Cargo Cult Capitalism

[Taverner]

Back in WWII, the Navy would set up bases on Pacific Islands that had never seen planes, radios, etc. From their limited exposure, they believed the technology was "magic" and that the radio must be a hotline to the gods. These huge "birds" would bring all kinds of supplies, food and tools, leave, and then bring back more. After the war, the Navy left the bases but the islanders remained.

What happened next should be a lesson for us all about our species. Somewhere along the way, they decided that this was all the work of the God, John Frum. They set up fake airplanes, made of wood, to lure the "birds" back. They built runways, and control towers, all believing it was these fetishes that drew the supply planes back. They set up fake radios, where a Priest or Priestess would make up nonsense talk that sounded like radio static, and it was believed they were talking to the "gods."

If we just build the "birds" and radios, the birds will come back and bring us all food and tools, was their thinking. The most bizarre thing is that this did not happen on just one island, but several - and none of them communicating with each other. IN other words, this spontaneously arose from similar encounters. And for some reason, the name "John Frum" kept popping up.

Fast forward to 1980. Reagan is elected, and regulations are dumped as fast as possible. Tax cuts for the rich, and the complete dismantling of all of our Social safety nets. This goes on for 30 years, not skipping a beat under Democratic Administrations as well as Republican ones. Essentially it's a cash grab, but there is money to be made carrying the 1%'s suitcases filled with cash.

Now, the 1% has closed up shop. There are no jobs moving their money. The system has collapsed, just like every economist from Ricardo to Marx predicted.

But the Tea Party, and pretty much all of America, wants the return of the financial John Frum.

"If we just cut taxes for the rich, the jobs might come back," they say. And their understanding of the mechanisms of the economy and finance is about as crude as the islanders.

Instead of learning the technology behind the ebbs and flows, they simply rely on the fetishes of Unrestricted Capitalism. Tax cuts, de-regulation, military spending, and so on.

[Odin2005]

1. Great term, and it alliterates perfectly.

[Morning Dew]

2. Kick.

Excellent OP.

[starroute]

3. The islanders actually had a better grip on reality

I read something a number of years ago saying that a follow-up study had shown that the islands which embraced cargo cults had more successfully integrated themselves into the modern world than those which had not. Think of it as children playing at grown-up roles and it makes a lot of sense.

The Tea Partiers don't even have it that good. They're not pretending to be rich -- which might actually give them some clues as to how to move up in the world. They're just licking the boots of the rich. And that does them no good at all.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

4. Maybe they like the taste of leather.

:+

[occupyeverywhere]

5. Canned meat

It's real popular all over the Pacific

[redqueen]

6. I really wish that term had caught on.

Maybe now that OWS is going strong, it might get some sticking power.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

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[Kingofalldems]

9. So you are a fan of unfettered capitalism?

[Selatius]

10. How do you explain all those Republicans who favor "deregulation" then???

The capitalism that is prevalent in the USA is corporate capitalism. They buy the seats in Congress. They get their tools in Congress to pass laws favoring them. If anybody is a crony in all this, it's the politicians. They're the cronies. The ones who lead the pack sit on the board of directors of the major corporations; they're not the ones sitting in office. A bunch of the politicians simply follow their orders. At the end of the day, the government itself is just a tool. In the right hands, it can be used to build things and reduce human misery. In the wrong hands, it can be used to conquer entire corners of the planet and destroy everything in its path.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

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[Selatius]

12. We're operating upon a different set of definitions, it appears.

When I say deregulation, I mean, for instance, removing the limit on the level of mercury that a coal-fired power plant can produce in water run-off from their facility. Another example is removing tariffs that protect domestic manufacturing from being under-cut by foreign competitors. I guess another would be weakening or eliminating clean air requirements so that a factory owner doesn't have to spend money on installing expensive scrubbers to remove the particulates from the air that are generated by the factory.

If you're talking about "reregulation" in the form of, say, granting a company a monopoly in a particular market because the company lobbied the legislators or the government erecting an onerous requirement as a prerequisite to doing business (a barrier to entry) for the sole reason of crushing any future competitors from entering the market to favor the company that lobbied for the requirement or Henry Paulson letting Lehman Brothers hang in the wind, while bailing out Bank of America or Citibank, then I would say we're not really in disagreement, just high-lighting different aspects of the same problem.

On the whole, I'd simply call all of these examples of corporatism. Our grandparents called it by an older name, though. They called it fascism, and they died by the hundreds of thousands to try to defeat it.

[redqueen]

8. This deserves a kick...

:kick:

[Liquorice]

13. Yes, cargo cults are incredibly pathetic and sad, and so are the tea party idiots. By the way,

for anyone interested in cargo cults, there are some great youtube videos about them. Very interesting.

[Leopolds Ghost]

15. I don't find them pathetic and sad.

Who's to say they didn't derive spiritual inspiration from a John Frum?

[Taverner]

16. I don't think the Cargo Cults were pathetic - they were a perfectly predictable human response

Any study of the origins of most major religions will show the same thi9ng

[JoeyT]

14. You mean wearing a tricorn hat

and hurling teabags around won't make the founding fathers come back and make the federal government stop taxing me?

Goddamnit, I was lied to!

[firehorse]

17. Excellent analogy!

Yes, lets throw more money at the 1% and maybe they'll be nice to us and give us jobs. It's like an abused spouse thinking "if they be nice" they won't get beat anymore.