Three essays from No Stranger to Strange Lands in which the topic ineluctably turns into an Ayn Rant

The following are three distinct essays excerpted from my book,

No Stranger to Strange Lands: A Journey Through Strange Coincidences, Connective Thoughts, and Far Flung Places,

which describe the reasons that Ayn Randian, Milton Friedmian, Free Market Fascist Capitalism should be discarded.

Our government should get involved in stimulating the economy by spending large amounts of money, being open and accountable, and balancing that by not lowering taxes and cutting back on military spending, and we citizens sould be telling them that that is exactly what we want them to do - to serve us instead of themselves and their doners, for once!

Tragedy And Irony

The sadness of bigotry and hardheadedness blanket this entire nation in layers of tragedy and irony. The tragedy of the enslavement of African people – the irony of the original Thanksgiving event, where the native people helped out the struggling Pilgrims, showing them how to survive in this new land, sharing their food and their knowledge, only to later be deemed inferior beings, not worthy of their lands or their cultures – the tragedy of the Civil War, that the righteous on each side were driven to such extreme violence – the irony that many of the romanticized episodes of the Wild West, involving “heroes” like Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody, were the results of so many armed and restless warriors from that horrible Civil War – tragedy that, as time went on, racism continued against the Black people in the South and a new wave of racism arose against the Chinese in the West – irony that the Industrial Revolution threw “modernization” into overdrive, creating a consumer society so completely dependent on corporations for food, clothing, medicine, transportation, communication, time-saving and life-enhancing gadgets, and energy to run those gadgets, all driven by massive media conglomerations that inform us what we need to buy next. The biggest irony here is that we are constantly reminded of how “free” we are, yet we have become slaves to our own existence. We have the right to free speech, religion, assembly, the press, and to petition our government, as Article I of the Bill of Rights declares, but these rights only exist in spirit, and are in practice minimized to apply only to those supporting this [the Bush] administration. And so, irony of ironies, tragedy of tragedies, this country – despite all the technology and information available, despite all of the lessons of history, despite the awareness of millions of people that our leaders have been lying to us and have manipulated the corporate media so insidiously that Orwell's dystopian world of doublethink has come to pass – this country has fallen from the towering heights into the snake pit of Fascism, lead there by fanatics, Capitalist fanatics, who are the snakes themselves, the embodiment of the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, who seduced Eve with its shiny perfect-looking waxed pesticide-laden genetically engineered apple – she didn't seem to notice that it was devoid of most of its apple taste... How easy it is to conjure up our symbolic archetypes! How powerful that imagery is, and the image of the Snake goes a long way: the slimy snake oil salesman; the sneaky snake in the grass; the Great World Snake that lives in a pit at the center of the world; the seething snake pit that even that icon of manly fearlessness, Indiana Jones, can't handle. The Snake is the ultimate in creepiness and deception. A massive, nation-wide pit of creepiness and deception has emerged, created by the Serpents of Free Market Fascism, who lead their followers over its edge and into its depths with promises of glorious Freedom and Happiness while curtailing freedom and offering only false choices. And just like in the Bible, from which that Serpent with its apple emerged, they have their own creation myths and lofty ideals that, when examined closely, can be found to be based on tortured logic, questionable constructs of reality, and pure arrogance - the same kind of inflexible self-righteousness that has always led to violence and abuses, always based on some kind of entitlement claims and moral value systems that are devoid of humanistic ethics or empathy for the suffering of others. Their bible is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

Herein lies a major source of the sadness behind my anger: that so many have been swayed by the dangerously seductive ideology of this and other “free market” writings, this twisting of what constitutes “good and evil,” “morality,” and the motivations of caring people, without thinking through the inferences or consequences of what these ideas entail. They are meant to inspire and uphold the rights of the individual and connect Democracy with Capitalism, yet they end up vilifying the working and management classes – the very engines of their precious prosperity - and abhorring populism. In fact, it seems to me that the only thing Democracy has to do with their ideology is that it is not Communism or Socialism. They have one-upped the original Fascists in deceptiveness by utilizing that system while claiming to be Democratic. They particularly like to paint the wealthy as the victims of guilt-trips, do-gooders, and those who hate them for their greatness, thus painting taxes as the coercive looting of their wealth by the state. They are paranoid that everyone is after a piece of them. Do people realize that the basis for this ideology is that the wealthy (who are assumed to be so because they have made great achievements and are the productive element of society) should not be pressured by the lower classes (who are assumed to be so because they are lazy and jealous) into parting with any little bit of their wealth because Self-Reliance is the ultimate good and helping out the less fortunate only encourages them to not try hard enough? In their minds, they are wealthy because they are better, and they are the ones who are put upon to hold up all of society, the “atlases” of the world. This is the thinking, and it is sadly arrogant and self-righteous, yet it seems to sucker people in with the empty promise that all they really need to do is to seek Happiness through Self-Reliance, Achievement, and “Rational Self-Interest,” and above all, do not give in to evil Selflessness, and then they, too, can become one of society's moral leaders. Saddest of all is their dangerous determination not to be sad – to deny Sadness – to forget, and thus lose sight of the truth of the past – that this mighty nation has been built on the tears of many, many diverse and underprivileged peoples - enslaved, indentured, in debt – and has not always lived up to the promises that the Founding Fathers made. It all leads to a false sense of entitlement by those who are most entitled, a sentiment that things are the way they are supposed to be, that those who are most trod upon deserve their fate because they are weak and unworthy, and that this system should be supported even by them because it is the best that Humanity has to offer.

