Occupy Wall Street protest

[Ben]

The Quiet Coup by Simon Johnson:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...ngle_page=true

Quoting briefly from Simon Johnson's article about how the finance sector controls our government. (Forget all the nonsensical niceties about government of, by and for the people.) Simon Johnson worked at the I.M.F. So he has an insider's take on the world banking system --
And it's well understood that the institutions who control money (and what is money after all but a simple accounting entry and a computer keystroke; but it's necessary, vital and people certainly need it) are going to control the society. I mean, everyone grasps that uncontroversial notion. So, the private banking sector will control the society, the government and the people. And the overall "bullshit culture" will defend those specific short-term interests.

Here's Simon Johnson and I quote:
"Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large."

[Ben]

Anti-Capitalist? Too Simple. Occupy Can Be the Catalyst for a Radical Rethink


Capitalism has many guises. Pigeonholing protesters will only allow those who are against reform to avoid the issue

by Ha-Joon Chang

The Occupy London movement is marking its first month this week. It is routinely described as anti-capitalist, but this label is highly misleading. As I found out when I gave a lecture at its Tent City University last weekend, many of its participants are not against capitalism. They just want it better regulated so that it benefits the greatest possible majority.
But even accepting that the label accurately describes some participants in the movement, what does being anti-capitalist actually mean?
Many Americans, for example, consider countries like France and Sweden to be socialist or anti-capitalist – yet, were their 19th-century ancestors able to time-travel to today, they would almost certainly have called today's US socialist. They would have been shocked to find that their beloved country had decided to punish industry and enterprise with a progressive income tax. To their horror, they would also see that children had been deprived of the freedom to work and adults "the liberty of working as long as [they] wished", as the US supreme court put it in 1905 when ruling unconstitutional a New York state act limiting the working hours of bakers to 10 hours a day. What is capitalist, and thus anti-capitalist, it seems, depends on who you are.
Many institutions that most of us regard as the foundation stones of capitalism were not introduced until the mid-19th century, because they had been seen as undermining capitalism. Adam Smith opposed limited liability companies and Herbert Spencer objected to the central bank, both on the grounds that these institutions dulled market incentives by putting upper limits to investment risk. The same argument was made against the bankruptcy law.
Since the mid-19th century, many measures that were widely regarded as anti-capitalist when first introduced – such as the progressive income tax, the welfare state, child labor regulation and the eight-hour day – have become integral parts of capitalism today.
Capitalism has also evolved in very different ways across countries. They may all be capitalist in that they are predominantly run on the basis of private property and profit motives, but beyond that they are organized very differently.
In Japan interlocking share ownership among friendly enterprises, which once accounted for over 50% of all listed shares and still accounts for around 30%, makes hostile takeover very difficult. This has enabled Japanese companies to invest with a much longer time horizon than their British or American counterparts.
Japanese companies provide lifetime employment for their core workers (accounting for about a third of the workforce), thereby creating strong worker loyalty. They also give the workers a relatively large say in the management of the production process, thus tapping their creative powers. There are heavy regulations in the agricultural and retail sectors against large firms, which complement the weak welfare state by preserving small shops and farms.
German capitalism is as different from the American or British version as Japanese capitalism, but in other ways. Like Japan, Germany gives a relatively big input to workers in the running of a company, but in a collectivist way through the co-determination system, in which worker representation on the supervisory board allows them to have a say in key corporate matters (such as plant closure and takeovers), rather than giving a greater stake in the company to workers as individuals, as in the Japanese system.
Thus, while Japanese companies are protected from hostile takeovers by friendly companies (through interlocking shareholding), German companies are protected by their workers (through co-determination).
Even supposedly similar varieties of capitalism, for example Swedish and German, have important differences. German workers are represented through the co-determination system and through industry-level trade unions, while Swedish workers are represented by a centralized trade union (the Swedish Trade Union Confederation), which engages in centralized wage bargaining with the centralized employers' association (the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise).
Unlike in Germany, where concentrated corporate ownership has been deliberately destroyed, Sweden has arguably the most concentrated corporate ownership in the world. One family – the Wallenbergs – possesses controlling stakes (usually defined as over 20% of voting shares) in most of the key companies in the Swedish economy, including ABB, Ericsson, Electrolux, Saab, SEB and SKF. Some estimate that the Wallenberg companies produce a third of Swedish national output. Despite this, Sweden has built one of the most egalitarian societies in the world because of its large, and largely effective, welfare state.
And then there are hybrids that defy definition: China, with its large socialist legacy, is an obvious case, but Singapore is another, even more interesting, example. Singapore is usually touted as the model student of free-market capitalism, given its free-trade policy and welcoming attitude towards multinational companies. Yet in other ways it is a very socialist country. All land is owned by the government, 85% of housing is supplied by the government-owned housing corporation, and a staggering 22% of national output is produced by state-owned enterprises. (The international average is around 10%.) Would you say that Singapore is capitalist or socialist?
When it is so diverse, criticizing capitalism is not very meaningful. What you have to change to improve the Swedish or the Japanese capitalist systems is very different from what you should do for the British one.
In Britain, as already physically identified by the Occupy movement, it is clear the key reforms should be made in the City of London. The fact that the Occupy movement does not have an agreed list of reforms should not be used as an excuse not to engage with it. I'm told there is an economics committee working on it and, more importantly, there are already many financial reform proposals floating around, often supported by very "establishment" figures like Adair Turner, the Financial Services Authority chairman, George Soros, the Open Society Foundations chairman, and Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's executive director for financial stability.
By labeling the Occupy movement "anti-capitalist", those who do not want reforms have been able to avoid the real debate. This has to stop. It is time we use the Occupy movement as the catalyst for a serious debate on alternative institutional arrangements that will make British (or for that matter, any other) capitalism better for the majority of people.

