Discuss: The Ecology of Work

David Scott…

I wouldn’t say leaving capitalism behind is the goal, but rather to change it, morph it, improve it into something else.

I’ve felt for awhile that capitalism and democracy are almost oppositional. Just look at the structure of a corporation, it has the looks of communism. The CEO is the premier, the board is the politburo, upper management are party loyalists and the bulk of the workers are the masses. Only the handful at the top have any input (voting power). Corporations don’t give workers any democracy within a country called a democracy.

In fact, the natural goal of a corporation would be monopoly power which is in opposition to freedom of the marketplace as monopoly would fight against any possible competition. That’s why a democracy has to make laws to stop monopoly power. Yet as globalization has exploded, corporate power is beginning to supersede state governments, individual country laws are becoming moot.

But the current ills of capitalism are as well due to its transformation into an all out consumerist society. No longer do we consider necessities our prime purchases, or at least believe they are. We’ve been advertised to death to consume things that we are lead to believe are vital to our lives…and most important…to make those purchases on credit. Consumerism has become a structured and propagandized cycle of…create a desire, advertise that desire, sell the desire to then create another desire to supersede that previous desire, and with the unspoken keeping up with the Jones as part of the motivation.  If too many people should somehow reject or be unable to participate in this economic premise the system would expose its fissures (recessions and depressions) that happen periodically.

Consumerism’s architects, economists and politicians, don’t control it but try to head off those fissures with minor tweaks and that is all that they can do. But mostly those adjustments these days are done to continue the status quo thus only delaying the down periods and in my opinion probably making the next fall worse.

Capitalism used to be about making sure a company was positioned for long term growth, now it’s all about short term profit. If a corporation begins to have trouble their leaders know they can get a big payout when their company gets bought out.

Consumerism used to be about personal financial stability, paygo for the household. Now, it’s standard to leave college in debt and to consume using debt. Without the massive usury in America, consumerism would collapse. In the past, only big ticket items were the norm for paying someone else interest, now it’s virtually everything that goes on a card that most people end up paying that extra fee (interest) for the pleasure of that “thing.”

Worse, we are inundated with advertisement to be a part of this scam. There is currently a credit card running TV ads that show everyone using the card, depicting the people as automatons, except for the one person who uses cash and is looked down upon for causing the assembly line of consuming to slow down.

But as most of us in this forum know, the oil based consumerist society may be in its twilight due to the fact that oil will begin to peak and throw a wrench into that assembly line of consumerism.

An interesting recent book, “Consumed” by Benjamin Barber.

On further thought…

We can’t ignore the role of empire in our consumerist economy. America can’t be a “successful” capitalist country in a vacuum, it must have foreign markets to continue to work.

We compete with other first world nations on par (even at a disadvantage) so it’s the second tier and third world countries that have to be exploited and turned into consumers. 15, 20 years ago globalization was called neo iberalism. Now with the Bush regime, it’s being called neoconservatism. The only real difference is the increased use of military to help to open markets. Not that the military industrial complex needed more emphasis, but now it’s unprecedented.

To me it’s insanity. To wage our oil war in Iraq our military must use massive amounts of oil. But Iraq was more than just about oil. They said so. They believed that if Iraq could be turned into a democracy (our consumerist styled democracy) then the other Middle East nations would follow suit, the domino theory. What a pipe dream, mission accomplished and time to sell Hollywood DVDs, credit cards and fast food.

The added bonus was to pump the economy of weapons production. Just like our cycled consumerism, the MIC has to sell to the government the latest and greatest innovations and then need those things used up in order to continue the cycle.

And “We the Sheeple” were advertised into believing Iraq was a good thing. Fear wrapped in patriotism broadcast not as commercials but as regular TV programming. And it WAS a good thing…for the cable news networks. A war is great for ratings, the corporations came running for ad time to run on these corporate TV channels. “There may be a war going on, but BUY our car!”

