or party in power), or keeps them divided against each other. And so those people are in reality easily “conquered.” Appeals are made to selfishness, and cleverly. While those people “fight” amongst themselves about all sorts of ultimately near-meaningless things, the controlling owners of this country take satisfaction that their own positions are secure. And it doesn’t matter what “side” gets “the blame,” because the whole thing is just designed to be cyclically repeated to keep the focus off the real roots. Especially because those people that aren’t “conquered” are often so discouraged they become disempowered. And the enfeebling continues…
If we got away from our manic buy and rebuy consuming economy, we would bring a new way to how we relate to our society. It would be a far better one I think. THAT has the seeds for remaking capitalism for the better, perhaps even supplanting it with a better system (or a better hybrid). Changes in the human condition have always been the greatest promise for the general advancement of humankind.
In the interim, we are going to have to get smarter about how we are manipulated. Mindless mantras like “cut taxes, cut taxes,” when our taxes are already pretty low compared to the rest of the developed world, and which tax cuts benefit intensely disproportionally the already super-wealthy, are simplistic…and irresponsible. We have instituted this utterly disconnected-from-reality delusional pattern of too much spending, too little revenue. You can’t keep revenue low, lower taxes, and still have big government. That’s not reality. Vague prescriptions for cutting spending are also useless and irresponsible. No taxes should be lowered without corresponding decreases, specific ones, in spending. And the rub of it is: we need to cut spending far deeper than anything imagined, to not only erase deficit spending, but to create focused surpluses solely to pay off the debt.
Yes, you see a little more growth if you cut taxes, but after a while, the structural deficits you create overwhelm all that (as well proven repeatedly). We have let things get too big. The usual remedies will NOT apply. We have screwed ourselves. There is going to be pain.
Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, “Defense.” Government-wise, those are the Big Four, and they are NOT sustainable at anything even approaching present levels. Hard, realistic talk, from people who are going to go down in flames from angry, parochial publics who will punish them for speaking ugly truth, may be a necessary first step. Fringe diversion about other entitlements at this point are not only diversionary, but droplet-focused instead of bucket-focused. At this stage in Medicare for instance, we likely in the interim should switch to something like a budget-voucher system where we pay the individual a certain amount to get what they can (direct care or insurance) with, and no more. Watch the howl-meter go off the scale with that one! But the alternative is to keep chugging on in denial like Rome, until reality transforms you painfully, dramatically, and permanently.
Americans need to show they really can handle the truth. Because that truth is often ugly—and painful. We will start finding politicians who speak the truth, rather than carefully constructed evasions or pacifications, when we show we can handle it without becoming parochial.
All is not painful gloom, however. There are positive prescriptions we can take. Put simply, we need to tax things which are harming us as nation, society, and even individuals, and reduce (and preferably stop entirely) taxing things which are beneficial. That would be a sea change! Government should also be out of the business of regulating strictly personal behavior: if people want to make (often foolish or selfish) decisions that affect only themselves and their gene pools, why is government involved in that? That would eliminate a fair number of government programs right there. And certainly no more subsidizing of personal or societal harmful behavior! People and businesses are free to make their (again, often foolish or selfish) decisions, but not to ask us to pay for them.
We can also put the spotlight where it belongs. Ask the questions. Have the corporations explain why there is a greater than 7-10 times disparity between the highest paid worker and lowest one. “The market” is an evasive and deceptive response to that, btw.
Perhaps call into question anyone not already employed by an established (two+ years old) corporation who does or try to own more than 1% of that corporation. That would go a ways toward disentangling the interlocking boards we have today.
Dangle the carrot in front of the corporations: they pay no corporate tax if they satisfy the above conditions of ownership and compensation parity spread.
The above are only examples, and not particularly well mapped ones at that. There are a plethora of prescriptions from people, often academics or think tankers, about how to correct our corpocracy. Right now however, doing that’s not on the public mind. Too often, angry survival, aimless or misinformed discontent, and red herring fixation, are. That’s why I respond, when I do respond, to right-left baiting, with: “You and I are smart enough to know things are more complicated than that. I am more interested in talking about those who have the real power. Are you?”
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Mending the Disconnect
Professor J,
It is quite a challenge, but I have one agent who makes it rather worth the trouble. lol
I was primarily referring to achievements of important things on a global scale like eradicating childhood diseases and other advancements in public health, communication, transportation, etc. But yes, many of things that we tout as achievements would indeed be of less importance (and perhaps no) in other cultures.
"We like to trumpet the value of relationships in this society, but they are mostly shallow, and even the ones that are not rarely compare with, say, the relationship-centric interactions of a typical African culture." Good point. We do say that we value a great many things and then behave in ways that betray our true values and allegiances. True friendship and all other meaningful relationships require something far too scarce in our over worked, endlessly entertained, noisy culture...time. We often put the band aid of social networking and other un-fulfilling masks (all of which seem to be "products" of one kind or another) on to conceal the pain of remaining largely unknown. But then it is convenient as well, saving us the soul baring and time consuming trouble of deeply getting to know anyone else. And all of this conceals the fact that people have fewer real friends who understand them, or to whom they can go with a problem. However the social networking sites help us compensate (often falsely) for this by allowing us to have hundreds or even thousands of "friends" (though according to Dunbar's law, 150 is the real limit for meaningful relationships within our personal "tribe"). Americans report fewer close friends than in years past and our connections grow but our fulfillment from them shrinks proportionally. And though Dunbar has set the number at what is the average amount of FB friends for most people, many of us would agree, I think, that the number of people who genuinely have any idea who we really are (or care to) is quite a bit lower than that.
Those economists are a fine example of our listening too much to the "experts" on a great many things. When I hear people talk about what kind of recovery they'd like to see, the consensus is that most would rather let the pain drag on and lead to genuine solutions if it would mean leaving things in better shape for the next generation. But those "power elites" (to steal Ron Paul's phrase) are problematic aren't they?
