Re: [Marxism] C.E.O.s Should Fear a Recession. It Could Mean Revolution.
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Louis Proyect wrote NY Times, Aug. 21, 2019 C.E.O.s Should Fear a Recession. It Could Mean Revolution. By Farhad Manjoo This is the extent of what NYT views as the limits of a "revolution": "the [Business] Roundtable’s empty statement could be read as an effort to stave off structural economic reform rather than accelerate ittheir statement lacks any call for greater structural changes in the American economy — changes to how companies are taxed or regulated, or how executives are paid, or how they should be judged." And the same day from Dahr Jamail comes this https://truthout.org/articles/living-in-two-worlds-capitalism-pretends-all-is-well-while-the-world-is-burning/: "Global capitalism demands we pretend all is well, while climate and political realities already reveal the end game we are living in. The U.S. government, along with many others in the western world, has lurched into overt authoritarianism, while climate chaos accelerates at a breakneck pace...Those of us who are lucky enough to be living somewhere in the world where there is enough food to eat, water to drink, and security for us and our loved ones, are living in a bubble... Fagre told me he didn’t expect there to be any more glaciers in Glacier National Park by 2030, and likely none anywhere in the lower 48 states by 2100...The pain of existing in this evaporating world intensifies against the backdrop of the rise of authoritarianism across much of the western world, the daily increasing wealth disparity between the grotesquely rich and the poverty-stricken, worsening racism, sexism, mass shootings, misogyny, xenophobia, and mounting pressure from the global refugee crisis...I find that remembering to find gratitude for even the smallest things helps: having clean water to drink, fresh air to breathe, food to eat when I am hungry, and my physical and mental health...He already knew of the climate crisis, yet asked me to fill in the details. Over the days of our time together in the backcountry, I walked him through my findings from the Great Barrier Reef, the Amazon and Alaskan glaciers. I told him of my time in Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow) Alaska studying the thawing permafrost and venting methane, and of the rising seas in South Florida, and how even the sturdy giant Sequoia trees are under threat. I told him how much of a privilege it was for me to get to go see these places, and how I used the opportunity to say goodbye to many of them, which I expect will likely be gone within my lifetime, and certainly within his." Back to my immediate reality: Monday we saw our adopted 19-year old daughter back off to college. She has fallen seriously in performing to her potential. She had crashed and burned in her second semester, unknown to us, even though she has an ACT score in the 99th percentile and is a gifted autistic phenomenon, in my judgment. She has been placed on academic probation. She may lose all her scholarship, tuition and stipend benefits. She tells me that she has no motivation. She has talked of suicide. She has read everything about what's happening to the climate and in our authoritarian-bound Trump world. She declares herself a socialist, but she feels all hope is lost. Over the summer we have tried everything to help with her motivation. We have connected her with a hands-on adviser and a mentor at her school, having last year joined her with what disability help and psychological counseling is available to autistically challenged students - to little or no avail. I have talked with her about never giving up, fighting the power, asking if it isn't arrogant and senseless to say that you in your vaunted 19-year experience have the judgment to declare that all is lost. I sent her an e-mail the other day about her favorite (despite my explanations about quadrennial lesser-evil illusions in the Democratic Party, not excluding the Bernie, and my many friends who 11 years ago were misty-eyed, literally, over the coming of Obama) Elizabeth Warren declaring that she is "capitalist to my bones" and reportedly standing and applauding when Trump in his 2019 SOTU address challenged Congress to never allow socialism in the US. Sam came to me crying. She is a dear, sweet, well-liked and well-intentioned person with a lot of the kind of promise it takes. I had described to her how in order to change anything at all, certainly capitalism, you had to thoroughly understand it, and I had recommended as the obvious starting point reading Marx's 3 volumes of Capital, that I knew
Re: [Marxism] C.E.O.s Should Fear a Recession. It Could Mean Revolution.
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Ellenah this article from the New York Times is not without interest. It is fairly rubbishy of course but underneath it all there is a fear that the way things cannot continue. I think these are all features of a saddle time. Crisis and critique go hand in hand. The intellectuals comment in response to the crisis and the crisis deepens. We are in the middle of it and so it is hard to see an end. But of course all things end. ae Gary On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 8:43 AM Louis Proyect via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > POSTING RULES & NOTES > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > * > > NY Times, Aug. 21, 2019 > C.E.O.s Should Fear a Recession. It Could Mean Revolution. > By Farhad Manjoo > > A recession looms, and the nation’s C.E.O.s are growing fearful. > > It isn’t the potential of downturn itself that has them alarmed — > downturns come and downturns go, but whatever happens, chief executives, > like cats, tend to land on their comfortably padded feet. > > Instead, the cause of their fear appears to be something more > fundamental. As Alan Murray, the C.E.O. of Fortune, writes in a cover > story chronicling the C-suite anxiety: “More and more C.E.O.s worry that > public support for the system in which they’ve operated is in danger of > disappearing.” They’re worried that when the next recession breaks, > revolution might, too. This could be the hour that the ship comes in: > The coming recession might finally prompt the masses to sharpen their > pitchforks and demand a reckoning. > > Company executives are right to worry. A downturn will mark the end of a > record period of uninterrupted economic expansion. The American economy > has been growing for more than a decade, stock indexes recently hit new > highs, and the unemployment rate is at a 50-year low. > > And yet the vast majority of Americans will not look back on the last > decade as years of fat and plenty. This was a gilded expansion, a decade > of creaking wage growth and profoundly unequal outcomes. The number of > Americans receiving food stamps is 40 percent higher now than in 2008, > yet we have twice as many billionaires