Sherri Malouf wrote:
> So are you saying that when looking at the economic history of capitalism,
> this Golden Era economic thinking pushed by RR, was not a part of the
> picture?
Not as a Golden Era in the past. It never happened. There was the myth
of the Political Golden Era of the New Greece and before that the New
Israel, there was even a Golden Era myth about white people who settled
North America before the Indians. That never happened either. I would be
more inclined to attach a psychological explanation to the need for some
kind of validity to their experiment. That is the basis of all that Greek
architecture in Washington and those silly statues in pseudo-Greek
garments. This is a need of the "walking wounded" souls that settled the
country that was slowly being emptied by the diseases they brought with
them. Actually there is a better case for the 19th century being a
cultural "Golden Era" in comparison to the present than there is for any
previous capitalist paradise.
> Nor was it an ideal in the US until RR pushed it?
There were certainly business ideals but they were pretty muddled. The
point I made about the business cycle as a life ideal ending in
philanthropy is more consonant with the history that I was taught. My
Father's Master's degree was in history and he always stressed the ideal
of a "good" people rather than rich ones. As for general business ideals
Donald A. Schoen points out in his "Reflective Practitioner" history, the
primary ideal of the first half of the twentieth century was not
capitalism but professionalism. The historian Richard Slotkin also wrote
a couple of prize winning histories of American myths which shows the
businessman constantly jumping on the bandwagon of whatever myth was on
top at the time. At various times his business ideal was the
Frontiersman, the Army, during the labor wars he was an Indian fighter and
after that his sponsorship of the arts made him an aristocrat. In the
NYTimes Magazine this year they said that the new myth was the businessman
as an artist who makes money not "for" something or to "do" something but
for its own sake, like the old "saw" "Art for Art's sake." It doesn't
seem to matter that these systems don't work with his. As the Harrison
Ford stereotype of the sensitive businessman in the remake of the movie
Sabrina, he was and is simply a "wheeler dealer" on the "make" for
whatever would and will bring him wealth. Ideals are means to a business
end and change in whatever direction makes money unless sex intervenes and
he falls in love with the right woman and becomes an advocate of "family
values." I realize that this is pretty far from reality, but it is the
stereotype and it currently comes from the "professionalism" ideal more
than any other place. It certainly has nothing to do with liberal or
conservative politics.
> BTW, my BSc
> is in Economics and Law done in England. My MPhil research was conducted
> in Rowntree Mackintosh -- an old and patriarchal company where people were
> very well treated.
Mike Hollinsheads work is also English or rather Scottish. He is a
graduate of Saint Andrews in economics although he claims to have studied
trout fishing as well. For my work prior to this year there is a CV in
the LO Intro file under my name. My personal history is with the Eagle
Picher Mining Company on the Quapaw reservation, which was terrible. I
have told the story about my Father's rescue of the community from the
abusive environment of a company that cared nothing for their employees.
On the other hand he moved to the hometown of the Phillips Petroleum
company which was an enlightened company that built the community until
the 1980s when both T.Boone Pickens and then Karl Icahn literally raped
the community. After that it was the Wild West. The town has a lot of
pluck that springs in no small measure from Phillip's prior nurturing.
But I give credit to the people and the management of the company. Quite
frankly the system is a small company government that resembles an
enlightened socialism. Just so Ed Brenegar doesn't believe that I am
pushing one party over the other. This wonderful enlightened little town
that has endured continued muggings from the system is solidly Republican.
> So a lot of people suffered at the hands of the early capitalists but this
> was not the picture RR painted when looking for historical support for his
> l'aissez faire economics?
The point here is not villains but truth. Tell the truth and let history
decide. RR didn't do that. He made it up and used that story as
justification for his "return" to "leave it alone" economics. What he
didn't point out was that in every "leave it alone" period there was
always a downturn that brought considerable suffering. It was so bad in
the last one that what rescued it was a war that killed 100 million
people.
> So one twist is the fact that RR rewote economic history to support
> economic policy?
Not only history but deliberate language confusion as well. In a country
where an enlightened electorate is the only protection against tyranny
this is a dangerous activity. This is not new. Orwell wrote quite a lot
about it both in Animal Farm and 1984. MH recommended that I read
Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" for a more clear illustration
although I haven't yet and so I can't comment. My experience is with the
use of the private economic language in working with Public Goods such as
education, arts, medicine and prisons.