Ha-Joon Chang teaches economics at the University of Cambridge in London. He is the author of the forthcoming book, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (Allen Lane).

[Silcc69]

If there are so-called junkies, well, we as a society should help them. I think the problem with our culture is that we simply abandon people. We simply don't care. Ya know, part of the problem is: the visible loss of care.
People are moral agents. We expect people to act morally. And most people, if they aren't psychopathic, are deeply moral and decent. It's the culture that drives out our humanity, as it were. (And, too, our culture is all about serving our own interests and who cares about anyone else. And that goes against the core nature of being a human being: empathy for other human beings. Now, you can't humanize people. Because people are human. But you can certainly dehumanize people. Think: Germans in Nazi Germany.
The nature of being a human being allows for all sorts of behaviors. Anyone of us, under the right circumstances, can either be an absolute saint or a gas chamber attendant.
Institutions by their very design -- whether government or corporations -- are monstrous. (They are monstrous precisely because they're rationally designed. And constructed, as it were, to not care about right and wrong. That's the institutional system of both government and corporations. It's not the people. But the institution.
A corporation isn't a moral agent. Nor is a government institution. That's the problem in our society. Because these amoral -- again, not caring about right and wrong -- institutions have ultimate power in our society.) But people, deep down, are good, decent and moral. It's the culture that DRIVES that decency out of us!
Again, in our narcissistic culture it's important to drive that out of people's heads. The act of care and concern for others.

srsly Ben

[Stavros]

I don't agree with this statement. I am a conservative and I STRONGLY identify with the Tea Party movement, yet I am very aware of how large corporations and lobbyists influence the system at the expense of the little guy and small business. Many Republicans are pro-business. I'm not pro-busienss, I'm pro-markets. That is a big difference. I believe that the market should be picking winners and losers, not government. What we have is a government that has allowed select businesses (and unions) to influence the system to the point where the odds are stacked in thier favor at the expense of small and medium business. It's a corrupt system through and through. Government policies actually favor the few and reward them when they fail by using taxpayer dollars to bail them out or subsidzie them. It's government that encourages all of this behavior though, if they just allowed the markets to operate freely then capitalism would punish the losers are reward the winners, and we wouldn't have any of this bailout baloney.

