Observations

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In reference to mariner’s recent post about cronyism, a report from Politico shows a racial pattern in Congress reflective of older folk who still have pre-civil rights attitudes:

“More than 1,000 top House staffers are white. Out of 1,174 top staffers, 79 are African-American, 45 are Latino, 32 are Asian American/Pacific Islander, one is Native American and four are bi- or multiracial. The report defines top staff as chiefs of staff, legislative directors and communications directors in members’ personal D.C. offices; chiefs of staff, policy directors and communications directors in the top four leadership offices of both parties; and staff directors assigned to full committees.

“This systemic problem matters because Congress cannot effectively create public policy that benefits all Americans if the people making policy decisions don’t look like America,” said Spencer Overton, president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. The report recommends that House members collect and disclose detailed demographic data on staffers, adopt a rules package in the next Congress that includes measures to increase diversity and inclusion, apply the “Rooney Rule” — interview at least one person of color for each open senior position — in hiring and offer paid internships and fellowships.”

– – – –

Mariner was incensed yesterday when he read that Donald reallocated 10 million from FEMA to ICE – even as a strong hurricane approaches the Carolinas. Mariner should not be surprised; Donald has a public record of disregarding the purpose and designations of different accounts. He drew down all the cash from his casino business, driving it into bankruptcy; he uses a charity account as a revolving door to avoid taxes; he has settled multiple times for fraudulent business practices. Now, he is in charge of dispensing the Federal budget. He and his sycophant cabinet must be gleeful at the opportunity for abuse.

– – – –

Three sources have suggested that the next significant socio-political upheaval in the United States will not be the liberals and the progressives nor will it be African Americans. It will be an emergence of Latinos as a major influence in political change. No authors were able to connect the dots from the present but base their assumptions on demographics in the US and the whole of Central America and South America. At some point the politics of immigration will transition away from Europe and the Middle East and turn to the relationships between nations on North and South America.

It has been speculated for more than a hundred years that a mega nation will emerge on the two continents. Mariner asked Guru about this; he said a lot of current history has to adjust to that circumstance. First the new world economy, China emergence and artificial intelligence all must arrive at that opportunity. Still, within the US there are enough Latinos to launch a shift in politics.

– – – –

Patrick J. Egan of New York University writes that identity politics is beginning to shift in US citizens. What led identity politics heretofore was one’s religion, political party, economic class, and race. However, recent surveys by the General Social Survey, a reliable survey of American attitudes, shows that citizens are modifying their root identities to align themselves with an ‘ism’. Examples are liberalism, progressivism, libertarianism, conservatism, etc. Is this the beginning of the end for identity politics?

Ancient Mariner

 

Contemporary Blood

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Mariner has lamented in the past that our government representatives do not relate to today’s culture. The existential experience of citizens today is not an experience that folks over 60 can have. He coined the term ‘codgerism’ to identify this phenomenon. This is why mariner advocates age limits rather than term limits.[1]

Mariner therefore was pleased with a spread in USA TODAY that presented ten strong women who, if elected, by themselves will introduce contemporary thought in a codger-bound legislature. Topping the youngness statistic, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) and Abbey Finkenauer (IA), ages 28 and 29 respectively, will set records as the youngest Representatives in the House.

Further, Congress may feel a change in priorities as a record number of young nonwhites and nonChristians are running for Congress. Politico reports:

“Congress is poised to look a lot different next year. With primary season winding down this week, Democrats have nominated a record-breaking 180 women in congressional primaries. They’ve also nominated at least 133 people of color and 158 first-time candidates. “White men are in the minority in the House Democratic candidate pool,” Elena Schneider reports. In the 125 districts where the Democratic incumbent isn’t seeking reelection or the Republican-held seat is at risk of flipping, 65 nominees are women, 30 are people of color and 73 have never run for elected office before.”

– – – –

Mariner suggests beyond youthfulness another significant change in legislatures will occur when states begin using the speed and much less expensive methods of mail-in and electronic voting instead of mandating walk-in, in person voting; this is imminent especially at the state level as one solution to international hacking. The Dixie states will be the last to make the change because ID and inconvenient polling centers are a way of sustaining blatant racism.

