Capitalism, as it is practiced in rich countries, has taken two brilliant ideas too far. The first is return on equity (ROE), one way of measuring value creation that has managed to eclipse many other, and broader, ones. The second is competition, which has come to be seen as an end in itself rather than as a tool for promoting growth and innovation.
Both ideas began as effective solutions to a pressing problem—how to allocate resources to produce, as Jeremy Bentham would have it, “the greatest good for the greatest number.” Centuries on, the advanced economies cling tightly to these approaches, but the problem has changed. The mismatch has caused difficulties of such urgency that many people are now declaring capitalism a failure. The whole system has been indicted, not only because of the financial crisis but particularly since that event, as inherently unworkable.
Runaway Capitalism – Harvard Business Review
7 MarMonoculture: How Our Era’s Dominant Story Shapes Our Lives | Brain Pickings
6 MarF. S. Michaels, Monoculture: How One Story Is Changing Everything.
The Middle Ages was dominated by an ethos of religion and superstition. The Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution was dominated by an ethos of machines and science. Our age is dominated by an ethos of economics.
Neither a dreary observation of all the ways in which our economic monoculture has thwarted our ability to live life fully and authentically nor a blindly optimistic sticking-it-to-the-man kumbaya, Michaels offers a smart and realistic guide to first recognizing the monoculture and the challenges of transcending its limitations, then considering ways in which we, as sentient and autonomous individuals, can move past its confines to live a more authentic life within a broader spectrum of human values.
via Monoculture: How Our Era’s Dominant Story Shapes Our Lives | Brain Pickings.
What if all sides are wrong about taxes? – Salon.com
6 MarA useful review of tax policies, right, left, and center:
My point is that the three currently-popular options for tax reform—the conservative flat tax, the liberal ultra-progressive income tax, and the centrist formula of lowering rates while slashing loopholes—are all unrealistic, in different ways. Sorry, conservatives—if the U.S. gets a VAT or another national consumption tax, it will be in addition to federal and income taxes, not in place of them. Sorry, progressives—while income taxes on the rich can indeed be raised considerably, there really is a point at which doing so will backfire by encouraging massive tax avoidance or capital flight. The experience of Europe suggests that it makes more sense to add a VAT to the mix of American federal taxes, if you want to fund a European-style middle-class welfare state.
Oh, and tax centrists—if your goal in your career is not just to trim but to completely eliminate tax expenditures for middle class Americans as well as the rich, you are going to have a sad, frustrated life.
I’m Being Followed: How Google—and 104 Other Companies—Are Tracking Me on the Web – Alexis Madrigal – Technology – The Atlantic
2 MarAlready, the web sites you visit reshape themselves before you like a carnivorous school of fish, and this is only the beginning. Right now, a huge chunk of what you’ve ever looked at on the Internet is sitting in databases all across the world. The line separating all that it might say about you, good or bad, is as thin as the letters of your name. If and when that wall breaks down, the numbers may overwhelm the name. The unconsciously created profile may mean more than the examined self I’ve sought to build.
Most privacy debates have been couched in technical. We read about how Google bypassed Safari’s privacy settings, whatever those were. Or we read the details about how Facebook tracks you with those friendly Like buttons. Behind the details, however, are a tangle of philosophical issues that are at the heart of the struggle between privacy advocates and online advertising companies: What is anonymity? What is identity? How similar are humans and machines? This essay is an attempt to think through those questions.
Can Occupy pull off a general strike? – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com
29 FebGeneral strikes are few and far between. The last “full-on” general strike in the US was in 1946 in, yes, Oakland. Now Occupy’s calling one for this May 1. Will it happen? and just WHAT will it be?
…the Occupy movement’s ability to defy expectations and undo assumptions should not be underestimated. This includes the subversion and reclaiming of terminology. After all, the very word “occupy” has come to signify a plethora of actions, interactions, groupings and sentiments, many of which are divorced from any traditional notion of a political occupation. Likewise, a brazen call for a nationwide general strike forces organizing groups and individuals to think about what striking could mean for them come May 1. The idea of a general strike, traditionally considered, assumes an outdated economy where essential industries can coordinate and bring a city or country’s economy to halt; it needs refiguring for the current context.
via Can Occupy pull off a general strike? – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com.
