Blog on Capitalism

Exploring the Nature of Capitalism

A revised version of the book The History and Nature of Capitalism, dated 20th May 2012 has now been posted here and can be accessed below.

It is said that the aphorism ‘Know Yourself’ was inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Finding out who we are can be an unsettling experience.

Not only do human beings gild memories of experiences in their own lifetimes, they are extremely adept at reinventing those of their historical past. It can be an educative experience to strip away what the French philosopher Voltaire called the ‘fable upon which we are all agreed’.

It’s time we, living in capitalist countries, got ourselves into perspective.

Over the past three centuries, people living in Western (capitalist) countries have increasingly imposed their understanding of reality on others. Now, they are becoming aware of a growing antipathy toward ‘The West’ around the world.

The late Henry Hyde’s view of the problems facing Western countries is not isolated,

Let us begin by accepting there is no single enemy to be defeated, no one network to be eliminated. Al-Qa’eda is but our most prominent opponent, but its outlook is shared by many others who are equally committed to our destruction…

We know now that we have permanent, mortal enemies who will seize upon our vulnerabilities to bloody us, to murder our citizens, to commit horror for the purpose of forcing horror upon us…
(US House of Representatives Committee on International Relations October 3 2001)

For the past decade the West has confronted what it perceives as a growing ‘climate of terror’ around the world.

While estimates vary, it is reasonable to say that thousands of lives have been lost and billions of dollars have been spent in pursuing, capturing and killing those deemed a threat to the security of Western nations.

It is time to take stock. Before continuing to pursue phantoms and shoot at shadows (and, in the process, alienate thousands caught in the crossfire) we need to understand what is producing this apparently burgeoning antipathy toward Western capitalist countries.

Western capitalist nations, over the past several centuries, have attempted to re-organize the world to reflect their understanding of reality. Although we often fail to recognize it, this requires a far-reaching reorganization of people’s lives in non-Western countries. It would be surprising if there was not, sooner or later, a reaction against such activity.

So,

What is capitalism?

What gives people living by capitalist understandings of the world such a determination to reorganize the rest of the world to their understanding?

What is it that has produced in Western people such a deep need to dominate and change the world?

And, what impact does this attempt to reorganize the world have on people living in non-Western regions?

… Read the book
Minor revisions/additions will occur regularly as new relevant studies appear and are integrated into the text – often as footnotes. All versions are regularly updated to reflect these changes.
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I was planting a couple of Silky Oak seedlings this morning, taking advantage of recent rain and the balmy early autumn climate to give them a good start before winter sets in. With a little luck, they should provide a pleasant background to my other plantings in the area (one should, they say, plan for one’s old age!)

Although I’ve had fairly frequent showers over the past few months, a dam which supported wildlife early in summer is now dry and a hole I dug for one of the seedlings was completely dry only 2-3 cm below the surface.

Knowing that, although we’ve had a couple of reasonable years, the odds are high that the next few years will be very dry, I extended the irrigation system to include them.

As I worked, my mind wandered to other things (as the minds of we elderly are wont to do!).

• Why is it so hard for human beings to grasp the idea that their actions are affecting the planet on which they live (see The Exploited Planet)?
• And, why is it that even if we knew how to guarantee a reasonable quality of life for all people on the planet (see Community Costs Are Production Costs), any democratically elected government which attempted to implement the necessary policies would be voted out of office?

Of course, I think I already know the answer to both questions!

First, the problem:

As a species we are unbelievably short-sighted.

Perhaps that is because we are still evolving into an intelligent species – not having got there yet, we can see problems, even devise solutions, but we can’t implement them!

Our curse (and possibly our future epitaph) is that we can see the consequences of our actions, but we can’t stop ourselves from producing those consequences.

Only a few short years ago it seemed inconceivable that Western nations would ever develop shale oil reserves, oil sands, tar sands or, more technically, bituminous sand. But we are!

Only a few short years ago, it seemed inconceivable that we would question the logic and necessity for minimum wages and conditions, old age pensions, unemployment benefits, free education and health care – but we are (see The removal of social costs from production and financial activity costs in Western economies has produced its inevitable consequence)!

Have we lost sight of the consequences of the directions we are taking?

I don’t think so – I think, rather, that we are unable to stop ourselves from heading there, even as we know that result!

We are like moths flying into a flame;

like young rabbits running into the headlights of an approaching vehicle.

The rabbit metaphor is an apt one. As the various viruses which have been released over the years to control numbers have become decreasingly effective, rabbit numbers in my neck of the woods have begun to grow. Rabbits are not mindless breeders of offspring. They think about where their burrows should be located, looking for the least obvious, most protected places to which they can retreat.

They care for their young, and try to ensure adequate food and water. They nurture their young, teaching them to be alert to danger. But they can’t help themselves. They continue to exploit their environments until life becomes barely sustainable.

How unfortunate are the limitations of rabbit brains!

In important ways, our brains have served us little better than those of rabbits!

Our one advantage is (or should be) that we know that it is a vehicle that is approaching behind those headlights. We know that if we keep moving toward them, we are going to become road-kill!