– – – –

Mariner predicts that not much will be restored or improved by Congress if Donald is not impeached. His cabinet and his executive powers will thwart democratic efforts. This situation is important because the next election is only two years away and progress may not be visible to the electorate.

– – – –

Many controversial issues may be ignored by the Federal Court system because Donald and the GOP have appointed an unusually large number of judges. Jeff Sessions has been busy appointing judges in the special courts under Department of Justice control. In addition, the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court will send the bench back into the last century (Judges can be too old, too).

Ancient Mariner

[1] See Coming of Age Past 60, May 6, 2018 for a full lamentation.

Do you know your epitaph?

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True, tombstones are not so much the fashion today but one should not ignore one’s epitaph whether on a tombstone or not. In just a few words, certainly less than a dozen, a person’s life is encapsulated for all time. Who are you? What is it about you that contributed to reality?

Addressing the enormity of the epitaph with humor, mariner’s family and friends are well aware mariner considers the verb ‘get’ to be an evil destroyer of vocabulary. American usage, especially the simple past and past participle (got), displaces at least 17 additional words every day. What happened to “I received mail?” or “I understand it?” and a myriad more forgotten words that actually have a specific meaning. Even word partner ‘have’ is left out: “I gotta go.”

Mariner’s wife was quick to offer her choice for mariner’s epitaph: “Here lies mariner. He got dead.” Her own characteristics of never being able to leave the house just once without forgetting something and coming back – two or three times – provided her epitaph: “Here lies mariner’s wife. She’ll be back.” Identifying one another’s epitaphs should be entertainment for the family or even at a party.

Humor aside, although it is the fun part, identifying the most important influence one has had on reality is a personal value that carries serious import. The ego, too, is close to the surface. The caveat is that the opinion of others may not be as rosy or complimentary as one’s own opinion. In short, epitaph may become epithet. For example, “Here lies Sam. He never met a prejudice he didn’t like.” Perhaps, “Here lies Darlene. She made the most of eleven marriages.

The subjects of these two examples likely had more grandiose images of themselves, perhaps invoking thoughts of sacrifice to others in spite of the world the subjects lived in. Many are aware that they have committed their life to a cause. A very common example is caring for the quality of life in a spouse; another common raison d’être is raising one’s children.

It is true that epitaphs based on behavioral characteristics tend to be humorous but there is merit to identifying within one’s self what one did to improve the world in some way. One doesn’t need to discover this at a party. In fact, each of us needs to give time every once in a while to what value our life has been to reality.

Ancient Mariner

 

Conflict in Purpose

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Mariner never has been able to fully reconcile the split between church and state in the United States. One can make convincing arguments for the authority of either over the other as a foundation for American culture. Each, in its own way, espouses equality; each endorses spiritual reward for compliance with its doctrine – one the New Testament, the other the Constitution.

The United States was begun in the midst of serious conflict between the Anglican (state) Church and several spiritualist sects that saw the role of faith in a different light. In many instances these sects migrated to North America. Their intent was to have the freedom to practice their religion without Anglican constraints. Freedom for any religion was not the intent – only that sect’s interpretation was acceptable; dissenters were burned at the stake, had noses split, were cast out from the community and suffered other harsh punishments during the early decades of settlement. For about half of the colonies, religion was the only law; governments had not formed independently until later.

The ‘state’ side followed early settlers to the US for economic and political reasons. 150 years after the first settlers arrived, a war broke out between Great Britain and France over who would colonize North America (Seven Years War AKA French and Indian War).

Mariner digresses. If the reader seeks more detail about how church and state began in North America, visit a preferred library or search engine.

The specific enigma about which mariner has difficulty is cultural morality. How can a singular national ethos and inclusive human rights be governed by two masters?

Mariner has personal interest in the conflict over abortion because Roe v. Wade didn’t exist in the 1940’s. No doctor would breach Christian decorum to perform an abortion; abortion was performed on the dark side – if one could find it. Mariner’s mother died at age 26 because she had to carry and give birth to a child doctors said she should not have.

