Re: [blind-democracy] Re: The Rule of the Uber-Rich Means Either Tyranny
or Revolution
No, I do not undermine my whole argument. In a capitalist economy for a
business to stay in business it must make a profit. But I also said
something about
a capitalist economy. I said that it is an organized system of theft.
That is, not only is there something wrong with profit, but there is
something very
very wrong with capitalism. I do not propose that businesses not be
allowed to make a profit and that capitalism be left intact. That could
not happen.
That would be like saying that we should do away with farming while
allowing farms to continue to operate. It just can't be done. What I
propose instead
is the abolition of the whole capitalist system and replacing it with a
socialist system in which all workers can enjoy the fruits of their
collective
labor collectively and democratically control the economy with the view
of establishing world communism.
_________________________________________________________________
Isaac Asimov
“Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in
telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life
after
death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved
negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?"
Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation,
measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll
believe anything,
no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The
wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more
solid the evidence
will have to be.”
― Isaac Asimov
On 10/23/2018 9:33 PM, Evan Reese wrote:
block quote
Well, no, actually. You undermine your own argument quite neatly, and I
quote:
"Ultimately, though, you have to make a profit in order to stay in
business."
So, if this is true, and there's no profit, then businesses can't stay
in business, and the economy crashes. And that's why there's nothing
wrong with
profit.
Evan
-----Original Message----- From: Roger Loran Bailey
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2018 8:38 PM
To:
blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
; Evan Reese
Subject: Re: [blind-democracy] Re: The Rule of the Uber-Rich Means
Either Tyranny or Revolution
Let me answer that question about what is wrong with profit. Suppose you
have an ideal slave. An ideal slave is a slave who does not require
shelter, food clothing or any other necessity of life. An ideal slave is
an abstraction. Slaves are forced to work. So suppose you force this
slave to add his labor to raw material that has little or no value by
itself and the slave makes a product that does have value. How do we
determine how much value the product has? We make that determination by
selling it and its value is whatever we can get out of it. In other
words, that ideal slave has transformed the valueless into the valuable
and by selling it and keeping the sale price for yourself you have
stolen one hundred percent of the value of the slave's labor. What you
have stolen is also called profit. Now, suppose we make that slave a bit
more realistic. Slaves do need some upkeep to stay alive and healthy
enough to perform labor. So out of the sale price of the product you
subtract the amount it takes to keep the slave alive and productive.
This time the slave gets something back for his labor, but the slave
owner keeps the rest of the value of his labor as profit. That is labor
value that has been stolen from the slave. Now let's look at what
happens if you are dealing with an employee in a capitalist economy
rather than a slave. You may pay your employees wages and you may even
grant them benefits. You might have other overhead involved in running
your business too. Ultimately, though, you have to make a profit in
order to stay in business. If you subtract the wages, benefits and other
expenses from the total sale price you have the amount that is profit.
That profit is still the amount of labor value that workers put into
making that product that has been stolen. That means that profit is
theft and the entire capitalist system is organized theft. So now you
have what is wrong with profit.
_________________________________________________________________
Isaac Asimov
“Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in
telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life
after
death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved
negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?"
Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation,
measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll
believe anything,
no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The
wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more
solid the evidence
will have to be.”
― Isaac Asimov
On 10/23/2018 4:50 PM, Evan Reese wrote:
block quote
Okay, well I faulted Chris Hedges for not giving examples, so I
definitely should not follow in those footsteps. I was in a hurry though
when I wrote my
last response, which is something I should know to avoid doing.
So Alex Jones. I think Twitter should have kept him on. Let him rant.
But that is Twitter's decision, and I would not take that right away
from them. As
I said before, although not as precisely as perhaps I should have,
freedom of speech is the freedom to say what one wishes, it is not the
freedom to force
others to provide a platform for that speech. He could go to Breitbart,
if they'll have him, or start his own website or podcast.
Same for Chris Hedges. He could certainly take the New York Times to
court if he wished. But it is overwhelmingly likely that the court would
tell him
what I would tell him. That is, he has the freedom to say what he
wishes, the NY Times has the freedom to publish what they wish, which
also includes the
right to not publish what they do not wish to publish. Freedom of speech
is not a license to force others to provide a venue for one's own speech.
There's growing talk about regulating the tech giants more. They got a
pass early on because the government wanted to encourage that sector of
the economy.
But they're big boys now and they need to be regulated more strictly
than they are now. Europe is ahead of us in that area.
Government and tech companies collaborating to spy on Americans is
something I care very much about, and something I am very much opposed
to. But that
was not part of Hedges' article, which is what I was responding to.
