A topic such as this can hardly be treated exhaustively within the confines of a single blog post. Hence, this first post might be better treated as a general overview that briefly surveys various associated topics, with posts delving into more detail to follow.
The Current State of Decay
There seems to be a general state of economic fragility over the current global economy. Large corporations continue to do business as usual, but there is a growing awareness that more and more citizens of America and other countries around the world have less and less money to fuel corporate growth. Economies overall are still trying to grow their GDP, but it has long been accepted that growth is becoming harder and more difficult over time.
This has led to many individuals becoming disillusioned with the world of work in their home countries. This disillusionment has fueled a rising malaise of despair, meaninglessness, and cynical resentment towards individuals and groups/organizations that are believed to be unfairly benefiting over society as a whole. This in turn creates a whole cascade of effects that generally lead to unfocused and undirected civil unrest and increasing violence rising throughout society as a whole. We need not delve into what happens past this point, as I think most people know exactly where this state of affairs leads.
This article isn’t really about establishing the validity of any resentment on one side of the economic divide over another. Wars are fought and chaos is unleashed since time immemorial over who is to blame. Who is right, and who is wrong. I am more interested in exploring the necessary changes that will be required to bring society back onto a more preferable path, revolution or war in the meantime or not. (Though, admittedly, I would very much prefer to avoid revolution. I don’t have the patience for such things.)
And in any case, the blame can not truly be distributed in one direction.
The sophistication of international trade and manufacturing pipelines is far more advanced and technical than most American citizens, I feel, are capable of even understanding or comprehending. That is to say, there seems to be a disconnect between most American’s intuitive internal beliefs about what is involved in producing the vast majority of modern goods and services, and what is actually involved in supplying them.
Likewise, and I could be displaying a particularly American bias in this following observation, but civic participation and understanding in my country, for the vast majority of American citizens, is simply nonexistent. There is little point to living in a Democracy if, for most individuals, there is no real difference in their lives from living within a Dictatorship. And no, it is NOT the responsibility of any government to ensure the civic education of its citizenry. And even if it was, human nature will ensure that no government would do so unless forced.
So, with these preliminary points out of the way, let us discuss the primary assumptions about the foundational components of American Global Capitalism.
The Axioms of Contemporary Economic and Political Theory
The fundamental assumptions of modern economics may be summed up quite succinctly:
- People are selfish. Everyone wants everything for themselves, and they will act to do so.
- Resources are essentially zero sum game. One man’s fortune is another man’s impoverishment.
Taken together to the most logical extreme, our current underpinning assumptions about economic functioning would seem to imply that the only way forward is war of all against all, and the economic winners are simply the ones who outmaneuver others according to the rules of the game.
Taken together to the most logical extreme, our current underpinning assumptions about economic functioning would seem to imply that the only way forward is war of all against all, and the economic winners are simply the ones who outmaneuver others according to the rules of the game. – No one particularly important.
We may, find some issues with this basic assumption:
- Economic rules are superseded by legal rules, which are in turn are superseded by laws of human nature. If the game becomes rigged in the favor of a class of economic winners, then those winners of the economic dance at the expense of others will face lawsuits to overthrow them. If the legal system is rigged in the favor of those economic winners, then the winners of those lawsuits will face violence.
Of course, any society which comes to this point will have a government that has a monopoly on violence. So the economic winners will be able to use the government to inflict greater violence on the poor than the poor are able to inflict on the rich. At least until the government’s resources run out, which nonetheless can be quite a long time.
Having said that, a system such as that just pointed out is no democracy, but rather is a totalitarian state engaged in a constant war of surveillance and suspicion of its own citizens.
Democracy as a concept was invented at the very least as a preferable alternative to such an environment. In the west, many of us at the very least pay lip service to the idea that living in a Democracy is better than living in a Dictatorship.
Behaviorally, however, Democracies tend to fall into dictatorship when individuals of the upper class come to the belief that they can escape the fate of all prior dictatorships perpetually, as well as when the upper classes enjoy a prolonged period of peace long enough for them to forget how utterly miserable it is and impossible to enjoy their material wealth in opposition of endless hordes of resentful everymen.
- Another issue with that basic assumption is that it is treated as an absolute, but it is trivial to point to the existence of attitudes of selflessness and non-zero sum behavior in other individuals, as well as idealism and more noble thinking and behavior amongst our fellow kind. Economic theory has no reply to such aberrations, and its own systems work well enough that the existence of such exceptions doesn’t really bother too many. We still get the benefits of industry without being forced to contend with such tricky philosophical questions.
