Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "capitalism"

In the Introduction, Gore summarizes the current trends that provide challenges for how we make choices for the future: the global economy, electronic communications, a new balance of political, economic and military power, unsustainable growth, powerful new science technologies, and the emergence of a new relationship between human civilization and Earth's ecology.

The details he provides in the first 100 pages range from new technology to internet influences and the problems with current economics and Citizens United. Looks like this will be a valuable resource for anyone writing about our prospects for the future.

I'm especially encouraged by his understanding of how complexity impacts these issues and by the extensive Bibliography, Index and Notes he provides.The Future: Six Drivers of Global ChangeAl Gore

Saving Capitalism For the Many Not the Few by Robert B. Reich, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.

In the coming elections we face both confusing realities and difficult choices. However, there are clear options, illustrated in great detail in Robert Reich’s new book Saving Capitalism. Odd agreements between Tea Party members and liberal Democrats tell the tale. Both seem to understand the dangerous positive feedback loop between money and politics. They both oppose subsidizing Big Oil, Agriculture and Pharmaceutical businesses.

Reich emphasizes that our choices are not between Big government and a “free market.” There is no such thing as a free market. All markets are defined by laws of some kind. We need to re-organize our markets for “broadly based prosperity, [not] one designed to deliver almost all of its gains to a few at the top.”

I see in this coming election that our choice is not so much between Republicans and Democrats, not even between “establishment and anti-establishment, as Reich suggests, but between changing how we redefine and regulate our “free market.” Not voting in public elections is actually voting to let the wealthy continue to warp the defining laws and practices in their favor.

Reich goes into great detail describing what laws have been warped to favor the wealthy at the expense of the working middle glass, whose median wage has been dropping since 1970. Even young college graduates’ hourly wage has gone down since 2000.

Examples of laws that should be changed (I counted 27 in Reich’s book, aside from “reinventing the corporation.”) include reversing the Supreme Court’s decision “Citizens United” or amending the constitution so Congress can regulate campaign spending. Others: ban the gerrymandering of districts and voting restrictions, require disclosure of all outside sources of public domain testimony, revise patent and antitrust laws to undo power-grubbing tactics, resurrect Glass-Steagull to separate commercial and investment banking, ban forced arbitration and insider stock trading, restore bankruptcy law to give labor or students higher priority and most importantly require congress to fund the enforcement of such laws that benefit the working and middle classes. Other suggestions deal with international trade agreements and local school funding.

Reich provides a readable litany of how big money has redefined capitalism, noting that in 1874 the Supreme Court in Trist vs Child that persons could not be hired to lobby Congress. In 1920 the Tillman Act banned corporations from making paid contributions, now allowed by the Citizens United decision.

He tells us that insider trading is still rampant, antitrust laws no longer keep monopolies from dominating markets. The stories continue. The 300:1 ratio of executive-to- worker pay is due only in small part to globalization, technology, lobbying, subsidies and loopholes.

He reminds us that things are different in Europe. That we could once again have a truly “free market” if we would take command of how Congress, agencies and judges write the laws that define what the market is. Bankruptcy laws favor corporations by giving low priority to paying off labor costs. Student loans, now 10% of the total, are not allowed bankruptcy protection. In Germany education through college is free to students.

We can recover who we were, a country where the middle class grew and thrived, and common sense, not money drove our ideals.

New York, Simon and Schuster, 2016.
I agree with reviews of this New York Times best seller, written by a Washington Post syndicated columnist and NPR commentator. This book should be required reading for all voters, even Congress. The last 69 pages are devoted to background information, extensive Notes and detailed Index.

In 548 pages the author manages to reflect the thinking, the lack of it, the intrigue, the debates, the inconsistencies, the treasonous lying and blind-sided focus that produced our current situation and wasted far too much money dividing the country.

The author’s plea is for “…conservatives to take a turn toward moderations…” in order to “…embrace those who have been left out…” in one way or another.

Suicide of the West starts with an introduction that begins “Thee is no God in this book,” though the author is “not an atheist.” He then summarizes human evolution with words like “embarrassing animals” and “humiliating sea of ooze.” this tells me that the author has serious problems recognizing the genius and overwhelming complexity in how our various life forms came into existence.

If he is just trying to be cute, it fails with me. The issues are too critical and our choices too important--especially when a concept like fascism is discussed. The author seems to assume that we are locked into our tribal nature, that early life was brutal before our recent rise in GNP.

His assumptions? Our natural condition is tribal. Money, liberalism and capitalism are not natural. Zero-sum is natural so that violence is required in order to get something needed. (Animal studies show this is wrong. Horses and bison males fight so that the strongest are selected to mate.) He says, “We come into this world no different from any cavemen.” Human nature is instinct and tribalism.

“The romantic idea of following our feelings and instincts can best be understood as corruption.” Entropy is nature taking back what is hers--” giving in to our human nature. Our current leaders are a sign of it, back lash vs. Identity politics, tribalism, what benefits one comes at the expense of another. Our problems are psychological, not policy problems.

Cute wording and undefined phrases like “Contemporary liberalism has a host of others it bites” are not informative. Is there a taboo on discussing human nature? Is civilization nothing but greed, anxiety and violence?