Is Hyper-Capitalism Dead?

Is the “Witch Is Dead”?

Do you know what an “Objectivist” is?

Objectivism holds that there is no greater moral goal than achieving happiness. But one cannot achieve happiness by wish or whim. Fundamentally, it requires rational respect for the facts of reality, including the facts about our human nature and needs. Happiness requires that one live by objective principles, including moral integrity and respect for the rights of others. Politically, Objectivists advocate laissez-faire capitalism. Under capitalism, a strictly limited government protects each person’s rights to life, liberty, and property and forbids that anyone initiate force against anyone else. The heroes of Objectivism are achievers who build businesses, invent technologies, and create art and ideas, depending on their own talents and on trade with other independent people to reach their goals.

Politicians like Rand Paul (that is Rand not Rue) and ex Speaker Ryan were followers of the head honcho of this philosophy Ayn Rand….but in today’s society it looks as if the meth head may be losing her hold on the young…..

Eight rules governed the original Ayn Rand clubs that proliferated across college campuses in the 1960s, as they sought to seed Objectivism—Rand’s philosophical glorification of laissez-faire capitalism and heroic individualism—in the minds of impressionable youth. And of these eight, only two rules could ever be mentioned publicly: 1) Ayn Rand is the greatest human being who has ever lived, and2) her novel Atlas Shrugged is the greatest human achievement in the history of the world.

Objectivism has a serious youth problem, and the conference’s organizers were quite aware of it. They offered a discount rate for those under 30, a talent show, and extracurricular activities like “late night jams.” It made me wonder: Is Rand’s hyper-capitalist philosophy—which has influenced some of the most powerful political and economic giants of recent history, from Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan to Mark Cuban and Steve Jobs—running out of juice? There was only one way to find out. I would have to attend the conference’s various panels on the virtue of selfishness, the evils of regulation, and the greatness of capitalism’s dark patron saint, and try to fraternize with the next class of Paul Ryans in the making. So I went into the Objectivist sanctums of Cleveland, sporting an Ayn Rand tote bag outfitted with an “I <3 fossil fuels” pin, to gauge the reach of Rand’s cult of unbridled capitalism on today’s political scene.

https://newrepublic.com/article/154705/last-ayn-rand-acolytes

The young seem to be leaning Left these days…..and that will not change as long as economic injustice is running rampant…..change that and it is possible that Rand’s (Ayn not Paul) could once again be popular…look at the new popularity of Orwell’s “1984”….any thing is possible.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Capitalism Has Failed!

I realize this post will not sit well with those individuals that have more money than brains…….but let’s look at it….capitalism has failed.

The truth is that the “economy” is booming according to some….then why are most Americans are overworked and underpaid and the future looks no brighter than now……

Let’s look shall we?

Some years ago, I faced up to the futility of reporting true things about America’s disastrous wars and so I left Afghanistan for another remote mountainous country far away. It was the polar opposite of Afghanistan: a peaceful, prosperous land where nearly everybody seemed to enjoy a good life, on the job and in the family.

It’s true that they didn’t work much, not by American standards anyway. In the U.S., full-time salaried workers supposedly laboring 40 hours a week actually average 49, with almost 20% clocking more than 60. These people, on the other hand, worked only about 37 hours a week, when they weren’t away on long paid vacations. At the end of the work day, about four in the afternoon (perhaps three in the summer), they had time to enjoy a hike in the forest or a swim with the kids or a beer with friends — which helps explain why, unlike so many Americans, they are pleased with their jobs.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/01/american-capitalism-failed-us-overworked-underemployed-powerless-ever/

Now we see a debate taking hold should the US embrace socialism over the soul sucking capitalism we have today?

In 2016, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders ran on a platform that many thought would’ve ruined his political chances. He ran as a democratic socialist, disavowing America’s longtime capitalist consensus and proudly wrapping himself in a label pundits considered political poison. And it worked.

In American politics, and particularly in the Democratic Party, the primacy of capitalism is, for the first time in ages, an open question. Sanders is expected to run again in 2020, and to run with the support of a grassroots movement that thrills to his break with capitalist convention. He’ll face, among others, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who says one key difference between her and Sanders is that she’s “a capitalist to my bones.”

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2019/1/7/18167691/what-is-socialism-capitalism-sanders-warren

Personally I do not care what we call it…..as long as the children get educated, people make a living wage, health is for everyone, etc……so can a bit of socialism help capitalism?

Larry Fink, the chief executive and founder of BlackRock, published his annual letter to the chief executives of all the companies around the world in which it invests last week.

And Fink’s message was: don’t put profits first. Put “purpose” first. “Purpose is not the sole pursuit of profits, but the animating force for achieving them,” Fink explained.

“Profits are in no way inconsistent with purpose – in fact, profits and purpose are inextricably linked.”

