“They saw their injured country's woe;
The flaming town, the wasted field;
Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;
They took the spear, - but left the shield.”
―Philip Freneau
.
And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again?
Archilochus
Why wouldn't Capitalism be suffering a major crisis?
It's been under constant assault from LEFTISTS for well over a hundred years.
There's no force on earth that could withstand that kind of relentless attack, and still remain healthy, vibrant and untrammeled.
Marxism and all its hideous derivatives are the ROOT CAUSE of the economic woes we suffer with today. Europe's all out embrace of "Socialism" and a Centrally Planned Economy has been an unmitigated DISASTER.
Trying to "fix" or "improve" something that was rotten to the core from its inception is about as useful as trying reattach a severed limb with a ball of twine.
from Wikipedia: In part, this right-wing populism is a reaction to the bailouts of Wall Street institutions during the financial crisis. But if that was the spark, the fuel is a deep-seated desire to resurrect the governing structure and economy that reigned pre-New Deal – what Michael Lind calls “the Second Republic.” This that emerged after the Civil War and preceded the post-New Deal rise of big government, big labor, and big business.
This is also the era idealized by thinkers such as Friedrich Hayek, an Austrian-born economist writing at mid-century who spent much of his career decrying the emergence of “socialism” and contesting Keynesianism and is revered as a “founding father” of modern conservatism. It is Hayek’s writing that forms the intellectual roots of this love for the Second Republic and the current rise of right-wing populism.
Hayek was a true conservative in the mold of Russell Kirk, author of the landmark 1953 text, The Conservative Mind. Hayek wanted to maintain a pre-1930s kind of economic and governance structure and was a strident opponent of not just the rise of big government and big labor, but of the rise of Chandlerianmanagerial capitalism and big business.
Indeed, Hayek, like former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis on the left, rejected the notion that large corporations were more efficient, writing that, “The size of the enterprise has become an advantage beyond the point where it is justified by technological facts.” Not surprisingly then, Hayek supported laws to limit the size of corporations, arguing that, “There may be valid arguments for designing corporation law to impede the indefinite growth of individual corporations.”
Hayek was also not alone in his views. At the same time that Hayek was making his case in the 1950s, a major battle was being waged for the soul of the Republican Party. On one side was “country-club” Republican Dwight Eisenhower; on the other, “Mr. Republican” Senator Robert Taft. Taft made it clear: “There is an underlying philosophy in the principal measures of the New Deal which desires to affect a complete revolution in the whole American business and constitutional system under which this country has prospered for 150 years.”
Equating CHANGE with IMPROVEMENT has been the cause of infinite blundering with much resultant misery.
The NEW DEAL was THE most egregious BAD DEAL in American History.
We can invent all sorts of HIGH-FLOWN THEORIES and NEW quasi-erudite TERMINOLOGY for OLD THINGS, but it's all wheel-spinning that does everything possible to AVOID applying PRACTICAL, COMMON SENSE methods of attacking eternal economic and social problems.
Inventing excuses for, and blatant advocacy of ENVY, MALICE, VIOLENT PROTEST, endless DISSENSION , and SELF-INDULGENT, SELF-DESTRUCTIVE PASSION has been instrumental in HALTING genuine Progress.
COLLECTIVISM KILLS; IT CANNOT CURE OUR ILLS
All it produces are CHEAP THRILLS that serve to keep its proponents in CLOVER, and the ignorant, MASSES, –– who've been DUPED, and subtly CONDITIONED to REJECT facing HARD TRUTHS ––, at BAY.
I've been well-acquainted with a great many Upper-Crust, Poison Ivy League Liberals who favor Marxian-Progressive-Liberal-Socialist-Statist policies primarily because they instinctively loathe, fear, and distrust the masses. They are motivated by a feeling that the MASSES just be continually PLACATED by a series of BRIBES to KEEP them IN LINE.
At bottom that is REALLY what Leftist Ideology –– as practiced by New Dealers and their adherents -- is all about.
Thus FEAR replaced TRUST. FEAR replaced CONFIDENCE. FEAR replaced COOPERATION. FEAR replaced LOYALTY. And FEAR all-but destroyed PRODUCTIVITY.
Worse than all that this now-institutionalized FEAR has made it IMPOSSIBLE for the SPIRIT and UNITY of PURPOSE that made it POSSIBLE for the FOUNDERS to win the AMERICAN REVOLUTION, and the ALLIES to PREVAIL over the AXIS POWERS to THRIVE.
What could revive that spirit I cannot imagine. Sensible people realize and accept the inability to RETURN to the PAST. We must keep moving forward. The question is IN WHAT DIRECTION SHOULD WE WANT to be HEADED?
I don't believe we need to move any farther toward the LEFT.