So, why don’t we get off the road?

The answer(s):

There’s plenty of time!

Why forego the pleasures of running down the middle of the road when the vehicle is still so far away?

Nobody knows for certain that the vehicle will hit us. It might veer away before it reaches us; it might slow down and stop; it might turn out that being run down is a blessing not a catastrophe. Who knows?

So down the road we run, and the lights are getting brighter. We can even hear the sound of the tires on the road, but it’s not time to change direction yet!

Humans with rabbit brains!

There isn’t plenty of time – we’ve probably already run out of it!

And why should I care?

The seedlings are planted and looking good.

I’m on high ground.

I’m planting fire resistant trees like the silky oaks around the house and out-buildings.

I’m well protected from wild storms and floods.

I still have a lot to do to insulate myself from prolonged drought, but perhaps it won’t get that bad: after all, we got through the last prolonged drought with minor problems!

Perhaps my dogs and I can eat all those rabbits and hares around the property and start on the carp in the irrigation dam if we have to!

Who am I kidding? If that’s a road-train behind the lights then I guess there’s nothing I can do about it.

AND, OF COURSE, IT WILL ALL BE YOUR FAULT (don’t we always have to find someone else to blame)!!

For a few of the many indications of where we are heading in the near to medium future see:

• U.S. Climate Extremes Index;
• Rapid climate change threatens Asia’s Rice Bowl;
• Poor spring rain projected in Africa;
• Severe outbreaks of new, Invasive pests triggered by rising temperatures;
• The Greenhouse Is Making the Water-Poor Even Poorer

It’s a brand new year, the wrapping is only half off and it’s more than a little scary!

It’s time for New Year’s resolutions.

Let’s face it, we’ve lost control. Unregulated internationalized capitalism is in the driving seat, and it is demanding that countries, communities and individuals subordinate themselves to its needs and interests .

As countries find themselves with unmanageable sovereign debt , they are being subjected to ‘structural adjustment’ to make them more accountable – and vulnerable – to an internationalized capitalism which has gained the whip hand.

It now demands that we accept our lot; that we reduce our lives and our vision to its horizons; that we accept that we are nothing more than a malleable, expendable ‘workforce’ for its activities and a ‘consumer base’ for its products.

As this happens, you and I are similarly being ‘adjusted’ to the requirements of an unregulated capitalist world .

It’s time to take back control of our communities and our individual lives.

It’s time to make capitalism the servant and not the master of countries, communities and individuals.

… Read More

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‘Tis the week before Christmas!

Apparently we’re not buying enough, not eating enough, not traveling enough, not decorating enough, not getting into the Xmas Spirit!

How on earth are we going to be able to afford Christmas this year? The credit cards are already ‘maxed out’. It’s going to be a tough new year!

And this was supposed to be a time when people stepped back from crass materialism, re-examined their lives, re-ordered their priorities, and shared their loaves and fishes.

Did you know that, in the US  and, yes, if you live in a Western country, almost certainly in your neck of the woods as well!:

While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall.

For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—has gone to those at the top.

In terms of income equality, America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran.
(Joseph Stiglitz, Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% Vanity Fair, May 2011)

and

Income and wealth disparities become even more absurd if we look at the top 0.1% of the nation’s earners — rather than the more common 1%. The top 0.1% — about 315,000 individuals out of 315 million [in the US] — are making about half of all capital gains on the sale of shares or property after 1 year; and these capital gains make up 60% of the income made by the Forbes 400.
(Robert Lenzner ‘The Top 0.1% Of The Nation Earn Half Of All Capital Gains’ Forbes, Nov 21, 2011)

and

The vast majority of subprime mortgages — the loans at the heart of the global crisis — were underwritten by unregulated private firms.

These firms had business models that could be called “Lend-in-order-to-sell-to-Wall-Street-securitizers.”
(Barry Ritholtz ‘Examining the big lie: How the facts of the economic crisis stack up’ Washington Post November 20, 2011)

But, spare a thought, and, yes, a little sentiment too, for the millions of homeless, jobless, stressed people who have no idea where the next meal is coming from.

Thomas Jefferson was right, and I’m certain that there would be sadness in his voice as he contemplated 2011:

…they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of [the Western World]. …man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of [The West], and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
(Thomas Jefferson, 1787)

No! this is not a call to become a wolf, and No! this is not a call to mob violence and ‘Western Spring’ revolution – that’s been tried before – unless you’re as old as I am you probably don’t remember the 1960s.

As the saying goes “The more things change, the more they stay the same”!

Let’s be genuinely revolutionary! Let’s start with ourselves.

We don’t have to consume to be happy (or if we do then we are really messed up!)

We don’t have to give large, expensive presents to show that we are ‘successful’.

We don’t have to travel to the ends of the earth to assuage our boredom.

We don’t have to respect and admire those who have turned wolf – even those who dress up in sheep’s clothing!