I agree with everything you said about our trading some disposable junk for more disposable junk. Our parents used to save and buy quality ("you get what you pay for", my dad always said). We think nothing of buying the cheapest thing available knowing it will need to be replaced soon. This goes back to what you said about price being "the absolute bottom line for a product" (and all the reasons for that, including our desire for instant gratification and short sightedness). And not just for major purchases like appliances but for other household items, furniture and even clothing. Few people keep anything until it actually wears out. I mended a sweater recently and blogged about it because it was something so foreign to me (and I suspect to many others). It took me less time to mend the garment and write the blog than it would have to search out a comparable one. American women could take a fashion lesson from our French sisters here. We admire their sense of style but they manage to achieve chicness with fewer well thought out purchases, and pay for quality they expect to last for several seasons.
Anger over dissenting views and disconnection from others: In our zeal to be ever increasingly connected we are, it seems, disconnecting ourselves from the kind of mutually nurturing and respectful relationships that make discussion and reasoned thinking possible. All the while failing to make the...connection.
Here's a good article from The Wall Street Journal about one family working through the real value of some of their past purchases:
Our Past Purchases: Was it Junk or Not?
It is quite a challenge, but I have one agent who makes it rather worth the trouble. lol
I was primarily referring to achievements of important things on a global scale like eradicating childhood diseases and other advancements in public health, communication, transportation, etc. But yes, many of things that we tout as achievements would indeed be of less importance (and perhaps no) in other cultures.
"We like to trumpet the value of relationships in this society, but they are mostly shallow, and even the ones that are not rarely compare with, say, the relationship-centric interactions of a typical African culture." Good point. We do say that we value a great many things and then behave in ways that betray our true values and allegiances. True friendship and all other meaningful relationships require something far too scarce in our over worked, endlessly entertained, noisy culture...time. We often put the band aid of social networking and other un-fulfilling masks (all of which seem to be "products" of one kind or another) on to conceal the pain of remaining largely unknown. But then it is convenient as well, saving us the soul baring and time consuming trouble of deeply getting to know anyone else. And all of this conceals the fact that people have fewer real friends who understand them, or to whom they can go with a problem. However the social networking sites help us compensate (often falsely) for this by allowing us to have hundreds or even thousands of "friends" (though according to Dunbar's law, 150 is the real limit for meaningful relationships within our personal "tribe"). Americans report fewer close friends than in years past and our connections grow but our fulfillment from them shrinks proportionally. And though Dunbar has set the number at what is the average amount of FB friends for most people, many of us would agree, I think, that the number of people who genuinely have any idea who we really are (or care to) is quite a bit lower than that.
Those economists are a fine example of our listening too much to the "experts" on a great many things. When I hear people talk about what kind of recovery they'd like to see, the consensus is that most would rather let the pain drag on and lead to genuine solutions if it would mean leaving things in better shape for the next generation. But those "power elites" (to steal Ron Paul's phrase) are problematic aren't they?
I agree with everything you said about our trading some disposable junk for more disposable junk. Our parents used to save and buy quality ("you get what you pay for", my dad always said). We think nothing of buying the cheapest thing available knowing it will need to be replaced soon. This goes back to what you said about price being "the absolute bottom line for a product" (and all the reasons for that, including our desire for instant gratification and short sightedness). And not just for major purchases like appliances but for other household items, furniture and even clothing. Few people keep anything until it actually wears out. I mended a sweater recently and blogged about it because it was something so foreign to me (and I suspect to many others). It took me less time to mend the garment and write the blog than it would have to search out a comparable one. American women could take a fashion lesson from our French sisters here. We admire their sense of style but they manage to achieve chicness with fewer well thought out purchases, and pay for quality they expect to last for several seasons.
Anger over dissenting views and disconnection from others: In our zeal to be ever increasingly connected we are, it seems, disconnecting ourselves from the kind of mutually nurturing and respectful relationships that make discussion and reasoned thinking possible. All the while failing to make the...connection.
Here's a good article from The Wall Street Journal about one family working through the real value of some of their past purchases:
Our Past Purchases: Was it Junk or Not?
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Dissent
Madame M (how do you find the time to blog with running MI-6? lol),
I am recognizing of capitalism’s (in all its varied forms) achievements, and they are indeed often great, especially in the realm of opening up human inventiveness. Those achievements have also often come at great cost, many of which continue. That those “achievements” have been divorced from an environmental ethic is only one of the deep and continuous costs. And capitalism is only another in a long line of ill-distinguished systems that have marginalized too many in completely uncaring and often dismissive or exploitative patterns.
Comparisons of what it has “achieved” additionally have cultural assumptions of what is worthwhile also built in. Communal societies have different value systems and would find repugnant many of the so-called beneficial “achievements” of capitalism, let alone the visible drawbacks and side-effects. We like to trumpet the value of relationships in this society, but they are mostly shallow, and even the ones that are not rarely compare with, say, the relationship-centric interactions of a typical African culture.
More government involvement can and often does have the effect you describe, and we need to be ever watchful about the excessive selfishness and its effects. Yet it is too easy to make a blanket statement of dismissal about government involvement. When corporate capitalism becomes as powerful as it today has, that corporatism has latent fear of practically only one thing—the people’s anger mobilized through their government. That government is the only entity large enough and powerful enough to bring them to heel short of spontaneous and widespread revolt. And because those corporations know that, they have made a penetrating and enervating emasculation of the government process, while expertly and selectively feeding people’s disdain and even hatred of government (thereby robbing the people of often the only vehicle they can effectively exert their will through against the corporations, short of revolution or the like).
You’ll find no disagreement from me about the need for personal responsibility. We have been too passive about what has been beamed and shoved at us, and must awaken and decide to relate to those things differently than we typically have.
Yes, our false-gods economists, who have trumpeted consumer spending, say that our saving and paying off debt is slowing recovery, for those economists are part and parcel of the sick and unrealistic “economy” we have had. If there is a hope of changing our ways, this long and painful period we are going through may be it. Yet it won’t come from small-minded political theatrics and shading politics toward punishing the party in power because that party didn’t somehow (magically) fix the economy quickly. Neither party is really offering anything but platitudes and failed policies, and both are well divorced from tough reality because they care much more about power and their petty maneuverings than they do about the country. They argue about all sorts of tangential things while the backbone of the country, the middle class, gets smaller every day as people spin out of it, many of those people having little to no chance of getting back in it.
