all human societies have always had one cultural feature in common: the highest evil is greed and the highest good is giving and not taking. After WWII, and the ascent of Thatcher Reaganism and Harvard Business School Wharton, greed has been institutionalized as our culture's aspiration of aspirations, while giving to the poor, oppressed, and deprived has been demonized and criminalized. We all pay the price, with the climate catastrophe the final installment
It is greatly feared that our civilization, conditioned to the profit motive to the exclusion of scientific data, is not and will not do what is necessary to forestall the worst effects of climate change that looms, forebodingly. God help my progeny.
Carlos, I suspect you are right. I think about that every time I am with my grand nieces and nephews. How is it we are not putting out ads and other communications that show children, asking "what kind of future are you/we preparing for our children?" I find it ridiculous and ironic that Republicans/conservative Christians are so desperate for forced birth when the planet is in such crisis. There is a real disconnect there. I am not sure it is ignorance on their part or just that they needed an issue to win on and forced birth is it (which in my mind is worse).
Apparently, abortion is uniting rw but can't on the left.
A report yesterday found only 40% of Gen Z plan to vote now--this most important election of our lifetime. Even if abortion issue wanes--in their fantasy minds (it's only going to get worse!) there is Democracy vs Fascism on everyone's ballot. 60% youth in US don't care. W-T???!!!
I agree--loving kindness toward all should be what we aspire to. I’m afraid the problem is, too few people value it for its own sake, which has in turn made many of us much easier to corrupt.
We don't need a holy book to extend loving kindness to all creatures. We can do that without supernatural directives. The golden rule is not a quaint maxim.
My local county highway department has an opportunity to de-pollute a major rural intersection, where I live in a historic building. They want to eminent-domain all the land up to the edge of my building in order to put in a turn lane and widen the last leg of this long-term project (about a decade). We could build a large roundabout, encircling all the properties at the intersection—a church and cemetery (historical), my house—on the National Register), two other residences; turn the interior space, with suburb-like access roads, into a historic park, add more grass and trees, more future graves, more garden space . . . and much cleaner overall traffic. Here's my one big opportunity to make a direct assault on climate change, and no-one else is interested. We are still believing that climate change is all happening somewhere else, when it's these tiny decisions everywhere that will save us. Instead, we're sliding over a cliff. Everyone, google the stats on roundabouts vs. intersections. They're not just for cities. There's dramatic impact on reducing air pollution. We need to build all of them, everywhere. Also, stop accepting new plastic at the big box stores. Refuse all new plastic unless it's already wrapped around the product. Leave all this wrap-plastic in the big box's trash cans when you return..
carbon industry and energy industry invested billions untold billions in creating the anti-science cult now overtaking the country - when i was in graduate school half a century ago, it was known that climates were being drastically altered by human activity and fossil fuels. in the 80s and 90s the oil and gas and transportation industries developed and implemented strategies of science denial while claiming the opposite. it was genius PR but proof that corporate capitalism is 100% a scam and not an economic system
40 years ago I wrote on how CO2 was the issue not unburn hydrocarbons. boy did I get ripped and that was in a environmental eng. class at large University. So I hear you
not really. that depends on 1. the listerners' expectations, 2. the limits on listeners' abilities to perceive 3. the listeners' objectives
gods, like everything, else come and go. for example, in classical Greek, like Homer, the seas were red. Today we in our culture don't see red seas, not even the Red Sea. in English before about 1640 CE there were no black or white people. All people were people colored. When Einstein published his four theses, the were no galaxies. When I was a kid, there was a lady on the telephone and you asked the lady if you could talk to certain people, by name not by number. We didn't live in a big town. In Canada, in the 14th and 15th centuries, certain trees, certain bears, certain kinds of meteorological occurrences, and creatures in your dreams were people, part of society.
What is a god or not, what they say or don't say all differs from culture to culture, and person to person. To me, zombies and vampires are every day realities, but other people call them corporations. 😂
I'm nearly 80 [my next birthday, christmas day i'll be 79]. i have lived in North America, texas, oklahoma, pennsylvania, new jersey, new york, florida, Brooklyn, Westchester, the Catskills, in South America, brazil, the Amazon, in Europe, thrace, in West Asia -the Middle East, anatolia, kuwait, saudi arabia, oman, palestine. travelled and worked in dozens of different countries.
i haven't even begun to scratch the surface of 'fleeting'
i just wrote a short essay on the cultural category "god" specific to English and a handful of eurocentric cultures. 😂✌🏽😂
while I was writing, my browser quit, and when I came back, my whole thesis was gone into cyber nowhere, because of the action of cyber gremlins.
god, gods, trees, high water mark bonds, corporations, bad hair days, the consumer, the square root of -1, the average anything, two standard deviations, the big bang 3.7 billion years ago plus or minus 200 million years, gravitons, American Exceptionalism, Swiss independence and the creation of the Swiss confederation 700 years ago, black holes, chivalry, bearing arms, the perfect hoagie,
myth is a fundamental necessary feature of human culture, and human imagination is unlimited: recursion is a necessay prerequisite to human society's existence, and to human language
it's pretty much proven beyond all doubt that corporate capitalism cannot respond retionally to the cl;imate crisis and the 6th mass extinction. it's not an economic system but a value extraction system feeding the insatiable unbdead and irreversible
Isa, I think you are right about greed. It is almost as though being greedy is a badge of honor for Wall Street and most CEOs and corporate owners. Elon Musk comes to mind immediately, but there are a whole lot right up there with him including the MAGA favorite, Trump. I do not know how those who cling to them justify it with their religious beliefs that do not claim to value greed. I guess money can let the rich justify almost anything.
No one needs as much money as billionaires have, but for some people, it is like running up the score in a game, to show that they are clear winners. And of course, they love the power that comes with it. Maybe some believe that God rewards the people He has chosen, but that is a transparently false rationalization.
Add billionaire + unregulated capitalism and you have fascism which has got it's grotesque foot in the door of democracy. Ppl can say we still have regulation, aka: protections, but... BUT we now have 6 rw sociopaths on SCOTUS who are just warming up taking away Roe, our voting rights, and EPA ability to regulate our air/land/water.
Only 40% of Gen Z plan to vote this election with democracy vs fascism on their ballots. What happened to any common sense, to caring about the world we live in & caring about our own lives???
Just heard from Prof.Kirchner last night Samuel Alito also lied to a Kennedy about Roe at his confirmation hearing.That adds up to 4(inc. the 3 'rump shoved into OUR high court.Clarence Thomas also has a problem w/ a traitor wife and not reporting income.Heard that John Roberts will be taking more control.How about some old fashioned ethics John? Who ever thought our court would be turned into a political circus to benefit'the certain few'?
They suffer from a psychological dysfunction. The aspect of their personalities that would allow them to feel satiety, to feel as if they have "enough" money, power, and status, has been beaten out of them, verbally or physically, by those who raised them. They are simply incapable of ever feeling satisfied. Even if they had absolutely everything and controlled the world, it would not be "enough."
It's this same dysfunction which drove them to gain their wealth and power in the first place. HOW they gained that wealth and power is irrelevant to them (and their equally-dysfunctional admirers). For them, life is not the pleasure of beauty and interpersonal relationships, it's ONLY about their insatiable hunger for more wealth, status and power (though sycophants who will admire them can be amusing for awhile, but then are cast aside as if they were old furniture).
When you are greedy rich, a billionaire, everyone around you is a bobblehead. Awe and idolatry are all you get. It's instant "likes" every day. That goes to anyone's ego & it takes a person of real conscience & integrity to buck it and stay grounded and ethical. A very rare thing with the greedy rich.
Also, Andrea, one of the first things a fascist movement does when trying to take charge is to "put women in their place". Thus we have Dobbs. I wish people weren't looking at the small, seemingly disconnected issues, but at the standard fascist playbook unfolding before our eyes since 2015.
the rich across the world for the past 50 years have invested everything in science denial creating a science hate cult that now has its own life. it simplifies things, replaces thinking and choosing, cheap answers. people identify and then would rather die than lose that meaning to their lives, as meaningless as that meaning is to those outside the cult
even the rich now believe their own propaganda originally designed to fool people for profit
cults exist because people identify with the cult and literally would rather die than lose that reality ... e.g. cargo cults, revolutions, religious movements thrive on martyrdom
while the rich believe they are immune and their wealth means it's not going to happen to them. it's a lose lose situation that grows out of the slave trade and colonialism based on denial of biological fact from the beginning
greed is good ask Regan. It is lack of competition that allows them to be greedy. They don't want competition so they can make more money. For the most part large companies leaders have no idea what they are doing they just know how to blow smoke and take over their competition.
no culture ever during human existence has ever called greed good. it's always been classified universally as a threat to social life and human existence.
empathy is a fundamental feature of social life - birds and mammals have mirroring centers in the brains that allow them to feel what others feel. other wise laws and customs would not work.
humans are the only animal that exists based entirely on exchange networks: we produce surpluses to feed others. all humans have feelings that make others as important to us as ourselves in daily productive life. nobody lives alone responsible just for our own self. before i can buy candied sweet potatoes or pickles in a jar or donuts, whole groups of other humans have to feel and experience my hungers and spend their time effort and energies putting those products on the shelf. two million years ago, it was one guy brought in enough squirrel or catfish for me to eat while i was out picking berries and the other guy was gathering the wood and making the common pots and getting the water to cook our meals in. division of labor. we all know and trust each other that we can work for each other BEFORE we feed ourselves
taking care of each other is the only way humans can exist at all
greed makes humanity impossible. me first means all trust is forgotten
so today nobody trusts anybody so nobody is willing to do anything to end the threat to human existence that we created when we created the corporation a thing of hunger with no conscience
It's also deadly because so few ppl even care to stop billionaires from being greedy billionaires in USA. So this evil just multiplies & gets even more insidious. Buying politicians, Citizens United 2010, decided by 5 rw SCOTUS judges is wrecking our democracy right before our eyes. Greedy billionaires donors flooding our elections with lies and big $$$ + uneducated populace= suffering, oppression and destruction of life in US as we know it. Guaranteed.
