Wealthy investors and their political stooges kill as many Americans in a month as were killed in the terrorist attacks on 9 11. This outrageous crime against humanity must be named for what it is.
The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centres have steered foreign policy toward more violence and more war. Violence in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan continues to grab top news spots. The subtext is; 'there are enemies out there and they are everywhere'. They leave us with a clear impression of who the enemy is. Although 2,977 people were murdered on September 11, 2001 by terrorists, an equal number (more or less) of Americans die each month because they lack health care. The fact that these deaths are caused, that they are the result of calculations aimed at maximizing profit, makes them murder. Victims that are dying every 20 minutes die because some very wealthy people want to become even more wealthy. Terrorists that kill through acts of terror are rightly called murderers. Those that kill for investment opportunities are not thought of as murderers but that is what they are. We need to look at this ugly reality directly. The situation promises to get much worse.
American Deaths Due to Health Care Profits
Families USA released a report (June 2012) entitled 'Dying for Coverage: The Deadly Consequences of
Being Uninsured'. The report indicates:
• Across the nation, 26,100 people between the ages of 25 and 64 died prematurely due to a lack of health coverage in 2010 (Table 1). That works out to:
• 2,175 people who died prematurely every month;
• 502 people who died prematurely every week;
• 72 people who died prematurely every day; or
• Three every hour. Between 2005 and 2010, the number of people who died prematurely each year due to a lack of health coverage rose from 20,350 to 26,100.
• Between 2005 and 2010, the total number of people who died prematurely due to a lack of health coverage was 134,120.
• Each and every state sees residents die prematurely due to a lack of health insurance. In 2010, the number of premature deaths due to a lack of health coverage ranged from 28 in Vermont to 3,164 in California.
• The five states with the most premature deaths due to uninsurance in 2010 were California (3,164 deaths), Texas (2,955 deaths), Florida (2,272 deaths), New York (1,247 deaths), and Georgia (1,161 deaths).
Not a single Canadian dies because he or she can't afford health care. This is true of most developed nations and it drives home the point that these deaths are a result of decisions made by politicians. They are responsible.
Grinding Poverty
Across the developed world austerity measures are stripping individuals and nations of their spending power. The strategy is to secure wealth at the upper echelons and to make the poor and the middle classes pay for the excessive financial abuses of the ultra wealthy. As Mainstreet suffers, the politicians focus is almost exclusively on the health of the private sector, the stock markets. And in that spirit, austerity measures grind the poor to their deaths to make sure that the world is safe for investors.
The absurdity of industrial plants rusting while millions are unemployed, of homes being emptied by large banks while thousands are homeless should catch our attention. Something is seriously wrong.
According to the Nation Alliance to End Homelessness:
• There are 643,067 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States.
• Of that number, 238,110 are people in families, and
• 404,957 are individuals
• 17 percent of the homeless population is considered "chronically homeless," and
• 12 percent of the homeless population - 67,000 - are veterans.
"These numbers come from point-in-time counts, which are conducted, community by community, on a single night in January every other year. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires communities to submit this data every other year in order to qualify for federal homeless assistance funds. Many communities conduct counts more regularly."
The capitalist world is on a one track austerity mission and human needs are beside the point. Protection of profit is all that counts. When human needs are routinely ignored and when mounting evidence suggests that this is a zero sum game; that the more they get the less we get, it is time that the meek claim our inheritance.
Individual Needs
It may be argued that vital needs define human needs and apart from that, you could switch much of what are called 'needs' to the ‘wants’ category. This crude definition of needs is not sufficient however. Wheelchairs for those that need them may not be vital in any strict sense, but they are needs nonetheless.
People in Toronto need heat in the winter. They also need telephones and transportation. As technology and social structures change, people’s needs change. Kids in Toronto also need a myriad of items and services that hunter gatherer kids in the Amazon do not need. These may not be vital needs but they are not simply 'wants'; they are real needs. When a society slips beyond providing those needs it will pay an ugly price. When a society does not even provide what people need to survive, and a person dies from a lack of medicine, the price has already been paid.
To rise above barbarism, we have to move beyond providing food and shelter and hoping for the best. For people to develop and grow to their potential, obstacles to growth must be removed. If we don't provide these apparently non-vital needs, social problems grow exponentially. Apparent non-vital needs may be ignored and the price of that ignorance is increased numbers of children growing up in high stressed environments resulting in attachment problems, pathologies resulting from living in violent homes, pathologies resulting from living in addicted homes etc. which in turn results in far more addictions, attachment disorders, and violence in the future. And in the future costs associated with jails, rehabilitation programs, and mental health will not only cost in monetary terms, the problems will reduce our collective quality of life and standard of living. By being austere on the front end, we spend much more on the other end. Silent violence has very strange and very ugly, expensive karma.
