randomWalks

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Look, just because Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, Global Crossings, Arthur Andersen, ImClone, etc., ripped us off, it doesn't mean the system is broken. And haven't you heard? The recession is completely over!

Would that include the $327.82 I owe them for reckless use of my calling card?

While I might agree with Zagg in some respects, I'd have to know what he means by the ironic statement that the system isn't broken. What part of the system do you object to?

My struggle with this is that it isn't a failure of the system that those people put their trust in a man that decided to appreciate the worth of the company by capitalizing the expenses of a company, making them depreciation costs, when in fact they were operating expenses.

Because we trust that accountants review those decisions the people who funded those capitalizations were lied to. I can see where that would be a flaw of the system. It would be a good move by revenue and accountancy agencies to change the way they review those accounts, and it would be a better idea for companies to publish real accounts of what they are doing, so any shareholder, regardless of net worth in the company, can call people out on questionable capitalization practices.

This guy pretty much took operating funds, which should have been used as cash outflow for expenses, and made them "life of the company" expenses, just "stuff" that loses value, which would need more and more cash to keep it alive. Shares go up, even when their is nothing to buy. But I stress, if someone didn't lie, there wouldn't be anything to buy.

I'm anti-capitalist. This isn't about one guy or several guys being bad people or about the specifics of this case. When Enron happened, all the analysts were saying they were a bad apple. Well, it turns out the "cockroach" theory was dead-on. Capitalism creates the incentive for people to lie, cheat, steal and kill, all to improve "shareholder value." At the most basic level a system designed around the premise of profits rather than on the premise of meeting human needs is broken. A system that is based on a tiny minority building wealth by exploiting the vast majority is broken. Besides, the whole formulation around "shareholders" is bull. (Value is created through work). There's 17,000 people losing their jobs tomorrow because some other people lied. And how much taxpayer money has been spent (or could still be spent) on handouts to Worldcom? And how many laws were changed because of Worldcom's lobbying? I don't know the answer to those questions, but I'd bet it's not far off from what we saw around Enron and the naked profiteering made possible for them by deregulation.

The big question is how do you meet every human need without capitalism?

My rationale is:

"Human-created system" makes it more likely for people to lie, cheat, and steal?

Must mean that it's not the system.

I agree with Zagg, Doug, but admit I don't know enough about alternatives to capitalism to answer your first question very well. But as for your second comment--capitalism is not flawed simply because we flawed humans created it. You have to study which humans gain the upper hand in a capitalist society. Flawed human nature is irrelevant when the system favors a small number of those "flawed" humans over the vast majority of the rest.

But that's like saying that the vast majority of the rest ever wanted to be, or want to be at the position of the vast minority. I don't think that's true.

1. Capitalism comes nowhere close to meeting every human need and in fact the profit motive serves as a disincentive to do that. In fact, the problem of meeting human need has been getting worse, not better, under capitalism. The spread of Western capitalism through imperialism is what has destroyed Africa. Right now, in the world, there are more than enough resources to feed, clothe and house every single person. If you took the wealth of something like the 6 richest people, they could lift the rest of the world out of poverty. (I forget the exact equation, but it's along that insane level.) The reason people go hungry is that because it's more profitable to let billions starve than it is to feed them.

2. My rationale is what you call human nature, I call bunk. I do not think there is anything inherent in humans that makes people lie, cheat , steal and kill. Most of what people identify as human nature are things that are taught to us. We're taught to be competitive. I think the way people rallied after Sept. 11 was indicative of what people are capable of when the everyday equation of capitalism is removed. What others called patriotism, I call human nature. I believe Stephen Jay Gould wrote a lot on the concept of human nature.

Huh?

How is what I said like what you said?

That last comment of mine was intended for Doug -- the intervening comments made that unclear. Golly gee, we're all posting at the same time, how exciting!

Zagg: I don't think Doug was necessarily saying that capitalism DOES serve every human need. But maybe he was asking what other systems could, and how they would do it. Which is what I'd like to know, too, not out of skepticism but ignorance and curiosity.

Who is the "huh?" for?

And what I mean by that is, a classless society, a true democracy, where the majority have risen to power with the express purpose of overturning capitalism. The idea is that you have a revolution in the express name of ending world hunger, among other things. Once the mass is in control of the resources and the ruling class has been smashed, then we figure out how to redistribute in a need-based way.

The huh was for Doug.

ok, zagg, I'm down. Let's do it!

cool. we have *LOTS* of work to do.