Media consumerism is a vital portion of our consumerism, we are made to feel the need for cable or satellite TV, it’s must see TV, for a fee of course. More scam. TV programming has mostly become nothing more than a reason for selling advertising. And look at how pervasive infomercials have become. We pay a cable fee to watch hour long commercials? Unbelievable. But why should I be surprised when now I get to read advertisements above urinals?

But I digress. It’s looking more obvious that we can’t open up markets in the Middle East for consumerism, but ending the Iraq War would be a proof against neoconservatism and the true believers think that that would show the US as weak (as well, the MIC would have reduced profits), so the war will go on.

American exceptionalism is never having to admit a mistake, to just go on and try to innovate a different idea. The Iraq War has become the perfect storm. Capitalism’s creative destruction versus anti-capitalism Jihad, everyone with an ideology wins, except of course regular Iraqis and American soldiers. We get to constantly rebuild a country that is constantly being destroyed, it’s good for our economy.

It’s also becoming obvious that our democracy is broken. We have a domination of corporate consumerism linked to empire building that completely ignores the will of the people. Even elections are nothing but consumerism. The billions spend for media campaigns has become a real chunk of the economy. People depend on these jobs…printing the yard signs, creating the TV ads, scheduling the appearances, blowing up the balloons…like clockwork every two years.

And for what? To enrich the major donors that paid for the ad campaigns with favorable legislation and to continue the economic status quo.

There are so many examples of how democracy in America has hit new lows but one stands out for me. That energy bill that passed with billions in subsidies to the oil companies was a few months later followed by the retirement of Exxon CEO Lee Raymond with a $400 million parachute. Congress essentially cycled our tax dollars to fund a millionaires retirement. If that’s not robbery, I don’t know what is, and done on the basis of democracy, no gun or ski mask needed. In fact, we paid Congress to do this to us.

A complete fleecing but not on the scale of the Iraq War which is estimated to cost every human living in the US $2,000. That’s everyone in a nursing home to the babies born yesterday. But as of today that cost will probably be born by those born today since the war costs have simply been added to the deficit. 

How this house of cards can keep going on is beyond me. But then again, trends change, up can become down, and I suppose the love of money is the root of all evil. The addiction to oil will probably be our path to rock bottom, another addiction baby boomers will have to face.

I agree with jon b. Leaving capitalism behind is not precisely the solution, nor is capitalism precisely the problem. A key in all of this is not capitalism as a system, but the values, priorities, wisdom and conscience of we who participate. In other words: what makes capitalism look demonic is a capitalist without a conscience, without a concern for (all) the consequences of his or her profit seeking. This is not a new problem for humanity. And the solution(s) have been written for us since the dawn of civilization.

Quoting E.F. Schumacher: “What are the moral choices? Is it just a matter…of deciding how much we are willing to pay for clean surroundings? Mankind has indeed a certain freedom of choice. It is not bound by trends, by the “logic of production,” or by any other imaginary logic. But it is bound by truth. Only in the service of truth is perfect freedom, and even those who today ask us to free our imagination from bondage to the existing system, fail to point the way to the recognition of truth.

Further he says: “Everywhere people ask; “What can I actually do?” The answer is as simple as it is disconcerting: we can, each of us, work to put our own inner house in order. The guidance we need for this work cannot be found in science or technology, the value of which utterly depends on the ends they serve; but it can still be found in the traditional wisdom of mankind.”

Dear Friends,

Thanks for your presence and active participation.

If speaking out loudly and clearly about good evidence from the best available science is allowed to be falsely identified and perniciously rejected as the behavior of unrealistic alarmists or silly Chicken-littles, then the future for our children begins to look bleak. At least one unfortunate result of so colossal a failure to communicate good science could be that the self-proclaimed masters of the universe in my not-so-great generation of elders, the modern heirs of Ozymandias, king of kings, will have their way with the planetary home we have been blessed to inhabit and, I suppose, will proceed by means of their adamant sponsorship of rapidly expanding big-business-as-usual activities to overwhelm the Earth with the ubiquitous adulterating effects (e.g., industrial pollution) of unbridled human enterprise.