Most are a single accident away from reliance on social services to provide for them. An accident may result in a physical or mental disability. Very few people are immune from having to potentially rely on the state or community for vital and other basic needs. People that have this misfortune and are not covered by insurance or if their insurance company finds a way out of paying the bills may be shocked to find out how barbaric and cold social welfare systems can be. And they are on a downward trajectory.
Collective Needs
Western nations have long held that freedom is the ultimate goal, the single most important issue worth fighting and dying for. This concern along with 'national security' concerns have driven many young men and women to their deaths - for profit. The key pre-requisite to freedom however is security. In real terms, freedom is predicated on economic and social security.
Society must take care of its material production needs. This includes production, processes of exchange, distribution and so on. We need to produce before we can consume. We also need to distribute adequately for everybody to consume adequately.
As the spectacle of the Republican debates for Presidential candidate revealed for the world to see, the candidates agreed, including Ron Paul, that people that need wheelchairs or food should fend for themselves or rely on the whims of philanthropy. This is another way of saying that the needs of the poor and disadvantaged are not our collective responsibility.
This extreme of selfishness and callous individualism has become the mantra of the extreme right which is parroted by mind numbing corporate media shills. From there an Orwellian group-think download indoctrinates citizens that only want to keep up with what's happening in the world. The result is, those that are exposed to American media learn to think in a certain way. The less exposure, the more we get to keep some semblance of elemental morality. As a result, statements that are jaw dropping over most of the world have become a bizarre and macabre 'normal' in the USA.
Outside the cult of monopoly capitalism, we understand the need to build and maintain a public commons that satisfies the vital needs of each and every individual. No human being should die due to his or her financial status. The fact that this is promoted and encouraged by elected politicians is unforgivable.
MWC news, Counterpunch, Global Research and alternative media in general are quite limited in persuading masses of people to notice what may appear to be obvious to you (a reader of MWC news). The bulk consume mainstream news and this is key to maintaining corporate callous indifference to human suffering. In fact, we all need to do a better job. This enemy is far worse than the terrorists and all the foreign threats they can't stop talking about. This enemy is very real and it is pretending to be your friend.
That is the very worst kind.
This blog is an archive of articles I've published in MWC News, Indymedia, and on Newsgroups.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Saturday, June 09, 2012
The Death Throes of Capitalism
Everything that is being said, written, and discussed throughout the financial press, mainstream media, and throughout closed door discussions between business leaders and politicians are 180 degrees wrong. They have swallowed a bill of goods that had been invented by neo liberal economists which legitimizes theft on the grandest of scales. And it is you they are stealing from. That is not to say the majority of these 'experts' are necessarily insincere or malevolent. We need to accept a fact that appears absurd at first. And that fact is; when it comes to economics, the stupidity of our political and business 'betters' is mind boggling.
To say that reading the financial press and trying to follow the machinations of economics is confusing is more than an understatement. It is an exercise in futility. They, the wizards and masters of the financial universe, really don't know what they are talking about. What is crucial is that we, the people, don't turn our backs on the fundamentals of political economy just because 'they' have taken the art of scam to whole new level of confusion and bewilderment. It is important that we look at, examine, and debate the fundamentals of what our material world consists of and how it's made.
The Value of Work
Everything around you that you own and use is the result of effort of a vast army of unseen workers. The material reality we live in and with is not only the basis of wealth, it is wealth. The great attribution error of our economic gurus is that wealth emanates 'from' the top and finds its way to the rest of us. In reality, the very genesis of wealth starts in the process of work. The erroneous assumption that we need thieves and parasites to make it all possible has us all in a bind with nowhere to turn. Maintaining this assumption has devastating consequences for us as societies and as individuals. We need to pay attention.
We find ourselves in the midst of a grand Globalization experiment gone bad. The promise is, it will get much worse. It is an economic experiment penned by Milton Freidman of the Chicago School of Economics, Ludwig von Mises and Freidrich Hayek of Austria, French economist Jean Baptiste Say, and generally the authors of what we call neo liberal economics.
