Shareholders and their "rights to profit’’ cannot be the only determinant of a properly run business. The managers cannot be allowed to run away with the till – directors have to live up to their responsibilities. Limited liability is a ticket to irresponsibility when transactions are intended as short term speculation and not long term investment. There should be no protection for those who would manipulate the markets purely for their own enrichment. Incorporation was a great innovation several hundred years ago when companies were first accorded rights due only to individuals. Now, huge corporations have become superhuman monsters whose slightest twitches become knockout blows to human beings. A sunset clause – the same fact of death that has protected the gene pool of nature for four and a half billion years – is essential if these deathless monsters are not to live forever and become supreme.
I can just hear the bogeyman epithets being hurled as people read this. Leftist, socialist, communist – all words, loaded only in the lexicon of thoroughly propagandized America. As in the political sphere, such accusations are intended only to frighten people away from rational debate. This is a world problem, and it is only right that the whole world gets to mold the future. In the present climate of uncertainty and angst, everything has to be on the table.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Cindy D
Excellent article Christopher!
I can only hope you are a socialist (and particularly of the anti-state variety).
Today is a special day.
A New Yorker article has presented socialism in a reasonable and gently positive light.
Barack Obama is a socialist?: McCain, Palin on record supporting similar proposals as Democratic rival
As a buzzword, “socialism” had mostly good connotations in most of the world for most of the twentieth century.
The United States is a special case....
“At least in Europe, the socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives,” McCain said the other day"thereby suggesting that the dystopia he abhors is not some North Korean-style totalitarian ant heap but, rather, the gentle social democracies across the Atlantic, where, in return for higher taxes and without any diminution of civil liberty, people buy themselves excellent public education, anxiety-free health care, and decent public transportation.
(snip)
The Republican argument of the moment seems to be that the difference between capitalism and socialism corresponds to the difference between a top marginal income-tax rate of 35 per cent and a top marginal income-tax rate of 39.6 per cent.
(snip)
A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President...[Palin] told a visiting journalist...[regarding the levies on oil companies] that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.” Perhaps there is some meaningful distinction between spreading the wealth and sharing it (“collectively,” no less), but finding it would require the analytic skills of Karl the Marxist.
2 - Lisa Solod Warren
Oh you terrible person, Christpher Hoare, for daring to speak the truth. May the Good Lord take away all your stock options:)
Seriously (in case anyone thought othewise), thanks. Good piece.
3 - Marlowe
Socialism, of whatever stripe, isn't an answer to the ills America suffers. The socialism that works (and mind you I do admire the Scandinavian societies) would not work here, if for no other reason that we're talking, culturally, apples and a giant vat of "mixed" fruit.
We keep thinking that politics and politics alone can - if not change human nature at least "manage" it. We now - once again - speak of REGULATION as if that was the saving answer all along. Well, regulation's chief advocate - Roosevelt, realized that regulation ALONE doesn't save us from greed... It only postpones the worst SYMPTOMS of it - allowing good men and women to deal with the underlying cause.
Unless the mindset of America changes... Unless the "American Dream" is razed to the ground and rebuilt along realistic lines befitting a world society this country is doomed. We are NOT Rome of 30 B.C.E. If anything we're Rome of 325 A.D.
No political structure is going to save us. The sooner we realize this the sooner we can get on with the much more difficult task of removing the blinders of greed, of ME-ism, of shallow ideologies or distorted visions of some God-forsaken Christian Theocracy...
It's time for us to grow up... Before it's too damn late.
Marlowe
4 - troll
...rebuilt along realistic lines befitting a world society...
care to unpack this idea a bit Marlowe - ?
5 - Lisa Solod Warren
Hell, I can't make my 21 year old son grow up and believe me I have been a very good and strict mom, so I am not so sure about the U.S. of A.
I am willing to try and crack the collective whip, however.
Now, everyone. GO TO YOUR ROOM(S).
6 - Marlowe
Damn Troll... That's a lot of unpacking... My job is in the "shipping" part of all this. Union you know... Get the dock boys to unpack it!!
Let me get another cup-o-joe and then maybe I'll jump down and get to work on it!
Marlowe
7 - Dr Dreadful
Of course, if you lot hadn't wasted all that perfectly good tea at a New England port a few years back, this discussion would be moot.
8 - moon
Good opinion piece.
It doesn't matter WHO takes the blame, the SYSTEM is fucked.
It was a house of cards waiting to fall down.
I am not given to lining up behind ideologies--the closest I can come is anarchy of the Kropotkin/Gramsci type--but I do believe it is way past time for folks to stop screaming Cold War bullshit and pointing the frantic finger at socialism, as socialism is not what put you folks--and most of the folks on the planet--into the abyss of history.
And I do agree with the poster who said it's time to grow up.
Gringos--sociologically speaking--are nothing if not adolescents in their egocentric behavior of shooting from the hip and thinking that they are imortal.
The archetype fit George W. Bush like an expensive glove: silly, still living in Fratboylandia, playing with himself at taxpayers' expense (at least Nero played with a violin--so the story goes--while Rome burned), mean-spirited and revengeful, not paying his own way, patting incompetent compinches like the ill-fated "Brownie" on the butt on t.v., snickering about his addictions and illiteracy, and on and on ad nauseum.
Because the archetype of Gringo culture and that very damaged guy were a perfect fit, you LOVED him, you VOTED for him, you have up your LEGAL RIGHTS to him so that he could play Risk with YOUR children and the children of others, and you CRIED when you found out he lied, lied, lied, and is still lying.
