FW: Life At a Glance
-- From: Sid Shniad To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Life At a Glance Date: Friday, November 06, 1998 4:38PM The Globe and Mail November 6, 1998 Life At a Glance: Cartoon in which one suit is talking to another: "When the stock market dropped, I had a moment of understanding. I realized that my values had become skewed. I had been measuring my life in terms of material gains. I saw that all of that could be swept away in an instant. What I was going to have to do was restructure my life to seek and appreciate tahings of a deeper spiritual nature. But then, luckily, the stock market went back up."
Capitalism - the zero-sum game. (Just one question/The Soviet system)
Dear Eva:
I am tempted to say that we disagree on some fundamental points, and
leave it at that. However, I believe that you (and, in a different
form, Ed Weick) raise important points, so let me try to distinguish, by
"deconstructing," the strains of these argument.
As I see it, there are two questions at the core of the discussion:
(1) What is the nature of capitalism (in its psycnological and
behavioral roots, and in its functioning as a business-economic system)?
(2) What is the nature of the relationship between capitalism and the
society of which it is a part?
As to the first question, I can accept the validity of what you and
Weick are saying. Capitalism is based on the ethics and behavior of
selfishness and this comes out most clearly if there is no other element
that influences the participants -- ALL of the participants (not only
owners, but investors -- including "widows and orphans", workers, small
tradespeople, publicists, etc., etc., i.e. all the people, or the vast
majority of them, in a society characterized by the capitalist mode of
economic behavior). Ironically, the kindest view of this was
articulated by Marx. He emphatically declared that the capitalist was
not necessarily a bad person, but rather, caught up in the realities of
the competitive system, is alienated from all moral or other
considerations that might otherwise condition his behavior. ("If I don't
act this way, and go for the last bit of competitive advantage in
maximizing my profit, then someone else will do that to my disadvantage
and eventually I may be driven to the wall. Where would I be then? And
where would the system be? Would it be any better --- or would it be
the same, but with me as a loser?" -- etc., so it goes.) The polite
term for this, in conventional economic and business parlance, is
"profit maximization." Less politely, all kinds of horrors are built
into the system. In more contemporary analysis, this is a "zero-sum
game", in which the gains of one are the losses of the others. In
traditional pollitical palance, it is Hobbes's "war of all against all."
At this point, we won't go down a whole other road of argument, i.e.
whether this is a necessary condition, or whether capitalism can be
replaced by something altogether different, in terms of human
motivation, behavior, and economic functioning. We will accept Weick's
view that this is capitalism "as is," in the real view, and also other
views that have been articulated that suggest that there is "no free
lunch" in designing and putting in place real world systems, i.e. that
any alternative also has its own characteristics, some advantageous,
some disadvantageous, some quite horrifying if taken in their pure form.
(In imagining systems of alternatives, whether as regards economic
systems, personal lifestyles, careers, relationships, etc., there is
always a tendency -- as long as one is imagining -- to see the most
negative features of the reality one is dealing with and which one
dreams of escaping from, and idealizing that which one is imagining, and
believing that it will be something as pure as the physical
relationships between human beings in Erica Jong's first novel, an
evocation of daydreaming abstracted from reality.)
Let me turn to the second point. Given a reality like the functioning
of capitalism, as it is, and in its pure, unrestrained, form, prudence
dictates that we regard this as dangerous, even if it may be reality.
So we construct systems of law, regulation, counterbalancing forces,
economic policy systems (like Keynesianism -- but also others), or
whatever =-- we try to tame this system to a point where we can live
with it. Sometimes we will be more successful, sometimes less.
Sometimes we will give up altogether, and then the beast begins to rage
among us in its "natural" form. This is what I originally referred to
be by asserting the positive possibilities and expereience of past
regulation, etc.. And this was what I meant when I said that
electorates, used to relatively smooth functioning of regulation,
eventually become bored, become less vigilant, and contribute to a
system where the blandishments of "unrestrained free enterprise" become
sufficiently sufficient that the safeguards that have been built by
society over time are disregarded and allowed to become corrupted.
I don't want to take this father, at this point, because -- if my
position is not understood -- it would simply mean repeating and trying
to reiterate, in a different form, what I have already stated in my
previous posting.