To start, let’s read about Deborah Copaken’s life experience:

 

A quote from Deborah Copaken – an advocate to keep Roe v. Wade in place.

The day when you find yourself six weeks pregnant at the age of 17, as I did, is not a joyous day, particularly after doing all the right things, birth-control-wise, including getting yourself fitted for a diaphragm at Planned Parenthood. For one, you can’t have a baby. You’re still a baby yourself. You would (you know, even then) cause permanent emotional damage to a child, in not wanting to have one, never mind that you have neither the skills nor the means to raise one properly. For another, you’ve just been admitted to college, and though you love your high-school boyfriend dearly, you have no idea who you are or what you want out of love or life. Plus, raising a baby in a freshman dorm was never part of your plan. Nor your college’s. And adoption—for you, personally—is out of the question. The pain of handing over your child to another person would, you know, become a lifetime of “Little Green” sorrow.[1]

Your parents drive you to the abortion clinic in Maryland. No one in that car is happy, but everyone is nevertheless grateful for one another’s love and for your right to legally choose this option. The clinic makes you answer a bunch of invasive questions to prove you know what you’re about to do, as if you hadn’t been thinking only about this moment for the past week. You’re awake for the entire procedure, which is painful. You cry a bucket of tears into your saltines in the crowded recovery room after, because it hurts and because you’re still 17, the age of emotional roller coasters under the best of circumstances, which this is not. But not one of those tears can be traced back to shame or to regret over the decision to abort the minuscule embryo of cells inside you. In fact, it was not a “difficult decision.” It was easy: the only rational one, to your mind, to make.

– – – –

Deborah made a decision based on her situation. At that moment, a Federal law, Roe v. Wade, ergo a ‘state’ law rather than a religious one, allowed her to choose an abortion. Some would say Roe v. Wade is an affront to religious freedom.

The question always evaded is, doesn’t freedom of religion mean any religion can practice its unique doctrine and ritual but cannot restrict those who have another religion from practicing their doctrine and ritual? Following the Constitution in principle, the answer is yes. What confuses the dialogue is the total dominance of Christian-based religions versus nationally dominant state law; if other world religions had prominence in the US along with Christianity, ‘freedom’ would be better defined. There are dozens of Christian religions from the snake believers in Appalachia to the Mormons in Utah to… on and on. One of the major variations is the Evangelical Christian; there are enough members – particularly in conservative states – to influence legislators. Opportunistic legislators, which abound today, forego state law (Constitution) to placate those who would restrict not only state rights but other religions as well – thereby violating the Constitution. Unfortunately, legislators aren’t selected for their wisdom and ethic.

There is an unhappy truce for the moment because the Supreme Court is bound by the Constitution. Here is a challenge: would it be legal under the freedom of religion clause for some Islamic sects to eviscerate the clitoris of pubescent girls if this were practiced in the United States? Here is a similar challenge: Does the owner of a slave have the right to inflict torture, starvation, rape or religious practices on that slave? How about circumcision? This is relevant today; thousands, including family members, are held in slave relationships not to mention contemporary slave trading almost entirely with helpless women.

As we ponder these challenges, the core human issue is whether someone can impose bodily modification on another person. Is Deborah a slave? Is Deborah an Evangelical Christian? Is Deborah Islamic? Is Deborah a US citizen? It seems the value is one derived from social morality rather than religious doctrine. National statistics suggest social morality says no one can impose physical conditions on another person.

If one is abiding by one’s Christian doctrine, a case may be made that having an abortion is unchristian; if one is not Christian or is of a variety of Christianity where abortion is not an issue, having an abortion is subject to situational ethics which, typically, reflect cultural expectations.

Brett Kavanaugh, a well-known conservative and Roman Catholic is nominated to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court. In an interview today he said, “A woman has a right to have an abortion but the Government doesn’t have the right to pay for it.” This is an excellent example of why mariner is so confused. With us since ancient times, the Byzantine two-headed eagle[2] is still around.