"Say it ain't so, Joe", was back in I believe 1919 with the Black Sox Scandal.
You never learn.
9 - moon
GAVE up, not have up.
10 - Baronius
I don't want to hurl epithets; I just think you're wrong. The free markets have created more success, more widespread prosperity than any other system. Not just for 300 million people, either. For billions. Well-written piece, though.
11 - bliffle
Markets create nothing. Wealth is created by people. Markets just interfere to a greater or lesser extent. The markets we've had have largely been controlled by monopolies, to a greater or lesser extent, enforced by their bully boys in the government.
What we have foolishly called Free Markets are potemkin markets, barely able to maintain an appearance of freedom, so busy are their managers at nullifying real choice.
We can see the power of the financial monopolies in their ability to call forth at will a trillion dollar tribute from their paid operatives in the US treasury.
Most of the wealth we have has been created by Americans willing to sacrifice for their children, and children willing to work hard and defer pleasures for the future. They all trusted that the system would be stable enough that they could count on being able to cash in sometime in the future. But that trust has been betrayed by criminals who've stolen their savings and sent their children and their fellow citizens to die in foreign wars in remote lands.
The criminals just couldn't resist One More Swindle: greed does not rest.
12 - Cindy D
Approximately 100,000 children* will go hungry today in the United States, because some people will not re-examine their beliefs.
Not, lazy people or welfare crackmoms--I am only counting children.
*nearly none of them are children of illegal aliens--if it matters to you who "owns" them.
13 - Baronius
Bliffle, you're right. Markets don't create. Markets allow a person to be rewarded for his creations. In the long run, people just aren't going to create if they don't receive reward for it. That's what we're talking about here: not just the regulation of bad loan swaps, but of the whole financial market, and the health care market, and the labor market, and any technology that produces CO2, and spreading the wealth, and "fair" international trade.
14 - Cindy D
Where are the jobs? We have low taxes for the rich. We have beaucoup corporate incentives.
Where are the jobs?
15 - Cindy D
Unemployment Rate September 2008
16 - Les Slater
Predictions are for 8 to 8.5% by end of year.
17 - Les Slater
Baronius,
"people just aren't going to create if they don't receive reward for it."
I've been pretty creative during my life, and I was rewarded quite handsomely, maybe twice, three times at the most, average worker's wage.
There does not need to be much more than that to reward creativity. We just got a bunch of spoiled brats running around with their hands out and threatening temper tantrums if they don't get what they want.
Les
18 - troll
reward = conditioned reinforcer
19 - Clavos
There does not need to be much more than that to reward creativity.
Wages, like any other commodity, are subject to the vagaries of supply and demand.
20 - bliffle
The most expensive art painting in the world is, IIRC, "Starry Night". Or perhaps it's "Sunflowers". Painted by a guy named Van Gogh.
He never sold a single painting when he was alive. Never got one incentive.
Van Gogh created the painting, not a market.
21 - Lisa Solod Warren
Hmmmm, thass right indeedy
I am an artist. The market hates us. We do it anyway.
Tell my agents all about the market please:)
22 - Les Slater
Clavos,
"Wages, like any other commodity, are subject to the vagaries of supply and demand."
As we have seen, many functions of the financial 'industry', do not produce any wealth, they just siphon it from productive sectors to unproductive sectors. Dare I say that not only are such functions totally parasitic and to be frowned on, but also be prohibited. These should totally be removed from the 'demand' side of the equation.
At least roughly, we can see that the levels of compensation, in salaries and bonuses, are inversely proportional to the recipients contributions to the productive wealth of society.
Les
23 - Clavos
Dare I say that not only are such functions totally parasitic and to be frowned on, but also be prohibited. These should totally be removed from the 'demand' side of the equation.
Ugly word, "prohibited." What do you do with those people who insist on being money lenders (because others insist on borrowing it, i.e. "demand" it?) even though they don't "produce" anything that contributes wealth to the rest of society?
24 - Les Slater
Ugly word, "prohibited." What do you do with those pushers who insist on selling drugs (because others insist on buying them, i.e. "demand" them?) even though they don't "produce" anything that contributes wealth to the rest of society?
Providing drugs to those who need them, maybe while trying to break the habit, should be provided to them at affordable cost. Also, we should more carefully look at some drugs and compare them with alcohol and nicotine. Not that we should make either illegal, but at least nicotine sales should be taken out of private hands. Any advertising or other technique to get people addicted should be prohibited. Quality cigarettes should be provided for sale but a big publicly funded campaign against use should be instituted.
I think capitalism is far worse for the health and productivity of the population than marijuana and the prohibitions should be reversed.
Les
25 - Clavos
Ugly word, "prohibited." What do you do with those pushers who insist on selling drugs (because others insist on buying them, i.e. "demand" them?) even though they don't "produce" anything that contributes wealth to the rest of society?
As I see it, you have two choices:
1 Eliminate demand by eliminating addicts and then institute harsh penalties (up to death) for peddling drugs, or
2 Eliminate the laws prohibiting their sale and use, impose heavy taxes (to discourage initial use), and enact licensing and registration requirements for dealers, as well as regulations governing and monitoring sales. I also wouldn't be opposed to the government subsidizing addicted users.
I prefer the latter, because unless you eliminate the demand, there will always be someone willing to supply it, no matter how harsh the penalties for doing so.