The bible says, in the last days men will be lovers of themselves (selfish/greedy)... it goes on to describe the self-serving values that seem to be prevalent today. https://www.bible.com/bible/compare/2TI.3.1-3
How can one get a message to Rev Sen Warnock, or former Pres Carter, or someone with clear religious credentials and presence to call out the earlier, perhaps worse, sin of Envy (Cain slaying Abel) in such a way that all voters can understand that "The Ends [tax cuts for millionaires] DO NOT Justify The Means [right-wing media inspiring hatred, xenophobia, murder, gun-violence and even attacking Speaker Pelosi's husband]"
anyone who believes there are white races for one already does not know either religion or biology, and anyone already abusing themselves with any notion of white superiority does not care about god at all for god says when your humble yourself and serve others [like the good Samaritan or the good centurion] you serve god. 'love your neighbor like they are you yourself" is a command not a recommendation and Jesus says those who don't put others ahead of themselves can't enter heaven. SO: if they already haven't heard that message and still hold onto their whiteness, they are irredeemably damned.
Jesus further says not to hold yourself special because you are made special but repent because god can make white people from coal dust if god wanted white folk.
God says that in order to follow him, you must die to self (the opposite of selfishness). If you chose to follow him, his instruction is to 'love thy neighbor as thyself' and to 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. You cannot fulfill his instruction (follow him) and be selfish. God instructs us to love one another. The opposite of love is selfishness. Selfishness allows you to place yourself above others or place others below you. Once you view yourself as better than another, and/or others as less than yourself, you can justify treating as 'less than' or justify treating them different than you would treat yourself or those you love (from telling a white lie to killing them). This is disobeying god=sin.
the parable on the good Samaritan illustrates and explains the Law of Moses commandments [not recommendations] on how to love god: “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, “I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (NIV)
it is only when we give mercy to others do we know god's mercy to ourselves. god we see lives in our hearts and minds our inner being. Another is the good Centurion. it is only when we love another so much we would give everything do we know real faith in god.
the fourfold boddhisattva vow and the eightfold noble path buddhism lay out in detail this way of Christ, kenosis. who being the essence of god's inner core instead made himself nothing and became a slave, when he became one of us. Jesus is the Messiah because the Pure Land Buddha serves us without distinction and with boundless mercy. Namo Amida Bu
pope francis Jorge Mario Bergoglio says faith and prayer work like this, first you pray for the hungry and then you feed them and frankly you can't do that unless you love god somewhere in your heart and trust god like the Centurion whose faith was greater than all of Palestine's
'Church' leadership (in general, not all) has decided they can't beat the world, so they'd rather join it (instead of being in the world but not of the world, which would allow them to represent god and be an example of his love). They would rather pick and chose the parts of god's word that serve their own, selfish purpose, rather than serving the purpose of god. So they have decided to skip over scriptures like those we are discussing. This is no surprise to black ppl. So called 'christians' used scripture to justify slavery as well. Even now, selective scriptures are being used to justify something other than loving thy neighbor as thyself (because selfishness allows you to believe that your neighbor is beneath you and unworthy of love and/or god's grace... even though god determined who he gave it to, not you).
Isa, I am using your brilliant writing to attract attention to a book I think everyone should read-young and old. It gives a very interesting picture of America in all these contexts”In the Middle of Everywhere” by Mary Pipher.
Here’s to viewing us from the outside in . And it allows an opportunity to become “better”!
At my Mothers’ funeral I wrote:
“ Look up, the heavens have your answers, NATURE will prevail,
Look down, look to the left, YOU, look to the right ME, ONE, LOVE.
The people who put forth the capital to establish the company says, " We put up the money to start this business and had we not done so there would be no product to sell and you would not have a job.
Therefore we deserve to reap the profits from this enterprise.
Labor responds with, " What you say is true, but don't forget, without our labor there would not be a product to sell either. And, you need to provide us with a living wage, safe working conditions, and a retirement program as an award for our life-long devotion to your company.
“We put up the money to start this business and had we not done so there would be no product to sell and you would not have a job.”
And the response to that is “We built the roads that allow you to get your supplies and ship your products. We provide the courts and police that make it possible for you to create and keep your business. We provide the education that gives you workers capable of doing the jobs you need done to have a business. HAD WE NOT DONE SO there would be no way for you to even start and you would not have a business.
“So fuck off with your ‘We did it all’ self-made success crap.”
Christopher, it is amazing that corporate guys don't even think of their workers or pretty much anything else beyond the bottom line which they want to be enormous. They don't want to pay workers, they don't want to pay taxes, and they don't want to be part of their community. They do want to buy candidates who will let them continue to let them navel-gaze while raking in the bucks. When they screw up, though, they want to be bailed out. Wow, that's the life of a toddler! We sure do like to have toddlers in charge of things!
Daniel, this is the problem. We hardly have a choice on what we can buy that doesn’t support the right wing. I have purchased my holiday gifts from local artists. So far it’s working well. But not everyone can avoid giving to the right wing. Major stores, grocers are overwhelmingly owned by the right.
We have numbers and we must figure out what to do with that. We’re up against the wall.
When I read about the Uihleins, owners of uline box company, being one of the largest R donors I asked other artists to band together and find another source of shipping containers to ship our products. We will pay more. We will hardly dent the business of the Uihleins. It is almost impossible to spend my money responsibly and buy needed goods.
There's no such thing as a "self-made millionaire". Yes, without that particular person driving things the business wouldn't have happened. But they could not have done it without the resources and support provided by countless others.
(Did Microsoft get founded in the middle of the Sahara? Did Bezos package every shipment with his own hands?)
Worse. The tax code and Reagan policies made it easier and more profitable in the short term to break up companies than to perpetuate them.
From an investor's perspective, need to know whether to buy and hold, or to sell short.
From an employee's perspective -- whether labor or management -- need to know whether there's going to be a job tomorrow.
A good investor wants to know whether a company has a living wage, safe working conditions, and a retirement program or is only interested in share price.
Daniel, you are right about honest investors wanting a solid workforce. How is it, though that so many huge corporations don't have that solid workforce - huge turnovers, low wages, poor working conditions, and more but still get investment dollars? When an industry has proven to be bad for a community due to pollution and other factors, the cry to keep it doing what it is doing is "you'll lose jobs," as though that is more important than the health of the people living there who are likely not to have health insurance. We need a new market structure.
Many other problems. Corporations are not democratic (that was a small "d"}. Authoritarian. In some cases, feudal.
Big fish eat little fish. Big corporations preclude small companies and especially individuals from competing.
Big corporations amass capital that little guys can't get.
Individual investors have little chance against institutional competition. The playing field is fixed.
Too much insider trading. Preferential dealing.
I identify with individuals. Humans. People are not inanimate objects. 14th Amendment due process and equal protection should only apply to humans not fictional entities. Corporate interests have taken over many governmental functions. Republicans demand outsourcing -- to themselves and like minded political donors. Many regulations are written by lobbyists to preclude competition.
Reagan and John Wayne spent the war playing musical bedrooms in Hollywood while the real men were out fighting the Axis threat. I hope that those two are crawling through the burning coals of Hell being ridden by fire-ejaculating demons forever.
Daniel, yes it was the tax structure. I still don't understand separating capital gains from other income. Corporations seem to benefit from the change but individuals who sell stocks, for example, end up paying a large tax on any capital gains which are mostly far less than what corporations get.
It's the most unjust non-tax we have in this country. Why should someone who has enough money to buy and sell on the tock market not have to pay tax on money to which he puts forward no personal effort to earn? That's just for letting his extra money sit somewhere, parked and inert, not producing wealth, certainly not actually creating anything. What's monetary wealth for?
And, they might add, "And don't forget that without good pay, we will not have enough money to buy this product." Henry Ford was the only industrialist who came close to understanding this, fascist though he may have been, according to some.
answer is to have employee ownership think if investors just put up money and get ownership employees should as well then they will work hard and be more productive and make more for all
The answer is to have corporate (and political) leaders who recognize they have three constituencies whos needs they must serve equally. Not JUST shareholders, but Employees and Customers also.