The churning I describe is not necessarily the quest for new and improved: it is the necessity of replacing what is at best briefly usable junk with…more briefly usable junk. Your words to the salesman—priceless truth! One small caveat for some companies, however: the relentless driving as price being the absolute bottom line for a product has made it a good deal harder for the good companies to bring quality to the table. When price is what the consumer demands (often because, as an exploited employee, he or she has very restricted income to work with), the market will respond—and parts with less quality are cheaper and satisfy what the consumer says he or she has to have.
People are angry to hear dissenting views, often because in this connected but really disconnected world where the individual feels put upon for a host of reasons, the dissenting view is treated both as a personal attack and another loss of what most people feel they have too little of: having the world go the way they want. Some of that is undoubtedly now-nowism and retarded maturity, but some is the sad fact of individuals in a too individualistic society who are dealing with too many changes too fast—and many of those changes not being to their liking or even beneficial at all (and some downright harmful). And Lord Acton’s quote: timeless wisdom for the ages—and too little heeded.
My answer to your last question: Yes, it is possible (and not necessarily even a la the old film “Rollerball”). I think the corporations are largely smart enough to avoid too much blatant exercise of power, but instead do so by the globalization phenomenon prevalent so far, plus spouting “free-trade” while mercilessly manipulating it to their advantage. No, I don’t see we have reached the point of their near-total control yet, it being harder to effect complete enough than many people realize. Yet many corporations, largely through their money and influence, are already more powerful than many governments, although the bigger governments are certainly problematic as to being able to always influence effectively. The answer to how all this unfolds awaits most in what the citizens of this country and the world become. If they become merely consumers and passive observers, lured by the dream of materialism of one form or another, the corporations will achieve all the control those corporations need to get what they want. If on the other hand, the citizens become not just non-passive, but critically thinking, then human possibility can open up more toward the enlightened and hopeful progression seen in fiction like Star Trek.
I am recognizing of capitalism’s (in all its varied forms) achievements, and they are indeed often great, especially in the realm of opening up human inventiveness. Those achievements have also often come at great cost, many of which continue. That those “achievements” have been divorced from an environmental ethic is only one of the deep and continuous costs. And capitalism is only another in a long line of ill-distinguished systems that have marginalized too many in completely uncaring and often dismissive or exploitative patterns.
Comparisons of what it has “achieved” additionally have cultural assumptions of what is worthwhile also built in. Communal societies have different value systems and would find repugnant many of the so-called beneficial “achievements” of capitalism, let alone the visible drawbacks and side-effects. We like to trumpet the value of relationships in this society, but they are mostly shallow, and even the ones that are not rarely compare with, say, the relationship-centric interactions of a typical African culture.
More government involvement can and often does have the effect you describe, and we need to be ever watchful about the excessive selfishness and its effects. Yet it is too easy to make a blanket statement of dismissal about government involvement. When corporate capitalism becomes as powerful as it today has, that corporatism has latent fear of practically only one thing—the people’s anger mobilized through their government. That government is the only entity large enough and powerful enough to bring them to heel short of spontaneous and widespread revolt. And because those corporations know that, they have made a penetrating and enervating emasculation of the government process, while expertly and selectively feeding people’s disdain and even hatred of government (thereby robbing the people of often the only vehicle they can effectively exert their will through against the corporations, short of revolution or the like).
You’ll find no disagreement from me about the need for personal responsibility. We have been too passive about what has been beamed and shoved at us, and must awaken and decide to relate to those things differently than we typically have.
Yes, our false-gods economists, who have trumpeted consumer spending, say that our saving and paying off debt is slowing recovery, for those economists are part and parcel of the sick and unrealistic “economy” we have had. If there is a hope of changing our ways, this long and painful period we are going through may be it. Yet it won’t come from small-minded political theatrics and shading politics toward punishing the party in power because that party didn’t somehow (magically) fix the economy quickly. Neither party is really offering anything but platitudes and failed policies, and both are well divorced from tough reality because they care much more about power and their petty maneuverings than they do about the country. They argue about all sorts of tangential things while the backbone of the country, the middle class, gets smaller every day as people spin out of it, many of those people having little to no chance of getting back in it.
The churning I describe is not necessarily the quest for new and improved: it is the necessity of replacing what is at best briefly usable junk with…more briefly usable junk. Your words to the salesman—priceless truth! One small caveat for some companies, however: the relentless driving as price being the absolute bottom line for a product has made it a good deal harder for the good companies to bring quality to the table. When price is what the consumer demands (often because, as an exploited employee, he or she has very restricted income to work with), the market will respond—and parts with less quality are cheaper and satisfy what the consumer says he or she has to have.
People are angry to hear dissenting views, often because in this connected but really disconnected world where the individual feels put upon for a host of reasons, the dissenting view is treated both as a personal attack and another loss of what most people feel they have too little of: having the world go the way they want. Some of that is undoubtedly now-nowism and retarded maturity, but some is the sad fact of individuals in a too individualistic society who are dealing with too many changes too fast—and many of those changes not being to their liking or even beneficial at all (and some downright harmful). And Lord Acton’s quote: timeless wisdom for the ages—and too little heeded.
My answer to your last question: Yes, it is possible (and not necessarily even a la the old film “Rollerball”). I think the corporations are largely smart enough to avoid too much blatant exercise of power, but instead do so by the globalization phenomenon prevalent so far, plus spouting “free-trade” while mercilessly manipulating it to their advantage. No, I don’t see we have reached the point of their near-total control yet, it being harder to effect complete enough than many people realize. Yet many corporations, largely through their money and influence, are already more powerful than many governments, although the bigger governments are certainly problematic as to being able to always influence effectively. The answer to how all this unfolds awaits most in what the citizens of this country and the world become. If they become merely consumers and passive observers, lured by the dream of materialism of one form or another, the corporations will achieve all the control those corporations need to get what they want. If on the other hand, the citizens become not just non-passive, but critically thinking, then human possibility can open up more toward the enlightened and hopeful progression seen in fiction like Star Trek.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Discarding Blindness
Professor J,
To paraphrase the Bible: Money isn't the root of all evil. The love of money is. Capitalism is just a system with no intrinsic morality of its own other than imputed fairness. The system IS corrupted and manipulated in all sorts of ways by those with the most power, but it is the PEOPLE who are amoral, and, in much of what we are discussing, immoral. Conversely, the systems of Communism/Socialism are also just systems and could possibly work given the right circumstances, but in those you have still ended up with a few people holding all the power (and for basically the same reasons), only it has been more despicable since it's been done under the cloak of the Utopian fantasy of making everyone equal. At least for the most part, the Capitalist is honest about profit being his motive.