Ancient Mariner

[1] Song by Joni Mitchell; see lyrics at https://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/joni+mitchell/little+green_20075262.html

[2] The Emperor of Byzantium wore a crown topped by a two-headed eagle. One head represented his supreme authority over the politics and power of the empire; the second eagle head represented his authority over the Gods, of which he was one himself.

About that last post

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Please view a very short animated video –

WITH CURSOR ON THE LINK BELOW PRESS CLICK then return to this post.

https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/567739/universal-basic-income/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=video-series-editors-picks&utm_content=20180901&silverid=NDkwMjIzMjA1Mjg2S0

In the last post mariner mentioned that many issues would be too large for nations to manage well given their current economic structures. As Harari suggested, massive numbers of people will be jobless by current definitions of ‘job.’ Many of today’s nations, especially smaller authoritarian nations, will experience a virtual disappearance of national economy similar to today’s situation in Venezuela where even today a crooked, profit-driven authoritarian government cannot hold an economy together.

The future phenomenon will roll out slowly; there will be time for nations to take several steps in preparation for the economic collapse of the Job Religion. If the reader watched the animated video, it will be clear that, like climate change, slowly a clearly unbalanced economy and its negative impact on the world’s population already is beginning to emerge; especially given the ill-fitting capitalist, oligarchical economy in place in the US at this time.

The current emigration reflects the same issue as millions and millions of humans are displaced by oligarchies, religious and political wars and shifts in the climate on several continents.

Needless to say, there is feedback: Mariner is a socialist; mariner is a communist; mariner is a lazy person who does not want to work. Without gathering numbers, mariner suspects virtually all these criticisms come from members of the Donald Party – rich and poor, entrepreneur and laborer. Mariner’s wife will confirm that mariner is not happy with any –ism. Nor is he happy with the American electorate in general – including all the identity groups across the rainbow.

For the record,

Capitalism works best to fill economic vacuum – like the early US or now, artificial intelligence.

Socialism works best to homogenize and pasteurize a disruptive and unstable culture.

Communism works best to standardize diverse cultures and contentious economies.

Humanism is the best generic umbrella for any –ism.

Somehow, somewhere, Christ’s second commandment, the 6 – 9th commandments in Islam, or achieving dharma in Hindu, will become central principles for governing the populations of the world. Albert would call it reverence for life.

Ancient Mariner

The Future

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֎Yuval Noah Harari

Mariner has mentioned Yuval Noah Harari in previous posts. He is an unusually pragmatic futurist not prone to future utopias, fantasies or whimsy. His main concern, as is mariner’s, is that there will be large numbers of humans who will be useless to society and for which there is no reason to exist and no way to participate in the world of artificial intelligence (AI). How will AI deal with these humans? Mariner highly recommends you read his article.[1] Having finished the article, mariner turned to his wife to describe the future:

Future reality will be like a glove we wear on our hand – but it isn’t our glove and our hand does what the glove tells it to do.”

֎25 percent for every 1 degree Celsius

Using reliable news services and scientific journals, mariner has kept abreast of climate change and the unexpected effects of global warming. Hotter temperatures will, according to a new study in Science, make insects hungrier, which in turn will spread more disease and decimate more crops. For every 1 degree Celsius (about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in global temperature, wheat, corn and rice will be damaged 10 to 25 percent.

֎The Democrats are sailing a ship named ‘Liberalism’ and enjoy good winds as they sail toward November 6 2018. Fivethirtyeight.com, mariner’s reliable oddsmaker gives the Democrats a 7 out of 10 chance to win the House. Mariner’s alter ego Amos is worried that (a) ‘Liberalism’ will lose its favorable wind as the election nears. He is skeptical that the likes of Senator Sanders and Senator Warren are the types that will unify the electorate behind a new liberalism. (b) Donald has left the electorate in disarray; the Trump party and its base will not play nice; the Democrats have their own problems with identity politics; the disemboweled Department of State, Department of Education, Environmental Protection Agency, and especially the Department of Justice will be unable to provide signs of early progress and reorganization. This inadequacy may run long enough to influence the 2020 Congressional election.