Chief Ouray

It [the mining town of Ouray, high up in the San Juan Mountains of Southwestern Colorado] was named after Chief Ouray, leader of the Uncompahgre band of Utes that once roamed this area. Before the discovery of gold and silver up here, these mountains were of little use to the pioneers of this nation. The Utes came here hunting deer, elk, antelope, and other animals, to revel in the beauty and grandeur, to bathe in the sacred hot springs. These wandering people probably used peyote, which would have certainly enhanced their appreciation of their incredible landscape. That also explains the inspiration for their imaginative, colorful, intricately beaded artwork. By being mobile, they had the best of all worlds, joining into larger bands in sheltered, warmer places in the winter, enjoying family and celebrations, and then splitting up and going up to higher ground to hunt and gather, and maybe throw some seeds in a high meadow somewhere, or farm in the rich river valley a bit during warmer weather. Chief Ouray did what he thought was in his peoples' best interest, sadly underestimating the extent to which the dark skinned people were despised and dehumanized by the light skinned invaders. He was a man who knew four languages, who met with presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Ulysses S. Grant, who was known as “The White Man's Friend” because he negotiated with the United States and even formed alliances with them in battles against his enemies to the south, the Apache and Navajo tribes. These Utes were known to be great warriors, and it seems that their leader understood the extent to which they were out-gunned and outnumbered by the Great White Wave, and thus sought to be diplomatic instead of confrontational. He was right about the unstoppable nature of Capitalism, and although he represented his people with great honor and diplomatic aplomb, in the end they still suffered the same fate as all of their other fellow natives. In the end, all they got was a state named after their tribe, a town named after their chief, a river named after their band, and banishment to a reservation in northeastern Utah. But Chief Ouray was a true Leader, a man with excellent leadership qualities, a man depended upon by his band to make sound decisions that directly affected everyone. It stands to reason that nomadic cultures depend upon their leaders heavily, because they lived on more of an edge, very intricately involved with nature's patterns, and so they had no tolerance for bad leadership. The Leader must have been a good leader, or he didn't get to lead. Thus, there was genuine trust amongst the members, which also allowed them to be more open to the sharing of their resources and division of their labor, all for the common good. They shared the products of their labor, and they moved about the land, utilizing and respecting it, but not owning it. In fact, the “Enlightenment” era ideas about “natural law” having anything to do with Labor and Property Rights does not apply to the nomadic, non-property owning societies that existed successfully all over North America for at least a thousand years, further proof that these “laws” are human created ideas, not something that comes from Nature. And so, the regal Chief Ouray could not have been the inspiration for Rand Land.

No, it was not the communistical, wandering ways of the original inhabitants of this place, but the newcomers, the railroad and the mining companies, with their “Captains of Industry” at the helm, the wonderful way that Capitalism brought all of these cute little buildings and the job opportunities for whores and construction workers and clerks and miners, and the rail lines and roads, and all those other signs of “progress” to this far corner of the world. Ayn Rand came to one of the most beautiful places on the planet, visited one of the hokier little hot spring resort towns, and became inspired by the Human Endeavor that built all the buildings and schools and roads and mines and such amidst this amazing natural wonder. She heard whisperings while she was in the vapor caves for a little too long, slightly ill from eating too much saltwater taffy, and feeling the effects of too little oxygen getting to her brain. Certainly, she stayed at the fanciest establishment in town, where the railroad executives stayed, and heard their whispers above those of the others. She heard how the mining interests had the indigenous people forcibly removed, how several thousand people had all come for the money, built these cute Victorian houses, and left when the mining business fell into decline. And she heard from the next wave of Tourism Capitalists. Somehow, she was motivated to crystallize her whole Rand-world, of “rational self-interest,” the seeking of individual happiness and fulfillment as society's highest calling, the entitlement to private property as reward for achievement, the need to repel the guilt trips that the non-productive members of society use to get the government to take away one's property, where the wealthy are hated for their greatness, and so they must not tolerate parasite, impotent, evil mediocrity, but must carry on in their moral calling as the put-upon, unappreciated, self-sufficient, creative, competents of society, seeking only the highest of ideals, the profound right to be happy, and to enjoy the fruits of their labors in the form of property.