Though, one might be pressed to wonder why anyone would really endorse such an economic theory as bleak and condemning of humanity’s moral character such as what has been brought forth. It doesn’t take much to realize that the basic foundations of our economic systems are built upon, ultimately, the most cynical and misanthropic view of human nature to date.
Though, one might be pressed to wonder why anyone would really endorse such an economic theory as bleak and condemning of humanity’s moral character such as what has been brought forth. It doesn’t take much to realize that the basic foundations of our economic systems are built upon, ultimately, the most cynical and misanthropic view of human nature to date.
So what is *Actually* Good about All of this?
As much as I hate to admit it, the benefit of this system seems to be only that, when one looks at the alternative systems available to us, it simply becomes a choice of “Eventual Dictatorship” vs “Dictatorship right now”.
I think that there is one other fundamental assumption about modern economic theory that many of us in the past did subscribe to without realizing it. The assumption is that, “It’s okay to believe everyone is a selfish miscreant, because in doing so, in forcing everyone to fight in the arena of economic competition, all of the competing forces will balance each other out, and we will have a system that perpetually abstains from the descent into tyranny and class warfare.
The problem is that this assumption is not only unfounded. It’s easily observable to be false. Economic competition obviously favors entrenched interests over new competitors. But even if we ignore that point, there is an obvious imbalance in power between producers and consumers. The corporation that builds and supplies all of the things we use has an obvious advantage in market price negotiation.
Business firms have the overwhelming advantage in applying constant upwards price pressure on goods and services. Consumers have only an intermittent and moderate advantage in applying downwards price pressure on the same, and only under great organizational and logistical burden, at that.
Business firms have the overwhelming advantage in applying constant upwards price pressure on goods and services. Consumers have only an intermittent and moderate advantage in applying downwards price pressure on the same, and only under great organizational and logistical burden, at that.
Unfairness, while lessened under this system, is not abolished.
How the System was Cheesed
I could write quite a bit in an effort to make this section more impressive and complex sounding that it really is. But in truth, the current state of the American economy as a result of the cheesing of the system isn’t that difficult to figure out:
- Starting in the early 80s, executive leadership of corporations was permitted to merge with oversight committees, the investor class, and advisory boards of the same corporations. The executive CEO of one corporation was permitted to sit on the board of Directors of another Corporation. Alternatively, one individual is permitted to fill multiple advisory slots of an advisory organization, thus having complete control over the corporation. This also allowed executives AND the investor class to benefit financially from running corporations into the ground deliberately.
This is different from before, as no executive would willing run a corporation into the ground before, since they would be punished financially for it. - Corporations replaced pensions and strict pension regulation with 401k plans and very loose regulation on investment of 401k funds, as well as greatly reduced funding matching requirements.
- Free trade allows corporations to circumvent labor laws and minimum wage price increases, as well as general labor protections down to the lowest bidder.
- Any public goods or infrastructure outside of the most minimal, already established and provided goods and infrastructure was and still is demonized as communist in nature. Any sort of government funded housing, transportation, utilities, healthcare, infrastructure, in excess of what was already provided was cancelled or blocked with accusations of totalitarian government overreach. Many services that ARE currently provided have been reduced or are in the processes of being reduced/eliminated. Accusations of communism and government overreach are no longer as effective as they once were, but there are other approaches being considered.
- Legislation originally intended to limit corporate consolidation, public good contamination, and predatory business practices has been largely repealed.
Much can be made of the details, and certainly other policy changes have made things worse, but I think these 5 large policies changes can be directly attributed as causing the large bulk of the economic damage from 1980 through to the present day.
All Right. So that’s what’s Wrong. How do we Fix it?
One possible way of fixing this problem is through getting legislation passed that undoes the previous harms that have occurred. This is admittedly, no easy feat. The process of getting any sort of legislation passed, especially within the current suffocating strictures of our current political environment… is difficult. Effort could be made to more properly describe how difficult, but honestly, hyperbole fails to be a limiting factor in circumstances such as these.
Having said that, perhaps this is a topic for another day, and another blog post that treats this matter in a much more general sense. “How” to get any bill passed in the halls of congress might be quite valuable as a post in itself, to say nothing of a bill that treats the specific items mentioned above.
And so, somewhat anti-climatically, my own musings on this subject are going to come to a close, for now. But this is a topic I plan to return to. That much, is for certain.