graeme

That's a good blog. I'm posting part of it and the link. I just posted a wonderful little You Tube movie about using up the world's resources on the  Idle No More thread. Its so sad and so bad...its happening so fast......what will it be like in another 20 years or 50?

graeme's blog:

But what I really want to talk about today is not the crud that fills the pages of the TandT. It's an article I received from a friend. What follow is not my idea, but an idea I think worth considering. I'm just summarizing it.

The article appeared in Business Week. (Not a radical left publication). It is dated June 20, 2009. It is by Shoshana Zuboff, a retired and very distinguished professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. - not your typical rabble rouser.

She opens, "A long list of business executives have reaped sumptuous rewards even though they fractured the world's economy, destroyed trillions of dollars in value, and disfigured millions of lives." She relates this to the "...terrifying human breakdown at the heart of this crisis." Our business leaders are not evil monsters. They are, as so many of the Nazi leaders were, terribly banal people.

An example of this banality is Adolf Eichmann, the leading figure in the murder of millions of Jews in the holocaust. As was shown at his trial, he had no sense of doing wrong. He had a powerful sense of self-advancement, but after that, no sense at all of the reality and the horror of what he was doing, no sense of moral judgement. This attitude is common in today's dominant business model which produces behaviour that is throughtless and remote from reality. made worse by a complete lack of moral judgement, that feels no responsibility for the consequences of its actions. There is no sense of empathy for the victims of business decisions.

Without morals or ethics, business leaders fail to meet minimum standards of civilized behaviour. They represent what Hannah Arendt called, "the banality of evil". These are the zombies of our time. The article adds that there is a dreadful lack of moral leadership for these people - especially the moral leadership that should come from government. (I have long since given up on the churches.)

http://themonctongrimes-dripdrain.blogspot.ca/

The entire capitalist system, corporations in particular, are motivated and dominated by the profit motive. Corporations are soulless entities, devoid of conscience, motivated by profit, the highest executives as much as the smallest shareholders. They all must abide by the profit motive, otherwise their corporations would be insolvent and go bankrupt. Corporations exist to make a profit, this is the sole purpose of their existence. Moralistic, humanistic, social and environmental consideration have to be forced on them by legislation, so that they are forced to incorporate them into their business plans.

We're buying into it as disgusted as we are.

There is a totalitarian lie abroad — and widely subscribed to, even by many of its victims —  that "The Economy" has to be the way that it is… that there are no options.

The super-rich must be super-rich because they are super-rich; and the poor must starve because the economy requires them to be poor and starving. Progandising this tunnel visioned dogma of compliance with the callous greed of the corporate and political elite (who are not necessarily the actual politicians)  has been forced into higher education as an academic discipline. It is forced into the streets through its control of resources.

It's what totalitarian freaks always love to do: control and re-educate! It all helps to normalise dispossession. 

Critique is seen as "demonising wealth"… and I'm not alone in having been accused of it here. But it's not wealth that's being criticised or "demonised": it's greed — greed on an epic scale. Never in the history of the World has it had freer reign, or done so much, so widespread harm. It kills people, lots of people; it is killing the planet. It is murdering your children's children and their children. The damage it does is nearing the point of no return.

Greed is a disease, not a form of "realism" or "pragmatism", far less "reason". It has been normalised by lies and propaganda. Everyone is encouraged to be recklessly greedy and vast numbers of people are infected with it. They are sick and in debt (moral, social or financial), not clever… not in the least. In fact, it's a viral form of stupidity.

Greed has NO scientific or genuine academic justification. It certainly has no moral basis. It is "right" only in terms of its own internal consistency; it is a logically closed system: a dirty little box of intellectual tricks and conceits. It it a grand deceit.

It calls for a cure, and to achieve that, the closed box its rationale really has to be smashed open and the contents have to be aired… and its tentacles have to somehow be amputated. This is not a call for violence because the weapons are ALL in thehands of greed's proprietors. The struts have to be pulled out from underneath … and that starts with our realisation that greed achieves nothing for us, that it is, rather, the source and the cause of most of the World's discord, unhappiness and suffering.

Rejecting greed is a clear Christian calling, and one of the most urgent .

tasty, graeme, tasty :3

Is this always the case, though? Are business leaders, corporations, and capitalists automatically morally suspect?

I think that's a serious exaggeration. The profit motive and an ethical approach to life are not automatically at odds with each other unless one or the other is taken to an extreme. I do agree that capitalism as practiced in our society has veered to the extreme of greed trumping morality (the various banking scandals are sure evidence of this). But to condemn the system for the actions of those who take it too far is like condemning all of Christianity for the actions of the Inquisition and crusaders.

