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