As usual this post is presented as food for thought.
In a comment to last week’s post Rummuser said he thought the U.S. and Indian governments have been destroyed by capitalism. Here is my view:
I don’t agree with Rummuser. In the nominally communistic (“from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”) Soviet Union the high party officials were living it up while the common people were suffering. And in China there have been plenty of documented stories about local officials stealing from the people in their districts, with no recourse for the victims. Good government is hard to come by…it’s an age-old problem, a problem a lot older than the idea of capitalism.
The above cartoon reminds me of a story a school-teacher friend told me years ago. There wasn’t much money for raises so the teachers were asked if they wanted percentage raises, which benefit the more senior teachers the most, or equal raises for everyone. Even though she would have gotten more with a percentage wage, she voted for equal amounts to everyone. She wanted to be fair to the new teachers. It turns out her fellow teachers voted the same way.
The administrators had no problem with that. They simply gave themselves raises based on the percentage of their salaries and divided the rest of the money equally among the teachers. The public school system is not a capitalistic one, but that doesn’t mean the administrators didn’t look after their own interests.
Life isn’t always fair. People aren’t always fair. For me it helps to have a sense of humor.
What about you? What do you think?
Life sure isn’t fair. Some people have all the luck & some have horrible lives, sick & poor. If you don’t compare your life to others, you can be happy with what you’ve got.
Sure helps to have a sense of humor.
bikehikebabe,
I agree! It also helps to be one of the lucky ones, like us. 😉
And exactly the same arguments apply.
In the capitalistic US/Australia the wealthy live it up while the poor have inadequate health care.
I hear that there are documented stories of company directors stealing from shareholders and unethical lending practices: the perpetrators are bailed out by the government and the victims left with their losses. Good government is hard to come by – but it doesn’t seem to be a capitalistic one.
Jean, I am sorry to have given the wrong impression about capitalism. As an economic system, I am all for it. I am against socialism and communism and any other ism. I am also all for democracy. What I had to say about capitalism destroying governments in our two countries pertains to that aspect of capitalism that makes nonsense of public good in the chase for return for investors. When the economic system influences the governmental decision making to favour the capitalists at the cost of general good, the system needs to be corrected.
Life can be fair BHB, if we go back to the basic model of Adam Smith.
The Theory Of Moral Sentiments, Part II Section II Chapter III, p. 86, para.4.
“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”
Can we in all honesty say that this model is practiced?
.-= Rummuser´s last blog ..Coincidence? Women Bug The Lashkar e Toiba? =-.
Rummuser,
For some reason your first comment got tagged as spam. I have no idea why.
A strange thing happened here Jean. I just posted a comment and it just disappeared! Let me try again with a short post first and re-comment.
.-= Rummuser´s last blog ..Coincidence? Women Bug The Lashkar e Toiba? =-.
Okay, perhaps I did something wrong earlier.
I am sorry to have given a wrong impression to you. I am not against Capitlaism. I am all for it combined with democracy. What I am against is that aspect of Capitalism that concentrates on only investor return and ignores all other aspects of the state. The way the system now works in our two countries, it is heavily loaded against the have-nots. In the long term, this is inviting trouble, as for Capitalism to succeed, it needs a vibrant consuming public. If we cannot allow that consumption through a modicum of income and protection, the system will collapse, as it has recently done in both our countries and almost all parts of the world.
BHB, I accept that a sense of humour is what will help us keep our sanity. But, life can be fair, if we revert to basics of Adam Smith’s economics.
The Theory Of Moral Sentiments, Part II Section II Chapter III, p. 86, para.4.
Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
Is Capitalism as practiced now providing this?
.-= Rummuser´s last blog ..Coincidence? Women Bug The Lashkar e Toiba? =-.
Evan,
It would be interesting to understand why the Scandinavians seem to have good government. I read Plato’s The Republic when I was 15 years old. It made a lasting impression on me because he was such an anti-democrat…the democrats had killed his beloved Socrates. The book was about how to set up a good government with a philosopher king. Even though it was one of the most influential books ever written, he didn’t have much influence on people in power. 😉
Rummuser,
In spite of the income disparities it was the American consumer who helped keep the world economy afloat for many years. They went into debt to do it, of course, and can no longer afford it. The question that troubles me is can the environment take the ever-expanding population and increase in consumerism? My guess is we’re in for a rough ride.
I recently read an article about the water problem in the agricultural regions of India. It pointed out that just giving the farmers loans and individual help didn’t solve the real problem. New methods were needed to conserve water and use it more efficiently. And that needed infrastructure, long-range planning. That tends to be a hard sell.