The problem you have is that the Tea Party clusters are borderline conservatives at best, but for the most part libertarians whose biblical texts are the worthless drivel of Ayn Rand or the utopian nonsense of Robert Nozick; yet much of the finance which has propelled TP representatives into office has come from the very same corporate finance they -and you- claim to be opposed to. Some time ago Board Member Prospero provided a link to the analysis of the Koch Brothers financial engagement with the TP (linked below) -simultaneously big business rooting for minimal government -I dont see any passion for markets there, but I do see a desire to clear the field for business to do what it wants free of government interference -which is how we got into this mess in the first place. You get to the point where either you want a free market in the literal sense, or you want some regulation, in which case you are not a libertarian but an old fashioned conservative used to the private dining clubs of New York, DC and Philadelphia, or the chili bean jamborees of Texas -the same people who believe in corporate America because it pays their wages.

Conservatives are divided, as divided as the left has always been, because they can't really face the reality that their policies no more guarantee jobs than liberal capitalism; and jobs is what all of the protests in the USA, the UK, Spain and Greece are all about. The Congressional system is dependent on the capitalism that showers money from Washington DC to districts and states to purchase goods and services that also employ people, and not just in the defence industry. If the TP and people obsessed with de-regulation have their way, how many more hundreds of thousands of public servants become unemployed -and how can you be 'pro-market' when the consequence is a collapse of demand from people who can't afford to shop for anything more expensive than bread and cheese?

The salvation of mankind in markets?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...0fa_fact_mayer

[russtafa]

srsly Ben

China solved the problem of junkies many years ago

[russtafa]

srsly Ben

China solved the problem of junkies many years ago

[Ben]

srsly Ben

What about people who are addicted to tobacco???????
Drug addiction is a serious health issue. And should be treated as such.
I mean, if someone -- like an Amy Winehouse -- is determined to destroy themselves, well, I'm not sure what to do. But: at that point it becomes a serious physical and mental health issue.
Again, some people have a predisposition to alcohol. Does society simply abandon them? Should we incarcerate people who take drugs? And what is a drug after? I mean, more people die from junk food addiction (and it is an addiction) than illicit drugs. What should we do with people addicted to junk food? Plus, well, some people speculate that PORN is an addiction. Is TV an addiction? Well, we know caffeine is a drug and addictive and harmful. Should we, say, incarcerate people who sip coffee -- ha ha!
The point is: it's a serious health issue and should be treated as such. Human behavior is incredibly complex. I think it's simply lacking humaneness, morality and decency to abandon people.
And:
Glenn Greenwald talks about what we should do. Legalize it. Control it. Get rid of the violence. And the petty criminality.

[onmyknees]

The problem you have is that the Tea Party clusters are borderline conservatives at best, but for the most part libertarians whose biblical texts are the worthless drivel of Ayn Rand or the utopian nonsense of Robert Nozick; yet much of the finance which has propelled TP representatives into office has come from the very same corporate finance they -and you- claim to be opposed to. Some time ago Board Member Prospero provided a link to the analysis of the Koch Brothers financial engagement with the TP (linked below) -simultaneously big business rooting for minimal government -I dont see any passion for markets there, but I do see a desire to clear the field for business to do what it wants free of government interference -which is how we got into this mess in the first place. You get to the point where either you want a free market in the literal sense, or you want some regulation, in which case you are not a libertarian but an old fashioned conservative used to the private dining clubs of New York, DC and Philadelphia, or the chili bean jamborees of Texas -the same people who believe in corporate America because it pays their wages.

Conservatives are divided, as divided as the left has always been, because they can't really face the reality that their policies no more guarantee jobs than liberal capitalism; and jobs is what all of the protests in the USA, the UK, Spain and Greece are all about. The Congressional system is dependent on the capitalism that showers money from Washington DC to districts and states to purchase goods and services that also employ people, and not just in the defence industry. If the TP and people obsessed with de-regulation have their way, how many more hundreds of thousands of public servants become unemployed -and how can you be 'pro-market' when the consequence is a collapse of demand from people who can't afford to shop for anything more expensive than bread and cheese?

