After Capitalism

Comment

Comment by Ted Magnuson on December 19, 2009 at 5:50pm

Two comments, the first on the direction this discussion took initially. Can entrepreneurialism save capitalism? Has capitalism devolved into something else? If so, how did this happen. Who's minding the store?
Certainly, if there are juggernut corporations with their congressional thralls more interested in perpectuating an obsolete status quo than finding newer more elegant solutions, if this were the case, we could point fingers at them. Maybe they don't have grandchildren.
If indeed, Mr. Lawrence, our entrepreneurial start-up types could shake capitalism back to its roots, I say bring on the bankers.
The other day I read where a fellow is making diesel from algae. Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants, if suddenly the need for all that infrastructure to pay out petrodollars to unstable regions of the world and drill for oil five miles below the ocean surface, if all that brouhaha were suddenly unnecessary due to innovative advancements in technology? At the risk of mixing Orwell and Shakespeare, will an rosy economy by any other name smell as sweet?
Recent discussion. though I sense have veered more towards problem identification than focusing on solutions. A good point has been raised about how 'communist' China is bankrolling the US. (23% of outstanding treasuries as of 10/09. Japan another 20%). Other comments ask how can markets be free with the likes of the Exxon Valdez plying our seas and the Big Branch coal slurry slide. Who's bearing the cost of that free ride?
Before the toxins spread further, an equilibrium needs to be established between people, planet and productivity. In America, it is the duty of Congress, the press and an informed electorate to see that this happens. Does anyone still wonder why higher education has become increasingly expensive, basic education woefully underfunded and the news now being written by press agents?

Comment by Jack L Golding on December 19, 2009 at 4:09pm

Compassionate capitalism means putting the public good ahead of maximization of profits. Compassionate capitalism means giving a break to small businesses by the government.The Federal Reserve Bank today is like the old United States Bank of Andrew Jackson's day, at least the president and Congress has the power to make it more transparent. The mistake President Obama made was following through on Paulson's idea to bail out the big banks in a hurry. That is what started the unraveling of McCain's candidacy for president. I say put the insurance industry under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. We'll all have cheaper health insurance, cheaper car insurance, and small business will have a better chance to thrive.I'm suprprised that nobody wants to comment on my comments about the U.S.Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber is behind a lot of the ills of our society: shipping jobs overseas, the decline of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and the scare tactics to prevent health insurance reform from happening

Comment by Dennis St. John on November 20, 2009 at 4:59pm

Well, duh! I was watching a doc about Communist Red China, America's primary lender and banker, and after all the rabid Republican gibber jabber about how free market capitalism (which has never existed in this country) should be unfettered from government regulation, behold the Communist Chinese model of capitalism which is totally regulated and is growing at a rate of 8% to 10% per year while the American economy has flatlined. Those "filthy damned Communists" also pulled right out of the global economic meltdown like it was nothing, and they are responsible for lifting about 1/3 of the world's poor out of poverty in less than a decade. They are being welcomed in the African continent while we are being shunned along with former colonial European nations. They are building up a very powerful military with a minimum percentage of GDP, while our military is over stretched to the breaking point. Perhaps we should reconsider out preconceived notions about just about everything.

Comment by leftbank on August 14, 2009 at 11:38pm

"Banks" are the "rich"...they are "Big Business"...that's why they lend to "Big Business". To do otherwise would compromise their status. This is the fundamental problem with the system. We cannot depend on the banks/rich/Big Business to change stripes. A revolution is necessary. Such a revolution depends on an informed electorate, true journalists/media, sacrifice and grit. None of these things are American. The quest for empire will be our ruin...and from our ashes will come the opportunity for change. Like the addict, the bottom must be realized before the ascent begins.

Comment by Frederick Ellis on August 13, 2009 at 2:22am

Please visit my Blog - Progressive Patriotic MIlitia - 2nd Amendment

Comment by Ozonekid on August 11, 2009 at 6:13pm

It is very good to take examples from history, and understand that it is a process. When we study these processes, we see patterns that can instruct us about possible futures. My future, the one I wish to strive toward, involves the abolition of the wage system and the corporate state. Call it what you will. I believe in limited private property and some entrepeneurism as this is part of our cul;tural heritage, but I also believe in The Commons, goods and services that every person on the plane should have as equal and access to as possible. Capitalism as currently practiced does not allow for this, as a matter of fact, demands that a significant portion of the population loses out, starves, has no land to farm no clean air to breathe and no water to drink. Don't get me started on education for All, health care for All and peace for all in a state that requires perpetual war to survive. If this conversation continues toward the premise that patching up the old machine will fix things and hoping people will abide by the rules, then I'm out, because I don't think Capitalism can be reformed.

Comment by Ted Magnuson on August 11, 2009 at 4:15pm

The best thing about Capitalism is versatility. There has always been a dynamic relationship between the public-government-and business. I find it interesting as we consider the how the dynamic is changing today, how it has changed in the past. I cover some of this in my 72 minute audio file 'Those Self Evident Truths.' In 1215, English society revolved around 1 person--The King! Then along came the barons at Runnymede

Comment by Will Shirley on August 11, 2009 at 12:52pm

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/73421.html
Is an interesting article describing a car dealer starting to sell his cars through ebay. If this experiment continues then all they need do is store the cars somewhere and have a nice 3D view online. No showroom, no salesmen, just some guys to move the cars out when they sell.
Now take Tata Motors and their hybrid electric/compressed air cars and note that they are already selling cars online. As commerce moves online it changes many aspects of economic theory. The concept of capitalism deals with the "means of production". But consider how this is impacted by the ability to shop around the globe for the car you want, regardless of how it was created. Might even be a one-of-a-kind knockoff. If an economic system within a culture integrates many kinds of economic systems: barter, capitalism, socialism, communism, then what kind of "system" is it? One that works for Me, perhaps?

I can go online and design a part for a machine I am making using a 3D CADD program. I then order it made of whatever metal I need. Say I am making a replica crossbow and I need some custom cut parts from iron or steel and I can make the stock from anything that's about the weight of wood... some foundry in some part of the world casts my parts, one at a time, and the parts ship to me and I assemble the crossbow and then I sell it in my online ebay shop. Is this capitalism? If I barter services for these material goods, does that change the name?

Comment by Will Shirley on August 11, 2009 at 6:38am

G.D.P. R.I.P.
by Eric Zency in the NYT
"To begin with, gross domestic product excludes a great deal of production that has economic value. Neither volunteer work nor unpaid domestic services (housework, child rearing, do-it-yourself home improvement) make it into the accounts, and our standard of living, our general level of economic well-being, benefits mightily from both. Nor does it include the huge economic benefit that we get directly, outside of any market, from nature. A mundane example: If you let the sun dry your clothes, the service is free and doesn’t show up in our domestic product; if you throw your laundry in the dryer, you burn fossil fuel, increase your carbon footprint, make the economy more unsustainable — and give G.D.P. a bit of a bump.

In general, the replacement of natural-capital services (like sun-drying clothes, or the propagation of fish, or flood control and water purification) with built-capital services (like those from a clothes dryer, or an industrial fish farm, or from levees, dams and treatment plants) is a bad trade — built capital is costly, doesn’t maintain itself, and in many cases provides an inferior, less-certain service. But in gross domestic product, every instance of replacement of a natural-capital service with a built-capital service shows up as a good thing, an increase in national economic activity. Is it any wonder that we now face a global crisis in the form of a pressing scarcity of natural-capital services of all kinds?"

I think this article has interesting insights into what we've been talking about.

Comment by Alan C Sanders on August 3, 2009 at 3:27pm

It was Glass Stiegal right?

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