as we did a decade ago. > > This was an expansion driven by outsized gains to a handful of > “superstar” firms in “superstar” cities. Economic devastation reigned in > rural areas alongside catastrophic success in urban ones — an expansion > marked by housing crunches and infrastructure nightmares that every > level of government seems incapable of addressing. Corporate profits > grew as if there were no tomorrow, but they didn’t trickle down to > everyone else. Instead, dividends and stock buybacks got bigger while > C.E.O. pay went through the rose-gold roof. The rest of us got > smartphones, money-losing conveniences — Uber, WeWork, Netflix and meal > delivery apps — and mountains of student debt. > > And so, when recession comes, we’ll be right to ask: Was that it? Is > this the best it gets? And if so, isn’t it time to go full Elizabeth > Warren — to make some fundamental, radical changes to how the American > economy works, so that we might prevent decades more of growth that > disproportionally benefits the titans among us? > > But the C.E.O.s now have a plan to head off revolution. They want you to > know: Actually, they really do care about the world. Like, a lot. > > This week, in a statement widely feted by well-meaning Davos types, the > Business Roundtable — an association of chief executives of nearly 200 > companies, including Apple, Amazon, General Motors and Walmart — > declared that the era of soulless corporatism was over. The Business > Roundtable once held that a corporation’s “paramount duty” was to its > shareholders. Now, the Roundtable is singing a new, more inclusive tune. > A corporation, it says, should balance the interests of its shareholders > with those of other “stakeholders,” including customers, employees, > suppliers and local communities. > > In other words: no more Mr. Terrible Guy. Corporations are people, my > friend, and it turns out that they’re really nice people, both > interesting and interested, and we really must have them over for dinner > sometime. > > I spent a tedious few minutes this week trying to come up with an > analogy to convey how thoroughly empty I found the Roundtable’s gesture > to be. I think I got one: Imagine a co-worker has been stealing your > lunch from the office
[Marxism] C.E.O.s Should Fear a Recession. It Could Mean Revolution.
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * NY Times, Aug. 21, 2019 C.E.O.s Should Fear a Recession. It Could Mean Revolution. By Farhad Manjoo A recession looms, and the nation’s C.E.O.s are growing fearful. It isn’t the potential of downturn itself that has them alarmed — downturns come and downturns go, but whatever happens, chief executives, like cats, tend to land on their comfortably padded feet. Instead, the cause of their fear appears to be something more fundamental. As Alan Murray, the C.E.O. of Fortune, writes in a cover story chronicling the C-suite anxiety: “More and more C.E.O.s worry that public support for the system in which they’ve operated is in danger of disappearing.” They’re worried that when the next recession breaks, revolution might, too. This could be the hour that the ship comes in: The coming recession might finally prompt the masses to sharpen their pitchforks and demand a reckoning. Company executives are right to worry. A downturn will mark the end of a record period of uninterrupted economic expansion. The American economy has been growing for more than a decade, stock indexes recently hit new highs, and the unemployment rate is at a 50-year low. And yet the vast majority of Americans will not look back on the last decade as years of fat and plenty. This was a gilded expansion, a decade of creaking wage growth and profoundly unequal outcomes. The number of Americans receiving food stamps is 40 percent higher now than in 2008, yet we have twice as many billionaires as we did a decade ago. This was an expansion driven by outsized gains to a handful of “superstar” firms in “superstar” cities. Economic devastation reigned in rural areas alongside catastrophic success in urban ones — an expansion marked by housing crunches and infrastructure nightmares that every level of government seems incapable of addressing. Corporate profits grew as if there were no tomorrow, but they didn’t trickle down to everyone else. Instead, dividends and stock buybacks got bigger while C.E.O. pay went through the rose-gold roof. The rest of us got smartphones, money-losing conveniences — Uber, WeWork, Netflix and meal delivery apps — and mountains of student debt. And so, when recession comes, we’ll be right to ask: Was that it? Is this the best it gets? And if so, isn’t it time to go full Elizabeth Warren — to make some fundamental, radical changes to how the American economy works, so that we might prevent decades more of growth that disproportionally benefits the titans among us? But the C.E.O.s now have a plan to head off revolution. They want you to know: Actually, they really do care about the world. Like, a lot. This week, in a statement widely feted by well-meaning Davos types, the Business Roundtable — an association of chief executives of nearly 200 companies, including Apple, Amazon, General Motors and Walmart — declared that the era of soulless corporatism was over. The Business Roundtable once held that a corporation’s “paramount duty” was to its shareholders. Now, the Roundtable is singing a new, more inclusive tune. A corporation, it says, should balance the interests of its shareholders with those of other “stakeholders,” including customers, employees, suppliers and local communities. In other words: no more Mr. Terrible Guy. Corporations are people, my friend, and it turns out that they’re really nice people, both interesting and interested, and we really must have them over for dinner sometime. I spent a tedious few minutes this week trying to come up with an analogy to convey how thoroughly empty I found the Roundtable’s gesture to be. I think I got one: Imagine a co-worker has been stealing your lunch from the office fridge for years. Then, one day, he strolls in with a big grin and grand announcement. Maybe he unfolds a scroll and blows a trumpet. He has realized that “lunch maximization” might not have been the best approach after all, and he will now try to be aware of the wider consequences of some of his actions. Yes, he still really wants your lunch. Yes, he will probably still fight any efforts to prevent him from taking your lunch. But you should know that he also feels a tinge bad about how it’s all worked out. So, no hard feelings? I mean: Yay? It’s nice that C.E.O.s have vowed to turn over a new leaf. But their statement lacks any call for greater structural changes in the American economy — changes to how companies are taxed or regulated, or how executives are paid, or how they should be judged. And because a public corporation’s most direct incentives — including the C.E.O.’s pay — remain tied to stock performance,