Taking into account what the Capitalist system has given the world, even with its flaws, nothing else comes close. The fact that the less fortunate are sometimes victims of the system is a weakness in it that needs addressing. More government involvement actually seems counter productive as a solution since it creates the attitude among the general population that there is a government program to help people, letting each of us personally become more selfish in our thinking about those in need.
I don't think any of these economic systems are necessarily evil, Rand of course would say that all forms of Socialist/Communist type systems are evil, but I disagree. It IS the nature of man reacting to those systems that causes the trouble. All of the world's systems are designed by fallible man and will be therefore inherently flawed.
If we, as individuals, have over eaten or over spent, we are responsible for that. Does it seem like an unfair fight at times? Yes, especially given the huge amounts of money spent on research for companies to learn how to manipulate the consumer even more effectively, often times even addicting him to a product, but I'm never going to let the individual off the hook for buying a house he couldn't afford, or running up the credit card at Christmas. Is it the toy manufacturers fault that parents can't say no? Whose fault is it that parents aren't teaching their children to distinguish between wants and needs? Who is responsible for teaching a child to value a book more than a cheap piece of plastic? But of course, we see parents who cannot make these distinctions for themselves, often.
It is a colossal effort to grind the massive and powerful gears of the advertising/marketing machine to a halt and begin to pull the lever back toward thoughtfulness even in one's home, let alone in all of society, but individuals, families, and eventually communities must make the effort.
The "churning" you describe is in so many ways part of the problem. People are never satisfied and as you have referenced before no one in our culture has any sense of "enough". I do see some signs of hope as a result of the hard economic lessons we've all learned the last couple of years. Yet when people come to their senses a bit and pay off debt, reduce spending, and save, here come the economists saying "Oh how terrible, everyone is saving and slowing the recovery!" Wouldn't it be better for it to take longer and for us to have a real recovery based on something other than (as you pointed out) ever increasing consumer spending? And for all the ways that corporate America manipulates the system and works people over, I am going to say that we as individuals allow that to happen. It is a choice to participate in the constant consumption to some extent. The fact that things are made to break down, and not be repaired but replaced, is absolutely true however, and the constant shifting of households from place to place (an expensive proposition every time) does in fact keep many families falling farther and farther behind. The merry-go-round of consumer consumption--working more, and constantly accumulating more debt --has been spinning faster and faster for years. People have been getting thrown off at a rapid rate lately; we are beginning to see some now give things a bit more careful consideration and start to drag their feet to slow the pace.
Our shallow image based priorities are a huge part of the problem. The refrigerator in my kitchen (a big, ugly, outdated monster) is 40 years old; it was built to LAST. I've had people ask me why I don't replace it with one that "looks" better. Not having a car debt was key in my being able to stay home and home school our kids (very important to me). To us, cars are modes of transportation; we are not driving them in order to (as Dave Ramsey says) "impress someone (we) don't know for 3 seconds at a stop light". These things are choices made on the basis of our priorities; not being enslaved by debt is somewhere near the top of the list.
While in some cases (planned obsolescence for instance) there is blatant consumer victimization going on, much of what you mention in your post we are complicit in. We are ALLOWING ourselves to be convinced that we need the better car, bigger house, (that trend is in reverse by the way) or to eat out several nights a week.
Not only are things made now intentionally to wear out, but then the company tries to extort money from you in terms of a service policy/agreement. "We'll fix the piece of crap we are selling to you, but you have to pay 'protection' money for it." I ticked my last salesman off when he asked if I wanted to buy the service agreement. "No, what I WANT is for your company to make something we shouldn't both assume is going to break within the next couple of years."
Your comments about workers being exploited and made to feel that it is somewhat necessary to stay ahead of the competition while the corporations and their shareholders benefit, rings so true. It's common discussion among friends that they are taking pay cuts or asked to give up certain benefits for the sake of the company, and then you open the paper and find that the company they work for has made record profits for the quarter. Deep down we all know we are being had.
Well, of course HERE everything is up for discussion, but you are correct it is definitely the exception and not the rule. Not only are people not willing to discuss things, the immediate reaction is often ANGER that you even would dare have a different opinion. And doesn't Lord Acton have the best quote on this? "Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity".
So all of this has me asking another question: Is it possible, given the ever increasing size and power of corporations and especially global ones with hundreds of subsidiaries, that we could eventually see an economy (perhaps a global one) made up of only a few massive corporations that would wield as much power and influence (or more) as many governments? Or would you say, Professor, that we are already there?
To paraphrase the Bible: Money isn't the root of all evil. The love of money is. Capitalism is just a system with no intrinsic morality of its own other than imputed fairness. The system IS corrupted and manipulated in all sorts of ways by those with the most power, but it is the PEOPLE who are amoral, and, in much of what we are discussing, immoral. Conversely, the systems of Communism/Socialism are also just systems and could possibly work given the right circumstances, but in those you have still ended up with a few people holding all the power (and for basically the same reasons), only it has been more despicable since it's been done under the cloak of the Utopian fantasy of making everyone equal. At least for the most part, the Capitalist is honest about profit being his motive.
Taking into account what the Capitalist system has given the world, even with its flaws, nothing else comes close. The fact that the less fortunate are sometimes victims of the system is a weakness in it that needs addressing. More government involvement actually seems counter productive as a solution since it creates the attitude among the general population that there is a government program to help people, letting each of us personally become more selfish in our thinking about those in need.