Rummuser,
Infrastructure pays off in the future. Buying goodies pays off now. Someone once studied delayed gratification in young children. The children each had a choice of getting a marshmallow right now or getting two marshmallows if they waited several minutes. Very few were able to wait. I doubt very much they turned out to be successful politicians. 😉
There is good correlation between equality and health and inequality and poor health – politicians and culture can affect this. (The Japanese and Scandinavians do it in different ways but both end up with good health outcomes. For details see The Spirit Level and http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/. There is masses of data).
I think consumption and our planet (and economic growth) are compatible if we shift to consumption of intangibles – there is no in principle reason for people not to spend their money on podcasts, going to concerts and so on, which could be much less resource intensive.
I think consumerism is the symptom. If people have good relationships and satisfying work (hi Sigmund – I agree with you about this anyway – well, mostly; Freud defined psychological health as love and work) many of the symptoms of discontent like consumerism will fall away.
There is evidence that this is occurring in some places. In Australia in a five year period about a quarter of the population voluntarily reduced their lifestyle (excluding retiring and returning to study). It is called Downshifting – study available from the Australia Institute. There is also a marketing segment called LoHaS – ecology, social justice and so on – which is growing rapidly. And yet these things aren’t even on the political radar!
Long rant I guess – but it is an important topic I think.
.-= Evan´s last blog ..Recovering from Sexual Abuse =-.
Evan,
A lot of our health problems in the US are because of lifestyle…poor diet, lack of exercise, etc. That’s not just inequality, it does have a lot to do with culture. One thing that Japanese have, and the Scandinavian countries did have (that apparently is changing in Denmark at least) is homogeneity. That’s not a politically correct topic, but it may be relevant.
I don’t know if consumerism is a symptom or not. I’ve never been interested in it so I’m not in a good position to judge for other people. I remember my disappointment in the 1970’s. It looked as if Earth Day and the environmental movement might result in healthier lifestyles, for people as well as the environment, but it didn’t turn out that way. I hope the movements you talk about have better long-range results.
The oil scare then didn’t result in long-term changes. Instead consumers switched back to gas guzzlers once the price of oil dropped. We will have to see….
Your filter must have thought that the mail was from left wing terrorist!
.-= Rummuser´s last blog ..Help! I Am Confused. =-.
All the economic systems are susceptible to corruption. Any institution can get infiltrated by it. Whatever system we live in, we should always try to love our neighbour as ourselves. That’s most important.
.-= gaelikaa´s last blog ..Wedding Story =-.
“Whatever system we live in, we should always try to love our neighbour as ourselves. That’s most important.” I agree with that. The question is how do we limit the power of people who don’t live by that rule. As James Madison said, “If men were angels there would be no need of government.” And since men aren’t angels, we need to limit their power when they are in government. His solution was to set up a balance of power between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. It doesn’t work perfectly, but it’s a lot better than some systems.
Balance of powers seem like an elegant solution to me. (The Australian government – supported by the opposition – made the public service the servant of the government not the public, thus moving us a small step closer to a one-party state.)
There is also the problem that some institutions don’t permit this eg. banks charging interest. And there are few alternatives to using interest charging insitutions.
.-= Evan´s last blog ..Recovering from Sexual Abuse =-.
Evan,
I don’t understand what you mean by making the public service the servant of the government not the public. Could you tell me what the difference is?
The US took an important step in improving government in 1883 when it started choosing Federal employees on the basis of merit instead of by how much the job seekers had helped the winning party. The reform movement had been trying to get this change for a long time. It finally happened when a rejected office seeker assassinated President Garfield. People had been disgusted by the corruption before, but the assassination galvanized them.
Having worked in both government and private organizations, the cartoon at the top applies to both. Now I work in a private company, but a few days ago I came across a government researcher who quickly gave me an unrequested dump on the political chaos in his group due to ambition and slackerism.
Then there is the dynamic of private/government relationships, which is wonderfully complex. The worst I have seen is government employees redirecting projects so that they had a better opportunity to pick up consulting jobs overseas. On the other hand, I have seen dedicated government workers cutting off their private sector friends because they could no longer deliver. Generalizing is tricky.
.-= Looney´s last blog .. =-.
Hi Jean,
The change in legislation was along the lines of making people directly responsible to the minister of the department. Sounds innocuous but is actually a formula for politicising the administration and so unbalancing somewhat the balance of powers.
.-= Evan´s last blog ..Self-Censoring =-.
Looney,
“Generalizing is tricky.” I don’t agree. I think James Madison had it right, men don’t always act like angels and we should keep that in mind when we set up the rules, whether in business or in government. I think setting up those rules to create a system that works is very tricky indeed. 😉
Evan,
Who did they report to before?
Before the responsibility was more general and expressed as things like providing advice.
.-= Evan´s last blog ..Self-Censoring =-.