UNCONTROLLABLE CAPITALISM

The Elephant in the Living Room that will kill us all unless we give it Our Full Attention

We sometimes label those topics that we are too inhibited to talk about as an “elephant in the living room.” In our nation, nobody talks about the social adequacy of Capitalism. Capitalism is such an elephant in the living room. Almost no one is aware of the fact that capitalism is uncontrollable by voters because of its dynamics.

THE UNCONTROLLABLE AXIOMATIC DYNAMICS OF CAPITALISM

1. The very core of capitalism is hiring. Forget the “good” employers that you know. They are an atypical tiny minority. The actual pervasive dynamic is this: A man with money hires a man with no money to work for the employer at the lowest possible wage so as to earn as much profit for the employer as possible.

2. This dynamic, repeated thousands of times over many decades, produces a group of human employers and those who invest with them, with immense money and power. Capitalism thus creates a group of humans with the power and the incentive to thwart the majority will and voting power of democratic voters.

3. This group uses its power and its money to:

• Own or control the media, advertising and PR sectors. It uses the manipulative PR “arts” surrounding patriotism, jingoism, militarism, nationalism, and racism to augment its control. This group thus controls even what we think about.

• Thwart majority democratic rule of voters by bribery of elected officials, euphemistically called “campaign contributions.” Capitalism thus becomes uncontrollable by the ballot box political process of voters.

• Control the government, regulatory agencies, foreign policy, the military, and the intelligence agencies.

• Outsource anywhere on the planet to obtain the cheapest possible labor, with no responsibility whatever to their existing employees, their home communities, or even the national security manufacturing interests of the nation.

• Defy all regulation, warm the globe, and pollute the air, the oceans, and the upper atmosphere. Capitalists use forests, the fishes of the sea, tillable soil, and potable water simply as a “factor of production” to make as much profit as possible, and with no responsibility to the community or humanity. Capitalism, with its awesome uncontrollable power is thus the very antithesis of socially responsible sustainability.

4. Capitalists and their employees are the source of funding for academics, “liberal” magazines, and NGO’s like Common Cause, the Sierra Club, and other “cause” organizations, and their employees.

Al Gore and the Nobel Committee are prime examples of our failure to give attention to “the elephant in the living room.” Al Gore has received the Nobel Prize for his work publicizing Global Warming, although he completely ignores the greedy economic engine that causes Global Warming.

http://www.counterpunch.org/frank10152007.html

We can never achieve a sustainable civilized life on this planet unless we understand the dynamics of capitalism. Voting for Hillary, or voting for anybody who accepts campaign money bribes, will do absolutely no good. With an understanding of the dynamics of capitalism, we can, acting together, exercise control:

• We can stop working, stop buying, and stop listening to capitalist media and PR.
• We can become aware of the lack of legitimacy of the capitalist status quo, of its crippling affect on our democratic voting power, and of its destruction of the planet. Capitalism is the deadly enemy of sustainability.
• We can prohibit private hiring for profit altogether or,
• We can require employers to get annual permits to hire humans, conditioned upon decent wages and working conditions, and limitations on the profits of an employer and investors.
• We can insist on a steeply progressive tax on wealth and income to diminish the power of this class of capitalists.

As we create this sustainable civilized life, we must maintain a consciousness of the awesome anti-social dynamics of capitalism so that we never again let capitalism get out of control.

Please meditate on the following social phenomena and the possible contribution of uncontrollable capitalism to each:

• The increasing number of people who are being treated for personal depression.

• The high levels of personal debt in American households

• The compounding obesity of the US population in the last ten years.

• The instability and fragility of the US economy and the constant risk we endure.

• The fact that this richest nation on earth cannot provide adequate health coverage for its residents, or even its children.

• The fact that the income of dentists has escalated far more than the cost of living, while 40% of US children have untreated cavities.

• The incessant PR message that all government and all taxes for community purposes are evil.

• The immense disparity between of wealth between the top 1% in the U.S. who get 21% if the income and the 12% earned by the bottom 50%, and the social consequences of that disparity.

• The ongoing chatter about further tax cuts for the rich.

• The fact that the typical college graduate leaves college with a debt of $50 to $150 thousand dollars that will consume 1/3 or his post graduate income for ten years.

• The fact that our dams, free ways, levees, and our entire public infrastructure are in very bad repair.

• The fact that we as a people and as a nation are unable to enact laws and policies that would insure a sustainable civilized survival for our off spring.

• The fact that our manufacturing industries and jobs have been outsourced to other countries, so that no longer needed employees can only get low paying jobs in fast food franchises.

• The fact that we get into one war after another against “communists” and “terrorists,” spending a huge portion of our national treasure.

• The fact that we as a people are immobilized, passive, and submissive to these drastic changes that have occurred in the last 20 years, particularly in the last 10. Our capacity for outrage, rebellion, and protest has been extinguished.

• The fact that neither Republicans nor Democrats offer any real solutions to the foregoing.

October 18, 2007

Douglas R. Page dougpage2@earthlink.net