No big corporation is controling what I say. Are they controling what
you say? If so, how?
Who has Facebook deleted on the advice of the government? Are they
Russian disinformation bots? I know about those, but those don't count,
and they should
be deleted anyhow.
As I recall, Google initially resisted cooperating with the Chinese
government on Internet censorship, but then they caved. They made the
wrong choice.
They should have left. Not that it would have made any difference to the
citizens of China, who will be censored no matter what. But Google
should not
be participating in it. If you want to count Xi Jinping, and the
leadership of the Chinese Comunist Party, as uber-rich, then I guess
I'll have to give
you that one.
Yes, we have an advertising industry. What's wrong with that? People
know what advertising is. Why shouldn't businesses be able to advertise
their products
or services? Yes, it is often manipulative. Most people know that too,
since we've grown up with it. Are you saying that people have no control
over their
ability to respond to advertising, that they have no wills of their own?
We have a marketplace. Not everything that it sells is needed by
everyone. True, a lot of stuff is made and advertised that people don't
really need. Yes,
corporations sell stuff to make a profit. Again, what's wrong with that?
We can argue about how much profit is reasonable, how much indicates a
lack of
competition, (we have a fair number of less than fully competetive
markets in the U.S. right now), but making a profit in and of itself is
something I
have no problem with.
You should get some historical perspective. I'm telling you, our
ancestors would love to substitute the problems we're discussing right
now with theirs.
Conversely, I wouldn't trade my life for any earlier period in history,
not one.
Evan
-----Original Message----- From: Miriam Vieni
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2018 3:08 PM
To:
blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Rule of the Uber-Rich Means Either
Tyranny or Revolution
Evan,
The private companies that you're talking about are huge and powerful
and they are controlling, not only how we communicate, but what we
communicate, and
they are working together with government agencies, sometimes to spy on
us and sometimes to control what we say. We're not talking about some
nice little
company that employs you to answer the phone or sell shoes or something.
Those tech giants were built on technology that resulted from government
funded
research. And they are rather ruthless. Google has agreed to all of the
limits on freedom that the Chinese government demands of it in order to
work in
China. Facebook is agreeing to delete people because of the advice of
our government and private think tanks. I mentioned the Atlanta Council
previously.
My memory is getting so bad these days but I think that along with NATO,
Saudi Arabia may be involved with it.
As for cars being safer, I don't know enough about the subject to agree
with that statement or disagree. I'm sure the advertising says that they
are, but
I'd have to see statistics from an objective source before I believed
that it's true. But I think my point was that we have a financial
system which benefits
the power elites or ruling class or whatever you want to call them, when
people are convinced that they need new things, different things, better
things,
etc. because that's how corporations earn profits and that's how CEO's
and share holders make more money. Sometimes, our lives really improve.
But sometimes,
they just become more costly and complicated and their quality isn't
actually better. The purpose of inventing all the new things is so that
some people
can make a huge amount of money, not to make our lives better. The
purpose of advertising is to convince us that the new things are making
our lives better.
I was born in 1937. When I look back through all those years, it's true
that some things are better now. But a whole lot of thins are not. There
are many
things that were better fifty years ago and those things have to do with
the quality of the food we ate and the way in which people related to
each other,
particularly the impersonal interactions between customers and owners
of, or workers in businesses. Computers may be more efficient for
corporations, but
they've changed customer relations for the worse. They may make medical
institutions more efficient, but they've also made them cold and
impersonal.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From:
blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Behalf Of Evan Reese
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2018 1:42 PM
To:
blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Rule of the Uber-Rich Means Either
Tyranny or Revolution
Okay, so why did you have to come up with the examples when Hedges was
either too lazy or didn't respect his readers enough to provide any?
But more importantly, freedom of speech does not give you the right to
tell private corporations what speech they can or should allow, any more
than it
gives me the right to force you to say things you don't want to say. I
can be fired by my employer for numerous reasons. That's the system we
work under,
and despite its flaws, nobody has come up with a better one yet. Once
again, nobody has the right to force their views on others.
Cars are much more computerized than ever before, but they are also much
safer. Wouldn't you agree with Ralph Nader that that is a worthy goal?
How many
lives is being able to repair one's car worth?
You can get a cheap flip phone that doesn't cost hundreds of dollars,
and pay as you go. I doubt that many people mourn the loss of pay phones.
