Now some light-saber swings at "Capitalism" from Star Wars creator George Lucas. Interview and some video at CBS News here. Interview by Charlie Rose who is used to lobbing softballs at balanced budget advocate Pete Peterson on PBS where Peterson has made large donations over the years. Excerpt:
LUCAS: Well, I grew up in the '60s. I grew up in San Francisco. And so I'm informed in a certain kind of way about, you know, believing in democracy and believing in America. And I'm a very ardent patriot. But I'm also a very ardent believer in democracy, not capitalist democracy. And I do not believe that the rich should be able to buy the government. And that's just the way I feel.Lucas would be a great advocate to have on the side of MMT.
I like Lucas's emphasis on democracy. Increasingly that's my focus as well. The world always requires a good measure of organization and governance. Either governance takes democratic forms of organization, where power is shared among equals who then jointly participate in the work of self-governance, or governance takes hierarchical and authoritarian forms, such as characterize the internal structure of the typical capitalist corporation, and the typical authoritarian government of the old pseudo-socialist kind.
ReplyDeleteReal democracy has a deep tradition in America, going back to the democratically organized churches that were involved in the founding and colonization of the country, and has had a few big victories in its long war against hierarchical governance. But the authoritarian empire of command-oriented capitalist firms struck back. So I guess what we need now a return of the democratic knights.
I tried to promote democratic ideals in my MMT-influenced essay, "Public Money for Public Purpose".
http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2012/01/public-money-for-public-purpose-toward.html
Don forget the New England town meetings.
ReplyDeleteON the other hand, the framers of the US Constitution did not think so:
Direct democracy was very much opposed by the framers of the United States Constitution and some signatories of the Declaration of Independence. They saw a danger in majorities forcing their will on minorities. As a result, they advocated a representative democracy[citation needed] in the form of a constitutional republic over a direct democracy. For example, James Madison, in Federalist No. 10 advocates a constitutional republic over direct democracy precisely to protect the individual from the will of the majority. He says, "A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."[19] John Witherspoon, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, said "Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state – it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage." Alexander Hamilton said, "That a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure, deformity."[20]
Wikipedia
Occupy, just as the countercultural revolution of the 60s and 70s was about participatory democracy.
If you believe in capitalism, as per the Marxist definition of capitalism, then you cannot believe in democracy.
ReplyDeleteTo be consistent, run your workplaces democratically, or run your government as a dictatorship.
"Men of property" have always rejected direct democracy as "the rule of the rabble," and modern liberal "democracies," really republics, are constructed with sufficient institutional rules to "protect the minority," i.e., the owners, from workers.
ReplyDeleteMarx's analysis of capitalism essentially showed that profit is based on rent (not-work) rather than work. Ownership of capital is analogous in this regard to the ownership of land in feudalism. The people at the top enjoy the work of others owing to their socio-economic position rather than their productive contribution, and they are maintained in that position by the political system.
However, it can be argued that Marx's experience of capitalism is out of date in that this is based on capitalists as owners of the means of production v. workers who were not owners. The spreading of the limited liability corporation and sale of ownership shares altered that significantly.
The result now is that it is not the owners of capital (shareholders) that are the chief beneficiaries of the system, but the top management that controls operations. This is "managerial capitalism." which became predominant after WWII, and has run amok of late through, e.g., "control fraud" in banking and finance (Bill Black).
See, for example, "Beyond Managerialism: Towards An Ethical
Approach" by Shih-Wei Hsu, Business School of University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Workers are not owners and they do not decide what to do with profits. This is capitalism. This is the modern workplace we are all familiar with.
ReplyDeleteWhen workers are the owners, receive the profits and decide what to do with them collectively, Marx termed this communism.
Rent seeking is a small part of total revenue generated in an economy. It's a minor problem compared to how we organize our production of goods and services.
Famous film director and “Star Wars” creator George Lucas has taken delivery of the first street-legal Mosler MT900S. The black-on-black coupe — worthy Darth Vader — weighs just 2400 lbs and is powered by a 435 hp all-aluminum V8. It can hit 60 mph in just 3.1 seconds.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.leftlanenews.com/george-lucas-gets-first-mosler-mt900s.html
Does he have a Tesla Roadster?
ReplyDelete"Does he have a Tesla Roadster?"
ReplyDeleteI dunno, but Tesla died years ago while Mosler is alive and well. Last I heard he was blogging at this site.
http://moslereconomics.com/
Beo, Sounds like he is ready to come aboard ;)
ReplyDeleteDan, Way to work in the "Empire" that "struck back" !
If more people with financial resources like George Lucas here and probably some others got their $$$ together they could create quite a political "force" for the good...
Resp,
Tesla Roadster only electric car that can keep company with the Mosler ;)
ReplyDeletelol does Mosler place a copy of 7DIF in every new Mosler automobile?
ReplyDelete