I don't think any of these economic systems are necessarily evil, Rand of course would say that all forms of Socialist/Communist type systems are evil, but I disagree. It IS the nature of man reacting to those systems that causes the trouble. All of the world's systems are designed by fallible man and will be therefore inherently flawed.
If we, as individuals, have over eaten or over spent, we are responsible for that. Does it seem like an unfair fight at times? Yes, especially given the huge amounts of money spent on research for companies to learn how to manipulate the consumer even more effectively, often times even addicting him to a product, but I'm never going to let the individual off the hook for buying a house he couldn't afford, or running up the credit card at Christmas. Is it the toy manufacturers fault that parents can't say no? Whose fault is it that parents aren't teaching their children to distinguish between wants and needs? Who is responsible for teaching a child to value a book more than a cheap piece of plastic? But of course, we see parents who cannot make these distinctions for themselves, often.
It is a colossal effort to grind the massive and powerful gears of the advertising/marketing machine to a halt and begin to pull the lever back toward thoughtfulness even in one's home, let alone in all of society, but individuals, families, and eventually communities must make the effort.
The "churning" you describe is in so many ways part of the problem. People are never satisfied and as you have referenced before no one in our culture has any sense of "enough". I do see some signs of hope as a result of the hard economic lessons we've all learned the last couple of years. Yet when people come to their senses a bit and pay off debt, reduce spending, and save, here come the economists saying "Oh how terrible, everyone is saving and slowing the recovery!" Wouldn't it be better for it to take longer and for us to have a real recovery based on something other than (as you pointed out) ever increasing consumer spending? And for all the ways that corporate America manipulates the system and works people over, I am going to say that we as individuals allow that to happen. It is a choice to participate in the constant consumption to some extent. The fact that things are made to break down, and not be repaired but replaced, is absolutely true however, and the constant shifting of households from place to place (an expensive proposition every time) does in fact keep many families falling farther and farther behind. The merry-go-round of consumer consumption--working more, and constantly accumulating more debt --has been spinning faster and faster for years. People have been getting thrown off at a rapid rate lately; we are beginning to see some now give things a bit more careful consideration and start to drag their feet to slow the pace.
Our shallow image based priorities are a huge part of the problem. The refrigerator in my kitchen (a big, ugly, outdated monster) is 40 years old; it was built to LAST. I've had people ask me why I don't replace it with one that "looks" better. Not having a car debt was key in my being able to stay home and home school our kids (very important to me). To us, cars are modes of transportation; we are not driving them in order to (as Dave Ramsey says) "impress someone (we) don't know for 3 seconds at a stop light". These things are choices made on the basis of our priorities; not being enslaved by debt is somewhere near the top of the list.
While in some cases (planned obsolescence for instance) there is blatant consumer victimization going on, much of what you mention in your post we are complicit in. We are ALLOWING ourselves to be convinced that we need the better car, bigger house, (that trend is in reverse by the way) or to eat out several nights a week.
Not only are things made now intentionally to wear out, but then the company tries to extort money from you in terms of a service policy/agreement. "We'll fix the piece of crap we are selling to you, but you have to pay 'protection' money for it." I ticked my last salesman off when he asked if I wanted to buy the service agreement. "No, what I WANT is for your company to make something we shouldn't both assume is going to break within the next couple of years."
Your comments about workers being exploited and made to feel that it is somewhat necessary to stay ahead of the competition while the corporations and their shareholders benefit, rings so true. It's common discussion among friends that they are taking pay cuts or asked to give up certain benefits for the sake of the company, and then you open the paper and find that the company they work for has made record profits for the quarter. Deep down we all know we are being had.
Well, of course HERE everything is up for discussion, but you are correct it is definitely the exception and not the rule. Not only are people not willing to discuss things, the immediate reaction is often ANGER that you even would dare have a different opinion. And doesn't Lord Acton have the best quote on this? "Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity".
So all of this has me asking another question: Is it possible, given the ever increasing size and power of corporations and especially global ones with hundreds of subsidiaries, that we could eventually see an economy (perhaps a global one) made up of only a few massive corporations that would wield as much power and influence (or more) as many governments? Or would you say, Professor, that we are already there?
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Falling of the Last Scales
Madame M,
New explosions. “Fictional” Dallas played out in real life. “Regulators” in bed (often literally) with those they are supposedly regulating. Most of corporate reporting and compliance being voluntary. No consequences. Would have all the trappings of a good movie if it wasn’t tragic reality.
Much of what we think of as monitoring or regulating is just a façade to placate a public that wants to believe (or wants to ignore the reality of who has the power). Pawns of the true powers, the public becomes easily dismissed.
Both of what you say COULD be true at the same time, but not for this. They were never in much of any real danger. They and their fellows ARE the power. They merely framed things that way to lower monetary expectations and diffuse anger in a most clever way.
Yes, as 4.0 so effectively demonstrates, we have built our society, and especially our cities, for cars, not people. With the result that the people ironically often have LESS effective mobility and connectivity than before, not to mention drastic reduction in quality of life and many other things. Yes, there will be pain, perhaps deep pain, in getting away from that. But as the benefits start to show, the pain will give way to reward, reconnection, and general improvement.
To do so, we will have to get over this American antipathy toward accepting that others might have good/better ideas that we should consider. Europeans and Asians have already designed and/or gradually redesigned a number of cities that we could look to as models.
We all need to rethink a great deal of what we have instituted in both our lives and our society. Sometimes the effort seems overwhelming and seemingly a bit futile, and we wish someone else would do it for us. “So do all who come to such times.” What can be done is to keep raising things to the level of public awareness, and trust that people will see through the demagoguery that may try to use it for other things. This gives us a reasonable chance of eventual action.
It is interesting to note that some progress IS being made, a little bit here, a bit more worldwide, in transitioning us out of our oil addiction. I look at that and am at least somewhat encouraged, despite my thinking it is not enough nor is there sense of urgency enough to avert points of system failure. I try to focus on that and not the discouragement!
For progress to be made in many areas, including combating corporatism, we must shed ourselves of fanciful assumptions.