I work in the private sector for a corporation owned by a very wealthy, powerful local businessman who is also on fairly solid moral turf. In my experience of 14 years working for a company under his ownership and leadership, I've seen more than a few occasions where concern for our patients (we're in health care) has trumped money.Making money certainly is a goal but so is ensuring that the care we provide is top notch, something that our leaders drill into us year after year.

Mike is right. Greed is the problem. But "successful business leader" does not automatically equal "greedy bastard". Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have realized that and are trying to make that realization part of how they do things now. And, dare I say it, we are all greedy to some extent. We would still be subsistence hunter-gatherers if we weren't.

To Mike and Arm: if a well-off business man who ran a successful corporation came up and offered your church a lifetime annuity to fund it's operations with no strings attached (okay, maybe naming the organ after his dear, departed mother or something minor like that), would you discourage your church from taking it?

What do you suggest as the cure for the social ills of capitalism? For me, it would be everyone living modestly within their means, including churches and other organizations. Consumerism drives the greed as much as capitalism does and snuffing that out would be a good start.

Mendalla

I would… for the same reason that I would not personally seek or accept a gift of significant value, or buy a lottery ticket:

Wealth beyond my needs and means would shift the meanings of things for me, and my access to things that are important to me. I have experienced and continue to experience wonderful things because I have been able to approach them without a whole lot of bagge. Hospitality is something I love receiving and giving and my writing and involvements enabed me to meet people to whom it has also meant a lot. But is has never cost a lot: sharing and aprecaiting water the way many engage with wine, and bread the way others might appreciate cordon bleu chefery, , a place to sleep, basic meals prepared with care, creativity and love… money would have distanced or removed me from that warmth. I have walked in many parts of Europe for example with people who would have been uncomfortabe taking a cab… such experience, and the experience of really feeling "need" from time to time, give and have given me a tremendous amount of affordable gratitude and free joy. A few extra Euros in my pocket would have crushed quite a few of those experiences of closeness out of my range. To have had them and used them would have been patronising; to have had them and NOT used them would have been mean, even overbearing and superior. As it has been, the richest provider has been shared curiosity and inteerst, time and the effort of finding rapport.

There is always an expectation with unwonted resources: usually it's an expectation that distances from others. That sort of distance from others is the last thing any of us need.  Things get rushed. The rapport is artificial or superficial. 

Crushing poverty and desperation are another ssue altogether.

But— no — I would not encourage the acceptance of a lightning bolt injection of cash … or accept one myself. There have always been needier people than me, and there are needier orgnisations than a church. And neither I not a church needs to bend relationships away from the intimacy of shared appreciation.

MikePaterson,

I do hope that some day you get the opportunity to speak with dolphins like I've heard and read some researchers have been able to do (if somewhat clumsily) :3

I did not criticize a system. I don't waste time criticizing a system because whatever it is that a system does and however it operates is determined by people. So I criticize people.

And the reality is that most people who have power in large corporations are without ethics or morality of any kind.

They have effectively taken control of virtually all governments in the western world. What we have now is government by corporation bosses with the politicians simply messenger boys.

Accordingly, we are now in system that can be called fascist. I don't exaggerate that at all. Mussolini's fascism was based on giving big business a part of the government. We have gone beyond that by making business more powerful than government.

That's what lies behind our drift into an Orwellian state with high levels of domestic espionage - as in the police and CSIS investigating environmental groups as terrorists, and fully reporting their findings to representatives of big business.

With big business in control of governments (which means in control of police, armies, law), democracy is close to being a dead letter. And it is all encouraged with a hysteria focussing on "arab terrorists".

To watch Fox News is a frightening experience. Tens of millions of people believe that bilge.

Hi Mendalla:

No, I wouldn't discourage my church from taking the donation.

My cure of the social ills of capitalism?

Same as yours: Voluntary simplicity.

I agree, consumerism is as responsible as capitalism for our social and environmental ills. We, at the individual level, may not be able to do much about abusive capitalism (except at the ballot box), but we surely can do something about excessive consumerism.

There is such a thing as "social capitalism," which is a European Lutheran concept. My father, for instance, absolved his apprenticeship in a farm machinery factory and foundry, which had a care home for the aged and infirm attached to it. The profits from the factory paid for the care home, and the Lutheran Church kicked in some money as well.