A.E. Foster evokes the remarkable words of E.F. Schumacher to indicate that the contrived “logic of production” and the endless expansion of super-sized corporate conglomerations are not what matter.  What does matter is our steadfast service to what is somehow true and real regarding the world upon which all that is alive completely depends for its very existence.

Always,

Steve

jon b,

As I understand capitalism, as distinguished from global corporatism, it is the structuring of the economy to allow anyone to acquire capital resources from anyone else within the limitations set by the SEC. This is an economic idea that is distinguished from the systems of other places where there are many more numerous restrictions on who can acquire access to capital resource an from whom.

Global corporatism, on the other hand is the pernicious spread of unaccountable corporate power over the earth. Global corporatism is a governance problem, not an economic one.

Thus I am under the impression that capitalism is a more democratic form of economic organization, but it has been severely corrupted and distorted by the rise of unaccountable private corporate entities that have transcended traditional accountable forms of governance.

I suspect that what White is trying to say is that work in it’s highest form is a soul enriching activity, but when it is stripped of the meaningful connections to high purpose, intimate community, and serving real needs it is a soul sucking waste of time. The problem is the lack of control of your own destiny, a personal governance issue. The problems of global corporatism and the meaninglessness of work are governance issues about accountability at the large scale and empowerment at the small scale.

Please refer to my earlier comments from april 29th and May 4th for a little more on my perspective.

Based on my understanding I believe capitalism is a good thing but global corporations frequently misuses capitalism to abuse and degrade people and our earthly home.

If you disgree with my understanding and insist on demonizing capitalism, would you please define what, specifically, you are against?

Hi Don Berg,

Capitalism is not democratic, it’s an economic system and not a political one. Certainly a politic system allows capitalism, but that political system doesn’t have to be a democracy, note China’s capitalism currently. All countries politically manipulate their economies, no matter the economic system or political system.

In the US currently the efforts by libertarian economics (Chicago School, Milton Friedman, et. al.) has been on the rise for several decades. This is marked by deregulation, less restrictions, privatization,  etc. that if taken to its extremes would naturally lead to something out of “1984,” with only a small handful of huge corporations. The libertarians won’t say this, nor do they actually think their ideas lead this way.

The only reason we don’t have that handful of huge corps. is that we regulate and we have an old law from the progressive era called anti-trust. But that anti-trust law has been altered over the years enough that most sectors of our economy have merged into two, three or four corporations. It’s that anti-trust law that prevents those sectors from becoming only one corporation and further multiple sectors owned by one corporation.

How capitalism could be called democratic under these natural tendencies to monopolize is not clear to me. We don’t vote for corporations, although the libertarians will say we vote with our dollars. But if consumers are given few choices to choose from, is that really democratic? Is America’s two party political system really democratic? I don’t think so, there should be many more choices.

Consider one industry, breakfast cereals, dominated by two major corporations with two others trying to hold their own and then a few others of the regional variety. Without an anti-trust law, Kelloggs and General Mills would buy up or merge with Post and Quaker Oats, then eventually merge together, one big corporation. Those regional and small companies would cease to exist as the big corp would stymie every attempt to have those little players shelf space. Shelf space at grocery stores already is a battleground of both collusion and suppression to get the shelves to have the make up you see today when you visit the store.

Look at nearly every sector of our economy and count the number of big players. Oil, cigarettes, beer, packaged meat, on and on. You can’t judge by the name because so many names are only subsidiaries or brands of a bigger company. Even TV and the media is consolidating faster than we can keep track of.

TV is a good example of the hiding of the lack of competition. We are told we have so many choices of stations, but just a handful of corporations own most of them. ABC/Disney, Murdock’s Newscorp, Viacom, AOL-Time/Warner. Let’s take Viacom and a partial list of stations…CBS, UPN, MTV, CMT, TNN, VH1, BET, Comedy Central, Showtime, Sundance, The Movie Channel, Nickelodeon, and that’s just a partial list of TV, they own 7 book publishers, Paramount studios, and a host of other entertainment ventures.

