Compassionate Capitalism
Another position held by "realists" is that capitalism is here to stay and we should therefore find ways to make it a tad less brutal. They get outraged over the stats, like finding out 1% of the population controls 40% of the worlds wealth (study by World institute for Development Economics Research ) and with indignant righteousness call out for less greed. The Pope and a few "progressive " clergy nod in agreement, NGO's and a few thinktankers, second the motion. Barack Obama and John McCain co-sponsor a Delay Less Greed Bill in Congress.
Here is how I picture it institutionally. Suppose we expanded the Super Wal Mart concept and started building them large enough so you could have a mega-church in one section and all local government offices over in another? This would be in addition to everything else you could possibly want or need and all in one handy location, all under one big, inclusive "tent", as people like to think of our great melting pot. They already have banking services, so theoretically, if you lived in the corporate developed housing out back and worked in the Greatest Store on Earth, you would never have to leave the compound. You could be greeted and feted, get all your entertainment, have all your needs met.
posted by troutsky @ 8:30 AM
11 comments
11 Comments:
Social Democracy is idiotic and a bankrupt idea. You can put a mask on it, but it's still brutal capitalism.
We only have to look at efforts so far, such as New Deal reforms which have all been repealed, The european and Canadean welfare states currently being dismantled. Even the Scandanavian models, always held in such high regard, are under threat from the forces of privitization and enclosure.It's obvious the political energy needed to maintain a belief in social capital is no match for the forces of unregulated exploitation.
That reminds me of a book I read, "The Store". I think it was by Stephen Koontz, not sure. It was along the lines you propose, except he took it a step further. The 'store' was more like a cult, it took over your life, you went to work, went to the 'basement' for rituals before work ... Pretty funny stuff although it was supposed to be scary I think.
I have, among my many fascinating crack pot theories, that thoughts are like mental weather and our consciousness of ideas is merely another sensory organ. So saying, I think our consciousnesses picked up on the same thought front for our blogs lately. See my recent, Frontier Forts … post.
What people never seem to understand and i have figured out by working several jobs is that if you give people a "voice" at work, they will produce more. They have incentive to work. Capitalism doesn't do this and traditional socialism hasn't either. Something new is in order
Buckminster Fuller, in his compassionate view of the spaceship earth, developed "World Games", a think tank composed of the cream of science graduates to deal with the inevitability of wanton capitalism by enclosing the entire polluting, industrial, urban society inside recycling domes whose function was to leave the rest of the planet to nature. The most unrealistic part of that was expecting consumer cultures to cease consuming everything.
Capitalism isn't playing the prettifying game anymore.
Critics of the socialist model, such as Brad,(whose civil disagreements are welcome here) leave us only with Jeffersonian optimism and Lockean pragmatism as guideposts towards a more equitable and just system of managing resources and distributing commodities.This is intended to lead us away from the danger of ideology but I wonder how this is not simply acquiescing to the status quo, so called "democratic capitalism, which is itself ( as renegade points out) a dangerous ideology. (It has killed far more than all the gulags and cultural revolutions combined).I fail to see how these admirable personal qualities translate into actual development models that would be more sustainable and less violent than capitalism.It would be extremely pragmatic not to have children raised in the squalor of modern capitalisms mega-slums, or to allow the burning of fossil fuels to warm oceans.The optimism of Jefferson is the revolutionary spirit lost in todays middling bureaucrat, consumer or corporate drone.
I don't wish to be in the position of defending past societies which have adopted the appellation "socialist", whether National Socialists or Bolshevik "socialists" or Chinese "socialists" because each requires a unique analysis. I would rather argue the merits and problems with the theoretical system and ask for agreement that historically, no system has yet been created where the producers of a society have owned the means of production collectively, have shared equal power in all decision making as concerns that production, allocation, distribution etc.
In explaining the failure of both the presumed historical models ie."hardcore examples,gulags, etc"and theory of socialism, I am often confronted with this question of "human nature",that is, how can the wide variation of personality types co-exist in a non-hierchical, non-competitive structure? "One can never force a productive, ambitious, disciplined spirit to subsidize a weak mindset..."
My answer is that just as greed, selfishness and agressive behavior are fostered in a social climate based on hyper-individuality, status symbols and concentrated power, so to can communitarian, egalitarian values be fostered given the right ambient atmosphere. Yes, society must be willing to feed, clothe,house and educate those with a "weak mindset".( while working to eliminate such categorizing).Not coerced into doing so but convinced of it's moral duty and collective interest in doing so.
Both Brad and I agree social democracies, experiments in compassionate capitalism, are failing. He thinks it is due to the nature of man, I think it is under constant attack from a powerful elite.