The salvation of mankind in markets?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...0fa_fact_mayer

Conservatives are divided, as divided as the left has always been, because they can't really face the reality that their policies no more guarantee jobs than liberal capitalism; and jobs is what all of the protests in the USA, the UK, Spain and Greece are all about. The Congressional system is dependent on the capitalism that showers money from Washington DC to districts and states to purchase goods and services that also employ people, and not just in the defence industry. If the TP and people obsessed with de-regulation have their way, how many more hundreds of thousands of public servants become unemployed -and how can you be 'pro-market' when the consequence is a collapse of demand from people who can't afford to shop for anything more expensive than bread and cheese?





Dude...
if that's your interpretation of conservatism, you're ill informed, with all due respect. You're premise is completely faulty. Conservatives may be divided by some who are more libertarian than others on social issues, but there's little disagreement on fiscal policy. You come at this disadvantaged if you think conservatives are trying to guarantee anyone a job, or even trying by any means other than pro growth, free market capitalism. You want a guaranteed job from cradle to grave? Punch your ticket to Shanghai and toil in a Nike factory for 3 bucks a day for the next 50 years. Free Market Capitalism is still the best way to raise the most people from one economic class to the other. That's a historic, undeniable fact. It never promised 100% employment or perfection. William F. Buckley loved to say "Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich."

A conservative is someone who cares more about his own profit than yours; if you mean someone who cares more about providing for his family than providing for yours; if you mean someone who trusts that he is a better caretaker of his own interests and desires than a bureaucrat he’s never met, often in a city he’s never been to: then we are all capitalists. Because, by that standard, conservative capitalism isn't some far-off theory about the allocation of capital; it is a commonsense description of what motivates pretty much all human beings everywhere. And it’s also why the problem with capitalism is capitalists. Some people will always abuse the system and take things too far. Some will do it out of the hubris of intellect. Some will do it out of the venality and greed, but the answer is not to put more control in the hands of politicians and the greedy, ill equipped government bureaucrats. Look where government meddling got us in the Fannie/Freddie debacle. The battle between liberals and conservatives is not about imposing limits on free markets and capitalism, that's a given...it's about how much, and by whom.

[Stavros]

I am not ill-informed at all; the confusion lies in your description of conservatism, and although there are differences in what that term means in the UK from what it means in the USA, both have an attachment to the state that doesn't figure so much in your definition; and in both cases the actual practice of conservatives in power does not radically change the nature of the state.

In the UK conservatism has supported the Monarchy precisely on the basis that to conserve it is to conserve a fundamental structure of authority that has enabled this country to avoid civil war, and which also structures the distribution of wealth and power in the shape of a pyramid. Yes, the compromise with capitalism in 1688 enabled the emerging middle classes to command more of the economy than they did before while diminishing (over time) the powers of the Monarch to interfere in political decision-making, but then the same middle classes that overthrew the monarchy in 1640 realised it was also in their interest to compromise. 'One nation Tories' do believe that they should 'look after' the poor and not be completely selfish economically, this was what divided them from the so-called Thatcherites, and yet in spite of Thatcher, the State and the bureaucracy did not shrink dramatically under her leadership -but the real economy, the one where people make things and feel proud to see the ships sail away from the Tyne, the cars roll of the production line in the West Midlands and the coal shipped out of Wales and Yorkshire- that crucial sector of the economy for the working class was trashed, while the 'Big Bang' and de-regulation in the City boosted what is still but not affectionately known as 'financial services'.

English Conservatives are still divided between the One Nation Tory whose patrician and patronising view of the poor is linked to the Church of England and, critically, Christian guilt; and the free-market fanatics who as you suggest, care only for their own comforts and have replaced the Church of England with an astonishing faith in markets in spite of all the evidence that shows a 'free market' is an ideal not a reality, be it in the USA or the UK.

