Capitalism's Icarus Trajectory

[marmar]

from HuffPost:



Stuart Whatley
Associate Blog Editor

Financial Reform Won't Alter Capitalism's Icarus Trajectory
Posted: May 20, 2010 12:43 PM


My mother used to have a cat that wasn't declawed. As such, most of the plushier furniture items around the house inevitably ended up shredded. She would take the cat to the veterinarian now and then for the claws to be clipped down, which was effective for a time before they grew back, after which point more evisceration would ensue. Cats do this not as some devious Garfieldian machination (the comic strip, not the president), but rather as a means for sharpening, or upkeep, driven by an irresistible evolutionary compulsion. Thus for the maintenance of their claws, they are beholden to an uncontrollable and sometimes destructive urge.

The same can be said for contemporary finance, and for our legally codified concept of the limited liability, profit-driven corporation more generally. The current financial regulatory reforms being hashed out in Congress seek to clip Wall Street's claws, but it is only a matter of time before those claws grow back in the form of increasingly complex financial innovations. Not all of these will be "bad" ideas. Some will efficiently and effectively connect resources to production. But if history shows anything, it's that eventually a profit-maximizing instrument or nascent investment area will emerge that wrecks the system all over again.

Perhaps the most troubling reality in the 21st Century is that our economics now dictates our cultural values, rather than the reverse, where We the People would decide how resources, production, and mutual prosperity should be systematized to achieve the best society for all. Like the cat's claws, the corporation's profit motive is its only tool for survival. The casino culture of the financial system has spawned an expectation for unrealistic year-to-year growth in investors of all forms, demanding that managers increase profits exponentially and unsustainably, lest they be canned and replaced.

To account for that ever increasing demand -- and constrained by laws that prohibit CEOs to take any action that isn't in the direct fiduciary interest of shareholders -- corporations are forced to externalize costs whenever possible, regardless of social or environmental detriment. This process takes many forms, such as shortcuts and cutting corners (British Petroleum), or outsourcing to more unsavory elements (sweat shops), to name just two. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stuart-whatley/corporation-reform-financ_b_582770.html

[havocmom]

1. "..our economics now dictates our cultural values, rather than the reverse.."

That's it in a nutshell. The created human artifice of economy supersedes human values. Values are what allows us to thrive or die as a species.

We are endangered and on the road to extinction and 'the economy' (the artificial economic structures created for the benefit of the few over the well being of the many)is the driving force in the coming extinction.

[proudohioan]

2. More like 'vultural values'. n/t

[calimary]

4. DAMN you guys are good!

Vultural Values! WOW! That is deviously brilliant, proudohioan!!!

The important point, when we arrive at a conclusion like this, is to turn it into a WEAPON. If it's cleverly worded but gets the "bumper-sticker politics" sloganeering down, it's a winner. Because it will be that much more easily remembered. You'll say it or write it to somebody, and it'll stick in that person's mind more easily. And if it's clever it'll stick in the mind with a positive note rather than a negative one. And if it sticks in the mind, it delivers THE MESSAGE you want to send. This one's SUPERB!!! Sums all that screwed-up priorities stuff up in two words!

The METAPHORS are good, too! Like a mental post-it note that you put in place casual-quick-n-dirty like, and it sticks. The cat-claw image and the Icarus reference are FABULOUS!!! Sometimes you have to spoon-feed people for them to get it. Clever concise word play is the way to do it most effectively. Why do you think bumper-stickers are such effective tools that you NEVER see a campaign without? And to the thick-headed or ill-informed, it's THE way to cut through their cranial density.

We need as MANY of these as we can get. Remember, the person we're REALLY fighting is frank luntz and all that he represents.

[proudohioan]

6. Thank you....

It's a side-effect of 11 months of unemployment; I've taken to reading 'radical and subversive' books (courtesy of the Public Library) in a futile attempt to make sense of what the hell is going on, and why are we (as a nation) turning a blind-eye to the obvious?

[blindpig]

3. There is no 'now' about this.

It's always been going on, Marx was quite clear about that. That it is becoming blindingly obvious is just a manifestation of the increasing death spiral. We can do nothing and let it drag us all down or we can do something about it.

[amborin]

9. +1000

[dem mba]

5. pshaw! pshaw I say!

um, in what era did economics NOT dictate the cultural values of the time?

I can't think of a single example. Help me out.

[havocmom]

7. I recall when corporations managed nicely on less profit, less gap in income

and more effort on public works.

I am old, but not ancient.

[proudohioan]

8. I'm with you there, havocmom....

We certainly do seem to be living in an 'Age of Entitlement', don't we!

It's just not us who seem to be 'entitled'....

:)

[dem mba]

10. when was this?

not being snotty, I just don't know of any point in history in which corporations weren't after as much profit as they could possibly get.