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October 10, 2002

Capitalism TO THE EXTREME!

This Salon article, In greed we trusted, backs up what I've believed for a long time about capitalism and America. Its a question of priorities, not of morals. Or rather, in this case, right and wrong are constructs of ones given priorities. There are lots of right's and wrongs that are just believed and can come into conflict. Your priorities determine which you side with. In the case of capitalism, the idea that acquiring money and possessions is 'right' is a high priority as an individual capitalist. When corporate entities get involved, a whole new set of priorities and morals can be overlaid independent of individual priorities and morals. How? Because in this country we uphold the illusion that a corporation is an actual entity in and of itself, independent of people. This belief alone allows the individual to do things in the name of the corporation which he/she would never dream of doing as an individual.

A public companies HIGHEST goal is to 'increase shareholder value'. Basic economics 101. We're just now starting the see the ramifications of putting such a high priority on the illusion of 'shareholder value' over community values or customer satisfaction. The fact that customer satisfaction often leads to increased shareholder value does not mean that customer satisfaction is really priority #1. In fact, when the bottom line dictates burning your customers, it must be done (facetious).

The article talks about Enron and how we should not look at Enron as an isolated incident, where a gathering of inherently bad people (at least worse than we are), were allowed to run amok without supervision. Rather, that Enron is the logical conclusion of capitalism taken to the Nth degree. This belief is backed up by the shear number of companies that have come forward with deceitful accounting practices in the wake of Enron.

Now contrary to popular belief, while I believe people are selfish and maybe even slightly evil by nature, I do not believe people are evil by intent. Rather that the most common trespass is justification. One can justify doing something that is wrong by convincing oneself in a Machiavellian way that the final outcome will be 'right'. In Enron's case, they may have convinced themselves that they were making many many people rich and would go on to make ordinary people (shareholders) money. A real robin hood, and how can that be wrong. So what if you have to cut a few corners to do that. Of course its also possible to believe they were really evil, but I believe it is more instructive to assume they are not. By assuming they are not, you are bringing them to your level and saying its possible you could have done the same thing given their situation. Believing they are equals lets you internalize their mistakes as opposed to believing they are beneath you and thus beneath learning from.

In the same way I can see why people would think capitalism was a good idea. Sometimes an alternative presents itself which is so much better than the present, you don't even want to look for what might be wrong with it. Indeed, imagining myself in a communist dictatorship where the people are oppressed and never allowed to progress, I can see why capitalism might look a bit appealing. But maybe its really time, given recent events, we re-evaluate capitalism as an immutable concept. Its almost like when people talk about modern politics/economics they begin with a series of assumptions about the validity of capitalism and the free-market system and go from there. They equate capitalism with freedom and assume you can't have one without the other. They begin with certain axioms that are not questioned. Well, I think capitalism as it has been constructed and practiced is a failure, maybe not in a vacuum, but as far as humans and human nature is concerned, it doesn't work. It puts the wrong things first and thus a good capitalist is a negligent member of the community. The community being all of us. You can't put taking as the highest priority and expect to be able to give freely. Of course, the idea of giving is not inline with capitalism anyway.

On many issues I stipulate that I could be wrong. On this one, I believe capitalism is a failure wholeheartedly. At the same time I recognize the benefits of capitalism and the good things it has brought us as a people. Few things are ALL bad. My definition of failure comes from MY priorities. The community is a higher priority to me than money, and I believe it should be for everyone else too (presumptuous eh?). As such I believe capitalism, since it leads inevitably to precisely the opposite of what a community should bring, is a failure. However, I am not prepared to say that ANY form of capitalism is bad, or that our idea of capitalism can't be fundamentally modified to be more community focused, even without throwing all our current beliefs on capitalism completely away. But some of the axioms must be re-evaluated and inevitably changed. However, I don't claim to know what specifically would be the 'better' way.

I know that 'failed' is a strong term and maybe others would characterize it differently, but based on my personal parameters, as stated above, I believe there must be a better way. Or at least I hope there is.

Posted by wonko at October 10, 2002 04:06 AM

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