Well Trout,
You and Howard Zinn have really got me going this time
Consider this: Unions were developed to take care of those who needed a louder voice of dissent, more control of their welfare through the volume represented to employers and government, and respect. Somewhere between the dragon and the tidbits exists a large population of folks who speak for themselves, provide for their own welfare through fair dealing and don’t require anyone's opinion for self respect. I have recently been made aware of the privilege that has allowed me to never fear the social problems of the “less fortunate” befalling me. The remaining vestiges of the privilege of being a white male in the country that perfected slavery seven generations ago are dwindling more rapidly than through emancipation and civil rights with the behavior of the elite white male imperialists showing their asses internationally, more disgustingly every day.
I am also becoming aware of the hardly ever mentioned privilege of being born into a stable family home of loving, vital parents who imbued me with respect for self reliance. So I now find myself to be like the grandfather of “Little Big Man”, who could walk through the massacre of his tribe by union soldiers with impunity because, he reasoned that, if he hadn’t foreseen the raid in his dream, the troopers couldn’t see him. Only through the outrageous behavior of the Bush administration has the seam on my dream revealed that reality comes apart at the seems. I fowndoubt! So now I have sympathy for the problems with which socialism wrestles, but I still see a failing in the needing a greater mass of people to talk in a more unified, more appealing voice to an ever more elite, indifferent leader or to even deal with anyone much beyond ones own tribal life.
So here I am, a seed. I hereby plant myself as the Navelnofoot tribe. There are other members of the tribe with whom we all share loving concern for one another’s welfare and would do whatever is required to help one another, although one of our commonalities is that we are all pretty independent, self reliant folks already. In fact, the others aren’t yet aware of the tribe’s official existence, since this is its inception, but I have little doubt they would welcome its arrival.
I am proposing that the Navelnofoot tribe be the model of future society to be achieved for the express purpose of curbing the predator/prey inclinations of humanity, Brad's human nature, when gathered in too large groups for representation. The creation of small groups of people in loving, family circles for independent concern for the provision of life necessities for themselves (food, shelter, health) would eliminate the need of a central blanket. One tribe may have as many members as all feel comfortable being represented within. One person may be an associate, trading member in many tribes, but maintain a home tribe whose welfare is the main concern, primary family. Intertribal trading will be the concern of only those involved unless a third party is requested for arbitration.
My vision is that as these outlines begin to flesh out, the need for cash within and between tribes can be eliminated and replaced with an internet open barter accounts record for all to see. The need to gain cash for establishment of self sustainablity will eventually dwindle as the tribes begin to operate totally independent of the grid. Investment in solar and wind power generation, creation of complete neighborhoods to eliminate auto traffic. All this going on right under the noses of the elite system and its remaining adherents. As corporations and government begin to feel the loss of the dollar allegience, and non tribal neighbors begin to see the benefits of life independent of the elite, the paradigm shifts and the native Americans can move back home, or anywhere they damned well please.
Howard Zinn reminds me often in his mind altering people’s history that the growing tribalism I foresee quite possibly snowballing will begin to have some political clout and how, when the unions began to have some sway, “the two-party system stood ready to send out one of its columns to surround that movement and drain it of vitality.” Althoough this outline has no intentions of making rules for the overall idea of tribalism, I do offer the caveat that taking ones tribal clout into the present political system is tatamount to dissolving it. The eventual outcome of the present elite leader systems of government as their bankroll withers will be the last national problem tribes of their respective nations will have to deal with. No borders, no nation. Tribes in symbiosis with the planet, a little wiser about things to not do than before white men mistakenly decided they owned it.
In reading this over I realize how naive it may appear to leathery veterans of the struggle to change the world for their version of better, but it seems like we're all too wonderfully different for one blanket.
Everyone who approaches this sincerely has something to contribute, gregrangar. We are moving in exactly the direction you propose, taking little steps like a producers and consumers coop, using our own currency.(Bitterroot Bucks)In our cold climate it is hard to get off the energy grid but we utilize a little solar.Still dependent on wages and private transportation and finding it hard to consolidate private property into community.
I have trouble defining the boundary of my "tribe". I am concerned for the welfare of children growing up in Spokane and Jakarta, and know that my actions affect them indirectly to varying degrees.The struggle is as much about their emancipation as it is about mine.
Must there be a boundry with the existance of the internet, or staked out areas for concentrated tribal habitat. The possibility of uniting in committed cooperation with kindred souls, spirits, folks, whatever for mutual welfare under one tag, name, symbol in mutural cooperation with other like minded tribes to live life as well as we have learned how from living the history of how wrong it can be. Returning to symbiosis with nature will have that added benefit of having gone this far off the path and gleaned some otherwise inaccessible understanding about the body of which we are an interdependent part. This time around our symbiosis can be quite conscious as well as natural.
It's been enlightening if not always satisfying to learn the history of what you call the struggle, your introduction to some ideas made it easier to assimilate. Next year will be better if learning truth can make it so.
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