If RIGHT is EAST and LEFT is WEST, I suggest it may be time to head NORTH, since heading SOUTH is a common metaphor for FAILURE and eventual DISINTEGRATION
Or in "post-modern jargon", a disorganized Deleuzian rhizome with many bushes, but few artificially tall (& organized) arboreal structures. I embrace the invisible hand of economic Chaos, in other words. :P
PHEW! More poison tossed down from the Peanut Gallery where the Pompous, Pretentious, Purveyors of Putrid, Pea-Brained, Political Polemics, warmed-over Leftist Dogma and Stale Marxian Shibboleths hang out.
Pardon me, while I go off to puke, and then wash off the foul smelling garbage.
Yes, the result of the Reagan-Thatcher alliance was only an extension and "globalization" of the corporatism problem. It did little to "fix" the problem and led to British and American jobs moving overseas. The only beneficiaries were the "corporate" interests, especially "finance".
Smallness in capitalism will require legislation, and the "established" interests will strongly oppose it.
I know you don't care much for post-modernism, FT, but it is the lingua franca of today's "educated" but self-hating elites ("Elites, we're not elite.")
Smallness in capitalism will require legislation, and the "established" interests will strongly oppose it.
D'ya reckon? ;-)
At last in 1911, the Supreme Court of the United States found Standard Oil Company of New Jersey in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. By then the trust still had a 70% market share of the refined oil market but only 14% of the U.S. crude oil supply.[66] The court ruled that the trust originated in illegal monopoly practices and ordered it to be broken up into 34 new companies. These included, among many others, Continental Oil, which became Conoco, now part of ConocoPhillips; Standard of Indiana, which became Amoco, now part of BP; Standard of California, which became Chevron; Standard of New Jersey, which became Esso (and later, Exxon), now part of ExxonMobil; Standard of New York, which became Mobil, now part of ExxonMobil; and Standard of Ohio, which became Sohio, now part of BP. Pennzoil and Chevron have remained separate companies.[67] Rockefeller, who had rarely sold shares, held over 25% of Standard's stock at the time of the breakup.[68] He and all other stockholders received proportionate shares in each of the 34 companies. In the aftermath, Rockefeller's control over the oil industry was somewhat reduced but over the next 10 years, the breakup also proved immensely profitable for him. The companies' combined net worth rose fivefold and Rockefeller’s personal wealth jumped to $900 million.[66]
I'm a little more "radical" than breaking up large corporations. I'm for "selective chartering" of corporations, generally. I'd severely restrict the markets the could enter to "defense" and possibly "environmental cleanup".
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NEWS: TRUMP CHOOSES MIKE PENCE AS VEEP
Why wouldn't Capitalism be suffering a major crisis?
It's been under constant assault from LEFTISTS for well over a hundred years.
There's no force on earth that could withstand that kind of relentless attack, and still remain healthy, vibrant and untrammeled.
Marxism and all its hideous derivatives are the ROOT CAUSE of the economic woes we suffer with today. Europe's all out embrace of "Socialism" and a Centrally Planned Economy has been an unmitigated DISASTER.
Trying to "fix" or "improve" something that was rotten to the core from its inception is about as useful as trying reattach a severed limb with a ball of twine.
Farmer, do you see anyone on the Right who proposes meaningful solutions to Neoliberalism's march?
Buchanan and the Paleo's. The John Birch Society. But nobody's as anti-corporate as they NEED to be.
Tea-Party and Libertarian "Hayek" supporters...
from Wikipedia: In part, this right-wing populism is a reaction to the bailouts of Wall Street institutions during the financial crisis. But if that was the spark, the fuel is a deep-seated desire to resurrect the governing structure and economy that reigned pre-New Deal – what Michael Lind calls “the Second Republic.” This that emerged after the Civil War and preceded the post-New Deal rise of big government, big labor, and big business.
This is also the era idealized by thinkers such as Friedrich Hayek, an Austrian-born economist writing at mid-century who spent much of his career decrying the emergence of “socialism” and contesting Keynesianism and is revered as a “founding father” of modern conservatism. It is Hayek’s writing that forms the intellectual roots of this love for the Second Republic and the current rise of right-wing populism.
Hayek was a true conservative in the mold of Russell Kirk, author of the landmark 1953 text, The Conservative Mind. Hayek wanted to maintain a pre-1930s kind of economic and governance structure and was a strident opponent of not just the rise of big government and big labor, but of the rise of Chandlerianmanagerial capitalism and big business.
Indeed, Hayek, like former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis on the left, rejected the notion that large corporations were more efficient, writing that, “The size of the enterprise has become an advantage beyond the point where it is justified by technological facts.” Not surprisingly then, Hayek supported laws to limit the size of corporations, arguing that, “There may be valid arguments for designing corporation law to impede the indefinite growth of individual corporations.”
Hayek was also not alone in his views. At the same time that Hayek was making his case in the 1950s, a major battle was being waged for the soul of the Republican Party. On one side was “country-club” Republican Dwight Eisenhower; on the other, “Mr. Republican” Senator Robert Taft. Taft made it clear: “There is an underlying philosophy in the principal measures of the New Deal which desires to affect a complete revolution in the whole American business and constitutional system under which this country has prospered for 150 years.”
No one from the Right has yet emerged to lead the coming Fourth Republic.
