Hasn't every Fed intervention since 1981 been an increasingly failing attempt at "stabilizing Capitalism"? And won't you need a One-Government world to effectively tax international corporate entities? Please. Enough bad ideas. Let's go back to empowering the brewers, butchers and bakers... instead of ever more radically tilting the tax tables in favour of their financiers.
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Most of the perils of capitalism arise from massive scale. Maybe small is beautiful?
ERver-increasing Centralized Power is possibly THE greatest evil we could face.
Big is Bad.
Lilliputian could be Lovely.
Certainly lovelier than any kind of TOTALITARIAN regime dreamt up by Utopianists and Control Freaks.
A post-Capitalist would certainly be dominated by increasing Famine, Pestilence, Sword and Fire.
In a post-Cpitalist world we would quickly generate by leaps and bounds to a feral Hobbesian state resmbling our earliest days as an identifiable man species where life would be "nasty, brutish and short."
A grisly, desperately unattractive prospect to be sure!
I'm a RADICAL Progressive. Small IS Beautiful.
The early Progressives were united in their concern about big business, but the agreement ended there. The movement was deeply split between two wings: the radicals, who (echoing Jefferson a century earlier) thought bigness was an evil to be fought on principle, and a more pragmatic wing (more in the mold of Hamilton) who saw the rise of big corporations as inevitable and even positive — a phenomenon not so much to be resisted as to be accommodated and even promoted.
The principal combatants in this political and intellectual battle were no slouches. The radicals were led by Louis Brandeis, plaintiff’s lawyer, muckraker, and ultimately Supreme Court Justice. Brandeis famously bemoaned “the curse of bigness,” and opined that “If the Lord had intended things to be big, he would have made man bigger — in brains and character.” Brandeis inspired William Jennings Bryan (who favored a Federal law capping the size of corporations) and served as chief economic adviser to Woodrow Wilson (who nationalized big chunks of the economy during World War I) until Wilson put him on the high court in 1916.
Opposing Brandeis for the accommodationists or pragmatists was Herbert Croly, founder of The New Republic and author of “The Promise of American Life” (1909). Arguing that “the huge corporations have contributed to American economic efficiency,” Croly promoted a reform agenda that included legalizing and empowering labor unions and strengthening the regulatory state — that is, rationalizing the emergence of Big Business by promoting the rise of Big Labor and creating Big Government. Croly’s views initially were embraced by the (Teddy) Roosevelt wing of the Republican Party, and, 30 years later, by Teddy’s distant cousin Franklin, who mostly resisted calls to break up big companies or nationalize significant chunks of the economy and instead promoted the growth of government while trying (without success) to grow the industrial economy.
The New Deal thus constituted what seemed until lately to be the permanent triumph of the accommodationist wing of the Progressive Movement. With the arguable exception of George McGovern in 1968 (arguable because McGovern was first and foremost an anti-war candidate and only secondarily a radical progressive), the radicals have never come close to controlling the Democratic Party, let alone the White House.
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The brewers, butchers and bakers will be going out of business thanks to Dotard's lock down. And due to not getting any of the "small" business loans -- because the big guys were first in line and gobbled up all the money (thanks Senate republicans!). You think Dotard cares about the little guy? LOL.
Loans were only a remedy for a short duration lockdown. The current fiasco has far exceeded hope for any salubrious effect.
The vitality that was one small business has been crushed by the Leviathan of Government.
The time has come to kill the Leviathan. Our social suicide pact must end.
Is this Trump's Bartlebian Plan? One can hope...
Better to do nothing than to engage in localized acts whose ultimate function is to make the system run more smoothly.
The threat today is not passivity, but pseudo-activity, the urge to "be active“, to "participate“, to mask the Nothingness of what goes on.
People intervene all the time, "doing something“; academics participate in meaningless "debates,“ etc.; but the truly difficult thing is to step back, to withdraw from it all.
Those in power often prefer even "critical“ participation or a critical dialogue to silence, since to engage us in such a "dialogue“ ensures that our ominous passivity is broken.
The "Bartlebian act“ I propose is violent precisely insofar as it entails ceasing this obsessive activity-in it, violence and non-violence overlap (non-violence appears as the highest violence), likewise activity and inactivity (the most radical thing is to do nothing).
SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK, "In Defense of Lost Causes"
...but you would go on, with Biden. You would intubate our economy and start the tax respirator. Too bad that are already out of other people's money and selling the future labour of a decrepit empire. And soon, the electricity will run out...
NOTES TO MY FRIEND FARMER:
DANCING WITH THE DEVIL IN YOUR PARLOR COULD HAVE ONLY ONE OUTCOME:
YOUR TOES AND YOUR INSTEPS WILL BE MERCILESSLY CRUSHED, AND YOU WILL BE BADLY CRIPPLED AND MADE TO SUFFER AGONIZING PAIN FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.
ALSO, SHOWING EVEN TH MILDEST SIGN OF ACCEPTANCE AND AMICABILITY TOWARD THE CRIMINALLY INSANE MEANS YOU WILL SOON BE DESTINED TO JOIN THEM.
EXTENDING ANY FORM OF HOSPITALITY TO FOMENTERS OF TRAVESTY INEVITABLY LEADS TO GRUESOMR TRAGEDY.
DISBELIEVE THESE WORDS OF PAINFULLY-ACQUIRED WISDOM AT YOUR PERIL.
I know that you hate Dervy, but he's welcome to comment. He usually sticks to my Tea Leaves, but sometimes the subjects do overlap, as is the case here, and I'm interested in learning his thoughts.
He has a point. Trump isn't my "ideal" small business advocate. He isn't as radical as I am.
But then a "radical" government re-orientation towards small business would likely tank the economy as the large corporation took their money and scrambled for the international exit doors.
So you need a 'small business I'nal Revolution'!
'Shopkeepers of the world, unite!'
Good luck with that...
It beats the current "Bankers of the world unite!"
from the Jowett summary of Plato's "Republic"
Here follows a rustic picture of their way of life. They spend their days in houses which they have built for themselves; they make their own clothes and produce their own corn and wine. Their principal food is meal and flour, and they drink in moderation. They live on the best of terms with each other, and take care not to have too many children. 'But,' said Glaucon, interposing, 'are they not to have a relish?' Certainly; they will have salt and olives and cheese, vegetables and fruits, and chestnuts to roast at the fire. ''Tis a city of pigs, Socrates.' Why, I replied, what do you want more? 'Only the comforts of life,—sofas and tables, also sauces and sweets.' I see; you want not only a State, but a luxurious State; and possibly in the more complex frame we may sooner find justice and injustice. Then the fine arts must go to work—every conceivable instrument and ornament of luxury will be wanted. There will be dancers, painters, sculptors, musicians, cooks, barbers, tire-women, nurses, artists; swineherds and neatherds too for the animals, and physicians to cure the disorders of which luxury is the source. To feed all these superfluous mouths we shall need a part of our neighbour's land, and they will want a part of ours. And this is the origin of war, which may be traced to the same causes as other political evils. Our city will now require the slight addition of a camp, and the citizen will be converted into a soldier. But then again our old doctrine of the division of labour must not be forgotten. The art of war cannot be learned in a day, and there must be a natural aptitude for military duties. There will be some warlike natures who have this aptitude—dogs keen of scent, swift of foot to pursue, and strong of limb to fight. And as spirit is the foundation of courage, such natures, whether of men or animals, will be full of spirit. But these spirited natures are apt to bite and devour one another; the union of gentleness to friends and fierceness against enemies appears to be an impossibility, and the guardian of a State requires both qualities. Who then can be a guardian? The image of the dog suggests an answer. For dogs are gentle to friends and fierce to strangers. Your dog is a philosopher who judges by the rule of knowing or not knowing; and philosophy, whether in man or beast, is the parent of gentleness. The human watchdogs must be philosophers or lovers of learning which will make them gentle. And how are they to be learned without education?
In the small government world you envision (not happening under Dotard) what restrains the power of big money? Nothing. Why does a "radical progressive" want to give ALL power to the oligarchs?
What restrains the power of big money is taxes. You tax "big". The bigger a corporation's market cap, the higher the taxes. You also remove the liability immunity of investors.
You also limit the permissible size of government, denying them the ability to "borrow" and control more than a small percentage of the overall economy. You also institute inviolable separation of powers (legislative/ judiciary/ executive 1/ executive 2/ executive 3/ etc.).
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