How did she miss the call of Nature in this amazing place? How have humans for so long now ignored those voices of Nature? How have we “rationalized” our destruction of Nature, trying to claim that Nature itself causes us to act the way we do? We have misunderstood our place in nature in several respects. We have come to believe that we are above Nature, able to rule over it, conquer it, exploit it, that we are smarter than it. But we are only deceiving ourselves in this respect, unwilling to admit that our real understanding of Nature is much less than we like to think it is. At the same time, Western philosophy has gone down the path of claiming that things in human-created society follow certain “laws of nature,” so that Social Darwinism became a convenient rationale for the destruction of the indigenous societies around the globe by the mad rush of European peoples to stamp out their claims on the new lands being discovered. Even while many are insulted by the Darwinian idea that humans developed, through the process of Natural Selection, from the apes, these same people are perfectly willing to apply that same reasoning to human society, claiming that because the indigenous people the European explorers encountered were less “civilized,” less technologically advanced, pagan, often wandering, and much less well armed, they were “naturally” less Human, unworthy, and in need of being “saved” from their “evil” and “backward” ways. The conquerers felt sanctified by their own superiority. They were morally obligated by their religious beliefs as well as their social beliefs to spread the Great White Way, the way of separation from Nature, and faith in God and technological advancement. The Mormons actually tried to turn the relocated Utes into good, civilized, Christian farmers at the Res. in Utah, with Indian Schools and all that. They might as well have water-boarded them. They achieved the same end, which was near annihilation of their identities.

Not that the nomads of North America were angels compared to white people. They weren't. They were warriors, sometimes bandits and raiders, they traded in and used slaves. There were certainly messed up parts about their cultures, just like there are messed up parts about ours. What happened to them was that they were treated as if they were of no value at all, had no lessons to teach, no knowledge to offer. Yet, they did have a kind of knowledge about the rhythm and flow of life in their regions of travel, the arability of the land, the sustainability of areas and the need to move around to allow regeneration, the pathways connecting places, the animal and plant life, natural medicines, locations of springs... And they knew that they were part of nature, not lords over it. They respected the earth, and spent much of their energy making ceremonies to celebrate nature and its gifts. Their gods did not separate them from nature, but were representations of different aspects of the natural world. Their gods did not tell them to reject this life and prepare for the afterlife. They were concerned with the here and now and the future of the world, as the people were charged with caring for the land and acting to bring forth balance, to actively participate in the cycles of nature.

So despite nature's grandeur, despite Chief Ouray's wise ways, the voices of Capitalism and Western philosophy rang through to Ayn Rand when she was here. She built a world in which being “rational” meant being disciplined and following what is only “human nature,” even though humans are not really that good at being rational and “human nature” is not really as it has been defined by philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. She built an ideology that distrusts and despises the government as well as the very workers that run the grand enterprises of the elite business leaders, while at the same time starting out on the premise that every individual has the means to accomplish great things if only they would apply themselves. But every individual does not have those means – only the wealthy and already connected people have those means. The vast majority of those people are not at the top of the social structure because they are in any way better than everyone else. Rather, they were just luckier, wealthier, better positioned to start with. And by distrusting and despising the lower classes, the elites have entirely misinterpreted the motivations of all of the people that work for them. People, for the most part, except for the always present criminal elements in society, don't want to mooch and leech off of the wealthy, nor off of the government. They simply want to be respected and valued for what they contribute to society. In Rand World, the free market system is the ultimate moral system, because, by the laws of Natural Selection and the pressures of the marketplace, unfettered free-flowing ideas will always rise to the top – only the best will be tolerated by the marketplace, only the most efficient businesses, only the best value items, only the most sound investments will survive the struggle. Only...only...the marketplace doesn't work like that. It never can. Money, property, value, these are all inanimate, human-created ideas. They do not exist in nature. They follow a different set of rules that are based on a more realistic characterization of the human creature, a better understanding of our own selves.

Accountability

Family is family, and it will always be so. Many times, traditional family structures work great for everyone in the family, but many times it does not. Many times, people take advantage of their positions and their relatives, and since the Abrahamic religions are all structured on that same framework, George Lakoff's Father Figure Framework, a system now exists where the Father Figure is absolute, unquestionable, unaccountable. If he is irresponsible, abusive, undependable, his underlings have no recourse but to put up with his abuse or inability. The authority figures in our society are supposed to be honored regardless of their actual performance. There is an unspoken assumption that somehow, “natural laws” have brought the worthy into positions of power and authority, and further, by virtue of their being in those positions, they are believed to be favored by God, even chosen by God. But the whole structure is corrupted by true human nature, the side of us that is greedy , egotistical, opportunistic, and inappropriately loyal to entities other than those that are supposed to be attended to. The emphasis in the current system is on the authority aspect instead of on the ability aspect. Society would be much better served to respect leadership and ability over mere authority. And this idea applies throughout all levels of society, from the highest levels of government down to the individual family units.