You return long term value to shareholders by treating Employees and Customers well.
Maureen, Yes, organize. It is really hard, though since corporations are now allowed to badger, threaten, and force workers to experience long anti-union presentations when the people want to organize. It seems to me that won't change until some decent legislation ending the intimidation is passed.
Ruth, we keep having to repeat history unfortunately but we have a lot of examples of people having enough and showing up on the streets, shutting down businesses (blacks refusing to ride buses during 60s civil rights era) unions being harassed by police but fighting back.
It might not be pretty but we can win or we can fight. Those are the options. Non-compliance of the majority can take a lot of the right wing power away. Money is speech in the US and companies pay attention when they can’t sustain their businesses.
But first, let’s see if we win! We will unless we have a full coup. In which case, I’m not letting them have my country. It will take a fight, it will take sacrifice.
Actually, Ruth, corporations are not legally allowed to badger, threaten, and force workers to experience long anti-union presentations when the people want to organize. We just need to keep pressure on the National Labor Relations Board to do its job. It's already granted the workers at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama a revote on unionizing due to the company's violating the Labor Relations Act during the campaign for their first vote. Although the union lost the second vote, it was close. We just have to keep at it.
Joyevolved, thanks for that link. I've been wondering what we should do if the Dems go down in flames on 11/8 as the polls are predicting. It seems like an impossible task to prevail against Big Tech, the 1%, MAGA, et al. But although I am old, I don't want to be useless. Waiting to see what Prof. Reich thinks needs to happen and if there is any way forward.
True. But how you explained to brainwashed people. I worked at Bealls Florida warehouse and they hired a guy to come and talk about how bad unions are. This after giving a free lunch and after he talk free ice cream and most part of the employees where cubans immigrants. Sad. They know what they doing. And now days people educate themselves by Facebook or YouTube.
Professor Reich apologized for the long explanation - but that is part of the problem: the truth is "stranger than fiction" and doesn't fit in a soundbite; the forces of bozo evil prey upon the public leveraging that very fact - as evinced by their hypervigillence regarding "defund the police" & radicalization of a dim-witted, otherwise unassuming base.
Who knew exploitation could be so ugly (and obvious)?
True... but in an Information Age it is... difficult... to feel sympathy: some (if not all) of the ignorance is willful... and the confusion stems from learned helplessness (which arises from the same bad attitudes since Reagan); the bad ideas have been debunked!!
While I've pretty much lived through the chapter in American History described in Dr. Reich's "Great Power-Shift" posting I, obviously, lack the detailed understanding of this era. (I'm at that age where I forget a lot of stuff) Yet, every bit of what he points out makes total sense to me as "lived experience" from an observational perspective. However, in my simple mind, I just feel all of this traces back to the so-called "Powell memo" to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1973 (I think - maybe 72) setting the guideposts to turning America away from the "New Deal" into the "marriage" of the board room, the court room, and the political caucus "room." (Put into "full bloom" by the Reagan administration) It's been a while since I read Powell's "memo" and I don't remember the details, nor the details of the two books which focused on it but, to me, it's not hard to put the impetus of the previous 40+ years' assault on America's Middle Class right at Lewis Powell's "feet." In fact, Powell, shortly after laying the "groundwork" for turning America into a corporatist state, was nominated to the Supreme Court. We've had this discussion here before - but this is a true recipe for fascism.
I would like to add just a few things to your outstanding summary of how we came to find ourselves in our present predicament. First. Trumpism is a convenient term to describe the descent of the Republican Party into authoritarianism. It was there before Donald Trump and will continue after he leaves the scene. It is a process that began in 1912 when the GOP turned away from any notions of social justice and came under the sway of Big Business and plutocrats. Dedicated to destroying the New Deal order, it accelerated in 1964 when the libertarian right mounted it’s unsuccessful takeover attempt during the Goldwater campaign. But it really took off during the Reagan years and continued apace during the administration of George W. Bush and Donald Trump, abetted along the way by Democrats like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. It is a campaign that has been orchestrated by the masters of the dark money universe whose central operator is Charles Koch and many others of great wealth. Second. These malefactors have been able to do what they’re doing because the American constitutional system is seriously flawed. Most notable among its many defects is the role money and the private sector play in American politics and public policy making due to certain constitutional structures. Third. What you so well describe is really late-stage capitalism, a system that is social Darwinistic and exploitative by nature. One, that if we allow it to stay the course ,is going to destroy not only the United States, but the entire planet as well.
Well said, Jim. Musk taking over Twitter is one more nail in the coffin for Democracy. I am wondering if anything can be done against the powers-that-be who have so much wealth and power. There might have been a chance if such a large segment of the voters weren't so ignorant and misled, and such a large segment of elected officials anxious to serve their big money masters. Trump was just a useful village idiot who helped them end democracy.
Leslie: Thank you for the kind words. I believe the answer to your question, in the near term at least, is no. The radical right has simply amassed far too much power to be stopped now. Unlike what passes for a left , something that really doesn’t exist in the U.S., the right is organized, focused and has been playing the long game since at least 1964. Truth be told, getting nearly half the American population to embrace its fascistic ideas wasn’t hard in a nation such as this one marked as it is racism, sexism, nativism, anti-intellectualism, chauvinism, fundamentalist religiosity and love of business. If we had an educational system that actually aimed to produce a nation of critical thinkers rather than a interchangeable parts things might have been better but we don’t, and they aren’t. One caveat: Do not underestimate Donald Trump. Conventional wisdom aside, Trump is not stupid. He may be a dim bulb in terms of his academic deficits but he’s possessed of a con man’s intelligence —the ability to read people and situations in order exploit them for self aggrandizement — and that makes him formidable. Just look what he’s done to the American political system. Trump is not an anomaly, he is a standard-issue 21st century Republican. The question is whether the real power brokers in the GOP, the libertarian plutocrats who underwrite the campaigns of Republican office holders, can bring him to heel or whether they have the wolf by the ears. Time will tell. Either way, it’s going to be a bump by ride.
I agree with most of what you’ve said Jim, but I’m always leery when there’s talk of our Constitution not being adequate. I studied the Constitution in Law school. I think it’s a governing document that works beautifully, written by geniuses whose only agenda was to write a governing document that was ageless and adaptable well into the future.
The problem is the people who interpret it. From time to time politicians have an agenda or are pushing a political movement and find that the Constitution interferes with what they want to
do. We’re dealing with a republican agenda right now and guess what? They want to write a new Constitution.
“Conservatives want to call an Article V convention to add a balanced-budget amendment and other ideas. All they need is the approval of 34 state legislatures (no governor’s signature needed) to compel Congress to call such a gathering. Right now, 28 states have passed resolutions calling for an Article V convention.” (Source: “The biggest Threat to Democracy that Nobody is talking About” by Jonathan Capeheart, WaPo, Sept. 4, 2018.)
The last thing we need right now is a convention to write a new Constitution. I guarantee it wouldn’t have a bona fide Bill of Rights. Plus, I’m guessing a new Constitution would lean toward protecting wealth over personal rights.
At any rate, there’s a relatively simple way to deal with the over-the top-greed and corruption of Senators and Reps. We need to pass laws that allow only public money for campaigning. All private donations should be made illegal. The Federal Election Commission should give each candidate the same amount of money and collect receipts for expenditures. Once the money has been spent, that candidate is done with campaigning.
Think about it...campaign donations are nothing but bribes. Money, in the form of campaign donations is why Congress can’t pass a law to rein in Rx costs--because Pharma gives huge campaign donations, and too many people in Congress don’t want to jeopardize those donations. It’s also why Congress can’t pass gun reform laws with real teeth and why we can’t get healthcare coverage like Medicare For All--the insurance industry and the NRA give enormous campaign donations and too many members in Congress won’t jeopardize those donations.
I could go on, but you get the idea. If we take the incentive away, (money) fewer greedy people will run for Congress. As things stand now, getting elected to Congress is like winning the lottery.
Of course we also need to pass laws that heavily penalize members of Congress for insider trading and other transgressions having to do with money. I think we already have some laws about those things but they aren’t being enforced.
The upshot of all the money being raked in by some members Congress, is that they no longer work on behalf of their constituents, they’re working for corporations and wealthy donors. Do you honestly think we would have had a President like Donald Trump if he couldn’t use his office to engage in self-enrichment? I don’t.
Everything we’re going through now--magas, Trump cultists, the endless snark & lies, the insurrection, corruption etc. is because of money & greed. It’s destroying our country and if we don’t do something to rein it in asap, well, the future will be pretty bleak. In order to pass laws to take money away as an incentive we need a clear majority in both the House & Senate.
If we achieve that, the first order of business should be to pass those laws.
I feel like I'm reliving a nightmare. "HolloweenETC" The factory I grew up with from the'60's through 2000is a slab of concrete on the side of a highway where everyday residents of bedroom communities drive a hundred miles to warehouses in the sky. I don't miss the work but I hate that international corporations bought American institutions and gutted them. All trends can be reversed but where is the will (incentive and hope) to take it away from the nightmare back to the "DREAM"?