The Limits to Growth
28 FebDermit O’Conner, in association with the Post Carbon Institute, has made this cartoon illustrating the problems that are now piling up all around us: There’s No Tomorrow:
Well, there IS a tomorrow, but we’re going to have to change a few things to get there, hence Truth and Traditions. The cartoon was hatched by folks a Hubbert’s Arms, a discussion space for people transitioning to a post-carbon world.
Here’s the script for the film, along with references and links to further information.
A famous Chicago factory gets Occupied – Occupy Chicago – Salon.com
28 FebWorking alongside the union, Occupy Chicago gets results, in one-day, in a labor action:
Whether because of the right’s overreach, the rise of Occupy, or both, struggles like the Serious occupation seem to resonate with the general public. Fried says the existence of a large, easily mobilized Occupy movement made their 2012 action different. . . .
It’s that kind of Occupier/union synergy that has caught on in a few locales and has been given partial credit for union victories in places like Washington state, as well as pushing the labor movement more generally to take risks leaders are usually uncomfortable with.
In the case of Serious, Fried says Occupy’s participation changed the tone of negotiations with the company’s management in California. “When they heard that Occupy Chicago had moved in outside their company, they were alarmed,” she says.
via A famous Chicago factory gets Occupied – Occupy Chicago – Salon.com.
This American Warehouse Sounds as Bad as Foxconn – Technology – The Atlantic Wire
27 FebIt’s useful to be reminded that American can treat labor as badly as China does. The Atlantic Monthly compares conditions in an American fulfillment warehouse (the kind of place the delivers goods you order online) with conditions at Foxconn in China:
After hearing all about the horrible working conditions it takes to make our electronics at Foxconn, Mother Jones‘ Mac McClelland shows us what it takes to ship those products. It sounds pretty awful. And not just by American standards, but, in comparison to what happens in China, a developing nation without our fancy American worker protections. McClelland spent a short time as a temp worker in a shipping warehouse called Amalgamated Product Giant Shipping Worldwide, during the busy Christmas season. After days of back-ache inducing labor, she confirms a scary reality happening right here in the good ole U.S. of A.
via This American Warehouse Sounds as Bad as Foxconn – Technology – The Atlantic Wire.
Too Big To Fail: The First 5000 Years — Crooked Timber
26 FebThis is from the ‘middle’ (I suspect) of an ongoing conversation which I don’t have time to (even attempt to) summarize. But the suggestion is that it’s Jubilee time for all. That is, if the Powers That Be had any sense, which they don’t:
Well, no firm in any business can make a big profit if there is too much supply. Globally there is US$40 to $60 trillion zapping around, fast as electrons, looking for big yields.
Now they are running out of bubbles to blow up, while their yields in the safe sovereign harbors are negative, or almost negative.
The correct solution is redistribution, jubilee. But in today’s terms: let’s have higher fiscal deficits in the short-term to boost infrastructure and human capital (a.k.a. “education”), to get the economy moving again. Then afterward, let’s have a series of slow and progressive tax hikes to pay down deficits until the safety-net programs are long-term robust—which is also, incidentally or double coincidentally, a fiscal policy to reduce inflation from the wage side, and thus also to keep interest rates in check. And perhaps include a charter for a small-business investment bank, perhaps the only one with government deposit insurance.
Work Less, Help Economy And Environment
26 FebToday, the typical employee in the Netherlands works fewer than 35 hours per week, often spread from Monday to Thursday.
In the U.S., a trial program begun in Utah in 2008 compressed the 40-hour work week for state employees to four days. Without the need to commute or turn on the lights, elevators and computers on Fridays, employees helped cut the state’s energy bills and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 10,000 metric tons — the equivalent of removing about 1,700 gasoline cars from U.S. roads. The workers also appeared to like the lifestyle change: 82 percent wanted to stay on the new schedule. Nevertheless, the program ended in September 2011.
Meanwhile, Germany and France are among nations following the Dutch lead.
Truth and Traditions 