Equating CHANGE with IMPROVEMENT has been the cause of infinite blundering with much resultant misery.
The NEW DEAL was THE most egregious BAD DEAL in American History.
We can invent all sorts of HIGH-FLOWN THEORIES and NEW quasi-erudite TERMINOLOGY for OLD THINGS, but it's all wheel-spinning that does everything possible to AVOID applying PRACTICAL, COMMON SENSE methods of attacking eternal economic and social problems.
Inventing excuses for, and blatant advocacy of ENVY, MALICE, VIOLENT PROTEST, endless DISSENSION , and SELF-INDULGENT, SELF-DESTRUCTIVE PASSION has been instrumental in HALTING genuine Progress.
COLLECTIVISM KILLS; IT CANNOT CURE OUR ILLS
All it produces are CHEAP THRILLS that serve to keep its proponents in CLOVER, and the ignorant, MASSES, –– who've been DUPED, and subtly CONDITIONED to REJECT facing HARD TRUTHS ––, at BAY.
I've been well-acquainted with a great many Upper-Crust, Poison Ivy League Liberals who favor Marxian-Progressive-Liberal-Socialist-Statist policies primarily because they instinctively loathe, fear, and distrust the masses. They are motivated by a feeling that the MASSES just be continually PLACATED by a series of BRIBES to KEEP them IN LINE.
At bottom that is REALLY what Leftist Ideology –– as practiced by New Dealers and their adherents -- is all about.
Thus FEAR replaced TRUST. FEAR replaced CONFIDENCE. FEAR replaced COOPERATION. FEAR replaced LOYALTY. And FEAR all-but destroyed PRODUCTIVITY.
Worse than all that this now-institutionalized FEAR has made it IMPOSSIBLE for the SPIRIT and UNITY of PURPOSE that made it POSSIBLE for the FOUNDERS to win the AMERICAN REVOLUTION, and the ALLIES to PREVAIL over the AXIS POWERS to THRIVE.
What could revive that spirit I cannot imagine. Sensible people realize and accept the inability to RETURN to the PAST. We must keep moving forward. The question is IN WHAT DIRECTION SHOULD WE WANT to be HEADED?
I don't believe we need to move any farther toward the LEFT.
If RIGHT is EAST and LEFT is WEST, I suggest it may be time to head NORTH, since heading SOUTH is a common metaphor for FAILURE and eventual DISINTEGRATION
I'm for an IN-Efficiency Movement! ;)
Or in "post-modern jargon", a disorganized Deleuzian rhizome with many bushes, but few artificially tall (& organized) arboreal structures. I embrace the invisible hand of economic Chaos, in other words. :P
Interesting read, that AEI thing.
Re. Hayek, he must be spinning in his grave because of what Thatcherite/Reaganite 'revolutions' ultimately led to...
PHEW! More poison tossed down from the Peanut Gallery where the Pompous, Pretentious, Purveyors of Putrid, Pea-Brained, Political Polemics, warmed-over Leftist Dogma and Stale Marxian Shibboleths hang out.
Pardon me, while I go off to puke, and then wash off the foul smelling garbage.
Yes, the result of the Reagan-Thatcher alliance was only an extension and "globalization" of the corporatism problem. It did little to "fix" the problem and led to British and American jobs moving overseas. The only beneficiaries were the "corporate" interests, especially "finance".
Smallness in capitalism will require legislation, and the "established" interests will strongly oppose it.
I know you don't care much for post-modernism, FT, but it is the lingua franca of today's "educated" but self-hating elites ("Elites, we're not elite.")
Smallness in capitalism will require legislation, and the "established" interests will strongly oppose it.
D'ya reckon? ;-)
At last in 1911, the Supreme Court of the United States found Standard Oil Company of New Jersey in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. By then the trust still had a 70% market share of the refined oil market but only 14% of the U.S. crude oil supply.[66] The court ruled that the trust originated in illegal monopoly practices and ordered it to be broken up into 34 new companies. These included, among many others, Continental Oil, which became Conoco, now part of ConocoPhillips; Standard of Indiana, which became Amoco, now part of BP; Standard of California, which became Chevron; Standard of New Jersey, which became Esso (and later, Exxon), now part of ExxonMobil; Standard of New York, which became Mobil, now part of ExxonMobil; and Standard of Ohio, which became Sohio, now part of BP. Pennzoil and Chevron have remained separate companies.[67]
Rockefeller, who had rarely sold shares, held over 25% of Standard's stock at the time of the breakup.[68] He and all other stockholders received proportionate shares in each of the 34 companies. In the aftermath, Rockefeller's control over the oil industry was somewhat reduced but over the next 10 years, the breakup also proved immensely profitable for him. The companies' combined net worth rose fivefold and Rockefeller’s personal wealth jumped to $900 million.[66]
(Wiki on Standard Oil)
I'm a little more "radical" than breaking up large corporations. I'm for "selective chartering" of corporations, generally. I'd severely restrict the markets the could enter to "defense" and possibly "environmental cleanup".
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