Although I do think that capitalism is the best system that humans have been able to execute semi-successfully so far on a large scale, I have no slavish devotion to it or religious zealotry for it. It must be looked at with the exacting eye, and that eye reveals significant flaws.
An example is too much of this idea that corporatism is a thing apart from capitalism. Yes, corporatism can be, and often is, a parasite on its capitalism host, and needs drastic correction. But corporations and corporatism arise BECAUSE of capitalism’s nature, which is itself a reflection of human nature. We need to look at all facets or our decisions will be emotional and ill-considered.
Besides capitalism’s twin precepts (and illogical and unsustainable ones at that) of endless accumulation and unlimited expansion in a limited space, there are sub-precepts that are distasteful as well: The average business owner, certainly of any size, and absolutely of most corporations, looks upon labor with an exploitative eye. That is, when they think of labor, their first thought is: have the fewest workers necessary to achieve big profit. Get 2 people to do the work that 3 people should do, and outsource or get machines or automation to do whatever is possible. And secondly, of the people that this owner or corporation then feels he/it HAS to have, the central thought nearly everyday is: “what is the maximum work I can get from these people while paying them the minimum possible?” Occasionally, skilled labor is treated a bit better than this, but even they are becoming more and more prey to this mentality. Semiskilled labor like nurse’s aides, good waiters, even some carpenters, generally almost definitely get shorted. The cultural paradigm of ever-increasing worker productivity (the endless improvement movement gone excessive) does not benefit the workers much, if at all. In the hypercompetitive world, it is sold as needed to stay even or just ahead of every competitor. While that is somewhat true (albeit, largely American-culture driven), it is even more true that even when businesses/corporations make handsome profits, it is the shareholders and executives who usually benefit, not the workers whose efforts achieved it.
Having consumer-spending drive the economy is also a prescription for failure. Especially when consumers have been largely gutted because they are often (mostly) exploited employees who don’t have the purchasing power anymore, except sometimes via debt of one sort or another.
It would be a failure even if businesses in general were being run with a long-term outlook, which often isn’t the case. The immediate gratification aspect of American culture, and the fact that digitized money can move across the globe in an instant, means that PROJECTIONS of next QUARTER’S (that is, 3 months) profits is what drives a stock’s price (the overall market is sometimes propelled by different considerations). The stock’s price is what significant-holding shareholders (many of whom are not just board members, but executives too) look at for their wealth calculations. It isn’t any longer that a business actually ACHIEVES something or makes something. It is stock price manipulation.
And as REPAIR is largely gone as a regular avenue for things, planned obsolescence and planned replacement are built into the system to constantly churn the consumer and increase profit. Largely gone are the days of quality product designed to last. One of the reasons the middle class used to be able to maintain its position was because it wasn’t repeatedly churned. It wasn’t lured into constantly moving (and the expensive churning that comes from a new mortgage, not to mention the lack of paying off as a new 30 year mortgage ensues), and didn’t bleed out its wealth by constantly having to buy replacement appliances and the like. But because today one can rarely buy quality, and even rarer for the long term (businesses that don’t constantly sell to the same “customers” often don’t get to stay in business), the average person is then poorer, and society as a whole is poorer, from having to endlessly rebuy things which are barely improved, if at all.
It is not even that owners/corporations are necessarily evil in all this. Moral considerations are often just irrelevant. It is capitalism propelling an amoral outlook.
The more people that uncaring, corporate-model capitalism marginalizes, that is, denies even little hope and makes bitterly resentful, the more violence there will be from the desperate across the world (perhaps even here eventually) who have nothing to lose.
Now, one can hardly utter the words in the above paragraphs without the “shock/terror” counter-words coming out: Left, Marxism, Socialism, Unions, Meddling, even “Jobs-Costing.” They are knee-jerk emotional words designed to short-circuit any serious considerations of the points just presented. On purpose. Why is it a threat to DISCUSS things? If one was really secure in the correctness of their views, why be threatened by discussion? Because, of course, critical thinking IS a threat to the real powers.
And just because there are great flaws in many concepts, does not mean there are not some things in them that are valid and need discussing. It has often been “Marxists” (including the progenitor himself) who pointed out with clarity the deficiencies in capitalism. But because they are “Marxists,” their comments have been dismissed out of hand (again, the problem that comes from categorizing, and also the problem that comes from dismissing philosophies categorically). Just because Marxism has been largely a tragic failure in the authoritarian forms it has been carried out in (and perhaps was fated to failure, given human nature), any relevant ideas within it were tossed on the historical trash heap too. One can rarely discuss those points today without the emotional reaction drowning out ANY consideration. Closing its mind to ideas is one of the ways cultures fail to adapt. And start to fall.
New explosions. “Fictional” Dallas played out in real life. “Regulators” in bed (often literally) with those they are supposedly regulating. Most of corporate reporting and compliance being voluntary. No consequences. Would have all the trappings of a good movie if it wasn’t tragic reality.
Much of what we think of as monitoring or regulating is just a façade to placate a public that wants to believe (or wants to ignore the reality of who has the power). Pawns of the true powers, the public becomes easily dismissed.
Both of what you say COULD be true at the same time, but not for this. They were never in much of any real danger. They and their fellows ARE the power. They merely framed things that way to lower monetary expectations and diffuse anger in a most clever way.
Yes, as 4.0 so effectively demonstrates, we have built our society, and especially our cities, for cars, not people. With the result that the people ironically often have LESS effective mobility and connectivity than before, not to mention drastic reduction in quality of life and many other things. Yes, there will be pain, perhaps deep pain, in getting away from that. But as the benefits start to show, the pain will give way to reward, reconnection, and general improvement.
To do so, we will have to get over this American antipathy toward accepting that others might have good/better ideas that we should consider. Europeans and Asians have already designed and/or gradually redesigned a number of cities that we could look to as models.
We all need to rethink a great deal of what we have instituted in both our lives and our society. Sometimes the effort seems overwhelming and seemingly a bit futile, and we wish someone else would do it for us. “So do all who come to such times.” What can be done is to keep raising things to the level of public awareness, and trust that people will see through the demagoguery that may try to use it for other things. This gives us a reasonable chance of eventual action.
