Great subject for discussion. What's lost in our drive to acquire and amass some amount of wealth is our collective purpose in doing so. Once upon a time, the wealth owners found prosperity in lifting others out of extreme poverty and improving our overall health and standard of living after WW2. Most people were the recipients of a better life and security for future generations. But at some point (early 80s?), the wealthy got scared. Too many people were prospering and upsetting their balance of power. So they set wealth traps. Since then, the wealthy have found prosperity in keeping people in poverty and extracting from the overall health and well-being of others, giving the masses just enough rope to hang themselves. The pity is we are still letting the ultra wealthy lead us into the gallows with distractions, false ideologies, and empty promises. It's time we figured out our purpose for being here on this earth and collectively define what true wealth really means.
For a piece on capitalism, it isn't really defined anywhere, besides that it has something to do with individual pursuits. If you look at the most profitable pursuits, those are usury and scams, rather than selling a legitimate product or service. The people getting their hands dirty, investing their years and their bodies into the back-breaking labor to make those glittering skyscrapers as well as the food, clothes, and more are not lifted out of poverty. These people stay living on the edge of or in poverty because capitalism rewards any pursuit of capital you can get away with, especially by taking advantage of others, especially poor people whose only capital is their labor power, or government resources by being supposedly "too big to fail" so they get unlimited bailouts and ridiculous contracts. People who already have the kind of capital simply put that into a pursuit are mostly protected from failure, but the employees are not. There are no golden parachutes for working class employees. Also, Bill Gates isn't out ploughing the land of which he is one of the biggest owners in the U.S. The old libertarian principle of individual ownership only includes what you can cultivate, not all that you would need an army of other people to take care of for you. When the wealthy get too rich, they tend to become lords and purchase the government as well, which is what has happened. The rest of us end up without the freedom to individual pursuits because we don't have the capital for teams of lawyers and lobbyists, private security, etc. We can do better than technofeudalism in my opinion.
“[Capitalism] may have once erected great sweeping skylines with ingenious, inspired architecture; catapulted many, many millions out of poverty and destitution, and once delivered on its promise to reward hard work and personal initiative, but there is a stagnation in those waters of promise.”
I must say, I was disappointed with your conclusion. I agree with your narrative up to then. You identify an important postulate of Capitalism: mediocrity gets rewarded (paid). That truth has served as the bulwark against all of Capitalism’s detractors. More than that, the largest group (and sadly growing) below the median income level also gets rewarded. Instead of being the in 99 percent (as many leftist claim), this larger group is the 1 percent of the world.
Other than the saddest cases (mostly self-inflicted), Americans live better than any kings or rulers have in the history of the world. If there is a problem (and there is), it is inflicted by many parents and teachers on our children. We tell them lies or make them “feel” it’s their inheritance to live better than their parents do. And our government works to support and enable this unearned expectation.
We foreclose the opportunity to do work and gain human capital by passing minimum wage laws. We lie about the dangers outside so that children remain immature and afraid to explore and learn how to survive on their own in the world. Our children have few real skills by the time they graduate from high school, yet we promise if they go to college it will all but guarantee their future success—FALSE.
America is at most mediocre and to expect a better outcome for the current generation is wishful thinking. The problem is not Capitalism; it is our self-destructive complacency. If we want better results, we must take better actions. Ever ask a twenty-something-year-old about the last book they read?—you’d be surprised how few ever read (or if they do, what they read). The solution is individual responsibility—and that guarantees nothing, but it does make for better individual outcomes.
"Our children have few real skills by the time they graduate from high school." These young people also know they have no real skills other than basic reading and math skills. Many have no life skills such as cooking, meal planning, budgeting, basic handyman skills, etc., skills that used to be passed down from parents, but many parents are too busy these days. My daughter made an observation while working in food service during college. The other young people she worked with had no idea how to approach gaining skills and better employment. I thought back to high school and how "guidance counseling" was rare and the counselors always seemed dismissive to other than the top students or top athletes. Perhaps high schools could do more to bring job fairs and potential employers and apprenticeships to the school.
We are Communist as per The Communist Manifesto---Central Bank, Compulsory govt schools, graduated progressive inc tax, destroy morals, take over private property-etc-Most-American ignoramuses are not educable
Point(s) well taken but riddle me this: Who created the waters of mediocrity? Government and if so why… better control of the collective? The most wealthy (name a %… top 1/2%) that want to continue control and hence their wealth? MSM to again control the masses to move ‘their’ agenda (who is the ‘their’) forward? Is this all the deep-state. Until these questions are asked, motives revealed and the populace enlightened mediocrity is what the masses will get, what politicians will use to condemn the wealthier and manipulate voting and what MSM will use to continue to keep dissatisfaction, unrest and distrust as headline news to sell. The cycle needs to be broken, not by socialist ideologies, but by optimism, opportunity, faith in a system that has and continues to provide the highest standard of living in the world, education that teaches critical thinking and self-sufficiency, imbues each person with a sense of personal responsibility and self-worth. We are not lost. We, as a country, are in the doldrums of no uplifting wind to fill our collective sails. Who will that leader be that will make our sails billow?