This may work well for smaller businesses, but huge corporations owe it to their shareholders to maximise profits. Corporate executives are enslaved to that principle. Then it is up to the government to legislate social and environmental responsibility, or levy enough taxes for the government to do it.

In socially advanced countries like Norway and Sweden, the tax burden is much higher than here. People there don't mind, because this ensures social equality and stability. Also, egalitarianism is more deeply entrenched in Scandinavian cultures.

Of the three ideals of the French Revolution, only Liberty is observed in North America. Equality and Fraternity have been forgotten, and Liberty exaggerated to include the liberty to exploit one's fellow beings and one's environment.

For egalitarianism to work well, the rich and powerful have to be as dedicated to it as everyone else. It has to become part of our national and global conscience and culture.

Mendalla asked about my "cures" for capitalism. And I resonate with Arminius' response.

So, from me… for starters:

• Minimum income policy.

• Encourage local and community-based energy (including biogas) and food production.

• No income tax: government revenue aised through scaled GST that on non-essentials and a corporate tax structure that adjusts to account for the costs of environmental impacts and the benefits of the generation of social capital.

• 30-hour maximum working week, reducing to 20 hours.

•  Education free and accessible to all (and the separation of job training from the education system).

• Abolish eviction in relation to housing. (In Uruguay this put an end to property speculation because the banks stopped issuing mortgages… so homes are affordable.)

•  Structure policies to reduce the income gap.

• Basic housing, healthcare, education, food, water, clothing and mobility for all.

• Tax speculation (especially in futures and currencies) out of existence and reward long-term investment; put severe limits on gambling of all sorts.

• Pursue full employment, including the provision of meaningful work for disabled people.

• Politicians paid the national median income, adjusted monthly.

• Proportional representation.

• Compulsory year of social service for all 20 year-olds (of all abilities) in communities distant and different from their home communities.

• Constitutional guarantees of land ownership and parity of services provision for indigenous peoples.  

• Re-define bilingualism to mean fluency in ANY two founding languages (i.e. including aboriginal languages).

• Get longhaul trucks off the highways by using rail to carry goods between cargo terminals across Canada and use truck transportation locally.

• Banks need to be made to act less like seigneurs or barons, and more like businesses that share the risks of their clients. We should be promoting thevalues of credit unions.

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BUT It’s not a matter of policy control from the top: policy needs are defined by the needs and esperience of the moment. What is MOST needed is a vision. Canada needs a vision of justice, freedom and democratic process… a vision of caring, responsible community life in a harsh climate and vulnerable ecosystem: good sense in a climate such as Canada’s limits the wisdom of extreme individualism that capitalism promotes… and that winters in Florida pretty much exemplify.

Is this the article you are talking about?

http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/mar2009/ca20090319_591214.htm

Written by Shoshanna Zuboff?

If, so, the date is March 2009.

The link is just the article. It won't get your blog read or get it more hits, but I think this is the article.

Attention investors. Have you ever actually examined the companies, industries, financial institutions that make up your portfolio funds? That's where a lot of self-soothing whitewash takes place (if teacher's pensions benefit, it must be ok). No one wants to pass up a chance for half a percentage point in favour of ethics, after all, what you don't know can't keep you up at night.
How could someone mitigate this reality? Since we don't seem to have control over much of this type of investment (we need our pensions), what can be done to offset some of the damage?

http://m.thetyee.ca/News/2012/11/13/BC-Teachers-Pension-Plan/

I want to live in your world Mike.

The only reason investments are not all ethical is because "Investors" (gamblers/speculators) don't give a rat's butt. 

A civilised society would consider that aproblem.

Why?

Because it feeds back into that society and compromises everything it is and does. Greed is a disease.

A friend of mine, who owned a large architectural and construction company in Germany, said to me once: "I pay my "co-workers" (he didn't say "employees") not as little as I can possibly get away with, as they do in America, but as much as I can possibly get away with. My books are always open to my co-workers, so that they can be sure of that. This way they are encouraged to do quality work, and stand by me through thick and thin."

This kind of "social capitalism" can still be found in Protestant Europe, particularly in Scandinavia. It is the antithesis to the winner-take-all cutthroat capitalism of the United States.

Yes, Armi… and there are community-based local economies I've seen working very happily is parts of Italy. A part of that is the ability to "add value" at the source, in the community, and use that as a resource to strengthen the food security and communuty vigor of the district. 