It is interesting to note that some progress IS being made, a little bit here, a bit more worldwide, in transitioning us out of our oil addiction. I look at that and am at least somewhat encouraged, despite my thinking it is not enough nor is there sense of urgency enough to avert points of system failure. I try to focus on that and not the discouragement!
For progress to be made in many areas, including combating corporatism, we must shed ourselves of fanciful assumptions.
Although I do think that capitalism is the best system that humans have been able to execute semi-successfully so far on a large scale, I have no slavish devotion to it or religious zealotry for it. It must be looked at with the exacting eye, and that eye reveals significant flaws.
An example is too much of this idea that corporatism is a thing apart from capitalism. Yes, corporatism can be, and often is, a parasite on its capitalism host, and needs drastic correction. But corporations and corporatism arise BECAUSE of capitalism’s nature, which is itself a reflection of human nature. We need to look at all facets or our decisions will be emotional and ill-considered.
Besides capitalism’s twin precepts (and illogical and unsustainable ones at that) of endless accumulation and unlimited expansion in a limited space, there are sub-precepts that are distasteful as well: The average business owner, certainly of any size, and absolutely of most corporations, looks upon labor with an exploitative eye. That is, when they think of labor, their first thought is: have the fewest workers necessary to achieve big profit. Get 2 people to do the work that 3 people should do, and outsource or get machines or automation to do whatever is possible. And secondly, of the people that this owner or corporation then feels he/it HAS to have, the central thought nearly everyday is: “what is the maximum work I can get from these people while paying them the minimum possible?” Occasionally, skilled labor is treated a bit better than this, but even they are becoming more and more prey to this mentality. Semiskilled labor like nurse’s aides, good waiters, even some carpenters, generally almost definitely get shorted. The cultural paradigm of ever-increasing worker productivity (the endless improvement movement gone excessive) does not benefit the workers much, if at all. In the hypercompetitive world, it is sold as needed to stay even or just ahead of every competitor. While that is somewhat true (albeit, largely American-culture driven), it is even more true that even when businesses/corporations make handsome profits, it is the shareholders and executives who usually benefit, not the workers whose efforts achieved it.
Having consumer-spending drive the economy is also a prescription for failure. Especially when consumers have been largely gutted because they are often (mostly) exploited employees who don’t have the purchasing power anymore, except sometimes via debt of one sort or another.
It would be a failure even if businesses in general were being run with a long-term outlook, which often isn’t the case. The immediate gratification aspect of American culture, and the fact that digitized money can move across the globe in an instant, means that PROJECTIONS of next QUARTER’S (that is, 3 months) profits is what drives a stock’s price (the overall market is sometimes propelled by different considerations). The stock’s price is what significant-holding shareholders (many of whom are not just board members, but executives too) look at for their wealth calculations. It isn’t any longer that a business actually ACHIEVES something or makes something. It is stock price manipulation.
And as REPAIR is largely gone as a regular avenue for things, planned obsolescence and planned replacement are built into the system to constantly churn the consumer and increase profit. Largely gone are the days of quality product designed to last. One of the reasons the middle class used to be able to maintain its position was because it wasn’t repeatedly churned. It wasn’t lured into constantly moving (and the expensive churning that comes from a new mortgage, not to mention the lack of paying off as a new 30 year mortgage ensues), and didn’t bleed out its wealth by constantly having to buy replacement appliances and the like. But because today one can rarely buy quality, and even rarer for the long term (businesses that don’t constantly sell to the same “customers” often don’t get to stay in business), the average person is then poorer, and society as a whole is poorer, from having to endlessly rebuy things which are barely improved, if at all.
It is not even that owners/corporations are necessarily evil in all this. Moral considerations are often just irrelevant. It is capitalism propelling an amoral outlook.
The more people that uncaring, corporate-model capitalism marginalizes, that is, denies even little hope and makes bitterly resentful, the more violence there will be from the desperate across the world (perhaps even here eventually) who have nothing to lose.
Now, one can hardly utter the words in the above paragraphs without the “shock/terror” counter-words coming out: Left, Marxism, Socialism, Unions, Meddling, even “Jobs-Costing.” They are knee-jerk emotional words designed to short-circuit any serious considerations of the points just presented. On purpose. Why is it a threat to DISCUSS things? If one was really secure in the correctness of their views, why be threatened by discussion? Because, of course, critical thinking IS a threat to the real powers.
And just because there are great flaws in many concepts, does not mean there are not some things in them that are valid and need discussing. It has often been “Marxists” (including the progenitor himself) who pointed out with clarity the deficiencies in capitalism. But because they are “Marxists,” their comments have been dismissed out of hand (again, the problem that comes from categorizing, and also the problem that comes from dismissing philosophies categorically). Just because Marxism has been largely a tragic failure in the authoritarian forms it has been carried out in (and perhaps was fated to failure, given human nature), any relevant ideas within it were tossed on the historical trash heap too. One can rarely discuss those points today without the emotional reaction drowning out ANY consideration. Closing its mind to ideas is one of the ways cultures fail to adapt. And start to fall.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Anyone Else Hear the Dallas Theme Song?
Professor J,
How interesting that while I'm working on this today there is news of yet another explosion on a platform in the gulf.
I mentioned in a previous post that I'd lost track of the discussion of change in the policies concerning those who are supposed to be overseeing (or, if you prefer, "underseeing"). But just in time for our discussion the new head of the recently renamed Bureau of Ocean Energy Management sent out an e-mail to staffers notifying them about the new ethics rules, outlined in this article Things are certainly worse than the public imagines when such an investigation includes the tantalizing description of those who are supposed to be holding the oil companies accountable as, "federal regulators who had sex with oil company executives and negotiated with them for jobs" (this article doesn't even cover the drugs mentioned when the story broke). And we thought J.R. Ewing was a fictional character; who knew "Dallas" was a reality show?