But capitalism is not just about bonds, futures and gilts, it is about the tangible assets that people make or grow that are brought to market. So on one level I agree with you, and think your American conservative politicians should be honest on the stump and tell the voters: We are capitalists, we make money, not jobs -and then presumably when a candidate comes up with a plan to 'grow the economy and provide jobs' you can shriek with laughter at this RINO and plan your next skiing holiday in Japan while a few million more Americans join the queue for the food the 'free market' has priced out of their pocket.

Ultimately, because capitalism has no nationality, conservative and libertarian policies, propelled by fanatics in government, become anti-American because in the 21st century, capitalism is more ruthlessly global than it ever was before, and to just 'let it rip' means, in effect, ripping up your precious stars and bars, and replacing it with a large dollar sign; or a question mark. I wonder, for how many Americans, will the next Thanksgiving dinner be their last? At least in the UK we have another month to go before Christmas.

[hard4janira]

... yet much of the finance which has propelled TP representatives into office has come from the very same corporate finance they -and you- claim to be opposed to.

We may not be talking about the same thing here. I've never brought up campaign financing at all, and I don't know the campaign finance details of the representatives that were elected into office claiming to represent the Tea Party. Do you or are you just assuming? In fact, I'd wager that most corporate money DIDN'T go to tea party canddiates, because the Corporations and the Unions already have thier lackies in office (from both parties) - the Tea Party represents the anti-RINO movement and corporate America doesn't know what they are going to get from them. But even then, I'm not opposed to any corporation, organization, or individual giving whatever they want to finance anybodies campagn. I am against so-called campaign finance reform.

... Some time ago Board Member Prospero provided a link to the analysis of the Koch Brothers financial engagement with the TP (linked below) -simultaneously big business rooting for minimal government -I dont see any passion for markets there, but I do see a desire to clear the field for business to do what it wants free of government interference -which is how we got into this mess in the first place.

If you believe that regualations (think beyond wall street) have made if impossible for American corporations to compete globally (and I do), then you don't have a problem with idea of clearing away the beaurocratic red tape around a government regulation - If government keeps making it harder and harder for companties to compete (Obamacare) then they have every right lobby for and root for minimal government and I am right there with them.

And I say again: the way to show you have a 'passion' for the market is to let the market work. Don't bailout companies that should go bankrupt. Don't create institutions that implicitly guarantee 75% of all the mortgages in the country. It seems really simple to me, this concept of creative destruction that no politician has the balls to let unfold.

You get to the point where either you want a free market in the literal sense, or you want some regulation, in which case you are not a libertarian but an old fashioned conservative used to the private dining clubs of New York, DC and Philadelphia, or the chili bean jamborees of Texas -the same people who believe in corporate America because it pays their wages.

I don't even know what you are trying to say here. Are you saying that my only two options are free markets with zero regulation or I'm totally bought by corporate America?

Conservatives are divided, as divided as the left has always been, because they can't really face the reality that their policies no more guarantee jobs than liberal capitalism; and jobs is what all of the protests in the USA, the UK, Spain and Greece are all about. The Congressional system is dependent on the capitalism that showers money from Washington DC to districts and states to purchase goods and services that also employ people, and not just in the defence industry. If the TP and people obsessed with de-regulation have their way, how many more hundreds of thousands of public servants become unemployed -and how can you be 'pro-market' when the consequence is a collapse of demand from people who can't afford to shop for anything more expensive than bread and cheese?

Only politicians 'guarnatee' jobs. We will have to disagree on the value of a large vs. a small government. I believe earnestly that government spending should be capped at 15% of GDP - we have seen the damage caused by government that cannot control spending. I think having a large public sector work force is bad becuase they don't produce anything. Something has to be produced first in the private sector and then taxed so that there is money to pay the public sector workers. We should remove the chains that burded private sector jobs (such as an oppressive tax code) and let the private sector grow (which it will - I have no doubt) and let the public sector shrink.