A great quote about "wealth" from the film "The Corporation"....

[marmar]

One of the things I find very interesting in our current debates is this concept of who creates wealth—that wealth is only created when it’s owned privately. What would you call clean water, fresh air, a safe environment—are they not a form of wealth? And why does it only become wealth when some entity puts a fence around it and declares it private property? Well, you know, that’s not wealth creation, that’s wealth usurption.
- Harvard Professor Elaine Barnard

I've been watching that film this morning and I've been deep in thought ALL morning. Perhaps it's time to rethink capitalism, because it's not serving the common good in its current form.

[Pharaoh]

1. Exactly right

Capitalism serves the few and enslaves the rest of us while destroying the planet which supports us.We must stop it cause it's almost too late.

[SharonAnn]

11. "The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is capitalists."

"The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is capitalists."

Austrian analyst Willi Schlamm

[marmar]

17. I wonder if it already is too late.

:cry:

[3121guitarist]

2. Exactly

This is why I am a radical. You cannot have capitalism and democracy at the same time, they do not work. Capitalism cannot be reformed, it needs to be abolished. Replaced with worker control of the means of production; Michael Albert's theory, called Parecon.

[Pharaoh]

4. parecon? interesting

I'll have to read it.

The problem is the capitalists! And the fact that so many of us are asleep to the fact that we are enslaved and being fucked in the ass.

[marmar]

15. Agreed....

And I peeked at your profile and agree wholeheartedly: BARBARA LEE FOR PRESIDENT! That woman rocks! :yourock:

[TahitiNut]

16. It's difficult enough to convince folks to participate in their own governance

... let alone participate in the the management and decision-making of the enterprise in which they labor. "Let George do it" has become a plague in our nation.

[sweetheart]

3. enclosure and the exogenous set

The problem is, that capitalism presumes an infinite set of external supplies, these being
water, soil, fish, people, copper, oil, that when it raises its prices, more supplies will
magically appear, like in star trek. And by not enclosing and accounting for these commons
with limited resources, the seas, the atmosphere, these things are multiply allocated, with
every country designing on the limited pools of resource, and the next act of the play
is already written as the supplies diminish.

It has long been a known side effect of capitalism that 'public goods' are not accounted for,
and are presumed to be balaned out economically by a government. Then this would speak to
the world's governments then setting up specific resource accounting, where these resources are
no longer free but traded on an exchange. Then you yourself might compete with a japanese whale
ship to buy the rights to fish the whale... then green interests might intervene directly in the
world's markets, buying up these resources that they are 'wealth' and 'valued'.

People are economic creatures, and capitalism is here to stay. The need for radical solutions
when more pragmatic soulutions are avalable to us, speaks rather to a more revolutionary expression
that trivializes the need for real action by elevating the myth of a future overthrow, rather
than sort the thing out right now with contracts we already know how to design; ones that really
will put in place a framework to protect the diminishing public goods.

[fasttense]

5. I'm not so ready to be rid of capitalism

We need to severely regulate capitalism because when it gets out of control it becomes fascism or a wild beast.

Capitalism like any economic system must be controlled by We the People. The reason Russian, Chinese or Castro communism doesn't work is because the economy is controlled by a dictator or an elite few. Any economic system must be shaped and rein in by laws of, by and for the People. If an economic system is controlled by one, two or even a hundred elite people, it is twisted and turned to enrich the one, two or a hundred elites but not turned to the benefit the mass majority of citizens. On the other hand, an economic system allowed to run wild like a rampaging bull will soon destroy all but a handful of people and then you are back to the system where only an elite few controls the economy.

Capitalism must be reigned in and turned to do the bidding of We the People not the bidding of a few wealthy elite.

[Pharaoh]

6. Yes I'm all for re regulation

It was Reagans deregulation push that created many of the problems we see now.

[3121guitarist]

8. What the....

"People are economic creatures, and capitalism is here to stay. The need for radical solutions
when more pragmatic soulutions are avalable to us, speaks rather to a more revolutionary expression
that trivializes the need for real action by elevating the myth of a future overthrow, rather
than sort the thing out right now with contracts we already know how to design; ones that really
will put in place a framework to protect the diminishing public goods"

Economic creatures? What in the world does that mean? We are also moral beings, capitalism saps that energy, reforms it into negative light, the kind of light that is cold and unfeeling. Better to have a society, democratic and with fair outcomes for all.

Not about overthrowing anything, you imply violence, a common shuck. You can change the structure with a change in attitudes. That will take education and the will of the masses to be ready to change. We stopped slavery, child labor, we can stop capitalism's deranged unseen invisible hand. Picking my pocket, as we speak.

[lectrobyte]

7. Excellent movie. We really do need to rethink this whole corporation as

person business.

[papau]

9. In the 1980's I worked in a company called USLICO which was later bought by "ING'

the Dutch insurance giant so as to have a Washington, DC firm that was in the heart of the lobbying world of the GOP. The film "The Corporation" and Harvard Professor Elaine Barnard's statement in that film that "One of the things I find very interesting in our current debates is this concept of who creates wealth—that wealth is only created when it’s owned privately. What would you call clean water, fresh air, a safe environment—are they not a form of wealth? And why does it only become wealth when some entity puts a fence around it and declares it private property? Well, you know, that’s not wealth creation, that’s wealth usurpation." brought back memories of those days and how the Reagan years changed the GOP into the "me" party that rejected everything Professor Barnard is saying.

As an aside, the best movie on this topic - the evils of the corporation - prior to the documentary "The Corporation" was, in my opinion, the Judge Reinhold comedy "Head Office" (1985),directed by Ken Finkleman whose plot (Upon graduation from college with a business degree, John Issel is promptly hired by Helmes's company I.N.C. At INC, the one who gets ahead, does it by kissing ass, or over someone else's dead body. John keeps getting promotions, but cant figure out why. Actually management doesn't care about him, they hope that having hired him, his father, Senator Issel, will vote the way they like) was a cover for one of the most real office view from the top movies that I have ever seen. My wife and I were identifying who at various corporations best fit the roles being played, and recalling actual situations and events that were very, very close to what was supposed to be over the top dark humor. While not as funny as it might have been, the movie made a tremendous impression on me as an all too close mirror of my life at that time in D.C.

And then to put the cherry on the sundae, "my" company was sold to INGCOM (a Dutch insurance conglomerate www.ing.com ) that sounds a great deal like INC, at least as to name!

[3121guitarist]

10. Noam Chomsky

Has great stuff on this as well.

[marmar]

12. Chomsky and Zinn are all I'm reading these days....

:think:

[marmar]

13. I saw "Head Office," but I was 13 at the time....

I guess I was to young to get the underlying meaning. :)

[Blue_Tires]

14. great insights