Accountability – it just doesn't seem to matter in that Father Figure Framework. I can imagine something better, something more just, more accountable, more flexible, a framework that does allow the best and the brightest to achieve those positions of power. It is a matter of breaking through the status quo to allow women and people of color to join in the leadership ranks while the good ol' boys conspire to hold on to all of their status. It is a matter of building communities and connecting people instead of dividing us. It is about respecting alternative ways of achieving goals, such as creating alternative family units, working up different frameworks, engaging in creative problem solving. It is about education and encouragement and sharing of responsibilities, then finding leaders who understand and respect the position of authority they have been granted and use their power wisely. Why have we resigned ourselves to settle for so much less?

This is where we need to Speak Truth To Power. The concept here is that people in any system give their tacit consent to be ruled. The authority of anyone is granted to them by the people who they hold authority over. When the ruler is ruling badly, the people have the duty to withdraw their consent, and to let those in power know that they have lost their authority over them by engaging in non-violent acts of civil disobedience, willfully disregarding the rule of the powerful, and by speaking up and communicating their positions clearly. Accountability through consent. This is a powerful idea, one that seems fully democratic, yet, it remains obscure and unknown to a society that does not pay much attention to what their leaders are doing. In fact, the concept has been completely twisted around by Ayn Rand with her “sanction of the victim” line of thought. Her concern is that the business leaders are the victims of “looters and moochers” and the government that aids them in trying to take away the leaders' well-deserved profits through taxation. The solution, according to Ms. Rand, is to refuse to be victimized, refuse to tolerate this stealing of their money, refuse to make any sacrifices at all towards a greater good in order to expel the parasite evil. It just makes me so sad. The idea that we consent to be ruled and thus cede power to the rulers has been hijacked by the powerful themselves and turned around to mean that it is they, the supposedly strong and good and productive, who must not allow themselves to be victimized by the weak and evil and lazy, that they are the ones whose consent matters, that they consent to lead society with their greatness, and they cede their consent to be taxed because they already help society enough by creating jobs for all the losers. So much for accountability. So much for social justice. And so much for reality, because the wealthy are victims only of their own paranoia and greed, while the not so wealthy are truly victimized by lack of resources, education, information, and opportunity. But, as always, the working classes are many while the wealthy are few, so the few do whatever they can to exclude the many, to keep their club small and exclusive, and to persuade the many that the status quo is how things were meant to be and that the leaders are doing a heck of a job. It is up to the many who do not hold traditional power to come together and understand that they really do hold a kind of power, that power to refuse to play by the same old rules that have kept them from achieving what they could in a more just system, the power to hold the leaders accountable.

The Timely Death of Free Market Ideology

Republican's "no regulation" ideology is dead - dead, dead, dead. As someone knowledgeable recently put it, trying to have an economy that has no rules is like playing a game of pick-up basketball with no referees: things are bound to get out of hand. The idea that economic forces will somehow magically regulate themselves is akin to believing in unicorns and fairy dust. Laissez-faire ideology is a myth, based on a fantasy, built upon a misunderstanding, all of which have been proven ever so wrong by the financial events of the recent past. And anyone who tries to claim that this is not all an apparition is delusional and not willing to look critically at their own belief system.

The idea that less regulation is better is actually a cover for allowing business owners to cheat, lie and steal their way to fortune. The less regulation there is, the more that cheating, lying, and stealing will occur. "But no," you say, "why would the business owners do that? They want to make money the legitimate way." Why they would do that is because nothing is stopping them, when there are no regulations. There are no laws to break, and no accountability to speak to, so why not cheat lie, and steal? "Well," your answer might be, "the government should not make rules and regulations, because the free market regulates itself." How does that occur, I would like to know? "You see," this is you again, "the invisible hand of the market place always sets things straight. Lying, cheating, and stealing is bad business. A business like that will lose its customers, through its bad reputation, and so it is in its interest to stay on the up and up, to develop a sound reputation, and to built its clientèle through honest business practices."

But there you go with your fairy dust, again. For that is precisely how crooks set up their scams. They pose as legitimate business people, gain everyone's trust, and then, when enough people have invested in their scheme or lent them enough money based on their sterling reputation, they run off with all the dough. Or, they can trim personal profits off of the books all along, having convinced everyone to trust them, so that no one looks into their financial dealings. Everything seems to be hunky dory, that is, up until someone wants the money that they had put in back, and it is discovered that the money has evaporated. Or, the product that is being sold is inferior or defective in a way that does not become apparent for some time, such as when someone ends up dying, and it turns out that the company knew all along that their product will eventually cause someone's death, but chose to continue to make a profit off of it, anyway.

