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
>
>
>
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