"At the age of five years to enter a spinning-cotton or other factory, and from that time forth to sit there daily, first ten, then twelve, and ultimately fourteen hours, performing the same mechanical labour, is to purchase dearly the satisfaction of drawing breath. But this is the fate of millions, and that of millions more is analogous to it."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer
Do a little reading about working class living conditions in Europe in the 19th century, and you'll come away with the impression that capitalism works only when subjected to a reasonable degree of regulation. Without such limitations, the natural instinct of the owners is toward peonage and slavery.
As if to prove the point, Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher today suggested that severely-underpaid migrant workers should no longer do the grunt work of agriculture. Better, he thinks, to force the prison population to perform such tasks. Why pay even a sub-minimum wage when you can use slave labor?
Many "Christian" conservatives make no secret of the fact that they hunger for a return to the South's infamous "peculiar institution." Do a little research into Dominionist theology and you soon will see all necessary proof of their intentions.
Regulated capitalism produced the booming economy of the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson years. Unregulated capitalism leads to chains around ankles and human beings on the auction block.
Analogy: While nobody likes to see flashing red-and-blue lights in the rear view mirror, imagine what our cities would look like if no cops patrolled our streets and no laws governed our drivers. The only people who would dare to operate a car would be devil-may-care thugs like Vin Deisel's character in The Fast and the Furious. Regulation makes the roads safe for everyone to get to work and to the grocery store.
If the only rule is the will of the stronger, we shall return to the days of master and serf. Which, it seems, is precisely what some Republican leaders want. Why should Bush and Cheney care if this nation's economy falls to tatters? On the day after Ragnarok, they will be the only ones with any money in their wallets.
On the other hand, I could countenance Rohrbacher's suggested use of slave labor -- on one condition: The first prisoners sent out to pick fruit must be Ann Coulter (after her conviction for voter registration fraud) and Rush Limbaugh (after his conviction for drug abuse).
4 comments:
"If the only rule is the will of the stronger, we shall return to the days of master and serf..."
But of course it's not the stronger we have to worry about--it's the more devious and the more sociopathic. Those are the ones who have taken over our government and our corporations. People like Cheney and Rove, who have proved supremely skilled at ruthless bureacratic infighting, and utterly incompetent at everything else.
Strength is consistent with courage, fidelity, integrity, honesty, and kindness. These traditional virtues have been either expunged from our culture, or stripped of all legitimacy.
Nixon damaged this country in far worse ways than even John Dean recognizes. He debauched the currency. And once your money--your means of economically valuing things--is based on a lie, all other measures of value are dragged inexorably down with it. Ultimately, the legitimacy of reality itself is denied. And that, my friends, is where we are at now.
http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r210_35.pdf
The dirty little secret of capitalism is that, without a steady stream of state subsidies and socialization of losses, the system goes off the rails - to the detriment even of the very rich.
This was the lesson of the Great Depression, and it was well learned. The trouble is, the form of that subsidy in the U.S. of A. is military spending. Which makes perfect sense: the public has no say over where the money is goes, it riches a narrow sector of the economy and doesn't disturb the existence of a permanent underclass ready to work cheaply and not vote.
So we get the best of all possible worlds: socialism for high tech industry, capitalism for wage earners.
Rohrbacher is living proof that LSD is not the answer to all mankind's problems. But wouldn't it be ironic if the prisoners picking the fruit turned out to be Cunningham, DeLay, Abramoff, Cheney, Ney, Doolittle, Pombo, Rohrbacher...
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