There are, however, 3 other points that should be touched upon, at least
to suggest further points which might be fruitful for useful discussion
and argument. These are (a) regulation from the point of view of the
capitalist; (b) Weick's point about mobility of capitalism in a
globalized economy; and (c) the environmental question. I can try to
sketch out just very bare beginnings of a discussion (from my
perspective --
A place to start
http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/charter-petition.html Revoking Philip Morris's Charter--Petition Sign the online petition to revoke the charter! SINCE the first American corporations were chartered in 1776, their lawyers and lobbyists have been sneaking around in our courtrooms and state capitols, reconfiguring the law to better suit their needs. Yet few people have stepped back to look at the results and start asking questions: "You mean corporations and their activities were once subject to public consent? How on earth did corporations get the rights of people? How did we get stuck playing by their rules--trying to regulate to minimize corporate damage? So why aren't we asserting our right to shut offending corporations down?" Charters were once issued sparingly to meet specific public needs and expired after 10 to 30 years. Corporations were restricted in size and allowable wealth. Directors and managers were held liable for corporate harms. And legislatures reserved the right to amend and revoke corporate charters at will. Defining the corporation, Article 12 of California's 1879 Constitution filled several pages in 24 sections. All but four have been repealed, the final regression occurring in 1972. But there's hope. All states have the largely dormant power to revoke corporate charters--the very papers that permit corporate existence. In early May, New York Attorney General Dennis Vacco filed court papers seeking to dissolve the corporate existence of The Council for Tobacco Research and The Tobacco Institute on the grounds that they are tobacco-funded fronts that serve "as propaganda arms of the industry" despite claiming from their inception to be independent, scientific institutions. "It's about time the Attorney General lived up to his obligations," says New York's Richard Grossman of the Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy, the group that started the charter revocation movement. "Over the last five years, many people I've talked to have rolled their eyes at the thought of charter revocation. Many think such an action is a pipedream. Fortunately, Vacco's actions show they're wrong." The movement was started by longtime activists who realized fighting for corporate regulation didn't work. Corporations simply break the law, include fines and court fees as a cost of doing business, and pass it off onto their customers. While most corporations break the law on a regular basis, Grossman realized they are not chartered to do so. This realization spurred a wealth of legal research and created momentum within the burgeoning movement. Law in New York, the home state of Philip Morris, Inc., holds that a for-profit corporation can be dissolved if it "(a) procured its formation through fraudulent misrepresentation or concealment of material fact, (b) exceeded the authority conferred upon it by law, (c) violated any provision of law whereby it has forfeited its charter, (d) conducted its business in a persistently fraudulent or illegal manner, or (e) abused its powers in a manner contrary to the public policy of the state." If you convince the Attorney General to file an order to "show cause," accompanied by a petition stating the grounds, the case will go to court. Easier said than done, of course. Incredible feats of organizing and education will be necessary to shift the law back in the public's favor and undo a pattern over a century old. Where to begin? Let's start with a massive campaign to revoke the charter of Public Enemy Number One--Philip Morris, Inc.--for consistently violating the above "(d)" and "(e)" while marketing to minors and covering up evidence of health risk, among other reasons. There's hope in the dusty halls of law history and even more in the organizing underway. Birmingham Circuit Judge William Wynn recently discovered that Alabama is one of the few states allowing an individual to initiate charter revocation. So as a private citizen, he's filed to forbid the five major tobacco corporations from operating there. The case is now in court. But don't forget, "the movement is much deeper than charter revocation," says Paul Cienfuegos of Democracy Unlimited in Arcata, California. "It's about nothing less than building a locally-led national movement which for the first time in US history demands and creates mechanisms of authentic democratic control over all institutions we citizens are sovereign over, be they corporate or government." Will Philip Morris, Inc., fall to such a populist effort? It's up to you. Sign the online petition to revoke the charter! http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/charter-petition.html -- Jason Mogus Director of Client Services Communicopia Internet http://www.communicopia.bc.ca 604/844.7672 What!?! Another Megamerger? Envolve & Communicopia Get Hitched! Check out Merger Site: http://www.communicopia.bc.ca
Re: The Soviet system: who was screwing whom?