֎By the way, did anyone notice someone named Martin O’Malley stumping in Iowa for Democratic candidates? Turns out he ran against Hillary in the 2016 primary and is a former Governor of Maryland. Hmmm.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/yuval-noah-harari-technology-tyranny/568330/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-weekly-newsletter&utm_content=20180831&silverid-ref=NDkwMjIzMjA1Mjg2S0

Of Mice, Men and Power

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Mariner came across the following text while skimming through emails from his sources:

“In Nairobi National Park, a succession of concrete piers rises over the heads of rhinos and giraffes, part of a $13.8 billion rail project that will link Kenya’s capital with the Indian Ocean. It’s a project with the ambition and scale of global leadership, and the site safety posters are in the language of its engineers and builders: Chinese.

Four hundred miles farther north, in one of Kenya’s city-sized refugee camps, there’s another sign of what global leadership used to look like: sacks of split peas, stamped USAID; a handful of young, quiet Americans working on idealistic development projects. The author saw both this month, but one already looks like a relic of the past. The baton of global leadership is being passed from the U.S. to China.”[1]

Mariner disagrees with the author’s perception. Mariner feels the US effort is the result of 240 years of democracy and social justice knowing and promoting the value of human beings. Human beings should not be the source of creating wealth and power for others but should be participating in validation and purpose with fellow human beings – the distraction of profit and power is a troublesome overhead.

Since the beginning Homo sapiens has used a phalanx of money, militia and political dominance to shape its cultural values. In the mariner’s lexicon (see previous posts), the gorilla side still dominates but the American experiment – despite all its flaws – has insights into what true human value requires. It isn’t money; it isn’t political influence; it isn’t threat of violence – it is civility and compassion.

Mariner has alluded in the past to the difference between Bonobos (essentially the same as chimpanzees) and chimpanzees. Chimpanzees have some aggressive genes because during their evolutionary era food and space were an issue in northern Africa but the Bonobos lived in southern Africa during an era of plentiful food and space. Bonobos chill; chimpanzees find reasons to be contentious.

In the grand evolution identified by Darwin, the human brain truly is an aberration, a shift in in evolution toward reasoning that is constrained by the primate branch of evolution. The human brain sees beyond physical reality. If the brain had its way, gorilla might well be assigned to the garbage dump. But evolution is slow, very slow. Still, as we live our lives our brain knows the true value of existence. We may not want to commit to the ethical life but we know that value: empathy. It is a magical formula that gorillas find hard to accept – after all our ancestors were chimpanzees not bonobos. Empathy is a genuine political force except that it does not take advantage of human society, it reinforces it. Profit is not the primary energy in life; it is how well every human experiences life. Three cheers for the handful of young, quiet Americans working on idealistic development projects.

Ancient Mariner

 

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/americas-global-influence-is-declining/568708/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=politics-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20180828&silverid-ref=NDkwMjIzMjA1Mjg2S0

The Times – They are A-Changin’

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Mariner found the article below in an old Time magazine. Currently, scientists anticipate 20 billion living humans by the end of the century. If they all live forever and each couple continues having two children, what a fine thing that will be???

Is an Anti-Aging Pill on the Horizon?

By Alexandra Sifferlin

“NAD+ is the closest we’ve gotten to a fountain of youth,” says David Sinclair, co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School. “It’s one of the most important molecules for life to exist, and without it, you’re dead in 30 seconds.”

NAD+ is a molecule found in all living cells and is critical for regulating cellular aging and maintaining proper function of the whole body. Levels of NAD+ in people and animals diminish significantly over time, and researchers have found that re-upping NAD+ in older mice causes them to look and act younger, as well as live longer than expected. In a March 2017 study published in the journal Science, Sinclair and his colleagues put drops of a compound known to raise levels of NAD+ into the water for a group of mice.

Within a couple hours, the NAD+ levels in the mice had risen significantly. In about a week, signs of aging in the tissue and muscles of the older mice reversed to the point that researchers could no longer tell the difference between the tissues of a 2-year-old mouse and those of a 4-month-old one.