This is an amazingly comprehensive and lucid summary. Thank you, Prof. Reich. Reflecting others' comments, I think we need to organize. Also we need forms of business enterprise where everyone can have a substantial ownership share. There are such models, I am not familiar with them and would love it if someone knowledgeable responds with more about that. And we need micro-financing too. These measures alone aren't enough. Today's news that Elon Musk took over Twitter sets off all the alarm bells. We're already in an economic environment where some individuals exceed the clout of nations and where monopolistic enterprises function as hostile sovereign states within our country. I wonder how that situation will evolve. Are we already at its culminating threshold? The thrust of this increasing divide and corporatization strikes me as something more than greed. This engine of power is structural, as Robert Reich points out. It's a complex runaway feedback loop. For the super-rich (read hyper-powerful), life can become a self-referential journey for those who aren't moved to consider the effects on everyone else. The destabilization of the engines of power is already evident in history when people in desperation revolt in one scenario. In another, the powerful turn masses of people against each other in war, conquest, colonialization (economic and otherwise) and the authoritarian elitism of totalitarian states. This leads me to another partial remedy. Get to know your neighbors, even those who disagree with you. Advocate for the poor and those who can't get ahead. I look forward to reading part II.
We are watching a return to the wealth distribution under medieval feudalism, with corporate ownership taking the place of land ownership. Such a discrepancy in wealth distribution has invariably led to class war and the systematic extirpation of the current oligarchy. If our history classes were more accurate in our public school systems, more Americans would know that.
The state of North Dakota has had a state owned - state operated banking system for a hundred years or more, the only state as far as I know that has one. All the profits are plowed back into the state of ND, none of the profits leave the state. Now I ask you, How cool is that?
We could use North Dakota's banking system as a model to add banking services for little people to our US Post Office. Other counties do it and its works just fine for them. A wealthy tycoon is destroying the US Postal system right now so he can "privatize" postal service. Adding banking would interfere with his assault.
Reading the Professors letter gives me much to think about, as business matters are pretty much foreign to me. It isn't very encouraging to read, and I look forward to next weeks letter that will contain what can be done about the situation. In response to your comment on "too big to fail", I think 'too big SHOULD fail', especially if they fall into the category of shoveling every profit to the top and leaving workers in the dust. I believe that every worker is an 'essential worker'. I also think that if these huge companies deemed 'too big to fail' DO fail, then doesn't that open an opportunity for other start up companies to evolve, or am I showing my lack of business acumen?
Celeste Knowles; It is smart to question about things we don't understand, especially when these large businesses have so much power and do harm to so many workers and communities. I want to understand more, too.
Obama let big bankers off the hook for the damage they did to the economy, and he didn't prosecute war criminals in the previous administration who lied us into Iraq and condoned torture. As a result, he gave a lot of people the impression that mainstream Republicans were bad and Democrats were complicit. Hence Trump.
Glenn A : it is tempting to criticise Obama, but he had the challenge of trying to improve health care by getting the Affordable Health Care Act passed. Republicans never let up on opposition to it and tried many many times (still do) to eliminate it. I don't believe that Republicans, even before tRump, deserved their pay, or seats because they actually say that their agenda is to block all legislation and laws proposed by the Democrats. Party of obstruction. They believe that a good defense is a strong offense, and do not have the decency to care who it hurts! Throw the bums out!
I think a lot of people voted for Trump just as a protest against traditional politics, which seems like an insider game. I see their point, but I strongly disagree with the idea of voting for Trump as an appropriate way to protest.
John, I agree with you. Obama had a short period of time to get accomplishments in. He also failed to pardon whistleblowers. He gets a C grade from me. He tended Centrist, just what we don’t need.
Obama is definitely a good, moral man, which stands in such stark contrast to Trump. But I always thought he would have benefitted from a few more years in the Senate. He apparently thought so, too, but his popularity increased so swiftly the tide carried him along to the Presidency.
Robert. Fascism is corporate rule and that’s where we are. When I lived in California, I called out a company for an illegal practice. They tried to convince me I was mistaken. I contacted the Attorney General & he sent a letter to the company. They fell over themselves making things right. In California, consumer rights were king. Now, that has dissipated.
I’ve been involved with 2 class action suits. They owe people money for their faulty products but you must have years old receipts, three attempts to contact company about issue, on and on. I had all of this with Kenmore (front load washer) and Audi. Audi wanted every single maintenance schedule on the car for 12 years. (I got it from the dealer). It took me one year of fighting!
Who else has the ability or records to do this? One payment was $500, the other $1200. In both cases I involved the attorney generals.
This is also harder to do because attorney generals only control companies in their states. Most are overseas now.
These changes flipped the protections from consumer to company!
Let’s not cower! Get out and vote! I did yesterday at an early voting location with a drop box for my mail in ballot!
I researched every single judge on the ballot..a page & half! Go to your Board of Election sites to look up any info.
WE’RE GOING TO WIN OR THEY GET A REVOLUTION OF SOME SORT…SHUT DOWNS, NON-COMPLIANCE ETC. THINK OF OUR IRANIAN SISTERS AND FIGHT!
Thank you, Professor, for the history of labor and working class and corporate power in the USA. Corporations seem to always win, to make sure their bottom line fills their pockets. As more women and people of color have been educated and entered the labor market, and unions have lost power, economic inequality is part of our government and corporate world. High school technical training is mostly not happening, so unprepared graduates without college degrees are very low on the income chain. As a female elementary teacher from 1980 to 2017, teacher salaries changed dramatically, but didn’t exactly keep up with inflation. There were more women teachers in the lower grades and pay was not only low, but wildly different in high schools and colleges than elementary. And even between Districts. And often teachers and teacher unions negotiated for benefits at the expense of salary to lower taxes. But that meant living with less income. They also were sold the idea to buy IRAs and annuities as tax shelters. This gave front end commission to financial sales people. Often the investments lost or only slowly gained because of market fluctuations, low fixed interest and contract agreements. Now we pay: taxes on the interest and withdrawals that increase our income. I should have paid taxes on my much lower salary. And for less educated or as Unions have lost power, untrained workers, those at the ground level working for wages and often no benefits or union protection, read Barbara Ehrenreich’s “ Nickel and Dimed” https://
Nickel and Dimed is a must read for anyone wanting to know what it's like working low-wage jobs. Ehrenreich (who died recently) actually worked the jobs she wrote about. It's interesting to me that we don't find women who work low-wage jobs getting all bitter and complaining about being "replaced," not to mention the absence of weapons among them.
Thank you, Bob, for this succinct explanation of the economic and political forces producing the Great Inequality. One additional feature of this period is how we spent the great peace dividend that resulted from the collapse of the Soviet Union: on needless wars. The trillions "W" spent on the fiasco in Iraq could have been spent on public goods that had great returns: schools, roads, bridges, environmental reclamation, healthcare. Cui Bono? Certainly neither the people who fought nor the innocent bystanders
Corporate capitalism and Democracy are mutually incompatible, without a good public education system and higher education accessible to all, not merely to the well-to-do. We need more legislative regulation of capitalism, before a class war becomes both inevitable and desirable.
all human societies have always had one cultural feature in common: the highest evil is greed and the highest good is giving and not taking. After WWII, and the ascent of Thatcher Reaganism and Harvard Business School Wharton, greed has been institutionalized as our culture's aspiration of aspirations, while giving to the poor, oppressed, and deprived has been demonized and criminalized. We all pay the price, with the climate catastrophe the final installment
It is greatly feared that our civilization, conditioned to the profit motive to the exclusion of scientific data, is not and will not do what is necessary to forestall the worst effects of climate change that looms, forebodingly. God help my progeny.
Carlos, I suspect you are right. I think about that every time I am with my grand nieces and nephews. How is it we are not putting out ads and other communications that show children, asking "what kind of future are you/we preparing for our children?" I find it ridiculous and ironic that Republicans/conservative Christians are so desperate for forced birth when the planet is in such crisis. There is a real disconnect there. I am not sure it is ignorance on their part or just that they needed an issue to win on and forced birth is it (which in my mind is worse).
I believe it is that they needed an issue, abortion, to band them. I believe they care more about the fight than the issue.
Apparently, abortion is uniting rw but can't on the left.
A report yesterday found only 40% of Gen Z plan to vote now--this most important election of our lifetime. Even if abortion issue wanes--in their fantasy minds (it's only going to get worse!) there is Democracy vs Fascism on everyone's ballot. 60% youth in US don't care. W-T???!!!
There are no words for this.
Apathy is deadly.
‘Loving-kindness’ should be extended to all living creatures,per the Torah; seems so quaint a maxim these sad days!
I agree--loving kindness toward all should be what we aspire to. I’m afraid the problem is, too few people value it for its own sake, which has in turn made many of us much easier to corrupt.
We don't need a holy book to extend loving kindness to all creatures. We can do that without supernatural directives. The golden rule is not a quaint maxim.
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Like button doesn't work. So true!