Isn't finding who has the greater need pretty simple? Who's hungry? Who makes less than $1 a day? Who doesn't have a home?

zagg, have you read that book, "The Oligarchists?"

I think you would like it.

It's about the state capitalist analysis of the USSR, near as I can tell.

By the way, "Minority Report" is very good.

go see it.

Doug, I think you're making some good points, but you're dwelling on abstractions about what defines the "self" when Zagg and I are talking about some very real characteristics of capitalism. I understand that individuals feel strong needs based on survival, but what we're saying about capitalism is that it's a system that makes it easy for a small number of people to see to those needs, and far past a point where survival is a real concern anymore. Much of the trappings of the multimillionaires' life have very little to do with survival, or, for that matter, with the Peruvian avatar's desire to sacrifice a virgin or what have you. Meanwhile, a large number of people are unable to act on needs that are far more basic--eating, for example--and also more essential to their equal representation in society, such as having equal sway over the political decisions that affect their lives.

What you wrote spun off into a lot of different and worthwhile questions, but I can't figure out how to address them in the context of the discussion, or something. So I'll focus on this for a sec as well: "If that is the case then the individual has needs, and I think it is fruitless to argue whether this ideology or that ideology allows someone to be more or less kind, more or less manipulative, or more or less of anything." Why is this fruitless? First, I think it's misrepresenting the discussion at hand to say that we're talking about allowing people to be "more or less kind" or "more or less manipulative." It's an issue of allowing people to be more or less economically and politically disadvantaged. I'm not criticizing capitalism for stifling self-development in a psychological or spiritual way, which is what you seem to be getting at. I'm talking about some very basic economic and political criteria.

Of course, I can see where this all approaches a chicken-and-egg loop, where you would argue that the psychological "I" precedes the societal "I", in which case everything I'm talking about is moot. And I could argue the opposite. And we'd both be right. And wrong.

Whew.

One last thought: in some ways this discussion reminds me of another one, in which rob j seemed to suggest (third post) that conquering is a historical practice and therefore should be recognized, and so it's OK that Israel "conquered" Palestine. The parallel, for me, is that we start with a concrete political problem, and then venture off into speculations about history (that discussion) or the individual and society (this one). Which is all well and good. But meanwhile there are people (the Palestinians, WorldCom employees and shareholders) who are feeling the effects far more directly. So: what are you going to do? What am I going to do? Not just, what am I going to decide about the individual's needs and society?

I don't know. Perhaps I take this too far. I am not meaning to cast aspersions on inquiry.

If that is the case then the individual has needs, and I think it is fruitless to argue whether this ideology or that ideology allows someone to be more or less kind, more or less manipulative, or more or less of anything.

It is the nature of an ideology to prescribe and otherwise encourage certain behaviors over others. Capitalism is a religion in which money is God and greed the highest possible virtue. Personally I think any authoritarian system would be similarly objectionable, but I tend to think that a nation of three hundred million people who weren't indoctrinated by birth into believing that their net worth determined their human worth would be a nicer nation to inhabit.

Er, from birth.

The problem I have with what you're putting forward about individualism is that this is a freedom/luxury that most of the world and, in fact, most people in the U.S., simply do not have. One big part of why we need to change society is because right now most people are excluded from even taking on these questions because when you're hungry and your family is hungry the question of what is the "self" is pretty irrelevant. And as long as half the people are being left out of this conversation, well, then it's less than worthwhile. I think that's part of what Eugene Debs was talking about when he said, "Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." -- Debs.

Typo there. I meant to say the power is in our collective work. The "not" was going to be that we don't have any power as individuals.

By the way nedlog, I liked the way you framed the argument above.

another erg.

in essence, we're arguing two different points.

what you use as evidence to deny what i say is true about collective human culture or individualism remains to emphasize that my point is somewhat correct.

an individual feels hunger. a collective group feels hunger.

what's the difference?

this should be good.

Doug, when you talk about the self, you're talking like a lapsed Catholic! (grin) And could it be that your view of the self was shaped by Catholicism? Even if it's not, the point remains that something outside of yourself has influenced your views -- don't you think?

Call it aesthetic, if you like -- you're looking at the self from an aesthetic standpoint. I think I tend to look at it from an anthropological standpoint -- that the self is endlessly shaped and reshaped by external factors, and that this starts from birth. Of course nature has something to do with it, too, and that's inextricable. But enculturation is powerful shit.

Back to the political stuff for a bit: zagg, your post with the Debs quote nailed it.

thanks for the support!