Ed,
You wrote that:
*/I find Reich's argument more compelling than Klein's. He looks at the
way we have organized production, consumption and exchange over the past
six decades. And the villains are not the Chicago Boys but we ourselves
as consumers and investors. Essentially, the capitalist world has
reorganized itself to give us what we want, wealth via the stock market
and cheap consumer products./
*
I strongly disagree that it is we who have organized production,
consumption and exchange over the past six decades, or at any other
point in time. I see it all as something that's been sold to us by
elites as being what we think we want because the elites will thereby
manage to stay out of the slimelight of blame when things go terribly
wrong for the rest of us. All industry has been crafted to augment
profit for just a few, not for the masses. Most Wal-Mart goods
ultimately end up as landfill and pollution. Is that what we really
wanted? Plus the demise of the Mom and Pop stores? There was a time when
we in Canada took care to buy Canadian made products, after the war when
the government invested in infrastructure instead of /corporate/ lobbied
schemes.
It may well be that people want Wall-Mart deals and don't think ahead to
envision the aftereffect, but all modern strategies have been devised by
those who understand the impact that clever marketing will have on the
masses. The utter bliss of participating in the stock market is one of
the biggest myths around, with reality returns before taxes reaping no
more than 2% overall average. Who but insiders have made huge profits?
Guilt over it being us as consumers is to me no more than successful
manipulation on the part of the elites appealing to religious outfall.
Not unlike Gore's message to the masses over global warming. Though we
are they who consume, we are also the ones who have little choice
because of financial pressures to survive in these times. Our choices
are tantamount to something like choosing organic produce or saving for
a hybrid car! Elected leaders have almost always put the corporate
driven economy first, most having been elected due to personal wealth
from corporate investment/ownership.
Yet a leader cannot lead responsibly without a sound idea of what the
future holds for each and every action taken today, and moreover
actually implements such foresight to educate both the public and those
with far greater influence.
Remembering Rowbotham's words, thanks to W. R. Needham's email to
Futurework:
The dominant consideration in our economic system is not what people want,
either as consumers or workers, but what people can afford or be
persuaded to
buy, and what they can be persuaded by force of circumstance to do for
money, as
a job. To put the matter another way, the modern economy is driven, not
by the
aggregate desires of what people want out of the economy, but by what the
economy can get out of them. The only fitting word for this is slavery.
Michael
Rowbotham, The Grip of Death: A Study of Modern Money, Debt Slavery and
Destructive Economics, (Charlbury: Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1998), 73.
Emphasis
added.
/(The first chapter of Rowbotham's book is available on line; just
google his name. It deals primarily with the folly of modern mortgages
and the baseless modern monetary system, as I recall. Something to
absorb in light of the housing bubble and depreciating US dollar...)
/
Natalia Kuzmyn
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Ed Weick <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*To:* [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Sent:* Tuesday, February 12, 2008 4:09 PM
*Subject:* [Ottawadissenters] Another book one shouldn't read!
Capitalism is again fashionable as a thing of dread. Naomi Klein has
just finished scaring hell out of us with the idea of disaster
capitalism. Now along comes Robert Reich with supercapitalism. Both
books have made me look for cover and cower down, Reich's book more so
than Klein's. Her book hits the world here and there, wherever the
Friedmanites are able to find appropriate situations. Most of us
are not involved in the shock therapy that's involved, or we can maybe
duck out of the way. Reich's book aims at and overwhelms us wherever
we are.
I find Reich's argument more compelling than Klein's. He looks at the
way we have organized production, consumption and exchange over the
past six decades. And the villains are not the Chicago Boys but we
ourselves as consumers and investors. Essentially, the capitalist
world has reorganized itself to give us what we want, wealth via the
stock market and cheap consumer products.
Reich styles the first few decades, 1950 to about 1975, as "the not
quite golden age" meaning that times were pretty well as good as you
could get in a capitalist society. The American (and I believe
Canadian) industrial based consisted of large firms like GM that were
structured oligopolistically. The thinking of CEOs took the
well-being of the industry as a whole into account and also that of
society in making their decisions. Reich cites Engine Charlie
Wilson's dictum of "What's good for General Motors is good for the
country" as an example to how CEO's saw the broader world. Government
regulatory agencies played a major role in ensuring that the private
sector behaved itself. Airlines and many other major industries were
regulated to make sure that both individual firms survived and
prospered and that consumer rights were protected. And then there
were unions, big and powerful enough to see that their members
benefited as the economy grew, at least for a time.
It all came apart during the period from about 1975 to approximately
2000. There were many causes. Reich cites things such as the
development of container ships capable of bring enormous quantities of
components that were assembled into final goods in the US as well as
finished products from China and Japan, all for the American market.
He cites the Internet which allowed instantaneous communication across
vast distances. He refers to the de-regulation of major industries
and the increasing ability of new players to enter hallowed economic
fields, the rise of foreign auto makers, and the huge decline of
unions with the rise of huge firms like Wal-Mart (whose employees are
"associates"). But above all else, he refers to us, you and I, no
longer unions members, and our desire to get the highest possible
return on our investments and the lowest possible consumer prices.
It's not Milton Friedman that's to blame. It's us. And to help us
get what we want and to ensure that firms, old and new, can give it to
us, many thousands of lobbyists have become active in Washington (and
undoubtedly Ottawa) to make sure politicians do the right thing. In
the past six or so decades, the view of society has been moved from
inclusive to individualistic.
I still have about a third of the book to read, but I may not do it.
Depressing to say the least! I know that Reich is going to try to
tell us how to fix things and get back into real democracy, but my gut
feeling is that they may not be fixable. With great remorse I
recognize that the "not quite golden age" happened because of World
War II and because some six million Jews died in the gas chambers.
Perhaps there is a lesson here. We may need another global scale war.
Anyone want a fight!
Ed
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