On the question of value, these marginalists have parted company with Adam Smith and David Ricardo who knew that analysis of the role of work itself was central to scientific economic study to understand what it is that determines value. They tackled questions about what it is that encourages wealth to grow and what determines its distribution between classes in society. They saw an objective measure of value as a precondition for coming to terms with these problems. Smith suggested it was to be found in labour. Ricardo built his work from these notions and they developed the idea of use-value as opposed to exchange-value. This was to be elaborated on later by Karl Marx.
There is no doubt that that the shallow focus of the marginalists and the concept of marginal utility which serves as their basis for economic theory is valid on a micro level. It suits the interests of business. But when we consider the multiple confounding factors of the larger economy, marginal utility curves do not and cannot take us where we need to go. It is a superficial and vulgar view of economics. We must go deeper to discover what it is that determines value. We must go to Ricardo, Smith and for more depth, Marx.
The Limits of Capitalism
Aside from a passionate revolutionary condemnation of capitalism as an evil entity, we must consider the limits of what it can achieve as a motivator and player in our societies. The marginalists and capitalists themselves will not even suggest that it is meant to provide jobs, care for the poor, or bring the majority to a level of material satisfaction. It not only won't do those things, it can't do those things. It is limited in its utility and it has been unfairly cast into a role that it cannot live up to. Moreover, the notion that the so called 'market' will produce what is best for society is simply wrong. For instance, the vital needs of citizens such as medicine or health care, housing, food, whatever the case may be, may be lacking to a small or large degree. The easiest and most profitable way to invest however may be in the production of play stations or in buying and manipulating stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies and so on. (For the sake of staying with more grounded and less ethereal concepts, let us stick with the manufacture of commodities.) If play stations sales will result in the most profit, then research, energy, and investment will focus on play station development, manufacture, and distribution. Research and development related to human beings vital needs is relevant if profits can be made.
Capitalism goes beyond the possibility of marginalizing human needs. It is often an impediment to human needs and the security of human health. Again, this is not the fault of capitalism per se. It is a problem of misattribution and overdependence. As we can see in the bizarre health care configuration in the United States, if there is a way to make a buck, your needs will be served and served well. If not, good luck with the mirage Americans rely on for public health.
Capitalist motives are very good at compelling the production and provision of trinkets, shiny toys, and killer hamburgers. It is abysmal as an engine for the provision of human needs. It is our collective dependence on it that is the crux of the matter. It runs governments and rules the world. It even controls us down to the most basic elements of our lives.
We need to criticize and condemn our dependence on this rather simplistic method of making a buck; this sleight of hand. Like all things, overdependence leads to disaster. Like dependence on heroin, it will sicken and eventually kill the host body. It had been a solution, a source of energy for production and material security and has evolved to become our overarching collective nemesis. It has become a social sickness and has the characteristics of addiction.
Our Wealth is Our Work
Supply and demand graphs help explain the price of something in a given time or place but it does not explain why things have the exchange value they have. Adam Smith's labour theory of value has far more relevance to our understanding of how we value commodities. According to Smith, the exchange value of commodities is determined by the amount of labour measured in working hours necessary to make them (given current levels of technology). Bicycles sell for less than cars in part due to the fewer hours to making bicycles than cars. In the same period of time, a person may make many bicycles (notwithstanding technological factors) but only one car. Smith and other economists tested this theory by comparing prices of commodities with the necessary labour time needed to produce them. They found that while it does not explain the exact price of things, it does explain why they exchange for their approximate prices.
This theory takes the mystery out of the concept of value by relating exchange value to human labour. Consider the fact that the basis of capitalist economies is surplus value, that is, the hours of labour beyond what the worker is paid for and the value that is appropriated by the capitalist; that this is the basis of the wealth of capitalists. When we consider what can be done with labour power in terms of developing priorities, goods and services, we may then consider possibilities beyond the poor and short sighted rationality of the marginalists. We might abandon the superstitious nonsense that the theft of the value that is produced by labour as an indispensable ingredient to economic success. In other words, we can afford to abandon the notion that exploitation, greed, and theft are necessary evils for societies to function well. At that point, we may go beyond the limitations as well as the financial tyranny of capitalism itself.
The upshot is this: everything you see around you in terms of material goods is real, tangible wealth. You computer, you stove, your television are tangible items that make your life better. Money is but a means of getting them. It is not the actual wealth itself. And each and every one of the items that make your life better that you are willing to pay for is probably some form of modified rock or energy; modified by work. We can, minus our collective addiction, provide all the goods and services we all need and then some.
What Happened?