These cases are not the exception, they are the norm, and the only things that prevent more of this from happening are the regulations that are in place. Tragically, our United States government has been under the influence of "no regulation" ideology for nearly three decades now, ever since President Ronald Reagan said, "Government is not a solution to our problem. Government is the problem." With that, a movement swept the nation, and those who are supposed to make government work have been systematically sabotaging government programs so that they are underfunded, understaffed, overruled, stacked with allies of the businesses they are supposed to be regulating, and weakened, all so that the claim can be made that those institutions don't work and should be eliminated. The truth of the matter is that the regulating bodies have not been allowed to work properly, because the businesses that lobby the government officials have bought them off, and convinced them that the business world will regulate its own self.

Now, part of the reason for the prominence of this ideology has been because of lobbyist corruption of the system that is supposed to protect consumers and citizens. Another part of the reason has been because of Ayn Rand, Horatio Alger, and Milton Friedman. Ayn Rand was a fiction writer who perpetrated the myth that business leaders have the purest intentions, the strongest work ethics, and unquestioned moral authority over the rest of society, because they have risen to power through the system of Social Darwinism, which makes them intrinsically the best that humanity has to offer. This is why I have stated that this ideology is a myth based on a misunderstanding. The problem with this scenario is that Social Darwinism does not really exist. It is a misappropriation of a natural phenomenon, the survival of the fittest, to the arena of human endeavor. The difference between the realm of nature and the realm of social behavior is that the laws of nature are universal, existing through the same physical and biological forces throughout the planet. Living beings adapt themselves to these forces, the weakest fail to survive, while the strongest live to perpetuate their genes. Whole ecosystems develop, where all of the living beings find their niche, and all are interconnected within the systems.

Within human societies, however, the universal laws of nature no longer apply. The human race long ago fought its battles among the other living creatures, and having risen to the top of the food chain, we began to build societies, based on the exchange of money for goods and services. Within the larger realm of nature, we created an entirely different, man-made realm, with different laws and forces. This system is based on power and resources, with sprinklings of the force of human perception interspersed for good measure. The notion that those at the top of the human pyramid are indeed the fittest has been perpetrated throughout human history by those same people as a matter of perception, so that they may hold on to their power and resources, so that the masses that they rule over will not join forces and overthrow them.

Our founding fathers attempted to reject those very perceptions, stating that “all men are created equal” in order to deny the claim by monarchs that they are more special than everyone else. Unfortunately, family dynasties and the tyranny of Big Business were not also rejected with the founding of this nation, as the land-owners and business leaders set themselves up to retain as much power as possible within the new democratic system. Slavery, indentured servitude, child labor, disenfranchisement, and other abuses and denials of democratic rights continued, in direct opposition to those enlightened words. And the new power structure was maintained through manipulations of perceptions, such as the popular fictions of Horatio Alger that caused the poor and abused to believe that they had a chance at joining the rich and powerful with his rags to riches stories, and later, the popular fictions that champion the business leaders over the workers as a kind of natural order as dreamed up by Ayn Rand.

Then there is Milton Friedman. Although he and his followers wouldn't have and still won't admit it, he was also a fiction writer. His economic theories are the source of much of the fairy dust that the “no regulations” gang champion, as he connected capitalism with freedom, and used phrases like “free to choose” to promote his radical ideology. The crux of this free market ideology is indeed Friedman's belief that the freedom of a people cannot exist without free and unfettered capitalism, that it is free markets, which, according to the (now debunked) natural forces of the marketplace, will naturally regulate themselves, that are the deepest expression of free people, and that freedom of choice underlies all other freedoms that uphold the human spirit.

Sounds nice, but what are the real consequences of such a viewpoint? What underlies the belief that free markets are equal to free people, and that freedom of choice automatically results in a system where only the cream rises to the top, only the best ideas survive, and only the most capable people become business leaders, worthy of their huge salaries and compensation packages? Well, we have seen the consequences of allowing the financial institutions run amok, and even Alan Greenspan, a true believer in Friedmanian free market capitalism, expressed surprise that the system did not regulate itself the way he thought it was supposed to. The supposed financial wizards at the top of that pyramid simply allowed their institutions to practice riskier, more and more complex, and absolutely unsound bundling and trading of financial instruments that no one understood, that were not kept track of, and that were generating wealth out of thin air, so that when investors did start to look into things, the whole stack of cards came tumbling down, dragging our whole economy as well as the rest of the planet down with it.