The language being used now to objectify people incarcerated I find truly
frightening and immoral. I've known prisoners all my life and have
counseled Native People in prison and the things being said are in my
estimation criminal in their own right. I am not a bleeding heart on
this. I am a traditional Cherokee but the economics mixed in these public
goods are conflicts of interest. So we need a psycho-pathic guard to make
citizens out of the criminals? Education on the other hand will always be
a failure unless surrounded by an environment that is clear about what
constitutes success. To me the three Rs constitute failure. This is much
too complicated a story for such a short post.
> You feel that hoolywood benefited from RR but the American public was
> miserable? So the enemy outside was used as a distraction?
No that is not what I said. Hollywood benefited as entertainment tends to
benefit during poor times. People spend money on things that take them
away from their situation. The movies did that during the depression.
The second world war was also beneficial to Hollywood in that they made a
lot of money on propaganda films. My point was this: if there was a
"Golden Era" for capitalism it was in Hollywood. Edward Deming made it a
point of his lectures to talk about the "productivity" of the movies
being high and America's most profitable export. This was RR's background.
He drew from it in the same way that his "war stories" never happened
except in his movies.
(snip)
> SO the tie in is that American business has the attitude it has about
> profit at any cost because of weak attempts by RR to sell the Golden Era.
No it is more complicated than that. RR simply provided the story to sell
the product, which was his version of "private goods" economics. In order
to get that version across, they needed to make the general population
forget a great deal. David Stockman admitted as much in his book. Their
social agenda was a remake of the economic environment into a small
government, strong "private goods" "let it alone" structure.
The problem with that was in "Public Goods" which private enterprise would
rather see go away. If profit is the only value then public goods are
valueless because they don't make profit and are too expensive to market
for such. The only way the PE economists can justify them is as "custom"
goods meant for the wealthy. It matters not that this flies in the face
of Western Art history. They drag some old travelogue art professor out
to intone 19th century pre-Herbert Read British ideas and call that proof
that art came from the Aristocrats. How many artists can you think of
that were Aristocrats?
These same PE economists have sold the public on the ultimate creativity
and innovation of the market when the opposite is true. You need
uniformity and economies of scale to raise productivity. That is the
reason we have lecture classes rather than private lessons in
college(except in music). That was the reason the Japanese tore down
Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel in Japan. Each room was different so
it made cleaning the place un-productive, so they tore it down, even
though it was earthquake proof and a world art treasure and replaced it
with a building more easily cleaned. Phillips is having the same issue
today with Wright's masterpiece "Price Tower" in B'ville, Okla. I could
understand the Japanese action on another level as punishing the
American's for the bomb and the fire bombing of Tokyo but I wonder what
reason the American's in Bartlesville have except the cost of keeping a
Masterpiece from falling down. The state of popular music today in
America is another case in point. It has grown from mediocre to simple to
dumb except in the Black community where a new form has emerged out of the
Avant Garde. Rap music the bane of all "family value" economists. Did
you read Herb Stein's article where he complained about giving two pennies
a day to the arts? Sounds like that is another agenda, too bad we don't
have another Stockman to tell us what is really going on there.
> BTW, I lived in England throughout the Reagan administration but had to
> live under the equivalent policies of Thatcher.
There has been a huge increase in major orchestras in the London area. Do
you know how they do it on two cents a day per citizen, or does the UK put
money into "Public Goods?" Two Cents translates to $5 per year per
person. Canada spend $128 per person in the 1980s. I don't have current
figures for that. America creates full time jobs for two out of every 100
graduate singers. It was said that the reason that there were so many
musicians in the National Socialist party in Germany in 1935 was because
of a 20% unemployment rate. But I won't go any further with that one.
Too dangerous!
> >The ideal of irresponsible corporate profit and the sacrifice of "ten
> >workers every morning at sunrise" to guarantee the continuation of that
> >Profit is founded in that myth of the Laissez faire Golden Era( the same
> >people who used to sing "let it be" in the 1960s?). But although the
> >paradise never happened there was a great deal of public building and
> >charitable giving while the Robber Barons media was preaching total
> >annihilation of the American Indian.
>
> Okay -- you lost me here. Hasn't there been a non-stop attempt at the
> annihilation of the American Indian? Are you saying this was pushed
> further in the 80's or are you referring back to the roots of capitalism?
ten sacrifices a day = 3,650 lay offs a year. If I'm not mistaken there
were more than that laid off by AT&T last year. I don't know how many
were "sacrificed" at Scot toilet paper but the CEO bragged about the
profit that he had made and saved by turning all of those "rented" hands
into "Waste Management." Performing artist Whoopie Goldberg told the
National Press Club that most of the company CEOs were old hippies from
the 1960s. This was in answer to a question about the WBennett canard
that blames current problems on the immorality of the 1960s. Another
piece of sterling scholarship from the former head of the education
department.