Let’s see them for what they are. People who, with no apparent empathy, readily strip the assets and well-being from fellow human beings. Who take their ‘earnings’, ‘invest’ them in large mansions, absurdly swollen bank accounts, stocks and shares and safety deposit boxes, and, all-too-often ostentatiously display their wealth – often through ‘philanthropic activity’.

Let’s learn to despise them for what they really are!

What? This is not the ‘Spirit of Christmas’?

Then what is the ‘Spirit of Christmas’ for you?

See:

The Sweat Shop is the Destination – unless you’re protected!;

Economic Activity as Non-Social Activity and

Conglomerates and the progressive modernization of poverty

for discussion of what it means, and will increasingly mean, to live in a truly deregulated,  internationalized capitalist world.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light!

We have reached the high water mark in our responses to climate change in Western countries.

Bold initiatives, contemplated over the past several years, such as:

• subsidies to encourage the deployment of solar panels on house roof tops;
• schemes aimed at making green house gas emissions costly, or at least of building the cost of emissions into production costings;
• a range of re-forestation, biochar and similar programs to sequester carbon;
• A range of CO₂ ‘Capture and Storage’ projects

are now in retreat.

In Western countries, politicians who clearly disbelieve and dismiss the reality of climate change; who assume that claims of environmental damage resulting from capitalist activity are ‘socialist’ conspiracies, are winning political office. As they do, the first tentative advances made by their predecessors are being dismantled.

It is now 10 years since the events of 9/11, but the date and the events remain fresh in the minds of Western people everywhere.

Another year has passed and, once again, we have remembered the tragedy of September 11th 2001. But, this should not just be a time to remember the dead, it should also be a time of serious reflection.

With the September 11 attacks on the United States, the once-distant prospect of terrorism has become an inescapable reality for all Americans. The impact of this assault is greater than the tally of physical destruction, greater even than the tragic loss of life. The images forced into our lives are permanent ones.

The realization that human beings are capable of performing such deeds forces us to accept that evil still exists among us, especially in our modern era when many had hoped it might be abolished altogether…

But what does this mean?

• Are we now to live in permanent fear in our own country and adopt a defensive crouch as part of our national character?
• Do we remake our country and communities into fortresses?
• Must we sacrifice our entire foreign policy agenda in order to address this suddenly urgent problem?

Events, since that day, demonstrate the truth of Henry Hyde’s observation:

The realization that human beings are capable of performing such deeds forces us to accept that evil still exists among us…

Our response to the tragedy compels us to ask those questions once again:

• Do we now live in permanent fear in our own countries?
• Have we adopted a defensive crouch as part of our national character?
• Have we remade our countries and communities into fortresses?
• Have we sacrificed our foreign policy agenda in order to address what has become a perennially urgent problem?
• Have we, in responding to the perceived terrorist threats of the past ten years,
  • forfeited our freedoms,
  • and created hidden, poorly regulated institutions to root out both real and imagined threats in our own countries and communities?
• Have we trampled on the rights and freedoms of other countries and communities in our determination to protect ourselves from new assaults (whether real or imagined), not only to intercept and frustrate them, but to eliminate new threats at their source?

If the answer to any or all of these is ‘Yes’ then we have headed down a dangerous path.

Henry Hyde’s vision of the future might well be mild compared to that which we will bequeath our children and their descendants.

Exploring the Nature of Capitalism
(Access book of the previous category: The History and Nature of Capitalism)

Look around you – wherever you live – and you will see the result of uncontrolled capitalism. It is rampant. It has out-competed all other forms of material need and want provision and, in the process, has choked communities and fouled environments.

Thoroughly regulated and subordinated to the requirements of communities, it can be a positive, very effective means of material need and want provision. Unregulated and internationalized, it rapidly grows into a rampant ecological and social disaster.

The problem is not capitalism, it is us!!

Read more.…

Exploring the Nature of Capitalism
(Access book of the previous category: The History and Nature of Capitalism)

Everywhere, human beings are generating more and more waste.

We might talk about recycling. We might even indulge in a limited attempt at it (I have a special roadside bin provided by the local council in which various kinds of ‘recyclable’ materials are placed), but the amount of waste dumped into landfills grows each year.

No matter how much recycling we indulge in, the simple fact is that corporations extracting resources to feed the industries we demand, are entering a boom period. The future, for them, is record profits and rapid expansion! Recycling is barely a blip on their rose-tinted horizons.

In this post we examine some of the solid waste difficulties being experienced around the world.  We all understand what is causing the problem:

Capitalism requires us to continue to consume at an ever-expanding rate:

If we don’t:

• our economies will falter,
• people will lose their jobs,
• our futures will be bleak.

If we do:

• our economies will be ‘healthy’
• we will have full employment,
• and our futures …

And, Garbage is the least of our problems!

In the early 21st century forested, pastoral, agricultural and horticultural regions of the world are facing serious:

• agricultural chemical pollution,
• water-logging,
• salinity,
• over-grazing,
• deforestation,
• land erosion,
• desertification,
• increasingly erratic climatic conditions,
• …

… Read More
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