Could it be that greed overtook reason? Everything was fine and everyone was happy, as long as more and more fake wealth showed up on the books. Does it make sense that the CEO's of these companies, who allowed this all to happen, are not being held to account for their failures? Does it make sense that these CEO's all sit on the board of directors of each other's companies, so that their salaries and benefits are all decided amongst themselves, and are thus divorced from any actual accountability to the performance of their companies? The shareholders are supposed to hold them accountable, but they have been hoodwinked by the perception that the CEO's must be paid “competitively,” which somehow magically attracts only the best and brightest to those positions. No one seems able or willing to point out that their emperors are wearing no clothes, that they have been royally scammed, and that the free market system has failed them miserably. All those people who cleared off their desks when they were fired from their jobs at those financial firms simply went home to lick their wounds, too embarrassed to admit to themselves and their families that they are victims of this elaborate illusion.

As for what underlies this free market belief system, part of it I have already covered, the false notion that survival of the fittest applies to human society. But because many people are shut out of the system, because of bigotry, economic disadvantages, and other lack of fair access to the halls of power, this is a myth (see my article on competition for more on this). Another problem that I see with this belief system is that the connection that Friedman made between capitalism and freedom is tenuous, at best. Capitalism, in and of itself, does not guarantee freedom. An interesting example of this is the current situation in China, a communist state, but which has been adapting capitalist elements in order to raise itself to a higher status in the world power structure. This may have been raising the living standards of the Chinese people somewhat, but it hasn't stopped the government from maintaining its totalitarian grip on freedoms, such as its one-child policy, its total control of the media, or its involvement with the very industries that it is allowing to benefit to some degree from capitalist practices. While it seems to be striking an intriguing balance between capitalism and socialism, it has not let up on its totalitarian governmental structure. Furthermore, while in our society, more wealth generally engenders more “freedom” because it gives an individual more power, in a closed society like China's, this relationship might not hold true. More wealth might beget a higher standard of living, but not more freedom.

This example highlights an important distinction that must be made regarding the term, “capitalism,” and that is that it is a purely economic term, which stands wholly separate from political terminology such as “democracy,” “monarchy,” or “totalitarianism.” “Capitalism” belongs in the category of terms that describe economic systems, such as “communism,” “socialism,” and “fascism.” These terms are actually quite complicated and not very well understood by our culture, as they are also used to describe the political systems that utilize them, and close examination reveals that these economic methods can actually overlap each other. Just as capitalism has been seeping into Chinese communism, I believe that fascism has been creeping into our capitalism.

In fact, those who are worried that socialism is seeping into our capitalist system because of the recent government bailout of the financial industries have misunderstood these terms. This is not an example of socialism at all. Socialism is the redistribution of wealth throughout society, something that the holders of wealth are not in favor of. Transferring public wealth upward, on the other hand, is fascism, where the business leaders join forces with the government, of whatever type that might be, to use their wealth and power in the name of the “national interest.” Fascism embraces capitalism wholeheartedly, but is very sneaky and disingenuous about the relationship between the government, the business leaders, and the workers. Fascism also traditionally twists the terms “freedom” and “equality” all around, claiming that its citizens will be free and equal in a strong state, as expressed through the strength, cohesiveness, and purity of the state itself, and that this justifies the elimination of all dissent within the state.

Here is a quote from the Mussolini's Doctrine of Fascism to this point: “Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual. And if liberty is to he the attribute of living men and not of abstract dummies invented by individualistic liberalism, then Fascism stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State. The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.”

My point is that it behooves us all to study history for ourselves, and to pay attention to how terms are used, especially emotionally charged terms such as “freedom” and “liberty” and “equality.” The Doctrine of Fascism is full of such misuses of terminology, and it strikes me as very similar to the unsubstantiated equation of “freedom to choose” in the context of economic theory with democracy. Democracy is defined as government by the will of the people, with the freedom to choose their leaders instead of having their leaders imposed upon them. But to then carry that concept to the grocery store shelves takes the whole idea out of context. Having one hundred and four different kinds of cereal on the shelf, all produced by just a few of huge consumer product conglomerates, namely, General Mills, Kellogg's, Nabisco, Post, Quaker, and Purina, is not really freedom. It is just an illusion of freedom.

In fact, it is just an illusion of choice, since they are all full of the same, basic, mass-produced ingredients, especially that high-fructose corn syrup. And that particular ingredient is ubiquitous throughout the grocery store shelves, as anyone who shops for a diabetic will know, as are those same corporate labels. We seem to have become enslaved to high-fructose corn syrup. We are even pouring a similar corn product, ethanol, into our gas tanks. Yes, we have a choice, to drive away from the pump and find another oil company to throw our money at. But a real choice would be to have available more battery-operated cars, or electric hybrids, or some other kind of viable transportation option. These choices should be available by now, as ideas about new energy options have been floating around for decades, yet the oil companies and the car companies, with the help of our government, chose to literally hold us over the barrel by not investing in these options, instead, choosing to spend millions of dollars on their campaigns to deny that global warming even exists, to lobby the government to have gas mileage standards weakened, and to continue to push their highly-profitable, all-American, gas-guzzling trucks and SUV's.

