October 7, 2009 archive

I invented a tire that would never go flat, in the 3rd grade. I came up with the idea during study hall and within a few minutes I had drawn a rough picture of it and showed it to my teacher. The picture showed, instead of one big area of air, many little “cells” (think of a honeycomb) so that should one or two get punctured, the overall integrity of the tire would not be compromised.

The teacher scoffed at my little drawing and expued, “Why would we want that? If tires never went flat then no one would ever buy tires again and the tire makers would all go out of business.”

That was my introduction to the principle of planned obsolescence.  It was also the moment I realized that capitalism was largely a barbaric and stupid economic system. For though he was incorrect with respect to my cellular tires (they still wear out), he was generally correct as to the principle: benefiting society, really solving problems, making real quality products, and even saving lives, is more often than not, bad for business. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule. There always are with anything as complex as human society. But the principle is almost always applicable: if you’re in the business of making things, then making them too well will put you out of business. This is why our landfills are so huge.

Third grade was also the year I became a socialist. To my 10 year old mind, it was inconceivable to view any system that almost demands one to make a lesser product, to do poorly instead of well, or to even risk people’s safety in the name of profit, as anything other than insanity. And while I eventually moved beyond socialism, at least as it’s usually conceived, my disdain for capitalism has not waned. In fact, over the years, I have accumulated much more evidence of its inherent evil than Michael Moore could present in 10 movies.

I may present some of this evidence below, but at this point I just want to summarize my view: Capitalism is a savage, predatory economic system. It is the economy of savages because that is what most people are. It’s a wonder they don’t eat each other. Even the language of capitalism is predatory and sets things up as a conflict instead of people working together. This is clear not just with the more obvious terms like “vulture fund” or “hostile takeover”, but with one of the most fundamental terms: competition.

Yes, competition is one of the axioms of capitalism. And we all love a good fight. But let’s think about that word for a minute.

Compete

intr.v.

To strive against another or others to attain a goal, such as an advantage or a victory.

Now, we humans usually think of competition as a good thing. That is because we like our games so we can role play our savagery. And we like to think that a good competition makes us stronger, even when we lose.

But capitalism isn’t a game. It is chillingly real. And the losers are usually ordinary people who weren’t even aware that there was a game.

These are lives we’re talking about here. When “competition” closes down entire local economies, in thousands of small towns and neighborhoods across the country, it’s not a game at all. One day you’re a happy, well adjusted teenager and your biggest problem is that you hate your math class. Then, suddenly, the factory in your town closes and within three months, your family is homeless, your dad has moved to another state to find work, and your entire world has collapsed around you.

This is a true story. And it has been repeated millions of times over and over again for the last 20 years as “competition” has gutted the entire manufacturing sector of the economy and wiped out most of the middle class.

It is true that often enough, the losers in business competition are people who make an inferior product. But far more often they are families with kids.

I harp on the kid theme not because I think people who don’t have kids are any less important. But I see the health of our youth and our schools as the ultimate bellwether. For one, a society can be judged on how we treat the weakest among us. And the weakest among us are always our children. And secondly, kids in school represent our posterity in the most vivid way. And right now, across the country, our children and our schools are sick. Police are stationed on campuses that more resemble prison camps than places of higher learning.

But of course, this should be no surprise. Our country is sick. And it is so because our economy is sick.

Now, I’m sorry, but it is absurd to blame “Republicanism” or, more accurately, conservatism for the nature of capitalism. First of all, that would grotesquely let Democrats off the hook. But more importantly, it is just plain false. All conservatism is is code for “get your hands off my capitalism.” And that’s what we’ve seen over the last forty years. Not the replacement of true capitalism with some impure, Republicanized form. But the slow and steady de-shackling of capitalism in its true form.

It is a fact that we have seen a more benign expression of capitalism in the past. But that was not because capitalism was different then. It is because people weren’t as capitalistic then. Jonas Salk, who Michael Moore used in his film as an example of excellence without a profit motive, gave away the polio vaccine for free. Can you imagine anyone doing that now?

The fact is, up until a few decades ago, people’s behavior was still governed more by a sense of common decency than any market fundamentalism. All this free market, ‘self interests rises all boats’ nonsense was concocted in think tanks and spread with a multi-billion dollar PR campaign to recreate society in the image of Friedrich Hayek’s and Milton Friedman’s psychopathic conception of the rational, selfish man. Then they kind of gave up on rational and stuck with selfish.

Now, you can see the fruits of their labor in television ads depicting a father stealing the last Leggo from his son at breakfast. ‘So good you’ll steal food from your babies.’ Turns out they don’t really have to be that good at all because it was relatively easy to program people to be selfish. It’s in our nature. I started noticing the “selfishness” ads about 20 years ago. Are they part of the campaign to make us all like Ayn “The Virtues of Selfishness” Rand? Or do they just work?

In summation, what we are seeing now is total capitalism, where the moral codes of conduct (some of which were, granted, appalling) that guided most of society for centuries, and especially after the New Deal, have been replaced by capitalism’s purest state: market fundamentalism.