This corporate purpose, he went on, means investing for the long term, serving a community, developing the talents of a workforce. And so on. BlackRock also says that bosses’ pay should not rise faster than that of the firm’s workers and has threatened to vote against remuneration committees that agree to excessive awards.

It’s enough to make the libertarian epigoni of Milton Friedman, the economist who famously asserted “there is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits”, choke on their cornflakes.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/blackrock-socialism-capitalism-stock-market-sacha-romanovitch-grant-thornton-a8737131.html

We need some help……this deal is just not working the way it was intended…..reform NOW or face the consequences.

Mayor Pete’s “Democratic Capitalism”

This election cycle has seen a return of the old boogey man….the “S” word….and it seems to be popular with the electorate……it will be Trump’s whole campaign in 2020.

The rising star (for now) in the Dem field for the 2020 election has used a term that his me concerned……”Democratic Capitalism”……I read the term in an article about an interview he had for VOX…..a great interview so please read the whole thing and learn about this candidate for he has a lot to offer the American people……

In the past few weeks, Pete Buttigieg — the 37-year-old gay (why does this matter?) mayor of South Bend, Indiana — has become a surprising standout in the crowded 2020 Democratic field.

But as popular as Buttigieg is right now, there are still a lot of questions swirling around his candidacy. Can a mayor of a moderately sized city really make the leap to be president? Why is he getting so much media attention when female candidates with similar policy chops, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), aren’t? And where does Buttigieg fit in the big questions dividing the Democratic Party,from the rise of socialism to the direction of foreign policy?

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/28/18283925/pete-buttigieg-mayor-pete-interview-capitalism

I wrote that I was concerned about the use of the term and now I shall explain……

As an old fart I am a child of the Cold War and the term means to me……… Democratic capitalism, also known as capitalist democracy, is a political, economic, and social system and ideology based on a tripartite arrangement of a market-based economy based predominantly on a democratic policy, economic incentives through free markets, fiscal responsibility and a liberal moral-cultural system which encourages pluralism. This economic system supports a capitalist free market economy subject to control by a democratic political system that is supported by the majority. It stands in contrast to authoritarian capitalism by limiting the influence of special interest groups, including corporate lobbyists, on politics. It is argued that the coexistence of modern capitalism and democracy was the result of the creation of the modern welfare state that allowed for a relatively stable political atmosphere and widespread support for capitalism during the Golden Age of Capitalism in the post-war era. The United States is often seen as having democratic capitalism as its political-economic system, although Robert Reich argues it has become more authoritarian in recent decades.

To me “Democratic Capitalism” leads to inequality as we see it on the rise today…..(below is a European look at DC but it holds true everywhere)….

When the question “Does inequality threaten the sustainability of Western democratic capitalism?” is asked, we need to break the question into three constituent parts in order to come up with a solid answer:

https://www.theglobalist.com/inequality-and-democratic-capitalism/

I have deep problems with what I see as unrestrained capitalism and the steep rise of inequality….but I want to be fair in my presentation…..below is a “pro” article on the issue of democratic capitalism……

For all its faults and limitations, “democratic capitalism” has one very attractive feature: It embraces many different kinds of capitalism and many different kinds of democracy. It is obvious that France is not the United States (Tocqueville recognized that in 1835). Sweden is not Italy. The United Kingdom is not South Korea. Japan is not Singapore. And so on.

When I wrote The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism in 1982, there were many fewer political economies than there are today that could be described as democratic in their political part and capitalist in their economic part. Consider the “Asian Tigers” plus the Philippines and Bangladesh in Asia, several Latin American nations (led by Chile), several of the nations formerly under Soviet control in Eastern Europe, and the many others that have emerged since the early 1980s as capitalist, but not democratic.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/09/democratic-capitalism-michael-novak/

I still have reservation about unbridled capitalism…..all you have to do is look at the facts where corporate bonuses have out performed wages by many percentiles……capitalism only is working for the uber rich and the rest of us have to be thankful for the scraps they throw at us.

When it comes to Mayor Pete for me he is an attractive candidate, at least for now……but is he anti-war?

Why did I lead with the “S” word?

Because I could.

Turn The Page!

An Alternative to Globalization

Most everyone knows what “globalization” means……or do they?

Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology. This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies around the world.

Trump seemed to be an opponent to globalization…whereas Clinton was a modern founding member…..but the election of 2016 is given us a possible alternative to globalization…..

Below link is to the Unz Review a bit of a Libertarian tilt…keep that in mind when reading the article….

During his inaugural speech, President Trump clearly and forcefully outlined the strategic political-economic policies he will pursue over the next four years. Anti-Trump journalist, editorialists, academics and experts, who appear in the Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have repeatedly distorted and lied about the President’s program as well as his critique of existing and past policies.