The thing that bothers me about the new rules is that they all seem fairly voluntary and I couldn't find the consequence of violating the new policies anywhere. Are we to believe that now, magically these people have discovered a sense of personal responsibility and are going to hold themselves to these new standards? Isn't it just the same old barn with a new coat of paint? "Look, we made new rules!" One could hope that the new man in charge is someone with a strong character and sense of justice, we'll see. The "penalties" you noted that are currently in place are indeed laughable. It is the rare industry, corporation, or organization that can effectively police itself. I found it odd that according to the article, the "overseers" live in close proximity and see the workers in daily social interactions, given what we know about the unspoken power of the "group" that seems a very poor way to conduct oversight.
"They framed the argument, and then they waived the “if we go bankrupt, no one and nothing will get paid” phantom." Why can't both things be true at the same time, that no one would get paid AND that they are hiding behind that argument?
You said "like the addicts we are, we just take the discomfort from the bad effects" which is true and fair enough but change in our communities which are designed for cars and not people will be a massive undertaking. Everything built for decades has been designed with the car and not pedestrians in mind. Zoning laws even conspire to make walking and bike riding impractical. Suburban neighborhoods without stores in walking distance and the lack of decent and reliable public transportation in most places mean we are far from being able to start detox without, as you say, a great deal of pain.
We are not only addicted but held hostage by our own poor planning and lack of foresight.
I think Siberia SOUNDS like a form of punishment/exile (the intent I'm sure) but anyplace can be made bearable if not pleasant with enough money, and I somehow doubt he's spending all his time there. It's also interesting that he's playing musical countries/ job titles with the guy who blew it with the Russians.
Telling the people the truth? They don't even do that when the truth is a fairly easy one to adjust to. But I do agree with you that people know something is wrong and just want someone to give it to them straight. I think the average citizen wants someone who would come out and tell the truth no matter how scary or hard it is.
I'm not sure people are really waking up to the fragility of the system. The things I read that advocate urban farming and a local diet seem to be based more on a "save the planet" mindset. I'm not sure anyone wants to think about how quickly the supply of food down at the local grocery would run out in a worst case scenario, and that it would be impossible to restock given the slightest disruption in the transportation system...but I am prone to some very dark thinking sometimes. Of course it could be that they are framing the situation and solution this way intentionally as a means of educating people and changing behavior without crossing over into frightening predictions.
Remember a few posts back when you said I like to give people the benefit of the doubt? Now I have been called out on that by the illustrious Ms. Rand (by means of a character description) as well. In her notes for Atlas Shrugged she specifically mentions it as a weakness in Dagny Taggart's character, "Her over optimism is in thinking that men are better than they are; she doesn't really understand them and is generous about it." She spends two or three pages expounding on the idea. Hmmm..."over optimism"...maybe, and here I just thought I was hopeful. Thinking and rethinking that. lol
How interesting that while I'm working on this today there is news of yet another explosion on a platform in the gulf.
I mentioned in a previous post that I'd lost track of the discussion of change in the policies concerning those who are supposed to be overseeing (or, if you prefer, "underseeing"). But just in time for our discussion the new head of the recently renamed Bureau of Ocean Energy Management sent out an e-mail to staffers notifying them about the new ethics rules, outlined in this article Things are certainly worse than the public imagines when such an investigation includes the tantalizing description of those who are supposed to be holding the oil companies accountable as, "federal regulators who had sex with oil company executives and negotiated with them for jobs" (this article doesn't even cover the drugs mentioned when the story broke). And we thought J.R. Ewing was a fictional character; who knew "Dallas" was a reality show?
The thing that bothers me about the new rules is that they all seem fairly voluntary and I couldn't find the consequence of violating the new policies anywhere. Are we to believe that now, magically these people have discovered a sense of personal responsibility and are going to hold themselves to these new standards? Isn't it just the same old barn with a new coat of paint? "Look, we made new rules!" One could hope that the new man in charge is someone with a strong character and sense of justice, we'll see. The "penalties" you noted that are currently in place are indeed laughable. It is the rare industry, corporation, or organization that can effectively police itself. I found it odd that according to the article, the "overseers" live in close proximity and see the workers in daily social interactions, given what we know about the unspoken power of the "group" that seems a very poor way to conduct oversight.
"They framed the argument, and then they waived the “if we go bankrupt, no one and nothing will get paid” phantom." Why can't both things be true at the same time, that no one would get paid AND that they are hiding behind that argument?
You said "like the addicts we are, we just take the discomfort from the bad effects" which is true and fair enough but change in our communities which are designed for cars and not people will be a massive undertaking. Everything built for decades has been designed with the car and not pedestrians in mind. Zoning laws even conspire to make walking and bike riding impractical. Suburban neighborhoods without stores in walking distance and the lack of decent and reliable public transportation in most places mean we are far from being able to start detox without, as you say, a great deal of pain.
We are not only addicted but held hostage by our own poor planning and lack of foresight.
I think Siberia SOUNDS like a form of punishment/exile (the intent I'm sure) but anyplace can be made bearable if not pleasant with enough money, and I somehow doubt he's spending all his time there. It's also interesting that he's playing musical countries/ job titles with the guy who blew it with the Russians.
Telling the people the truth? They don't even do that when the truth is a fairly easy one to adjust to. But I do agree with you that people know something is wrong and just want someone to give it to them straight. I think the average citizen wants someone who would come out and tell the truth no matter how scary or hard it is.
I'm not sure people are really waking up to the fragility of the system. The things I read that advocate urban farming and a local diet seem to be based more on a "save the planet" mindset. I'm not sure anyone wants to think about how quickly the supply of food down at the local grocery would run out in a worst case scenario, and that it would be impossible to restock given the slightest disruption in the transportation system...but I am prone to some very dark thinking sometimes. Of course it could be that they are framing the situation and solution this way intentionally as a means of educating people and changing behavior without crossing over into frightening predictions.
Remember a few posts back when you said I like to give people the benefit of the doubt? Now I have been called out on that by the illustrious Ms. Rand (by means of a character description) as well. In her notes for Atlas Shrugged she specifically mentions it as a weakness in Dagny Taggart's character, "Her over optimism is in thinking that men are better than they are; she doesn't really understand them and is generous about it." She spends two or three pages expounding on the idea. Hmmm..."over optimism"...maybe, and here I just thought I was hopeful. Thinking and rethinking that. lol
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