Many people have a rather different view of ownership as responsibility. When we lived in rural Nova Scotia 30-some years ago, no-one locked their homes or took keys from their vehicle ignition. Neighbors were welcome whether or not anyone was at home. It could save lives in winter. I remember being woken by neighbors who wanted to visit getting wood in and lighting up the kitchen strove to make tea and have breakfast with us. They just wanted to keep in touch. Farm equipment was borrowed around the community as needed. Peple would invest in new equipment with half a mind or more to the community need rather than personal need. Every spring, one neighbor would go around lifting manure from the manure piles behind the barns and dump dung on the vegetable gardens. The first time it happened to os we were out. We saw the shit-pile and thought, "how the hell are we going to dig all that in?" A few days later, a different guy came around with a really great cultivator and left the gardens all ready to plant. We joined in as we could, sharing resources and found life was wonderful. We undrestand that's changed a bit now… things are more "prosperous" but not as "wealthy"… there IS a difference. Wealth only has a value when it's put to work.

(In North America and many parts of Asia… but elsewhere too, ownership seems increasingly to lead to privilege, isolation from others, security systems and gated communities where "community"  is unknown. It's a trap, rsthen a liberation.)

I recall sitting down and talking with my employer. He opened a small factory in Pennsylvania. He was from France. He went against all I knew of "the man". His office was open to anyone from the floor and I went in one day to tell him how different he was.

He paid a wage above minimum and far better than places in the area. He also had no quotas but paid incentive. He made sure hot days had barrrels of free water, pop and other beverages. He never "counted" glove use or such used in production against employees and saw them as a cost of production.

See I had worked for "the man", the real man. The wages were low. There were quotas. There were built in ways to never meet quota. Time studies didn't take into account making boxes, finding a supervisor, waiting on a forklift....There were locked everything.  You could not get a package of drill bits, but could only get them one by one.... The bit would break and you would have to walk to the tool case, page someone to open it, wait for them... walk back... and for what? A drill bit?

The day they told us we were to take a broken drill bit to the belt sander and use it until it was too small, was the day I left.

http://www.drbronner.com/activism_overview.php

Doing socially-responsible business doesn't keep people poor and unable to compete either.

I think it's time to value non-monetary capital in the form of overall well-being. Clean water, for example, is of very high value. So is safety from harm and free education. All investments.

SG - I think another really practical idea that gets missed by these exploitive types of industry you experienced is that intangibles like reputation and quality become meaningless.
I'll bet as many workers quit that place as were able. Disposable workforce.

I recall an ad in a very early National Geographic for men's shoes (around 1918): it said they stamped the retail price on every pair so everyone knew what they should pay. And the price was high because they paid their staff more than other shoe makers and, as a result, they were committed to producing the best shoe possible.

In my naive fantasy land, 1st world living standards would be recalibrated. No one wants to go there but me, apparently. Wages down, costs up. A robust local economy including manufacturing. Appliances and other goods last 25 years and cost a lot more. You wouldn't be sticking flat screen tv's into your shopping cart because it might take a year or two of saving to purchase one. Closets would be smaller because you had only two coats. Much less choice and much less shopping. Restaurant fish & chips once a year....
It was like that when I was growing up.
I remember the day when I realized I could afford a coffee maker from the BiWay store. Somewhere around that time everything changed.

SG, you're    quite rright. Yours is the correct date.

Some of this sounds radical. But right wing think tanks have been pumplng out "radical' ideas for decades - with the result they are now accepted as reasonable.

That's why we are now within inches of fascism.

I have similar memories and thoughts.

I know that it was not just coffee makers that held value then: it was a cup of tea next door,  piece of hot buttered toast from a homemade loaf, a table cloth your mother borrowed because guests were coming. And the guests appreciated it too. It was a radio, a can opener, a pair of scissors, a pen, a "best" pair of shoes and a kicking around pair, a pencil… each unique and precious in its own way. I remember my dad's "best" shoes because he got by happily with two pairs …and his "best" pair lasted 30 years, thanks to repairs every five or six years.

People who maybe can't relate to the sense of worth that accompanies that relative austerity (relative because, in fact, it is still worlds away from genuine need or poverty) should take a look around the yard sales this summer: there's all your "stuff" …and hardly anyone wants to take any of it away.

How much of your life do you commit to resourcing scenes like this:

It's become an icon of Canadian culture.

Theoretically, one needn't buy anything new for a very long time. I seldom do now. If most manufacturing ceased today, I'm sure current volume of used goods would last a century or more before it started to deplete.

I certainly don't advocate going back to low tech resource-sucking cars, furnaces or stoves. Some things are so much improved, but I believe it's the income/consumption ratios that need to be more sustainable....