Great subject for discussion. What's lost in our drive to acquire and amass some amount of wealth is our collective purpose in doing so. Once upon a time, the wealth owners found prosperity in lifting others out of extreme poverty and improving our overall health and standard of living after WW2. Most people were the recipients of a better life and security for future generations. But at some point (early 80s?), the wealthy got scared. Too many people were prospering and upsetting their balance of power. So they set wealth traps. Since then, the wealthy have found prosperity in keeping people in poverty and extracting from the overall health and well-being of others, giving the masses just enough rope to hang themselves. The pity is we are still letting the ultra wealthy lead us into the gallows with distractions, false ideologies, and empty promises. It's time we figured out our purpose for being here on this earth and collectively define what true wealth really means.
For a piece on capitalism, it isn't really defined anywhere, besides that it has something to do with individual pursuits. If you look at the most profitable pursuits, those are usury and scams, rather than selling a legitimate product or service. The people getting their hands dirty, investing their years and their bodies into the back-breaking labor to make those glittering skyscrapers as well as the food, clothes, and more are not lifted out of poverty. These people stay living on the edge of or in poverty because capitalism rewards any pursuit of capital you can get away with, especially by taking advantage of others, especially poor people whose only capital is their labor power, or government resources by being supposedly "too big to fail" so they get unlimited bailouts and ridiculous contracts. People who already have the kind of capital simply put that into a pursuit are mostly protected from failure, but the employees are not. There are no golden parachutes for working class employees. Also, Bill Gates isn't out ploughing the land of which he is one of the biggest owners in the U.S. The old libertarian principle of individual ownership only includes what you can cultivate, not all that you would need an army of other people to take care of for you. When the wealthy get too rich, they tend to become lords and purchase the government as well, which is what has happened. The rest of us end up without the freedom to individual pursuits because we don't have the capital for teams of lawyers and lobbyists, private security, etc. We can do better than technofeudalism in my opinion.
“[Capitalism] may have once erected great sweeping skylines with ingenious, inspired architecture; catapulted many, many millions out of poverty and destitution, and once delivered on its promise to reward hard work and personal initiative, but there is a stagnation in those waters of promise.”
I must say, I was disappointed with your conclusion. I agree with your narrative up to then. You identify an important postulate of Capitalism: mediocrity gets rewarded (paid). That truth has served as the bulwark against all of Capitalism’s detractors. More than that, the largest group (and sadly growing) below the median income level also gets rewarded. Instead of being the in 99 percent (as many leftist claim), this larger group is the 1 percent of the world.
Other than the saddest cases (mostly self-inflicted), Americans live better than any kings or rulers have in the history of the world. If there is a problem (and there is), it is inflicted by many parents and teachers on our children. We tell them lies or make them “feel” it’s their inheritance to live better than their parents do. And our government works to support and enable this unearned expectation.
We foreclose the opportunity to do work and gain human capital by passing minimum wage laws. We lie about the dangers outside so that children remain immature and afraid to explore and learn how to survive on their own in the world. Our children have few real skills by the time they graduate from high school, yet we promise if they go to college it will all but guarantee their future success—FALSE.
America is at most mediocre and to expect a better outcome for the current generation is wishful thinking. The problem is not Capitalism; it is our self-destructive complacency. If we want better results, we must take better actions. Ever ask a twenty-something-year-old about the last book they read?—you’d be surprised how few ever read (or if they do, what they read). The solution is individual responsibility—and that guarantees nothing, but it does make for better individual outcomes.
"Our children have few real skills by the time they graduate from high school." These young people also know they have no real skills other than basic reading and math skills. Many have no life skills such as cooking, meal planning, budgeting, basic handyman skills, etc., skills that used to be passed down from parents, but many parents are too busy these days. My daughter made an observation while working in food service during college. The other young people she worked with had no idea how to approach gaining skills and better employment. I thought back to high school and how "guidance counseling" was rare and the counselors always seemed dismissive to other than the top students or top athletes. Perhaps high schools could do more to bring job fairs and potential employers and apprenticeships to the school.
I love your ideas but the fact is that minimum wage laws prevent young people from getting work experience.
We are Communist as per The Communist Manifesto---Central Bank, Compulsory govt schools, graduated progressive inc tax, destroy morals, take over private property-etc-Most-American ignoramuses are not educable
Point(s) well taken but riddle me this: Who created the waters of mediocrity? Government and if so why… better control of the collective? The most wealthy (name a %… top 1/2%) that want to continue control and hence their wealth? MSM to again control the masses to move ‘their’ agenda (who is the ‘their’) forward? Is this all the deep-state. Until these questions are asked, motives revealed and the populace enlightened mediocrity is what the masses will get, what politicians will use to condemn the wealthier and manipulate voting and what MSM will use to continue to keep dissatisfaction, unrest and distrust as headline news to sell. The cycle needs to be broken, not by socialist ideologies, but by optimism, opportunity, faith in a system that has and continues to provide the highest standard of living in the world, education that teaches critical thinking and self-sufficiency, imbues each person with a sense of personal responsibility and self-worth. We are not lost. We, as a country, are in the doldrums of no uplifting wind to fill our collective sails. Who will that leader be that will make our sails billow?