Real choice would, by the way, include more political parties to chose from, a socialist party, and a conservative party, and a green party, and a libertarian party, and these parties would hold seats in Congress and represent citizens and their varied political and economic interests. Of course, that would mean that we would need a real democracy, where citizens would hold the same rights and privileges that corporations hold, to free speech, equal access to our elected leaders, and the right to declare bankruptcy... but that is a topic for a whole other essay. Suffice it to say that the “no regulations” ideology has been outed as the fiction that it is, and let us move what democracy we have forward to help us all get through these difficult economic times to come, first and foremost by putting the government back to its job of governing, and putting an end to this nonsense about the private sector magically regulating itself according to what it decides that consumers want, as if human greed and underhandedness did not exist at all.

Markets Are Not The Boss Of Me!

Naomi Klein was on Democracy Now! recently talking about how the markets throw fits when they do not get their way.

But before I watched the day's evening broadcast of the show, I had a similar idea. It occurred to me that there is a perception that everything that society needs will materialize through the magic of the marketplace, as if it were some kind of force of nature, like gravity, or natural selection, that pushes progress ever forward. What society wants, society gets. Adam Smith described it in Biblical terms, as the “invisible hand” that leads individuals, in their pursuit of personal gain, toward their highest potential, and therefore, at the same time, leads society as a whole towards the greatest good. And this is the basis for free market ideology that says that the more businessmen can do their business free and unfettered by rules and regulations, the better for everyone in society. Any government intervention, according to these ideologues, would upset this natural order and cause society to become stifled. What government should do is to free the businesspeople, the entrepreneurs, the CEO's, and the bankers who lend them money, by releasing them from any burdens of paying taxes or chains of following regulations, and all will be well for everybody.

I have been very critical of this view for a while now, ever since I began to examine all this a few years ago, but it wasn't until the other day that any kind of alternative model to this B.S. presented itself. Well, it came to me while I was pulling weeds from a flower bed in my South Georgia back yard, that the marketplace might be better represented as a child that wants everything that it sees and doesn't want to be disciplined or bathed or to eat dinner before dessert or to go to bed at a reasonable hour. This child is very impressionable and easily influenced by marketing and shiny new things. The child's appetite is insatiable and his temper tantrums, epic. And the free marketeers, as parents of this golden boy who they want desperately to love them, have been coddling him, giving him everything he has ever wanted, and refusing to discipline him or lay down any boundaries that would begin to teach him to think of anything other than his own urges and desires. I think that this model is more apt than the “invisible hand” model because it puts us human beings in charge and accountable, as opposed to depicting the market as a force of nature or a gift of God that we should not try to fight against or contain. It takes the marketplace out of the realm of nature or teleology, and puts it where it belongs, as a human construct that we must take responsibility for.

We can nurture the child as well as discipline and educate him. We can teach him values, to be kind, to share, to respect others as well as to be vibrant and innovative. This puts the marketplace into proper perspective, as one part of what human individuals and societies do, along with building communities, exploring the world, connecting with each other through art and music. By putting this human face on this ever so human entity, we demystify it, claim it as our own, and guide it toward helping us better ourselves spiritually as well as monetarily. We can embrace our child as a connective force rather than a divisive one. By depicting the marketplace as the child of humanity, we free ourselves from the tyranny of righteous inequality that has been imposed upon us all in the name of capitalism and patriotism and so-called "progress." Naomi Klein often cites this quote by Milton Freedman:

“Only a crisis produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.”

Well, here is an idea that I am throwing out there to lie around, as we certainly have a crisis on our hands, and the time for change from the conventional thinking about the supposed “free markets” has come.

In my book, No Stranger to Strange Lands: A Journey Through Strange Coincidences, Connective Thoughts, and Far Flung Places, I talk about property ownership and Ayn Rand as well as some ideas that nomadic cultures have to offer, about sharing of resources as opposed to hording, being flexible, holding leadership accountable, negotiating diversity, but I do not offer a new framework to replace the one that I criticize so harshly. I also explore how ideas spread around in the book, and now, picking up on all of that, the idea had come to me as Ms. Klein was expressing them to Amy Goodman, but before I had any knowledge of the interview. That's what I mean by those "strange coincidences."

And so I am encouraged to continue to build on my ideas, especially this idea for a new model to replace the old one that I believe has been leading us so astray, ever since the Enlightenment, when they thought that they had everything all figured out (yeah - right!).

I am no economist, yet I am deeply interested in economic ideas because our lives are so very enmeshed it that realm, particularly now that our whole economic system is falling into disarray. What I am really interested in is how we think about it all, perhaps it could be called “meta-economics,” the over-arching principles by which we understand how monetary systems function, because how we look at the world around us encompasses everything, from monetary to spiritual to social to physical to mental to emotional to environmental and other realms.