Me either, Ninja: it was those days that  set the trajectory that brought us to the present, so it  or the stone perfect by any means.

I suspect that, like we looked to the power of post-war wealth and technology like kids awaiting Christmas: bursting to open all thne goodies. We've been doing this with increasing frenzy… only recently beginning to realise that the toys break, the mess is enormous and very little holds our interest any more. 

We keep pushing the buttons and get less and less in return. You want to see pigeons in a Skinner box when you cut the reinforcements back: they go nuts. I think that may be a characteristic of the present.

And, tragically, many have lost interest in the very things that might set them free. So it's day after day of boring work and night after night of boring television, punctuated by the lacklustre thrill of shopping for stuff no-one needs because everyone has more than they know what to do with. Toulouse geese come to mind: tied to boards and force-fed to engorge their livers for pate foie gras. Which is enjoyed, or not, by the fewer than one per cent.

Not all of us would lament the collapse of the global economy. We'll be at the ready to show them how it's done!

It'd be nice if it didn't have to simply collapse… it would be catastrophic for the poor and the super-rich would still be control, probably fighting it out among each other.

But it will collapse if it doesn't adjust fairly dramatically. Climate change will see to that.

Mike - If you would expand on the impact of de-globalization (that even a word?) on the poor, I'd be interested.
Most of us in affluent nations would feel some pain, but I hadn't considered how that would play out elsewhere. Aren't local economies better for everyone?

(multiple anti-corruption raids on Montreal)

Hi Ninja;

"De-globlisation" is not a possibility at this point: it's like tryng to become a virgin again.

There are pockets of resistance of which only a few are viable. The viable examples are small beer, often partial and have risen as an adjustment to the realities if globalization.

The French, for example, get a lot of flak for “protectionism” is an economic sense. But, talk to the French and you hear that it’s not about the money: it’s about ensuring the survival of rural French community… a moral and cultural resource that is a vital part of French national identity.

The EU has done some good work on protecting “artisanal foods” against the bulldozers of the mass food chain system but their food law is consequently quite complicated and hits the fans in forms like a recent amendment to ‘Honey Directive 2001/110/EC’ to define pollen as a natural constituent of honey rather than “ingredient” which served the interests of Monsanto who didn’t want to make more than they have to of their genetically modified crops. (Pollen from GM crops has lost its fertility and is therefore irrelevant, was Monsanto’s line. So “pure” honey can contain genetically modified pollen.)

Artisanal foods have a higher value and this makes them most accessible to elites.

But the forces of the mass market utterly overwhelm any attempts of people like banana growers, cocoa producers, cotton growers, coffee and tea growers to negotiate above-subsistence prices for such crops unless they belong to bigger consortia and so it is the big, often exploitative landowners who are able to turn a profit from such crops, and the growers turn into serfs. Indian cotton farmers have been committing suicide in enormous numbers to escape debts.

In the case of these guys, who’ve been in the thrall of Monsanto for decades, you could suggest that they break free by going organic – “go organic”. That would save them the cancer risks that come with the chemicals , let them use seed that isn’t sterile and 95 per cent controlled by Monsanto, and cut their cost. But a farm that’s years of chemical inputs needs three years of farming organically to qualify for an organic standard certificate… selling at organic prices. These are farmers who go into debt every year to buy Monsanto seed and are ruined if the season’s crop is poor.

So we still get cut-rate cotton because we can afford it and there aren’t alternatives.

We all are up against very big, powerful systems within which costs and pricing structures — and debt — are powerful tools of control. We are not paid well enough to afford justice for all. And, if we are paid more, the powerful temptation is to stick with the elite in the upmarket suburb next door rather than side with a bunch of  foreign fabric workers in Bangladesh.

Fair Trade initiatives are wonderful, but tiny in the grand scale of things.

Perhaps the best available and most workable, practical approach is through co-operatives which, more radically than they may seem, challenge some of the foundational concepts of globalization. It’s not firebrand radical stuff but it is quite a big movement with a good heart. You might like to check out: http://www.canada2012.coop/

What else to do?

Support the survival of and justice for Canada’s indigenous cultures: they provide an invaluable, irreplaceable diversity of Canada-centred values, insights, perspectives and wisdom — a resource we risk losing to the cost of us ALL.

Be an environmentalist. The longer the planet lasts, the longer we last.

You asked: "Aren't local economies better for everyone?" 

Theoretically, yes; practically? Not at the moment… it'll take a shift. I think. 

Necessarily? Yes. of course.