Haven’t you heard? There’s even talk of replacing government and the institutions of democracy with Market Democracy. Why have elections when you can vote every day with your credit card? Seriously, the smart people from the Ivy Leagues love this idea.

The predatory nature of capitalism, the way it turns people against people, and sets up almost all economic relationships as adversarial, is only one of many reasons why capitalism is evil. I could write ten essays on how capitalism and the environment are natural born enemies. But I won’t. In a nutshell, it is a system that brings out, encourages, and sometimes even requires the absolute worst in human beings. We need laws to both inspire and compel us to be better people. And the laws of capitalism do the exact opposite. It is a reversion to humans’ most primitive instincts. The laws of the jungle. Cannibalism bars where people go to eat pieces of human flesh are not out of the question if we continue down this trajectory.

No, the capitalist system has only survived this long, without devouring itself, because it was tempered by another system – social democracy.

As for the USA, it is the most powerful and influential force for capitalism in the world. And for decades, it has been destroying millions of lives, betraying the principles of democracy it was founded on, and murdering poor and indigenous peoples around the world to force the capitalistic model down the throat of mankind.

It is absolutely evil. Americans are shielded from it because they are sedated by drugs, alcohol and television. But in our names, powerful forces have been wreaking terror on the world for many years, all in the name of freedom and liberty. But what they were really doing was raping and pillaging.

Did the Nazis know that their country was evil? Did the Romans?

And don’t give me any crap about exporting democracy or any of the other propaganda that has been used to rob the rest of the planet for the last two centuries. The only thing we’ve exported is the opportunity to become lifelong consumers of cheap crap and poisonous, corporate grown foods.

Now don’t get me wrong. No one loves the promise of America, and the principles it was founded on more than me. But the US has been an evil, savage pillager of the world almost from its inception. Between Slavery, the Native American holocaust, and the wholesale devastation of the natural world, your great country will rank up there with the worst monstrosities of history. And from where I sit, it looks like it’s just getting warmed up.

Now, I know it’s not politically expedient to say the US is evil. I don’t care. It’s the truth. Period.

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for a tire that won’t go flat. I gave my idea to the three tire manufacturers back in the early 70s. Still no reply.

When I was 10, in the 3rd grade, I invented a tire that would never go flat. I came up with the idea during study hall and within a few minutes I had drawn a rough picture of it and showed it to my teacher. The picture showed, instead of one big area of air, many little “cells” (think of a honeycomb) so that should one or two get punctured, the overall integrity of the tire would not be compromised.

The teacher scoffed at my little drawing and expued, “Why would we want that? If tires never went flat then no one would ever buy tires again and the tire makers would all go out of business.”

That was my introduction to the principle of planned obsolescence. It was also the moment I realized that capitalism was a moronic economic system. And though he was incorrect with respect to my cellular tires (they still wear out), he was generally correct as to the principle: really solving problems, making real quality products, and even saving lives is more often than not, bad for business. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule. There always are with anything as complex as human society. But the principle is almost always applicable: if you’re in the business of making things, then making them too well will put you out of business. This is why our landfills are so huge.

Third grade was also the year I became a socialist. To my 10 year old mind, it was inconceivable to view any system that almost demands one to make a lesser product, to do poorly instead of good, or to even risk people’s safety in the name of profit, as anything other than barbaric. And while I eventually moved beyond socialism, at least as it’s usually conceived, as a suitable replacement, my disdain for capitalism has not wained. In fact, over the years, I have accumulated much more evidence of its inherent evil than Michael Moore could present in 10 movies.

I may present some of this evidence below, but at this point I just want to express my current view: Capitalism is a predatory economic system. It is the economy of savages because that is what most people are. It’s a wonder they don’t eat each other. Even the language of capitalism is predatory. And not just the more obvious terms like vulture fund or hostile takeover, but one of the most fundamental terms: competition.

Compete

intr.v.

To strive against another or others to attain a goal, such as an advantage or a victory.

Now, we humans usually think of competition as a good thing. That is because we like our games. And we like to think that a good competition makes us stronger, even when we lose.

But capitalism isn’t a game. It is chillingly real. And the losers are usually ordinary people who weren’t even aware that there was a game.

These are lives we’re talking about here. When “competition” closes down entire local economies, in thousands of small towns and neighborhoods across the country, it’s not a game at all. One day you’re a happy, well adjusted teenager and your biggest problem is that you hate your math class. Then, suddenly, the factory in your town closes and within three months, your family is homeless, your dad has moved to another state to find work, and your entire world has collapsed around you.

This is a true story. And it has been repeated millions of times over and over again for the last 20 years as “competition” has gutted the entire manufacturing sector of the economy and wiped out most of the middle class.

It is true that often enough, the losers in business competition are people who make an inferior product. But far more often they are families with kids.