What Happened to the Golden Age of Capitalism? Not so long ago the trajectory was upward. The sky was the limit. Wages were increasing, social programs were being implemented everywhere, material deprivation seemed a thing of the past. What happened to the American Dream? The answer is, that is what it was; a dream. It was based in gross exploitation of the capitalist hinterland (formerly known as the Third World) where starvation and brutal oppression were essential ingredients to our soft lives. It was also based on the clever wealth sharing mechanisms of John Maynard Keynes which, due to the diminishing rate of profit (that's another story) as well as the need for capital to grow, are no longer a realistic option.
At this point capitalism has grown beyond Keynes. Keynes policies and recommendations have become archaic. Keynes provided capitalism with a longer shelf life than classical unbridled capitalist anarchy could have expected otherwise. But now, we're back to square one.
It also could be argued that defense spending has done more for the overall health of capitalism in the 20th century than Keynes distribution policies. It certainly cultivates and maintains hegemony. The United States government doesn't spend more than all nations on earth to save women from the Taliban.
At this point we can see that advanced capitalism is not living up anything close to stability or equilibrium. Capitalism is showing itself to be an anarchistic loose hose, flipping and whipping depending on the mood of speculators. Rather than stability, the economy is subject to the whims of a bizarre grand global casino game. Furthermore, it is becoming clear that what is good for profiteers is not good for the general population and vice versa. The stock market booms with news of bailouts or quantitative easing (printing money) for the wealthy or, when announcements of austerity measures against the general population are made.
The neo-classical experiment is on and we are in the midst of it. The patterns that are emerging looking grim. And from these patterns and hardships an awareness of the true nature of capitalism is growing.
A specter is haunting the planet…
To say that reading the financial press and trying to follow the machinations of economics is confusing is more than an understatement. It is an exercise in futility. They, the wizards and masters of the financial universe, really don't know what they are talking about. What is crucial is that we, the people, don't turn our backs on the fundamentals of political economy just because 'they' have taken the art of scam to whole new level of confusion and bewilderment. It is important that we look at, examine, and debate the fundamentals of what our material world consists of and how it's made.
The Value of Work
Everything around you that you own and use is the result of effort of a vast army of unseen workers. The material reality we live in and with is not only the basis of wealth, it is wealth. The great attribution error of our economic gurus is that wealth emanates 'from' the top and finds its way to the rest of us. In reality, the very genesis of wealth starts in the process of work. The erroneous assumption that we need thieves and parasites to make it all possible has us all in a bind with nowhere to turn. Maintaining this assumption has devastating consequences for us as societies and as individuals. We need to pay attention.
We find ourselves in the midst of a grand Globalization experiment gone bad. The promise is, it will get much worse. It is an economic experiment penned by Milton Freidman of the Chicago School of Economics, Ludwig von Mises and Freidrich Hayek of Austria, French economist Jean Baptiste Say, and generally the authors of what we call neo liberal economics.
On the question of value, these marginalists have parted company with Adam Smith and David Ricardo who knew that analysis of the role of work itself was central to scientific economic study to understand what it is that determines value. They tackled questions about what it is that encourages wealth to grow and what determines its distribution between classes in society. They saw an objective measure of value as a precondition for coming to terms with these problems. Smith suggested it was to be found in labour. Ricardo built his work from these notions and they developed the idea of use-value as opposed to exchange-value. This was to be elaborated on later by Karl Marx.
There is no doubt that that the shallow focus of the marginalists and the concept of marginal utility which serves as their basis for economic theory is valid on a micro level. It suits the interests of business. But when we consider the multiple confounding factors of the larger economy, marginal utility curves do not and cannot take us where we need to go. It is a superficial and vulgar view of economics. We must go deeper to discover what it is that determines value. We must go to Ricardo, Smith and for more depth, Marx.
The Limits of Capitalism
Aside from a passionate revolutionary condemnation of capitalism as an evil entity, we must consider the limits of what it can achieve as a motivator and player in our societies. The marginalists and capitalists themselves will not even suggest that it is meant to provide jobs, care for the poor, or bring the majority to a level of material satisfaction. It not only won't do those things, it can't do those things. It is limited in its utility and it has been unfairly cast into a role that it cannot live up to. Moreover, the notion that the so called 'market' will produce what is best for society is simply wrong. For instance, the vital needs of citizens such as medicine or health care, housing, food, whatever the case may be, may be lacking to a small or large degree. The easiest and most profitable way to invest however may be in the production of play stations or in buying and manipulating stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies and so on. (For the sake of staying with more grounded and less ethereal concepts, let us stick with the manufacture of commodities.) If play stations sales will result in the most profit, then research, energy, and investment will focus on play station development, manufacture, and distribution. Research and development related to human beings vital needs is relevant if profits can be made.