We will begin by seriously discussing President Trump’s critique of the contemporary political economy and proceed to elaborate on his alternatives and its weaknesses.

Source: President Trump: Nationalist Capitalism, An Alternative to Globalization – The Unz Review

As it is today…will globalization be replaced?

Those Damn Crony Capitalists

This election we have had a full array of attacks on the system we live under….even from a person that has gamed the system to benefit himself….there has been so much talked about….especially those damn “crony capitalists”…..but what is this phenom we hear so much about?

Crony capitalism and genuine capitalism, if not opposites, are fundamentally opposed. Unfortunately the broader public, to date, is largely unaware of this.

Crony capitalism is the marriage of the state and private special interests. Some people have called it corporatism, mercantilism, fascism, or even Communism.

We will call it crony capitalism.

By whatever name, it is phony capitalism.

Well said…..and this is where an article I read in The American Conservative comes into the picture…..

The story of crony capitalism—where success in business depends on government favoritism, not competitive products—is often told in anecdotes. Anyone who follows policy debates can rattle off a list: the Solyndra loan-guarantee fiasco; the Utah woman who couldn’t braid hair for a living without undergoing 2,000 hours of formal training, a regulation designed to shield established salons from upstart competition. But while such stories serve as excellent examples of the phenomenon, they can’t reveal its true depth and breadth.

Crony capitalism isn’t just a collection of individual restrictions: it is a cancer that is slowly eating the economy. Signs of it can be found in even the broadest, most fundamental economic data, and the nation’s biggest industries have fallen victim to it. And rooting it out would require a complete rethinking of how businesses and the government interact.

Source: The Crony Economy | The American Conservative

Pay to play comes to mind….the Clinton camp is guilty as sin….Trump ……who knows for sure.

If the liberals are bitching about iot and now a conservative publication is also….then there is a good chance that it is the cancer that some call it.

Frederick Douglass on Capitalism, Slavery, and the ‘Arrant Nonsense’ of Socialism

Yes I know…I am a history nerd and I am proud of it.

One of my favorite people from around the Civil War time was the abolitionist Frederick Douglass…..I recent did a press of an article in slavery and capitalism and I saw another related article in Reason ….I thought I would pass it along….

Understanding the political philosophy of the abolitionist leader.

In November 1848 a socialist activist gave a speech at the 13th annual meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society. “Mr. Ingliss” began his remarks well enough, reported the abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass, who was present to give a speech of his own that day, “but strangely enough went on in an effort to show that wages slavery is as bad as chattel slavery.”

Douglass soon became infuriated with the socialist speaker. “The attempts to place holding property in the soil—on the same footing as holding property in man, was most lame and impotent,” Douglass declared. “And the wonder is that anyone could listen with patience to such arrant nonsense.”

Frederick Douglass heard a lot of arrant nonsense from American socialists in those days. That’s because most socialists thought the anti-slavery movement had its priorities all wrong. As the left-wing historian Carl Guarneri once put it, most antebellum socialists “were hostile or at least indifferent to the abolitionist appeal because they believed that it diverted attention from the serious problems facing northern workers with the onset of industrial capitalism.” The true path to social reform, the socialists said, was the path of anti-capitalism.

Source: Frederick Douglass on Capitalism, Slavery, and the ‘Arrant Nonsense’ of Socialism – Reason.com

Douglass is a fascinating individual that does not get the attention he should in our educational system….read an learn about a true American hero….a hero that some would just as soon forget…..but that will not happen as long as I breath….period.

You may thank me later…..

Neoliberalism against capitalism?

My regular readers have heard me rail against neoliberalism….I have, in the past, called it nothing more than a conservative ideology trying to hide among progressives…..

Neil Davidson on how the current neo-liberal project has been almost too successful as a ruling class strategy, creating a form of capitalism which endangers the long-term security of capital itself and edges society ever closer to barbarism.

Source: Neoliberalism against capitalism? – Neil Davidson

Neoliberal thought has done more damage to the nation than any other ideology that has been deemed dangerous to our way of life…..

McKinsey Article Lays Out How to Rethink Capitalism – US News

American capitalism is killing the American Dream…..it is crapping all over those who actually have to work…..call me anything you like….communist, socialist, anarchist….I do not much care as long as you pull your head out of your butt and take a good look at the damage capitalism is doing to the average American family.

Capitalism can work but it needs re-doing……..a task few are unwilling to sow the guts to even consider much less attempt……

McKinsey Article Lays Out How to Rethink Capitalism – US News.

The conservative case against capitalism – The Week

When I first saw the title of this piece my first reaction was….WTF?

A good read….please check it out and gimme your thoughts……..

The conservative case against capitalism – The Week.

In Saner Thought

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine

Tag: Capitalism