I have come across two items in collecting my thoughts for this piece that help to illustrate my points. The first appeared in my monthly newsletter from Dr. Susan Love, M.D. I keep updated on the latest cancer research news because I lost my mother to breast cancer back in 1989, and now my younger sister is a two-time cancer survivor, of the rare and very aggressive type called Inflammatory Breast Cancer. I like to stay informed of any new information that would be helpful to my sister as well as to myself and my other sister about understanding the disease and preventing it. Here is a quote that piqued my interest:

"Many women find that once they hit menopause their libido isn't quite what it used to be. The pharmaceutical companies are well aware of this, too. That's why they've been trying to identify a treatment that could essentially be the female equivalent to Viagra. To date, they have had virtually no success. Which is why they keep studying—and trying to find a place on the market for—a testosterone patch or cream for women."

This goes to my point about meta-economics by highlighting the difference between how the market is perceived to function versus how it really functions. It directly contradicts the notion that the market is consumer-driven. The fact is that the pharmaceutical companies believe that they will be able to make a lot of money by developing a female version of Viagra, even though all the research from the past eight years has shown that women's bodies are very complex and tend to respond badly to all kinds of hormone treatments, and that the women in the study were not really as interested in their product as the companies would like.

I will add that in the mean time, there still is no cure for cancer, while those horrible chemotherapy drugs continue to be widely used and highly profitable. I can hardly believe that in the twenty years since my mother died, they haven't developed a better way to treat cancer than to poison the patient and hope that the tumors and cancerous cells will be killed instead of the whole person. It seems barbaric to me. It also boggles my mind that the cause of cancer is still such a mystery. Of course, the chemotherapy industry would go under if a proper cause were found, which makes me wonder just how hard they are really trying to find the cause, let alone the cure.

The Progressive idea of health care is that it is a human right and should not be driven entirely by perceived market forces – so would that change the emphasis from treatment to prevention? Take the profit motive out, and the pharmaceutical companies might end their search for the female Viagra, and instead concentrate on keeping women more healthy, which would probably increase their libido. As it stands, they continue to push for this product that no-one wants and that actually causes cancer. So much for the greater good of society!

The other item I came across was this quote about Mikhail Gorbachev, when he was named Time magazine's “Man of the Decade” of the 1980's:

"The metaphysics of global power has changed. Markets are now more valuable than territory, information more powerful than military hardware."

The fall of the Soviet Union was supposed to be the big triumph of capitalism over communism, although the same article admits that it didn't take effect just off the bat:

“Estee Lauder and Christian Dior opened exclusive shops on Gorky Street. Meanwhile, soap, sugar, tea, school notebooks, cigarettes, sausage and other meats, butter, fruits and vegetables, and even matches are scarce.”

In fact, free market capitalism blossomed in its purist form as the Russian Mafia soon took advantage of the lack of infrastructure and the chaos of change. But the capitalists of this nation were quite smug about the whole affair. Ronald Reagan even took the credit for the change of heart of the Russians, although I personally think that the credit properly belongs to the Beatles. The supposed end of the cold war was going to open up all of vast Russia as a market for goods from the U.S.A., and military hardware was to go the way of the dodo bird. And yet, the military was able to survive just fine, and communism did not exactly go away, a la China, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, and our neighbor, Cuba. In addition, Western Europe, Canada, and lately, a wave of nations in South America have been moving toward more socialist structures as a way to better serve all members of society and to uphold basic human rights, such as the right to health care, for example.

And now, the reign of the unfettered free market ideology is coming unraveled in a catastrophic downfall. The fitful child is already screaming and kicking as our society denies him his usual toys and finally says “No!” to his excesses. No, we cannot continue borrowing and borrowing, just to keep him happy. No, all is not well in our metaphorical family situation, as our government has been insisting, hoping to avoid the reality of the economic abyss from coming forward until after the elections, so that the Republican Party that has clung so fervently to the “free market” delusion would not appear to the electorate to be so incompetent, so responsible for our pain.

No, child, you do not any longer have the privilege of spending all our money as you like, for your purchases have been frivolous and selfish and have done nothing to further anything but your own hedonistic greed. It is time, child, that we gave you some direction, some boundaries, some rules to follow, so that our family can get through this crisis, for we all need to make sacrifices, to come together and join forces to survive.

And let this be a lesson to you, dear child, that acting in pure self interest does not result in the best society after all, as we had believed, so long as we were able to keep the blessed cycle of consumption churning. It is finally time to educate you in how to be a better human being through learning to limit yourself, to be empathetic to the needs of others around you, to help out around the house, and to respect those who care for you. It is finally time, Market, to grow up.

see:
Democracy Now! November 25 2008, Naomi Klein, Robert Kuttner and Michael Hudson Dissect Obama’s New Economic Team & Stimulus Plan