All I know, that Hungary couldn't have rebuilt the terrible destruction of the war without soviet energy and raw material, and that hungarian shops always had more food in them - even in the early 50s - than the soviet ones. I suppose we should stop referring to anecdotal evidence, perhaps some figures are available somewhere. I guess they stripped a load of assets - I doubt if this was pre-meditated, probably the motive was to revenge (or being seen to revenge) the fascists. As Czechoslovakia was more of an occupied country and not a fascist ally as Hungary, I am puzzled. Though they also had a better developed industry - perhaps there was more to take. Eva > > Ed Weick wrote: > > > Many writers have refered to the Soviet system as "state capitalism". > > A fellow blacksmith who lived near Prague said to me (in 1980), > > Es gibt kein Communismus! Es gibt nur Staat Capitalismus. > > There is no communism! There's only state capitalism. > > With regard to "who was screwing whom", he also recounted his > experience just after the war. As a young teenager, he watched the > Red Army direct the loading of trucks with every piece of industrial > machinerey and materiel that could be found and ship it off to Russia. > He was exceptionally fortunate to have a power hammer in his shop > (commonplace among N American and western European smiths) because it > had fallen from a truck headed for Moscow, broken a casting and been > pushed into a ditch. A Czech smith had found a way to lug it home > and, more remarkably given the conditions, repair it. > > Perhaps the notion of the SU having been the net exploiter is/was > tilted by recollections of immediate post-war events. > > - Mike >
(FW) Re: The Soviet system: who was screwing whom?
Ed Weick wrote: > I would suggest that there is only one kind of capitalism - the kind > that is. It is self-serving, highly rational, exploitative, and, where > permitted, brutal. Its concerns are to cut costs, maximize returns, > and grow. I'm not the first to say that this is the ideology of carcinoma. That's bad enough when capitalists (so characterized) are human beings. The worst of folks may be persuaded or coerced to better their ways and in any case will eventually die. "I may die. The King may die. And who knows? The horse may learn to sing." But when the capitalists are corporate entities, potentially immortal, legally constituted as persons and mandated by law and charter to embody the personality of a psychopath, this sounds to me like the perfect embodiment of evil. It was a poorly kept secret (where it was a secret at all) that in the years around WW II, many non-German industrialists and financiers (inter alia) thought the Third Reich was coming of the golden age. Stamp out communism? Splendid! Alles in Ordnung? Efficiency the first priority? Great! Put the inferior types to work, forcibly if neccessary? Of course! Only Adolph had to go and get off on this inefficient, kinky side issue about Jews and death camps and lose track of the Main Chance for capital and Progress. And screw up the birth of the golden age for fifty years. Given the Holocaust, of course it's a hard job to find anybody who'll admit to such a view. But Ed's formulation of capitalism pretty well approximates Hitler and Moussolini without antisemitism or deathcamps. Ed> But what I have found even more disturbing is that freely-elected, Ed> democratic governments have bought into many of the ethics and values Ed> of capitalism. That is, into the ethics and values of self-serving, rationality, exploitation and brutality. Indeed. That disturbs me as well. No, it gives me the screaming willies. Part of the problem is that capitalism, as Ed remarked, is a kind of machine that hit on an accidental win. In an earlier post I compared this kind of success to white sugar or heroin. Both grab a small critical regulatory element of a larger process and evince a huge "success" by coopting the regulatory mechanism. Capitalism has been this kind of success and influential people in government love success. They want in. Ed> I have suggested that this is a dangerous confusion of roles in Ed> previous postings. It represents a serious, perhaps fatal, erosion of Ed> countervailing power. I agree. I suggest that much of the explicit anti-capitalist rhetoric on FW, however, reflects a notion that goes beyond countervailing power. If we're on shipboard -- spaceship earth -- and we give all the money, charts and navigation gear, the keys to the arms locker, stores and galley and exclusive access to the engine room -- if we give all this to a little gaggle of psychopaths, they may well try to run the ship efficiently. But we aren't going to enjoy the voyage. And what can we expect if we politely ask the officers on the bridge to exert some countervailing power? Hey, you with the Uzi, knock it off? Hah! I take Eva's remarks (and others') to say that turning the operation of the infrastructure of society to psychopaths bent on greed, exploitation and brutality and then trying to regulate them is just plain moronic. If capitalism is the ideology of cancer, we need to rethink what we're going to advocate and support as apredominant ideology before it's too late. --- I shouldn't have to add this but to avoid the charge that I'm calling individual people psychopaths -- whether CEOs or investing widows -- I emphasize that the psychopathic personalities to which I refer are those of the juridicial persons constituted as corporations. Read any business page to find bald declarations that corporations have no responsibilities but the bottom line or, more generally shareholder value. That CEOs (or investing widows or any corporate employee or stockholder) are typically under constant pressure to accept and, where relevant, support or act on behalf of the psychopathic corporate persona is a related ethical issue but not for this post. - Mike -- Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL: http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/mspencer/home.html ---
Re: The Soviet system: who was screwing whom?