My local county highway department has an opportunity to de-pollute a major rural intersection, where I live in a historic building. They want to eminent-domain all the land up to the edge of my building in order to put in a turn lane and widen the last leg of this long-term project (about a decade). We could build a large roundabout, encircling all the properties at the intersection—a church and cemetery (historical), my house—on the National Register), two other residences; turn the interior space, with suburb-like access roads, into a historic park, add more grass and trees, more future graves, more garden space . . . and much cleaner overall traffic. Here's my one big opportunity to make a direct assault on climate change, and no-one else is interested. We are still believing that climate change is all happening somewhere else, when it's these tiny decisions everywhere that will save us. Instead, we're sliding over a cliff. Everyone, google the stats on roundabouts vs. intersections. They're not just for cities. There's dramatic impact on reducing air pollution. We need to build all of them, everywhere. Also, stop accepting new plastic at the big box stores. Refuse all new plastic unless it's already wrapped around the product. Leave all this wrap-plastic in the big box's trash cans when you return..
Heart.
carbon industry and energy industry invested billions untold billions in creating the anti-science cult now overtaking the country - when i was in graduate school half a century ago, it was known that climates were being drastically altered by human activity and fossil fuels. in the 80s and 90s the oil and gas and transportation industries developed and implemented strategies of science denial while claiming the opposite. it was genius PR but proof that corporate capitalism is 100% a scam and not an economic system
40 years ago I wrote on how CO2 was the issue not unburn hydrocarbons. boy did I get ripped and that was in a environmental eng. class at large University. So I hear you
Kudos! I agree with you on every count. Keep up the good work!
I got shafted by eminent-domain once. I feel your pain. You talk and they don
t listen. Said I know. Sorry
Unfortunately, if there are gods, they are silent, impotent, or both.
Yeah, it's an expression, not an endorsement. You can make up your own mind, I'm sure.
I hear you.
not really. that depends on 1. the listerners' expectations, 2. the limits on listeners' abilities to perceive 3. the listeners' objectives
gods, like everything, else come and go. for example, in classical Greek, like Homer, the seas were red. Today we in our culture don't see red seas, not even the Red Sea. in English before about 1640 CE there were no black or white people. All people were people colored. When Einstein published his four theses, the were no galaxies. When I was a kid, there was a lady on the telephone and you asked the lady if you could talk to certain people, by name not by number. We didn't live in a big town. In Canada, in the 14th and 15th centuries, certain trees, certain bears, certain kinds of meteorological occurrences, and creatures in your dreams were people, part of society.
What is a god or not, what they say or don't say all differs from culture to culture, and person to person. To me, zombies and vampires are every day realities, but other people call them corporations. 😂
"gods, like everything, else come and go."
Yes, they do. Human imagination may be limited, but it is also quite inventive (and fleeting).
I'm nearly 80 [my next birthday, christmas day i'll be 79]. i have lived in North America, texas, oklahoma, pennsylvania, new jersey, new york, florida, Brooklyn, Westchester, the Catskills, in South America, brazil, the Amazon, in Europe, thrace, in West Asia -the Middle East, anatolia, kuwait, saudi arabia, oman, palestine. travelled and worked in dozens of different countries.
i haven't even begun to scratch the surface of 'fleeting'
poet Basho:
the temple bell
carries scents of flowers
into the dark
i just wrote a short essay on the cultural category "god" specific to English and a handful of eurocentric cultures. 😂✌🏽😂
while I was writing, my browser quit, and when I came back, my whole thesis was gone into cyber nowhere, because of the action of cyber gremlins.
god, gods, trees, high water mark bonds, corporations, bad hair days, the consumer, the square root of -1, the average anything, two standard deviations, the big bang 3.7 billion years ago plus or minus 200 million years, gravitons, American Exceptionalism, Swiss independence and the creation of the Swiss confederation 700 years ago, black holes, chivalry, bearing arms, the perfect hoagie,
myth is a fundamental necessary feature of human culture, and human imagination is unlimited: recursion is a necessay prerequisite to human society's existence, and to human language
it's pretty much proven beyond all doubt that corporate capitalism cannot respond retionally to the cl;imate crisis and the 6th mass extinction. it's not an economic system but a value extraction system feeding the insatiable unbdead and irreversible
Isa, I think you are right about greed. It is almost as though being greedy is a badge of honor for Wall Street and most CEOs and corporate owners. Elon Musk comes to mind immediately, but there are a whole lot right up there with him including the MAGA favorite, Trump. I do not know how those who cling to them justify it with their religious beliefs that do not claim to value greed. I guess money can let the rich justify almost anything.
No one needs as much money as billionaires have, but for some people, it is like running up the score in a game, to show that they are clear winners. And of course, they love the power that comes with it. Maybe some believe that God rewards the people He has chosen, but that is a transparently false rationalization.
Add billionaire + unregulated capitalism and you have fascism which has got it's grotesque foot in the door of democracy. Ppl can say we still have regulation, aka: protections, but... BUT we now have 6 rw sociopaths on SCOTUS who are just warming up taking away Roe, our voting rights, and EPA ability to regulate our air/land/water.
Only 40% of Gen Z plan to vote this election with democracy vs fascism on their ballots. What happened to any common sense, to caring about the world we live in & caring about our own lives???
Just heard from Prof.Kirchner last night Samuel Alito also lied to a Kennedy about Roe at his confirmation hearing.That adds up to 4(inc. the 3 'rump shoved into OUR high court.Clarence Thomas also has a problem w/ a traitor wife and not reporting income.Heard that John Roberts will be taking more control.How about some old fashioned ethics John? Who ever thought our court would be turned into a political circus to benefit'the certain few'?
Always has. One time they ruled that a horse had more rights than a women. No kidding.
They suffer from a psychological dysfunction. The aspect of their personalities that would allow them to feel satiety, to feel as if they have "enough" money, power, and status, has been beaten out of them, verbally or physically, by those who raised them. They are simply incapable of ever feeling satisfied. Even if they had absolutely everything and controlled the world, it would not be "enough."
It's this same dysfunction which drove them to gain their wealth and power in the first place. HOW they gained that wealth and power is irrelevant to them (and their equally-dysfunctional admirers). For them, life is not the pleasure of beauty and interpersonal relationships, it's ONLY about their insatiable hunger for more wealth, status and power (though sycophants who will admire them can be amusing for awhile, but then are cast aside as if they were old furniture).
rich folk develop an inability to experience others as whole people. their empathy only applies to others who in their same class.
My sentiments exactly
When you are greedy rich, a billionaire, everyone around you is a bobblehead. Awe and idolatry are all you get. It's instant "likes" every day. That goes to anyone's ego & it takes a person of real conscience & integrity to buck it and stay grounded and ethical. A very rare thing with the greedy rich.
Also, Andrea, one of the first things a fascist movement does when trying to take charge is to "put women in their place". Thus we have Dobbs. I wish people weren't looking at the small, seemingly disconnected issues, but at the standard fascist playbook unfolding before our eyes since 2015.
the rich across the world for the past 50 years have invested everything in science denial creating a science hate cult that now has its own life. it simplifies things, replaces thinking and choosing, cheap answers. people identify and then would rather die than lose that meaning to their lives, as meaningless as that meaning is to those outside the cult
even the rich now believe their own propaganda originally designed to fool people for profit
cults exist because people identify with the cult and literally would rather die than lose that reality ... e.g. cargo cults, revolutions, religious movements thrive on martyrdom
while the rich believe they are immune and their wealth means it's not going to happen to them. it's a lose lose situation that grows out of the slave trade and colonialism based on denial of biological fact from the beginning
greed is good ask Regan. It is lack of competition that allows them to be greedy. They don't want competition so they can make more money. For the most part large companies leaders have no idea what they are doing they just know how to blow smoke and take over their competition.
no culture ever during human existence has ever called greed good. it's always been classified universally as a threat to social life and human existence.
empathy is a fundamental feature of social life - birds and mammals have mirroring centers in the brains that allow them to feel what others feel. other wise laws and customs would not work.
humans are the only animal that exists based entirely on exchange networks: we produce surpluses to feed others. all humans have feelings that make others as important to us as ourselves in daily productive life. nobody lives alone responsible just for our own self. before i can buy candied sweet potatoes or pickles in a jar or donuts, whole groups of other humans have to feel and experience my hungers and spend their time effort and energies putting those products on the shelf. two million years ago, it was one guy brought in enough squirrel or catfish for me to eat while i was out picking berries and the other guy was gathering the wood and making the common pots and getting the water to cook our meals in. division of labor. we all know and trust each other that we can work for each other BEFORE we feed ourselves
taking care of each other is the only way humans can exist at all
greed makes humanity impossible. me first means all trust is forgotten
so today nobody trusts anybody so nobody is willing to do anything to end the threat to human existence that we created when we created the corporation a thing of hunger with no conscience
Absolutely!
Thank you, Ruth, good observation
This may be why the Catholics call Greed a "Deadly Sin". As our planet cooks, it appears that "deadly" is not hyperbole.