The only thing holding these goliaths from becoming one huge ogre is that anti-trust law. One political law, that’s basically it. The only democracy involved is when We the People sometimes get riled up and oppose more mergers which happened a couple of years ago when the FCC was going to allow the media giants to own more local media.

I don’t see where capitalism is democratic. You may think it’s just corporations, but private companies would do the same thing, the reason they don’t become as large is that “going public” allows for financing on a huge scale. Thus corporations have the advantage over private companies.

401K plans are a big piece of that money pot for corporations. High percentages of 401Ks are invested in the stock market, as opposed to other investments, thus funding corporations and allowing them access to more financing from the big banks (another industry of giants). Most people have no idea what stocks they own in a 401K, the money goes to a fund manager moving the dollars around the corporate choices. These fund managers are big players having such influence on billions of dollars in the market.

Again, where’s the democracy in all this? You might say, no one forced people to contribute to a 401K plan, yet for far too many people in this country a 401K is the only real option for retirement, they have become so pervasive. 401Ks became a political tool (invented by Congress) to essentially prop up the stock market.

Remember the stock market falling in 2002? If it wasn’t for the 401Ks, the market probably would have been a devastating crash. Plenty of people don’t have any real control over their 401Ks and can’t day trade their way out of a crash, nor yank their cash out. In fact most people in 2002 were not even aware of what little they could have done. There is vast ignorance in this country about 401Ks, people contribute but don’t even understand them. 

Past crashes were the result of the natural reaction of herd mentality. Buy as the market rises until the bubble burst, sell as it free falls. In 2002, 401Ks held back that herd mentality. Not that people didn’t lose a lot of money. Those heavily invested in their own company (enticed or ruled into doing so) lost their retirements, Enron, Worldcom, etc.

I’m getting off topic. Why do I “demonize” capitalism? I don’t, I criticize it because it is a system with plenty of imperfections. Capitalism has never solved recessions for instance, has probably never solved depressions either. And capitalism has no feelings for those left behind, the poor and the individuals who can’t compete in the marketplace for numerous reasons. It takes a political system to address capitalisms castoffs.

Capitalism in America of today favors the rich and statistically has been enriching that small portion of the population like never before. A democratic economic system would give everyone an equal chance as a democratic political system gives everyone one vote. Capitalism can’t do that, the objective is to beat everyone else and not care about the beaten.

Capitalism COULD get better. There are plenty of ideas and laws and regulations and ways to nudge it into a more equal system. At different times in our nations history capitalism has been better. I’d start with a new court challenge to the concept that a corporation deserves the standing of personhood. I’d also make anti-trust more strict, for instance a company couldn’t have more than 20% of any industry and that may be high.

The paradigm behind U.S. economic principles is based on the most ancient and common of human conditions…discontent. Discontent arises out of the erroneous perception of needs. It is a loss of insight and wisdom of knowing what one actually needs distinguished from what is merely a desire running into greed. Capitalism at its worst, is simply a reflection of this ignorance.

From this perspective I think White is correct in pointing out this is “spiritually impoverished. Bankrupt ,if you will.”

In answer to ml’s “Does anyone know of a university course that teaches Aldous Huxley as the main topic as Shakespeare or Freud might be taught?” I have seen people working hard at actually practicing it, including teaching, in intentional communities in northern Missouri (amidst Amish and Mennonites). There are many more examples with a lot of teaching going on, probably most productively outside the university setting as my feeling is that the university setting already frames the learning according to a commitment to the dominant destructive institutional framework. I saw many deeply inspired young people of all ages there, who because they were outside they university, with its classrooms and systems of funding and finance, were in much better position to work these things out.

Regarding “the destruction of the Indonesian and Brazialian rain forests by the fires set by individual farmers,” the people doing this are by no means outside of the framework. They are liquidating the forests to use the land for producing export crops such as beef or else just simply trying to live in a world that has turned them into surplus laborers. It is a far cry from the burning practiced by indigenous Amazonians and other forest peoples, which has been described as “forest fallow,” or the Australians or Ho Chunk, etc. who used fire and nature’s rythms to coax nature to be even more productive.