I harp on the kid theme not because I think people who don’t have kids are any less important. But I see the health of our youth and our schools as the ultimate bellwether. For one, a society can be judged on how we treat the weakest among us are always our children. And secondly, kids in school represent our posterity in the most vivid way. And right now, across the country, our children and our schools are sick. Police are stationed on campuses that more resemble prison camps than places of higher learning.

But of course, this should be no surprise. Our country is sick. And it is so because our economy is sick.

Now, I’m sorry, but it is absurd to blame “Republicanism” or, more accurately, conservatism for the nature of capitalism. First of all, that would grotesquely let Democrats off the hook. But more importantly, it is just plain false. All conservatism is is code for “get your hands off my capitalism.” And that’s what we’ve seen over the last forty years. Not the replacement of true capitalism with some impure, Republicanized form. But the slow and steady de-shackling of capitalism in its true form.

It is a fact that we have seen a more benign expression of capitalism in the past. But that was not because capitalism was different then. It is because people weren’t as capitalistic then. Jonas Salk, who Michael Moore used in his film as an example of excellence without a profit motive, gave away the polio vaccine for free. Can you imagine anyone doing that now?

The fact is, up until a few decades ago, people’s behavior was still governed more by a sense of common decency than any market fundamentalism. All this free market, self interests rises all boats nonsense was concocted in think tanks and spread with a multi-billion dollar PR campaign to recreate society in the image of Friedrich Hayek’s and Milton Friedman’s psychopathic conception of the rational, selfish man. Then they kind of gave up on ration and stuck with selfish.

Now, you can see the fruits of their labor in television ads depicting a father stealing the last Leggo from his son at breakfast. ‘So good you’ll steal food from your babies.’ Turns out they don’t really have to be that good at all because it was relatively easy to program people to be selfish. It’s in our nature. I started noticing the “selfishness” ads about 20 years ago. Are they part of the campaign to make us all like Ayn “The Virtues of Selfishness” Rand? Or do they just work?

In summation, what we are seeing now is total capitalism, where the moral codes of conduct (some of which were, granted, appalling) that guided most of society for centuries, and especially after the New Deal, have been replaced by capitalism’s purest state: market fundamentalism.

Haven’t you heard? There’s even talk of replacing government and the institutions of democracy with Market Democracy. Why have elections when you can vote every day with your credit card? Seriously, the smart people from the Ivy Leagues love this idea.

The predatory nature of capitalism, the way it turns people against people, and sets up almost all economic relationships as adversarial, is only one of many reasons why capitalism is evil. I could write ten essays on how capitalism and the environment are natural born enemies. But I won’t. In a nutshell, it is a system that brings out, encourages, and sometimes even requires the absolute worst in human beings. We need laws to both inspire and compel us to be better people. And the laws of capitalism do the exact opposite. It is a reversion to humans’ most primitive instincts. The laws of the jungle. Cannibalism bars where people go to eat pieces of human flesh are not out of the question if we continue down this trajectory.

No, the capitalist system has only survived this long, without devouring itself, because it was tempered by another system – social democracy.

As for the USA, it is the most powerful and influential force for capitalism in the world. And for decades, it has been destroying millions of lives, betraying the principles of democracy it was founded on, and murdering poor and indigenous peoples around the world to force the capitalistic model down the throat of mankind.

It is absolutely evil. Americans are shielded from it because they are sedated by drugs, alcohol and television. But in our names, powerful forces have been wreaking terror on the world for many years, all in the name of freedom and liberty. But what they were really doing was raping and pillaging.

Did the Nazis know that their country was evil? Did the Romans?

And don’t give me any crap about exporting democracy or any of the other propaganda that has been used to rob the rest of the planet for the last two centuries. The only thing we’ve exported is an American dream that is nothing more than the opportunity to become lifelong consumers of cheap crap and poisonous, corporate grown foods.

Now don’t get me wrong. No one loves the promise of America, and the principles it was founded on more than me. But the US has been an evil, savage pillager of the world almost from its inception. Between Slavery, the Native American holocaust, and the wholesale devastation of the natural world, your great country will rank up there with the worst monstrosities of history. And from where I sit, it looks like it’s just getting warmed up.

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for a tire that won’t go flat. I gave my idea to the three tire manufacturers back in the early 70s. Still no reply.

I encountered several examples of internet troll today that quite literally redefined the term, bringing it to a new low I didn’t think was possible.

Apparently my “vitriol” concerning 9/11 is “sexy”.

Yeah. It’s all about the entertainment, and argument for the sake thereof. 9/11 is such a bountiful font of giggles and fun, let me tell you.

I can’t even imagine what these… things… would have done to someone who actually lost a friend or relative on 9/11, or who had seen people die, or whose job it had been to pick up body parts. Someone who wasn’t made of sterner military stuff. Someone who truly was turned into a permanent basket case by the events of that day.

There are dead slugs I’ve shaken out of beer bottles that are closer to humanity than the infowar creatures who are making a merry game out of covering up what happened on 9/11. Cointelpro for the LOSE, people.