It's also deadly because so few ppl even care to stop billionaires from being greedy billionaires in USA. So this evil just multiplies & gets even more insidious. Buying politicians, Citizens United 2010, decided by 5 rw SCOTUS judges is wrecking our democracy right before our eyes. Greedy billionaires donors flooding our elections with lies and big $$$ + uneducated populace= suffering, oppression and destruction of life in US as we know it. Guaranteed.
The bible says, in the last days men will be lovers of themselves (selfish/greedy)... it goes on to describe the self-serving values that seem to be prevalent today. https://www.bible.com/bible/compare/2TI.3.1-3
The bible says a lot of things and most of the are of extremely low value.
My wife said almost the same thing.
How can one get a message to Rev Sen Warnock, or former Pres Carter, or someone with clear religious credentials and presence to call out the earlier, perhaps worse, sin of Envy (Cain slaying Abel) in such a way that all voters can understand that "The Ends [tax cuts for millionaires] DO NOT Justify The Means [right-wing media inspiring hatred, xenophobia, murder, gun-violence and even attacking Speaker Pelosi's husband]"
best post I have read here good job
We need Sen.Warnock and he needs our support!
anyone who believes there are white races for one already does not know either religion or biology, and anyone already abusing themselves with any notion of white superiority does not care about god at all for god says when your humble yourself and serve others [like the good Samaritan or the good centurion] you serve god. 'love your neighbor like they are you yourself" is a command not a recommendation and Jesus says those who don't put others ahead of themselves can't enter heaven. SO: if they already haven't heard that message and still hold onto their whiteness, they are irredeemably damned.
Jesus further says not to hold yourself special because you are made special but repent because god can make white people from coal dust if god wanted white folk.
God says that in order to follow him, you must die to self (the opposite of selfishness). If you chose to follow him, his instruction is to 'love thy neighbor as thyself' and to 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. You cannot fulfill his instruction (follow him) and be selfish. God instructs us to love one another. The opposite of love is selfishness. Selfishness allows you to place yourself above others or place others below you. Once you view yourself as better than another, and/or others as less than yourself, you can justify treating as 'less than' or justify treating them different than you would treat yourself or those you love (from telling a white lie to killing them). This is disobeying god=sin.
the parable on the good Samaritan illustrates and explains the Law of Moses commandments [not recommendations] on how to love god: “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, “I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (NIV)
it is only when we give mercy to others do we know god's mercy to ourselves. god we see lives in our hearts and minds our inner being. Another is the good Centurion. it is only when we love another so much we would give everything do we know real faith in god.
the fourfold boddhisattva vow and the eightfold noble path buddhism lay out in detail this way of Christ, kenosis. who being the essence of god's inner core instead made himself nothing and became a slave, when he became one of us. Jesus is the Messiah because the Pure Land Buddha serves us without distinction and with boundless mercy. Namo Amida Bu
pope francis Jorge Mario Bergoglio says faith and prayer work like this, first you pray for the hungry and then you feed them and frankly you can't do that unless you love god somewhere in your heart and trust god like the Centurion whose faith was greater than all of Palestine's
'Church' leadership (in general, not all) has decided they can't beat the world, so they'd rather join it (instead of being in the world but not of the world, which would allow them to represent god and be an example of his love). They would rather pick and chose the parts of god's word that serve their own, selfish purpose, rather than serving the purpose of god. So they have decided to skip over scriptures like those we are discussing. This is no surprise to black ppl. So called 'christians' used scripture to justify slavery as well. Even now, selective scriptures are being used to justify something other than loving thy neighbor as thyself (because selfishness allows you to believe that your neighbor is beneath you and unworthy of love and/or god's grace... even though god determined who he gave it to, not you).
"The Love of Money is the Root of All Evil".
No republicans are the root of all evil
root and leaf and fruit of the tree. we eat the evil and we become it
root and branch and tree
money is just there god
not only there, but their god too
Therefore, their love of money is the root of all their evil doings. What's your point?
Isa, I am using your brilliant writing to attract attention to a book I think everyone should read-young and old. It gives a very interesting picture of America in all these contexts”In the Middle of Everywhere” by Mary Pipher.
Here’s to viewing us from the outside in . And it allows an opportunity to become “better”!
At my Mothers’ funeral I wrote:
“ Look up, the heavens have your answers, NATURE will prevail,
Look down, look to the left, YOU, look to the right ME, ONE, LOVE.
The people who put forth the capital to establish the company says, " We put up the money to start this business and had we not done so there would be no product to sell and you would not have a job.
Therefore we deserve to reap the profits from this enterprise.
Labor responds with, " What you say is true, but don't forget, without our labor there would not be a product to sell either. And, you need to provide us with a living wage, safe working conditions, and a retirement program as an award for our life-long devotion to your company.
“We put up the money to start this business and had we not done so there would be no product to sell and you would not have a job.”
And the response to that is “We built the roads that allow you to get your supplies and ship your products. We provide the courts and police that make it possible for you to create and keep your business. We provide the education that gives you workers capable of doing the jobs you need done to have a business. HAD WE NOT DONE SO there would be no way for you to even start and you would not have a business.
“So fuck off with your ‘We did it all’ self-made success crap.”
Christopher, it is amazing that corporate guys don't even think of their workers or pretty much anything else beyond the bottom line which they want to be enormous. They don't want to pay workers, they don't want to pay taxes, and they don't want to be part of their community. They do want to buy candidates who will let them continue to let them navel-gaze while raking in the bucks. When they screw up, though, they want to be bailed out. Wow, that's the life of a toddler! We sure do like to have toddlers in charge of things!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpYCxV51bykhMY-wSUozQRg
Daniel, this is the problem. We hardly have a choice on what we can buy that doesn’t support the right wing. I have purchased my holiday gifts from local artists. So far it’s working well. But not everyone can avoid giving to the right wing. Major stores, grocers are overwhelmingly owned by the right.
We have numbers and we must figure out what to do with that. We’re up against the wall.
This artist says thank you.
When I read about the Uihleins, owners of uline box company, being one of the largest R donors I asked other artists to band together and find another source of shipping containers to ship our products. We will pay more. We will hardly dent the business of the Uihleins. It is almost impossible to spend my money responsibly and buy needed goods.
Heart.
That creature has been a scourge on America.
Heart.
Sing it Chris!!!!!
Thank you! (I prefer Christopher.)
There's no such thing as a "self-made millionaire". Yes, without that particular person driving things the business wouldn't have happened. But they could not have done it without the resources and support provided by countless others.
(Did Microsoft get founded in the middle of the Sahara? Did Bezos package every shipment with his own hands?)
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Worse. The tax code and Reagan policies made it easier and more profitable in the short term to break up companies than to perpetuate them.
From an investor's perspective, need to know whether to buy and hold, or to sell short.
From an employee's perspective -- whether labor or management -- need to know whether there's going to be a job tomorrow.
A good investor wants to know whether a company has a living wage, safe working conditions, and a retirement program or is only interested in share price.
Daniel, you are right about honest investors wanting a solid workforce. How is it, though that so many huge corporations don't have that solid workforce - huge turnovers, low wages, poor working conditions, and more but still get investment dollars? When an industry has proven to be bad for a community due to pollution and other factors, the cry to keep it doing what it is doing is "you'll lose jobs," as though that is more important than the health of the people living there who are likely not to have health insurance. We need a new market structure.
Many other problems. Corporations are not democratic (that was a small "d"}. Authoritarian. In some cases, feudal.
Big fish eat little fish. Big corporations preclude small companies and especially individuals from competing.
Big corporations amass capital that little guys can't get.
Individual investors have little chance against institutional competition. The playing field is fixed.
Too much insider trading. Preferential dealing.
I identify with individuals. Humans. People are not inanimate objects. 14th Amendment due process and equal protection should only apply to humans not fictional entities. Corporate interests have taken over many governmental functions. Republicans demand outsourcing -- to themselves and like minded political donors. Many regulations are written by lobbyists to preclude competition.
Very unfair! They are today's robber barons.
Reagan and John Wayne spent the war playing musical bedrooms in Hollywood while the real men were out fighting the Axis threat. I hope that those two are crawling through the burning coals of Hell being ridden by fire-ejaculating demons forever.
I see you really like Uncle Ronnie and the Duke
Sadly, there's no cannibal butcher market anymore, or I'd propose something useful to do with them.
Daniel Solomon ; Wasn't G.W. Bush's policies encouraging outsourcing, with subsidies for the companies doing so?
Yes but started with Reagan tax policies. Capital gains should be taxed same as ordinary income.
Daniel, yes it was the tax structure. I still don't understand separating capital gains from other income. Corporations seem to benefit from the change but individuals who sell stocks, for example, end up paying a large tax on any capital gains which are mostly far less than what corporations get.
It's the most unjust non-tax we have in this country. Why should someone who has enough money to buy and sell on the tock market not have to pay tax on money to which he puts forward no personal effort to earn? That's just for letting his extra money sit somewhere, parked and inert, not producing wealth, certainly not actually creating anything. What's monetary wealth for?