Evan
-----Original Message-----
From: Miriam Vieni
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2018 12:49 PM
To:
blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Rule of the Uber-Rich Means Either
Tyranny or Revolution
Actually, I suppose that "freedom of speech" is a relative term. We can
say anything that we want to say on the Blind Democracy list and Hedges
can say
what he wishes to say on Truthdig. However, neither he nor I can say
what we wish to say on any corporate media source, a source where we
might be heard
by millions of people. You can talk to your family about your latest
birthday party on Facebook, but the pages of voices known to have
dissident views
are being closed down with the counsel of organizations like the Atlanta
Council (a voice for many interests including NATO), at the behest of
Congress.
Groups can physucakky protest only in approved locations, usually far
away from the sites they wish to protest. And remember, Hedges was
fired from the
NY Times for making a speech of which the Times
disapproved. Michael Moore was speaking at an Oscar ceremony and when,
during the speech, he made a statement opposing the Iraq War, the mike
was turned off and he was ushered off the stage. So yes, I have the
freedom to write
these words on an email list in October 2018 which will reach, perhaps
20 or so people, if there are that many on this list and you may choose
to call that freedom of speech. But Alex Jones was removed from Twitter
because
his speech is considered to be extreme and he reaches a lot more people
than
20 blind folks.
As for those technological inventions used for public benefit, well, yes
we benefit from them, but the greatest benefit is reaped by the very
wealthy and
although we benefit, we are also greatly harmed. There's so much to
this subject that we, or I, just can't deal with it, certainly not in an
email. But
what comes to mind is automobiles. Once upon a time, guys used to really
love repairing their cars. They liked doing it and doing it saved them
money.
Now cars are manufactured with technology which is so complicated that
no one can repair their own car anymore. Actually, people often don't
even own their
cars because in order to have a car in good condition, you need a new
one every two or three years. Financially, what is most feasible is to
lease a car.
That means that you just keep making payments forever and ever. In that
way, you can afford to have a car that runs well which is a necessity in
a country
which has made convenient public transportation unavailable. A long
time ago, if you were away from home and had an emergency or needed
information from
someone, there was a pay phone nearby. It cost a dime, than a quarter.
But now we are so lucky because we have been conditioned to require a
small computer
wherever we go in order to make contact with the rest of the world and
it costs more than a dime or a quarter. There's no exception if you're
poor, if
you earn $7.50 an hour or are unemployed, no pay phones for you. You are
still required to have a mini computer, called a smart phone, costing
hundreds
of dollars with a complicated pay plan. But yes, technology is wonderful.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From:
blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Behalf Of Evan Reese
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2018 10:09 PM
To:
blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Rule of the Uber-Rich Means Either
Tyranny or Revolution
First of all, let me say I generally agree with Hedges' description of
the character traits of the uber-rich. While I was reading it, I was
thinking how
it reminded me of many monarchs, wealthy merchants, and inheritors of
wealth throughout history. But I do have a few issues with the piece.
Aristotle warned of the perils of rule by the uber-rich. So they've been
around for thousands of years, and somehow humanity has managed to survive.
Not only survive, but thrive. How is that possible?
Just a few quotes here:
"... the uber-rich make war on the “freedom of conscience, freedom of
speech, ..."
Hmmm, war on freedom of speech? But here we are reading an article on
how pernicious they are. So they certainly haven't won, and after
thousands of years
of effort! Imagine!
Another quote:
"The uber-rich, as Karl Polanyi wrote, celebrate the worst kind of
freedom—the freedom “to exploit one’s fellows, or the freedom to make
inordinate gains
without commensurable service to the community, the freedom to keep
technological inventions from being used for public benefit, ..."
What technological inventions might those be? Are any specifics
forthcoming?
Would it be too much work for Hedges to provide an example or two?
Apparently so.
Here we are, our residences full of technological marvels our ancestors
more than a couple of generations back wouldn't even understand, but
somehow the
uber-rich are keeping unspecified technological inventions from us.
But here's the one that bugs me most:
"The dark pathologies of the uber-rich, lionized by mass culture and
mass media, have become our own. We have ingested their poison...."
Okay, so who is this "we" he refers to? Now, I've been a native speaker
of English for over 50 years, and "we" generally refers to the speaker,
or the
author in this case, and one or more other people. So is he refering to
himself and an unspecified number of fellow ingesters of the poison of
the pathologies
of the uber-rich? If not, then why is he using the word "we"? He
certainly doesn't speak for me, or most of the people I know. In fact,
as I already said,
I generally agree with his characterization of the uber-rich Of course,
once again, we get a sweeping pronouncement, devoid of specifics, or any
kind of
evidence.
Just Hedges letting his hyperbole carry him away again.