Now scientists are trying to achieve similar results in humans…[1]

– – – –

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus famously said, “Change is the only constant in life.” Indeed so as we enter what looks like it will be civilization’s most disruptive century since the Black Plague. Consider this list:

Climate change – coastal cities around the world will be flooded; much of the temperate zone will become tropical; ocean life will dwindle to a serious degree; penguins and polar bears will be homeless and hungry; environmental stresses will interfere with war; the travesty of climate destruction will test the strongest economies.

Artificial Intelligence – already reducing major job markets and soon will displace many lawyers, family care physicians, financial advisors, mortgage brokers and everyone who performs data entry tasks; public transportation including trains, planes, cars and 18-wheelers will drive themselves (this likely may require making human drivers illegal); AI will interfere with cultural policies about race and religious segregation – simply because identity politics won’t be affordable.

Banking and Finance – Artificial intelligence also will affect the way we relate to income and assets; economies will be influenced by increasingly socialist solutions to solve problems too large and diverse to be addressed by individual national economies or corporations; individual families may not own much directly but will participate in largescale consortiums (think something like Amazon.Com); salaries will be separated from most jobs and distributed directly to citizens. [Yes, this may sound blasphemous to fiscal conservatives but mariner draws this opinion from existing evidence that banks, corporations and governments are thinking about how to manage a future where everyone around the world has instant contact with everyone else and personal assets are managed electronically; ways to bundle housing, payroll, transportation and accessories as a single package; ways to bundle services like health care and education.]

Mariner is concerned that we may simply turn over to others our privacy, independent choices in our lives, even our choice of taste in clothing and other daily interests. Both the book 1984 and the movie Matrix loom as literary shadows if we do not move into this century level-headed and wisely.[2]

Ancient Mariner

 

[1] http://time.com/5159879/is-an-anti-aging-pill-on-the-horizon/

[2] For someone who has given the immediate future great thought, buy the book, We’re doomed, Now what?: Essays on war and Climate Change. by Roy Scranton.

Some Items

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Peter Beinart has written an intriguing article for Atlantic magazine titled “Why Trump Supporters Believe He Is Not Corrupt.” From the beginning mariner has been confused by the blind eye of Trump followers who insist that he is not corrupt. Peter provides an insight:

“Trump supporters appear largely unfazed by the mounting evidence that Trump is the least ethical president in modern American history. When asked last month whether they considered Trump corrupt, only 14 percent of Republicans said yes….”

“Once you grasp that for Trump and many of his supporters, corruption means less the violation of law than the violation of established hierarchies, their behavior makes more sense.”

To Donald’s followers, the idea that a woman would become President is untenable. Oddly, they called Hillary corrupt from the beginning. The core realization for us is that Donald’s followers long for the traditional image when men were men (especially white men) and social rank was important. The social changes since Barack became President (talk about a violation of hierarchy) are both socially and economically threatening. Donald’s followers are against cultural change; Donald’s choice of words stirs feelings in his followers that things are being put back where they belong; Donald calls a spade a spade, and so forth.[1]

A forthcoming book titled “How Fascism Works,” by Jason Stanley addresses this phenomenon in detail.

– – – –

Mariner often uses the term ‘class.’ It turns out, upon further reading, that the term class is not well received among those who study such things. Class has so many variables, definitions and criteria that identifying a person within a unique class is virtually impossible. One example that confuses is that a librarian, expected to be more educated and likely have a college degree, is paid only a fraction of what a laborer makes in a factory. Still, there is a line drawn between working with one’s hands and those who do not.

Mariner, like most folks, uses ‘class’ to define economic status; broadly speaking, a lower class, a middle class, an upper class and the absurdly wealthy. The argument is made that Americans are preoccupied with capitalistic comparisons but economic ratings are not reflective of reality. Dollars do not classify a human being by race, sex, morality, intelligence, lifestyle, suppression, criminality, profession, or geography – just to mention a few. In other words, an amount of dollars does not classify the empirical reality of a living human being. Perhaps it may be more accurate to describe individuals by their lifestyle and behavior rather than the number of dollars they have. A frequent observation is made of ‘working class’ individuals who win the lottery for millions of dollars; they don’t change their behavior very much despite the opportunities massive assets may offer. Further, a person may be very wealthy and be President of the United States but behave no differently than a New York City mob boss.