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more they are not working
Well said Daniel
And, they might add, "And don't forget that without good pay, we will not have enough money to buy this product." Henry Ford was the only industrialist who came close to understanding this, fascist though he may have been, according to some.
answer is to have employee ownership think if investors just put up money and get ownership employees should as well then they will work hard and be more productive and make more for all
Indeed.
The answer is to have corporate (and political) leaders who recognize they have three constituencies whos needs they must serve equally. Not JUST shareholders, but Employees and Customers also.
You return long term value to shareholders by treating Employees and Customers well.
Don't mourn: organize!
Maureen, Yes, organize. It is really hard, though since corporations are now allowed to badger, threaten, and force workers to experience long anti-union presentations when the people want to organize. It seems to me that won't change until some decent legislation ending the intimidation is passed.
Ruth, we keep having to repeat history unfortunately but we have a lot of examples of people having enough and showing up on the streets, shutting down businesses (blacks refusing to ride buses during 60s civil rights era) unions being harassed by police but fighting back.
It might not be pretty but we can win or we can fight. Those are the options. Non-compliance of the majority can take a lot of the right wing power away. Money is speech in the US and companies pay attention when they can’t sustain their businesses.
But first, let’s see if we win! We will unless we have a full coup. In which case, I’m not letting them have my country. It will take a fight, it will take sacrifice.
Actually, Ruth, corporations are not legally allowed to badger, threaten, and force workers to experience long anti-union presentations when the people want to organize. We just need to keep pressure on the National Labor Relations Board to do its job. It's already granted the workers at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama a revote on unionizing due to the company's violating the Labor Relations Act during the campaign for their first vote. Although the union lost the second vote, it was close. We just have to keep at it.
I’m with you Maureen. Let’s get results first!
And if trumpubliCons attempt to cheat us and take away our voices/votes again, we must act! Plan on it!
Joyevolved, thanks for that link. I've been wondering what we should do if the Dems go down in flames on 11/8 as the polls are predicting. It seems like an impossible task to prevail against Big Tech, the 1%, MAGA, et al. But although I am old, I don't want to be useless. Waiting to see what Prof. Reich thinks needs to happen and if there is any way forward.
Take 5 people to the poll with you. Get each of them to take 5 people.
Thanks for the link.
Will do. Same to you.
Thanks.
What a clever innovation, that site. Thanks.
True. But how you explained to brainwashed people. I worked at Bealls Florida warehouse and they hired a guy to come and talk about how bad unions are. This after giving a free lunch and after he talk free ice cream and most part of the employees where cubans immigrants. Sad. They know what they doing. And now days people educate themselves by Facebook or YouTube.
Professor Reich apologized for the long explanation - but that is part of the problem: the truth is "stranger than fiction" and doesn't fit in a soundbite; the forces of bozo evil prey upon the public leveraging that very fact - as evinced by their hypervigillence regarding "defund the police" & radicalization of a dim-witted, otherwise unassuming base.
Who knew exploitation could be so ugly (and obvious)?
True... but in an Information Age it is... difficult... to feel sympathy: some (if not all) of the ignorance is willful... and the confusion stems from learned helplessness (which arises from the same bad attitudes since Reagan); the bad ideas have been debunked!!
> = (
While I've pretty much lived through the chapter in American History described in Dr. Reich's "Great Power-Shift" posting I, obviously, lack the detailed understanding of this era. (I'm at that age where I forget a lot of stuff) Yet, every bit of what he points out makes total sense to me as "lived experience" from an observational perspective. However, in my simple mind, I just feel all of this traces back to the so-called "Powell memo" to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1973 (I think - maybe 72) setting the guideposts to turning America away from the "New Deal" into the "marriage" of the board room, the court room, and the political caucus "room." (Put into "full bloom" by the Reagan administration) It's been a while since I read Powell's "memo" and I don't remember the details, nor the details of the two books which focused on it but, to me, it's not hard to put the impetus of the previous 40+ years' assault on America's Middle Class right at Lewis Powell's "feet." In fact, Powell, shortly after laying the "groundwork" for turning America into a corporatist state, was nominated to the Supreme Court. We've had this discussion here before - but this is a true recipe for fascism.
Thank you, David. Here is a link to that memo. It's a must-read.
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/democracy/the-lewis-powell-memo-a-corporate-blueprint-to-dominate-democracy/
Thanks Gary! (I was just too lazy to look it up again :o)
Thanks! Although I have read it before, will be a good refresher to do it again!
Wow.
Book promotion here that does not have a delete option. Understood.
I would like to add just a few things to your outstanding summary of how we came to find ourselves in our present predicament. First. Trumpism is a convenient term to describe the descent of the Republican Party into authoritarianism. It was there before Donald Trump and will continue after he leaves the scene. It is a process that began in 1912 when the GOP turned away from any notions of social justice and came under the sway of Big Business and plutocrats. Dedicated to destroying the New Deal order, it accelerated in 1964 when the libertarian right mounted it’s unsuccessful takeover attempt during the Goldwater campaign. But it really took off during the Reagan years and continued apace during the administration of George W. Bush and Donald Trump, abetted along the way by Democrats like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. It is a campaign that has been orchestrated by the masters of the dark money universe whose central operator is Charles Koch and many others of great wealth. Second. These malefactors have been able to do what they’re doing because the American constitutional system is seriously flawed. Most notable among its many defects is the role money and the private sector play in American politics and public policy making due to certain constitutional structures. Third. What you so well describe is really late-stage capitalism, a system that is social Darwinistic and exploitative by nature. One, that if we allow it to stay the course ,is going to destroy not only the United States, but the entire planet as well.
Well said, Jim. Musk taking over Twitter is one more nail in the coffin for Democracy. I am wondering if anything can be done against the powers-that-be who have so much wealth and power. There might have been a chance if such a large segment of the voters weren't so ignorant and misled, and such a large segment of elected officials anxious to serve their big money masters. Trump was just a useful village idiot who helped them end democracy.
Leslie: Thank you for the kind words. I believe the answer to your question, in the near term at least, is no. The radical right has simply amassed far too much power to be stopped now. Unlike what passes for a left , something that really doesn’t exist in the U.S., the right is organized, focused and has been playing the long game since at least 1964. Truth be told, getting nearly half the American population to embrace its fascistic ideas wasn’t hard in a nation such as this one marked as it is racism, sexism, nativism, anti-intellectualism, chauvinism, fundamentalist religiosity and love of business. If we had an educational system that actually aimed to produce a nation of critical thinkers rather than a interchangeable parts things might have been better but we don’t, and they aren’t. One caveat: Do not underestimate Donald Trump. Conventional wisdom aside, Trump is not stupid. He may be a dim bulb in terms of his academic deficits but he’s possessed of a con man’s intelligence —the ability to read people and situations in order exploit them for self aggrandizement — and that makes him formidable. Just look what he’s done to the American political system. Trump is not an anomaly, he is a standard-issue 21st century Republican. The question is whether the real power brokers in the GOP, the libertarian plutocrats who underwrite the campaigns of Republican office holders, can bring him to heel or whether they have the wolf by the ears. Time will tell. Either way, it’s going to be a bump by ride.
I agree with most of what you’ve said Jim, but I’m always leery when there’s talk of our Constitution not being adequate. I studied the Constitution in Law school. I think it’s a governing document that works beautifully, written by geniuses whose only agenda was to write a governing document that was ageless and adaptable well into the future.
The problem is the people who interpret it. From time to time politicians have an agenda or are pushing a political movement and find that the Constitution interferes with what they want to
do. We’re dealing with a republican agenda right now and guess what? They want to write a new Constitution.
“Conservatives want to call an Article V convention to add a balanced-budget amendment and other ideas. All they need is the approval of 34 state legislatures (no governor’s signature needed) to compel Congress to call such a gathering. Right now, 28 states have passed resolutions calling for an Article V convention.” (Source: “The biggest Threat to Democracy that Nobody is talking About” by Jonathan Capeheart, WaPo, Sept. 4, 2018.)
The last thing we need right now is a convention to write a new Constitution. I guarantee it wouldn’t have a bona fide Bill of Rights. Plus, I’m guessing a new Constitution would lean toward protecting wealth over personal rights.
At any rate, there’s a relatively simple way to deal with the over-the top-greed and corruption of Senators and Reps. We need to pass laws that allow only public money for campaigning. All private donations should be made illegal. The Federal Election Commission should give each candidate the same amount of money and collect receipts for expenditures. Once the money has been spent, that candidate is done with campaigning.
Think about it...campaign donations are nothing but bribes. Money, in the form of campaign donations is why Congress can’t pass a law to rein in Rx costs--because Pharma gives huge campaign donations, and too many people in Congress don’t want to jeopardize those donations. It’s also why Congress can’t pass gun reform laws with real teeth and why we can’t get healthcare coverage like Medicare For All--the insurance industry and the NRA give enormous campaign donations and too many members in Congress won’t jeopardize those donations.
I could go on, but you get the idea. If we take the incentive away, (money) fewer greedy people will run for Congress. As things stand now, getting elected to Congress is like winning the lottery.