Evan
-----Original Message-----
From: Miriam Vieni
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2018 3:19 PM
To:
blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] The Rule of the Uber-Rich Means Either
Tyranny or Revolution
The Rule of the Uber-Rich Means Either Tyranny or Revolution
Mr. Fish / Truthdig
At the age of 10 I was sent as a scholarship student to a boarding
school for the uber-rich in Massachusetts. I lived among the wealthiest
Americans for
the next eight years. I listened to their prejudices and saw their
cloying sense of entitlement. They insisted they were privileged and
wealthy because
they were smarter and more talented. They had a sneering disdain for
those ranked below them in material and social status, even the merely
rich.
Most of the uber-rich lacked the capacity for empathy and compassion.
They formed elite cliques that hazed, bullied and taunted any
nonconformist who defied
or did not fit into their self-adulatory universe.
It was impossible to build a friendship with most of the sons of the
uber-rich. Friendship for them was defined by “what’s in it for me?”
They were surrounded
from the moment they came out of the womb by people catering to their
desires and needs. They were incapable of reaching out to others in
distress—whatever
petty whim or problem they had at the moment dominated their universe
and took precedence over the suffering of others, even those within
their own families.
They knew only how to take. They could not give.
They were deformed and deeply unhappy people in the grip of an
unquenchable narcissism.
It is essential to understand the pathologies of the uber-rich. They
have seized total political power. These pathologies inform Donald
Trump, his children,
the Brett Kavanaughs, and the billionaires who run his administration.
The uber-rich cannot see the world from anyone’s perspective but their
own. People
around them, including the women whom entitled men prey upon, are
objects designed to gratify momentary lusts or be manipulated. The
uber-rich are almost
always amoral. Right. Wrong. Truth.
Lies. Justice. Injustice. These concepts are beyond them. Whatever
benefits or pleases them is good. What does not must be destroyed.
The pathology of the uber-rich is what permits Trump and his callow
son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to conspire with de facto Saudi ruler
Mohammed bin Salman,
another product of unrestrained entitlement and nepotism, to cover up
the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whom I worked with in the
Middle East.
The uber-rich spend their lives protected by their inherited wealth, the
power it wields and an army of enablers, including other members of the
fraternity
of the uber-rich, along with their lawyers and publicists. There are
almost never any consequences for their failures, abuses, mistreatment
of others and
crimes. This is why the Saudi crown prince and Kushner have bonded. They
are the homunculi the uber-rich routinely spawn.
The rule of the uber-rich, for this reason, is terrifying. They know no
limits. They have never abided by the norms of society and never will.
We pay taxes—they
don’t. We work hard to get into an elite university or get a job—they
don’t. We have to pay for our failures—they don’t. We are prosecuted for
our crimes—they
are not.
The uber-rich live in an artificial bubble, a land called Richistan, a
place of Frankenmansions and private jets, cut off from our reality.
Wealth, I saw,
not only perpetuates itself but is used to monopolize the new
opportunities for wealth creation. Social mobility for the poor and the
working class is
largely a myth. The uber-rich practice the ultimate form of affirmative
action, catapulting white, male mediocrities like Trump, Kushner and
George W.
Bush into elite schools that groom the plutocracy for positions of
power. The uber-rich are never forced to grow up. They are often
infantilized for life,
squalling for what they want and almost always getting it. And this
makes them very, very dangerous.
Political theorists, from Aristotle and Karl Marx to Sheldon Wolin, have
warned against the rule of the uber-rich. Once the uber-rich take over,
Aristotle
writes, the only options are tyranny and revolution. They do not know
how to nurture or build. They know only how to feed their bottomless
greed. It’s
a funny thing about the uber-rich: No matter how many billions they
possess, they never have enough. They are the Hungry Ghosts of Buddhism.
They seek,
through the accumulation of power, money and objects, an unachievable
happiness. This life of endless desire often ends badly, with the
uber-rich estranged
from their spouses and children, bereft of genuine friends. And when
they are gone, as Charles Dickens wrote in “A Christmas Carol,” most
people are glad
to be rid of them.
C. Wright Mills in “The Power Elite,” one of the finest studies of the
pathologies of the uber-rich, wrote:
“
They exploited national resources, waged economic wars among themselves,
entered into combinations, made private capital out of the public
domain, and
used any and every method to achieve their ends. They made agreements
with railroads for rebates; they purchased newspapers and bought
editors; they killed
off competing and independent businesses and employed lawyers of skill
and statesmen of repute to sustain their rights and secure their
privileges. There
is something demonic about these lords of creation; it is not merely
rhetoric to call them robber barons.