As for the statement about sending the cavalry against the Indian Nations.
As Mark Twain said "The Instinct of Progress itself willingly calls upon
the Spirit of Massacre." While this was being celebrated in the dime
novels, Henry Higgenson was totally endowing the Boston Symphony. In ten
short years following L.Frank Baum's (author of the Wizard of Oz)
advocation of total annihilation of all Lakota men women and children at
Wounded Knee S.D. there were thousands of opera houses, theaters and
academies of music across America.
(snip)
> >In an unforgettable passage
> >the Christian apostle Paul said "though I speak with the tongues of men
> >and of angels and have not charity, I am as a tinkling cymbal and a
> >sounding brass." My people would say it more simply in English. We
> >would say that the "two legged" who understands the "give-back" has
> >become a "human being."
>
> I have always loved the concept(my background) of the give-back (your
> practice).
I am saying that the "give back" was as much a part of the idea of
individual progress towards salvation through good business as it was for
Indian people. Both Getty(posthumously) and Bill Gates are acting out
that ritual of the business cycle which ends in philanthropy and is
basically Christian. I believe I remember something about that in a book
from college by Tawney(?). Maybe "Religion and the Rise of Capitalism?"
> >In the economic term of "Positive External Values" we would call this a
> >"bequest/existence value" meaning the value to future generations would
> >guarantee the continued existence of, e.g., Andrew Carnegie. So what
> >this means is that the ideal of the earlier "Robber Barons" was to walk
> >the circle and to end at philanthropy, thus giving meaning to their walk
> >and resolving any prior problems with how they had lived their lives.
> >One might also call it a "salvation value" benefit.
>
> Does this mean that to the Cherokee as long as the give-back occurs then
> there is no such thing as karma? An aside from the topic I know...
No, a "give-back" brings power but does not pay responsibilities. Also
you can't truly "give-back" unless you have solved your indebtedness. That
is the reason they brought the Scots to do business with my ancestors.
(snip)
>
> I would say that our system has set-up what we are experiencing. I trully
> believe that senior management work for the stock market first and
> foremost. Middle management must turn their desires into products, and
> then we have the worker bees. This is a system thing which Americans have
> been trained in for years. Again -- our culture supports a lot of options
> for making decisions and taking action.
I agree.
(snip)
> So Ray -- are you spelling doom and gloom because of the dominant business
> practice in the USA?
I believe in the importance of data and argument. I also believe that the
Private Enterprise economic formula is dangerously incomplete. As Lord
Russell pointed out, to superimpose the specifics of one system onto
another system often creates a lie. Public Goods are necessary for the
protection of health, the education of the children, the defense of the
nation, the safety of the streets, the spiritual life of the population
and the cultivation of a beautiful environment and human grace. As for
private goods I quote Henry James on his return to America from living in
Europe:
It was heart breaking. It was not merely tradition that was in danger
but taste itself. The huge democratic broom had swept away the old and
ushered in an age of the new, the simple, the cheap, the common, the
commercial, the immediate, and all too often the ugly. James was haunted
by a sense of dispossession. I had to tighten my aesthetic wastband, to
protect myself against the consummate monotonous commonness,...in which
relief, detachment, dignity, meaning, perished utterly and lost all
rights.
> Hey -- do you think US corporations know how to
> survive a stock market crash? How about the rest of the world? Do you
> know how to survive a US stock market crash?
>From 1935 to 1945 the artistic establishment of Germany was turned to the
propagation of the goals of the National Socialist Party(Nazis). The
artists joined the party to be able to work. Their unemployment was twice
the national average (20%). Hitler used them effectively as did Stalin in
the Soviet Union. Can we survive this group's turning their considerable
talents at human persuasion to another dictator because they are promised
jobs? Graduate singers have a full time employment of 2%. How long do
you think that sleeping giant is going to be still? Balance must be
restored. If I didnt know better I would think that your question
represented a belief in that Maslow Hierarchy. (just kidding)
Regards,
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Chamber Opera of New York, Inc.
mcore@idt.net
--Ray Evans Harrell <mcore@IDT.NET>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>