Capitalism goes beyond the possibility of marginalizing human needs. It is often an impediment to human needs and the security of human health. Again, this is not the fault of capitalism per se. It is a problem of misattribution and overdependence. As we can see in the bizarre health care configuration in the United States, if there is a way to make a buck, your needs will be served and served well. If not, good luck with the mirage Americans rely on for public health.
Capitalist motives are very good at compelling the production and provision of trinkets, shiny toys, and killer hamburgers. It is abysmal as an engine for the provision of human needs. It is our collective dependence on it that is the crux of the matter. It runs governments and rules the world. It even controls us down to the most basic elements of our lives.
We need to criticize and condemn our dependence on this rather simplistic method of making a buck; this sleight of hand. Like all things, overdependence leads to disaster. Like dependence on heroin, it will sicken and eventually kill the host body. It had been a solution, a source of energy for production and material security and has evolved to become our overarching collective nemesis. It has become a social sickness and has the characteristics of addiction.
Our Wealth is Our Work
Supply and demand graphs help explain the price of something in a given time or place but it does not explain why things have the exchange value they have. Adam Smith's labour theory of value has far more relevance to our understanding of how we value commodities. According to Smith, the exchange value of commodities is determined by the amount of labour measured in working hours necessary to make them (given current levels of technology). Bicycles sell for less than cars in part due to the fewer hours to making bicycles than cars. In the same period of time, a person may make many bicycles (notwithstanding technological factors) but only one car. Smith and other economists tested this theory by comparing prices of commodities with the necessary labour time needed to produce them. They found that while it does not explain the exact price of things, it does explain why they exchange for their approximate prices.
This theory takes the mystery out of the concept of value by relating exchange value to human labour. Consider the fact that the basis of capitalist economies is surplus value, that is, the hours of labour beyond what the worker is paid for and the value that is appropriated by the capitalist; that this is the basis of the wealth of capitalists. When we consider what can be done with labour power in terms of developing priorities, goods and services, we may then consider possibilities beyond the poor and short sighted rationality of the marginalists. We might abandon the superstitious nonsense that the theft of the value that is produced by labour as an indispensable ingredient to economic success. In other words, we can afford to abandon the notion that exploitation, greed, and theft are necessary evils for societies to function well. At that point, we may go beyond the limitations as well as the financial tyranny of capitalism itself.
The upshot is this: everything you see around you in terms of material goods is real, tangible wealth. You computer, you stove, your television are tangible items that make your life better. Money is but a means of getting them. It is not the actual wealth itself. And each and every one of the items that make your life better that you are willing to pay for is probably some form of modified rock or energy; modified by work. We can, minus our collective addiction, provide all the goods and services we all need and then some.
What Happened?
What Happened to the Golden Age of Capitalism? Not so long ago the trajectory was upward. The sky was the limit. Wages were increasing, social programs were being implemented everywhere, material deprivation seemed a thing of the past. What happened to the American Dream? The answer is, that is what it was; a dream. It was based in gross exploitation of the capitalist hinterland (formerly known as the Third World) where starvation and brutal oppression were essential ingredients to our soft lives. It was also based on the clever wealth sharing mechanisms of John Maynard Keynes which, due to the diminishing rate of profit (that's another story) as well as the need for capital to grow, are no longer a realistic option.
At this point capitalism has grown beyond Keynes. Keynes policies and recommendations have become archaic. Keynes provided capitalism with a longer shelf life than classical unbridled capitalist anarchy could have expected otherwise. But now, we're back to square one.
It also could be argued that defense spending has done more for the overall health of capitalism in the 20th century than Keynes distribution policies. It certainly cultivates and maintains hegemony. The United States government doesn't spend more than all nations on earth to save women from the Taliban.
At this point we can see that advanced capitalism is not living up anything close to stability or equilibrium. Capitalism is showing itself to be an anarchistic loose hose, flipping and whipping depending on the mood of speculators. Rather than stability, the economy is subject to the whims of a bizarre grand global casino game. Furthermore, it is becoming clear that what is good for profiteers is not good for the general population and vice versa. The stock market booms with news of bailouts or quantitative easing (printing money) for the wealthy or, when announcements of austerity measures against the general population are made.
The neo-classical experiment is on and we are in the midst of it. The patterns that are emerging looking grim. And from these patterns and hardships an awareness of the true nature of capitalism is growing.
A specter is haunting the planet…
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