Corporate capitalism, which has destroyed our democracy, has given
unchecked power to the uber-rich. And once we understand the pathologies
of these oligarchic
elites, it is easy to chart our future. The state apparatus the
uber-rich controls now exclusively serves their interests. They are deaf
to the cries of
the dispossessed. They empower those institutions that keep us
oppressed—the security and surveillance systems of domestic control,
militarized police,
Homeland Security and the military—and gut or degrade those institutions
or programs that blunt social, economic and political inequality, among
them public
education, health care, welfare, Social Security, an equitable tax
system, food stamps, public transportation and infrastructure, and the
courts. The uber-rich
extract greater and greater sums of money from those they steadily
impoverish. And when citizens object or resist, they crush or kill them.
The uber-rich care inordinately about their image. They are obsessed
with looking at themselves. They are the center of their own universe.
They go to
great lengths and expense to create fictional personas replete with
nonexistent virtues and attributes. This is why the uber-rich carry out
acts of well-publicized
philanthropy. Philanthropy allows the uber-rich to engage in moral
fragmentation. They ignore the moral squalor of their lives, often
defined by the kind
of degeneracy and debauchery the uber-rich insist is the curse of the
poor, to present themselves through small acts of charity as caring and
beneficent.
Those who puncture this image, as Khashoggi did with Salman, are
especially despised. And this is why Trump, like all the uber-rich, sees
a critical press
as the enemy. It is why Trump’s and Kushner’s eagerness to conspire to
help cover up Khashoggi’s murder is ominous. Trump’s incitements to his
supporters,
who see in him the omnipotence they lack and yearn to achieve, to carry
out acts of violence against his critics are only a few steps removed
from the
crown prince’s thugs dismembering Khashoggi with a bone saw. And if you
think Trump is joking when he suggests the press should be dealt with
violently
you understand nothing about the uber-rich.
He will do what he can get away with, even murder. He, like most of the
uber-rich, is devoid of a conscience.
The more enlightened uber-rich, the East Hamptons and Upper East Side
uber-rich, a realm in which Ivanka and Jared once cavorted, look at the
president
as gauche and vulgar. But this distinction is one of style, not
substance. Donald Trump may be an embarrassment to the well-heeled
Harvard and Princeton
graduates at Goldman Sachs, but he serves the uber-rich as assiduously
as Barack Obama and the Democratic Party do. This is why the Obamas,
like the Clintons,
have been inducted into the pantheon of the uber-rich. It is why Chelsea
Clinton and Ivanka Trump were close friends.
They come from the same caste.
There is no force within ruling institutions that will halt the pillage
by the uber-rich of the nation and the ecosystem. The uber-rich have
nothing to
fear from the corporate-controlled media, the elected officials they
bankroll or the judicial system they have seized. The universities are
pathetic corporation
appendages. They silence or banish intellectual critics who upset major
donors by challenging the reigning ideology of neoliberalism, which was
formulated
by the uber-rich to restore class power.
The uber-rich have destroyed popular movements, including labor unions,
along with democratic mechanisms for reform that once allowed working
people to
pit power against power. The world is now their playground.
In “The Postmodern Condition” the philosopher Jean-François Lyotard
painted a picture of the future neoliberal order as one in which “the
temporary contract”
supplants “permanent institutions in the professional, emotional,
sexual, cultural, family and international domains, as well as in
political affairs.”
This temporal relationship to people, things, institutions and the
natural world ensures collective self-annihilation. Nothing for the
uber-rich has an
intrinsic value. Human beings, social institutions and the natural world
are commodities to exploit for personal gain until exhaustion or
collapse. The
common good, like the consent of the governed, is a dead concept. This
temporal relationship embodies the fundamental pathology of the uber-rich.
The uber-rich, as Karl Polanyi wrote, celebrate the worst kind of
freedom—the freedom “to exploit one’s fellows, or the freedom to make
inordinate gains
without commensurable service to the community, the freedom to keep
technological inventions from being used for public benefit, or the
freedom to profit
from public calamities secretly engineered for private advantage.” At
the same time, as Polanyi noted, the uber-rich make war on the “freedom
of conscience,
freedom of speech, freedom of meeting, freedom of association, freedom
to choose one’s own job.”
The dark pathologies of the uber-rich, lionized by mass culture and mass
media, have become our own. We have ingested their poison. We have been
taught
by the uber-rich to celebrate the bad freedoms and denigrate the good
ones. Look at any Trump rally. Watch any reality television show.
Examine the state
of our planet. We will repudiate these pathologies and organize to force
the uber-rich from power or they will transform us into what they
already consider
us to be—the help.
Chris Hedges
block quote end
block quote end
--
_________________________________________________________________
Isaac Asimov
“Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in
telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after
death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst
out "Don't you believe in anything?"
Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement,
and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how
wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous
something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”
― Isaac Asimov