– – – –

Another note from Chicken Little about privacy and data mining by corporations: The Associated Press (AP) asked Princeton University to investigate whether Google continuously tracks your location even if you turn off that option. Google says that will prevent the company from remembering where you’ve been. Google’s support page on the subject states: “You can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.”

That isn’t true. Even with Location History paused, Google apps automatically store time-stamped location data without asking.[2]

One cannot own one’s life without privacy. Has this item brought us back to the first one that deals with fascism?

Ancient Mariner

 

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/what-trumps-supporters-think-of-corruption/568147/

[2] https://apnews.com/828aefab64d4411bac257a07c1af0ecb?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=politics-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20180813&silverid=NDkwMjIzMjA1Mjg2S0

Is there any Room for Capitalism?

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If cancer could grow as large as it desired without harm or imposition to other living organisms, one hardly would notice its highly consumptive nature. Alas, one’s body needs all its space and functions for other purposes. Cancer can’t have free run of the body.

Regarding consumptiveness, capitalism is a lot like cancer. From its inception the American experiment has let capitalism grow at will; for many generations capitalism wasn’t bothering anyone or any systemic functions of economy. In fact, capitalism is what brought the United States to the top of the international arena. But no one noticed how consumptive capitalism was.

It was unbelievably good fortune that Europeans landed on the shores of a virgin continent. There was enough room to spread out to the point that many early colonies had their own flavor of Christianity and variety of government. Entrepreneurs could consume endless virgin forests, endless water, abundant minerals were harbored in the continent’s soil and rock. Blessed by a favorable temperate climate, agriculture had no bounds. Wildlife from shellfish to grizzly bears were more than plentiful. Even before the eastern continent was full, the US acquired the Louisiana Purchase, Texas, the Gadsden Purchase, territory from the Mexican and Spanish cessions, and cut a deal with Britain for the Northwest. The entire Forty-Eight were in place – with no industry, a few native indians, no Europeans, nothing but space, nature’s riches and an ethos based on freedom of everything, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 200 years after the first settlers, land still was in such abundance the government had programs to give away land to those who would claim it.

It would take an unleashed capitalist economy to leverage the virgin riches of the continent. With good timing the Industrial Revolution came along with steam and oil and trains, planes, automobiles, and highways. Consumption of America was feverish and overwhelming compared to normal circumstances in the rest of the world. Even continuous war every few years with other nations would not make a dent in growing GDP. No one noticed the greed and hoarding – necessary side effects of capitalism.

But then, suddenly, the continent was full. 350 million people; no extra land; overcut forests; polluted streams and rivers; overfished lakes and oceans. Still, capitalism raged on with its consumptive behavior funneling more and more resources to the wealthiest capitalists to sustain profits.

Today, the greedy aspects of capitalism are noticed. Corporations merge with corporations just to sustain record profits. But a strange thing happened in the 1980’s: profit was no longer driven by production and labor. Instead, wealth invested in other wealth by using the stock market and a plethora of profit-taking maneuvers engineered by the banking industry and US Federal and state governments. Consumption is so important to capitalism that the United States can no longer afford high concepts like freedom, life, liberty and happiness – they are too expensive because unlimited resources no longer exist. As fewer and fewer resources are available, capitalism is a victim of its own strength: expansion. Profit and assets must continue even without resources. All that is left is the assets of the public. Fringe benefits and salaries suffer; human dignity is unaffordable. Oligarchy and kleptocracy emerge as the pressure mounts to sustain capitalism.

Pure economies of government, capitalism, communism, socialism, and all the derivatives, are not healthy. Left to perform unopposed, any single form of economy will run amok. Any effort at modifying American capitalism will take years of pain in the public sector but they must prevail if a new American ethos is to emerge that will focus on freedom, life, liberty and happiness.

For the next decade or two, capitalism will find profits in computerization. More important to the public sector is that they will be part of the solution. Else, as in the previous post, change will be devastating.

Ancient Mariner