Ed Weick wrote: > Many writers have refered to the Soviet system as "state capitalism". A fellow blacksmith who lived near Prague said to me (in 1980), Es gibt kein Communismus! Es gibt nur Staat Capitalismus. There is no communism! There's only state capitalism. With regard to "who was screwing whom", he also recounted his experience just after the war. As a young teenager, he watched the Red Army direct the loading of trucks with every piece of industrial machinerey and materiel that could be found and ship it off to Russia. He was exceptionally fortunate to have a power hammer in his shop (commonplace among N American and western European smiths) because it had fallen from a truck headed for Moscow, broken a casting and been pushed into a ditch. A Czech smith had found a way to lug it home and, more remarkably given the conditions, repair it. Perhaps the notion of the SU having been the net exploiter is/was tilted by recollections of immediate post-war events. - Mike
Re: The Soviet system: who was screwing whom?
Collective capitalism?? Where? I think you lost me. Eva > Saul Silverman's posting about "capitalism as is" and "capitalism as it can > be" got me thinking about "government as is" and "government as it can be". > I would suggest that there is only one kind of capitalism - the kind that > is. It is self-serving, highly rational, exploitative, and, where permitted, > brutal. Its concerns are to cut costs, maximize returns, and grow. Whether > it exists in a democratic or totalitarian setting does not matter. It is > what it is, essentially a growing machine, and it behaves as it does whether > it operates in an individualistic environment or a collectivist one. > > The extent to which the machine is under control varies greatly from country > to country. What this depends on is not so much on whether a society is > democratic or authoritarian, but more on the extent to which a government > has bought into the ethics, values and methods of capitalism. On the one > hand, in running the machine, in being the sole capitalist, the Soviet > government bought into capitalism entirely, and in emulating the machine, in > using its methods, Nazi Germany totally embraced capitalism's ethics and > values. On the other, western democracies, aided and abetted by unions and > other popular movements, have acted as a powerful counter force to capital. > > I have wondered recently if democracies have not begun to let our guard > down. Democratic governments have begun to feel somewhat cornered. Capital > is now capable of rapid international movement. Wealth can now be relocated > in ways that government cannot control. Governments cannot agree on what > should be allowed and what they might attempt to regulate -- witness the > fate of the MAI. They view capital as both scarce and as globally available, > and, almost like beggars with their hands out, compete with each other for > benefits which foreign investment can bring. > > But what I have found even more disturbing is that freely-elected, > democratic governments have bought into many of the ethics and values of > capitalism. Capitalism leads and government follows. Government perceives > itself to have become business, intent on continuing to provide only those > services which cannot be sloughed off to the private sector, and operating > those as cheaply as possible. The "bottom line" has become a major > preoccupation. Providing services of high quality has been displaced by > providing services at the lowest possible cost. Those who cannot make it in > the economy are cast aside much like those who are being "terminated" in a > downsizing corporation. > > I have suggested that this is a dangerous confusion of roles in previous > postings. It represents a serious, perhaps fatal, erosion of countervailing > power. It raises the disturbing possibility that even liberal democracies > may soon become little more than giant corporations. > > Ed Weick > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Just one question/The Soviet system:
Before you close the debate, would you - or anyone else who cares answer my question: If you believe that market mechanism makes the world go round, how come it can also work when regulated? Why should a government regulate it in the interest of the whole of society, when the government represent only the industrial/financial power, and as all state, it is there to upheld this status quo - especially when (capitalist) regulated (keynesian and monaterist) systems also ended up in the same overproducing, inflationary or stagflationary crisis. I'm on this list for some time now, and I posed this question often enough, but had no answer yet. Eva ... > The ancient (Talmudic) rabbis put it in pithy form: "Pray for the > government, for without goveernment people would devour each other." > Nearer our time, in his relatively early work AMERICAN CAPITALISM > (1950's), John Kenneth Galbraith spoke of the "countervailing power" of > government to balance against the excesses of market economics, whether > in the comopetitive or ologopolistic mode. Presumably, the > countervailing concept would extend further than this: market-oriented > capitalism can be a tool to balance against excesses of government, and > government a tool to use against the excesses of capitalism. > > Personally, I lean to the sociological interpretation of Schumpeter > (see, e.g., the small volume called IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL CLASSES) in > which he puts forward the hypothesis (advanced contra the Marxist theory > of imperialism, but perhaps of more general application) that the > corruption of systems and injustices that are perpetrated are the > outgrowth of persistent atavistic tendencies to seek and wield abusive > power, rather than a direct outgrowth of economic activity and > development. But that brings me back to the point where you and I > disagree (re. the need for democratic systems) and to the brink of where > I believe we disagree (your arguments that capitalism intrinsically and > inevitably must be anti-democratic), and so it is a good point at which > to end. > > Saul Silverman > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