Of course we also need to pass laws that heavily penalize members of Congress for insider trading and other transgressions having to do with money. I think we already have some laws about those things but they aren’t being enforced.
The upshot of all the money being raked in by some members Congress, is that they no longer work on behalf of their constituents, they’re working for corporations and wealthy donors. Do you honestly think we would have had a President like Donald Trump if he couldn’t use his office to engage in self-enrichment? I don’t.
Everything we’re going through now--magas, Trump cultists, the endless snark & lies, the insurrection, corruption etc. is because of money & greed. It’s destroying our country and if we don’t do something to rein it in asap, well, the future will be pretty bleak. In order to pass laws to take money away as an incentive we need a clear majority in both the House & Senate.
If we achieve that, the first order of business should be to pass those laws.
I feel like I'm reliving a nightmare. "HolloweenETC" The factory I grew up with from the'60's through 2000is a slab of concrete on the side of a highway where everyday residents of bedroom communities drive a hundred miles to warehouses in the sky. I don't miss the work but I hate that international corporations bought American institutions and gutted them. All trends can be reversed but where is the will (incentive and hope) to take it away from the nightmare back to the "DREAM"?
This is an amazingly comprehensive and lucid summary. Thank you, Prof. Reich. Reflecting others' comments, I think we need to organize. Also we need forms of business enterprise where everyone can have a substantial ownership share. There are such models, I am not familiar with them and would love it if someone knowledgeable responds with more about that. And we need micro-financing too. These measures alone aren't enough. Today's news that Elon Musk took over Twitter sets off all the alarm bells. We're already in an economic environment where some individuals exceed the clout of nations and where monopolistic enterprises function as hostile sovereign states within our country. I wonder how that situation will evolve. Are we already at its culminating threshold? The thrust of this increasing divide and corporatization strikes me as something more than greed. This engine of power is structural, as Robert Reich points out. It's a complex runaway feedback loop. For the super-rich (read hyper-powerful), life can become a self-referential journey for those who aren't moved to consider the effects on everyone else. The destabilization of the engines of power is already evident in history when people in desperation revolt in one scenario. In another, the powerful turn masses of people against each other in war, conquest, colonialization (economic and otherwise) and the authoritarian elitism of totalitarian states. This leads me to another partial remedy. Get to know your neighbors, even those who disagree with you. Advocate for the poor and those who can't get ahead. I look forward to reading part II.
The ominous thing about Musk buying Twitter is that he paid all those billions for, basically, a "microphone". What will he do with it? Orwellian.
A tour de force letter for explaining the labor situation today. I look forward to the second letter.
We are watching a return to the wealth distribution under medieval feudalism, with corporate ownership taking the place of land ownership. Such a discrepancy in wealth distribution has invariably led to class war and the systematic extirpation of the current oligarchy. If our history classes were more accurate in our public school systems, more Americans would know that.
Obama did a great job as president for 8 years. My major criticism was the bailouts “Too big to fail” shouldn’t be a reality.
Derek consider this:
The state of North Dakota has had a state owned - state operated banking system for a hundred years or more, the only state as far as I know that has one. All the profits are plowed back into the state of ND, none of the profits leave the state. Now I ask you, How cool is that?
We could use North Dakota's banking system as a model to add banking services for little people to our US Post Office. Other counties do it and its works just fine for them. A wealthy tycoon is destroying the US Postal system right now so he can "privatize" postal service. Adding banking would interfere with his assault.
Reading the Professors letter gives me much to think about, as business matters are pretty much foreign to me. It isn't very encouraging to read, and I look forward to next weeks letter that will contain what can be done about the situation. In response to your comment on "too big to fail", I think 'too big SHOULD fail', especially if they fall into the category of shoveling every profit to the top and leaving workers in the dust. I believe that every worker is an 'essential worker'. I also think that if these huge companies deemed 'too big to fail' DO fail, then doesn't that open an opportunity for other start up companies to evolve, or am I showing my lack of business acumen?
Celeste Knowles; It is smart to question about things we don't understand, especially when these large businesses have so much power and do harm to so many workers and communities. I want to understand more, too.
Obama let big bankers off the hook for the damage they did to the economy, and he didn't prosecute war criminals in the previous administration who lied us into Iraq and condoned torture. As a result, he gave a lot of people the impression that mainstream Republicans were bad and Democrats were complicit. Hence Trump.
Glenn A : it is tempting to criticise Obama, but he had the challenge of trying to improve health care by getting the Affordable Health Care Act passed. Republicans never let up on opposition to it and tried many many times (still do) to eliminate it. I don't believe that Republicans, even before tRump, deserved their pay, or seats because they actually say that their agenda is to block all legislation and laws proposed by the Democrats. Party of obstruction. They believe that a good defense is a strong offense, and do not have the decency to care who it hurts! Throw the bums out!
❤
I'd like to see some 'Wizard of Oz action,where the wicked witch fizzles out,taking a breather from up top,it's downright SCARY!
Glenn A. Yes, tRump who is worse.
I think a lot of people voted for Trump just as a protest against traditional politics, which seems like an insider game. I see their point, but I strongly disagree with the idea of voting for Trump as an appropriate way to protest.
Derek Wessner ; Didn't he also support the TPP trade agreement, arguing that "It's a global economy"?
Nor did Obama impose enough sanctions when Russia invaded Crimea...and opened the door for Ukraine.
John, I agree with you. Obama had a short period of time to get accomplishments in. He also failed to pardon whistleblowers. He gets a C grade from me. He tended Centrist, just what we don’t need.
Obama is definitely a good, moral man, which stands in such stark contrast to Trump. But I always thought he would have benefitted from a few more years in the Senate. He apparently thought so, too, but his popularity increased so swiftly the tide carried him along to the Presidency.
Robert. Fascism is corporate rule and that’s where we are. When I lived in California, I called out a company for an illegal practice. They tried to convince me I was mistaken. I contacted the Attorney General & he sent a letter to the company. They fell over themselves making things right. In California, consumer rights were king. Now, that has dissipated.
I’ve been involved with 2 class action suits. They owe people money for their faulty products but you must have years old receipts, three attempts to contact company about issue, on and on. I had all of this with Kenmore (front load washer) and Audi. Audi wanted every single maintenance schedule on the car for 12 years. (I got it from the dealer). It took me one year of fighting!
Who else has the ability or records to do this? One payment was $500, the other $1200. In both cases I involved the attorney generals.
This is also harder to do because attorney generals only control companies in their states. Most are overseas now.
These changes flipped the protections from consumer to company!
Let’s not cower! Get out and vote! I did yesterday at an early voting location with a drop box for my mail in ballot!
I researched every single judge on the ballot..a page & half! Go to your Board of Election sites to look up any info.
WE’RE GOING TO WIN OR THEY GET A REVOLUTION OF SOME SORT…SHUT DOWNS, NON-COMPLIANCE ETC. THINK OF OUR IRANIAN SISTERS AND FIGHT!
Thank you, Professor, for the history of labor and working class and corporate power in the USA. Corporations seem to always win, to make sure their bottom line fills their pockets. As more women and people of color have been educated and entered the labor market, and unions have lost power, economic inequality is part of our government and corporate world. High school technical training is mostly not happening, so unprepared graduates without college degrees are very low on the income chain. As a female elementary teacher from 1980 to 2017, teacher salaries changed dramatically, but didn’t exactly keep up with inflation. There were more women teachers in the lower grades and pay was not only low, but wildly different in high schools and colleges than elementary. And even between Districts. And often teachers and teacher unions negotiated for benefits at the expense of salary to lower taxes. But that meant living with less income. They also were sold the idea to buy IRAs and annuities as tax shelters. This gave front end commission to financial sales people. Often the investments lost or only slowly gained because of market fluctuations, low fixed interest and contract agreements. Now we pay: taxes on the interest and withdrawals that increase our income. I should have paid taxes on my much lower salary. And for less educated or as Unions have lost power, untrained workers, those at the ground level working for wages and often no benefits or union protection, read Barbara Ehrenreich’s “ Nickel and Dimed” https://
www.google.com/search?q=nickel+and+dimed+summary&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari Corporations have so much power and influence and we pay.
Nickel and Dimed is a must read for anyone wanting to know what it's like working low-wage jobs. Ehrenreich (who died recently) actually worked the jobs she wrote about. It's interesting to me that we don't find women who work low-wage jobs getting all bitter and complaining about being "replaced," not to mention the absence of weapons among them.
Thank you, Bob, for this succinct explanation of the economic and political forces producing the Great Inequality. One additional feature of this period is how we spent the great peace dividend that resulted from the collapse of the Soviet Union: on needless wars. The trillions "W" spent on the fiasco in Iraq could have been spent on public goods that had great returns: schools, roads, bridges, environmental reclamation, healthcare. Cui Bono? Certainly neither the people who fought nor the innocent bystanders
Corporate capitalism and Democracy are mutually incompatible, without a good public education system and higher education accessible to all, not merely to the well-to-do. We need more legislative regulation of capitalism, before a class war becomes both inevitable and desirable.