|
 CAIRO, May 9 – With the tone of a teacher and the certainty
of a believer, the president of Iran wrote to President Bush that Western
democracy had failed and that the invasion of Iraq, American treatment
of prisoners and support for Israel could not be reconciled with Christian
values.
"Those with insight can already hear the sounds of
the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic
systems," Mr. Ahmadinejad wrote.
from the New
York Times
When engaged in a life or death struggle, if one is to
prevail it is essential to understand the thinking and goals of one’s
opponent. Of course, in these paranoid times, with the unbridled interest
of Homeland Security reaching into nooks and crannies, public and private,
foreign and domestic, it could be dangerous to even ask questions like,
"Is it possible that we ARE on the wrong side, that Western Democracy
is a corrupt, hypocritical sham, and that it is doomed to defeat and
decay?"
However, let us throw caution to the wind, and attempt to not only ask that question, but to put it to rest,
It is clear that Democracy is a flawed, contentious,
chaotic and corruption-prone form of government. It is equally clear,
according
to the old adage, that it is the best idea anybody has come up with so
far.
And yet, our society seems poised at the lip of a great
precipice, teetering precariously at the edge of an abyss. We have lost
so much, these last 43 years; we have lost our innocence, we have lost
not only our moral conviction, but our moral compass, we have lost the
American spirit, and the American dream, and we’ve lost that loving feeling.
People are disgusted with both parties, all politicians, business leaders,
pampered sports stars, spoiled celebrities, high-powered lawyers and
doctors, bankers, insurance companies and corporate insiders. A dangerous,
lawless underclass is growing around the edges and in the cracks of post-industrial
democracies.
Could these problems be symptomatic of fatal flaws in the
Western liberal democratic model, as Ahmadinejad claims?
At the risk of being associated with the thoroughly discredited
school of Karl Marx, let us suggest that all of these problems, and more,
derive rather from intrinsic (although perhaps not fatal) flaws in the
prevalent modern conception of Capitalism.
Modern Capitalism, formulated first and foremost in post
Industrial Revolution England 250 years ago (see Adam
Smith) in based on a need for constant, measured growth. It is not a steady-state economic
system. Capital must be put to work so that it can accumulate and grow.
But like natural growth in an organic body, growth
can go wild, out of control, with results that threaten the health and
even the life of the host body. Uncontrolled capitalism can cause capsules
of cancerous growth throughout an economy.
Take, for example, the concept of the sweatshop. In
19th century England, thousands of factories employed hundreds of thousands
of children, as young as 7 or 8, forcing them to work 10 or 12 hours
a day, basically for a warm place to sleep and two meals a day. Meanwhile
the factory owners played parlor games at Dimwitty Castle with the Duke.
Of course, in these enlightened times, such places don’t
exist. At least in the United States. Meanwhile, out of sight at the
edges of the global economy, where the hands meet the thread, tiny fingers
are bleeding.
Or take, for example, indentured servitude, which brought
so many of our forebears to these shores, or its more modern incarnation,
the company town.
Imagine being employed somewhere, far from a town or
city, and having to rent housing, and buy food, from your employer. Imagine
further that the only way to not think about how screwed you are is to
drink beer, which is available on credit at the camp commissary.
Now imagine opening your pay envelope at the end of the
month and discovering that you owe the company $627.
Millions of honest workers are trapped in some variation
of that scenario right now Of course, none of them are in the United
States, although we invented the technique during the great westward
expansion.
Then again, with the prevalence of consumer debt and inescapable
dead-end jobs, there are those who claim the entire United States has
become one big company town.
Which is all just a reminder that Capitalism is not
a perfect system, or theory, or economic reality. It is not inevitable
or inviolate
in its purity. It is a theory that has proven itself superior to socialism
or communism on the world economic playing field, and seems to be working
for the majority of the higher-performing economies in the world today.
Capitalism is a natural match with our current petroleum-based
economy. Being a non-renewable resource, petroleum-based growth cannot
be sustained. Eventually it will run down and die. Capitalism, based
on growth, eventually will eat all of the resources available, and then
begin eating itself, from the inside out.
This is because capitalism has a voracious appetite. It eats
raw material, it eats human effort, and human ambition, and human dignity.
It eats weaker competitors, and cheap labor, and intellectual development,
and raw talent. It eats all these things, and it shits profits.
People
who learn to, or are in a position to, manipulate the efforts of others
become fantastically wealthy. Many more suffer. In between, most of
us wonder what it all means.
The Dowbrigade thinks it basically comes down to what
people actually do with their time, how hard they work, and how much
they contribute to the Common Good. The Common Good, aka the Social Fabric,
is a much-neglected and sorely endangered facet of our national identity.
Without the Common Good, without a sense that "We’re all in this together”
no society can stand for long.
And who says that the CEO who visits his office two or three times a year should make 63 million dollars and that the woman who cleans that office every night should make $6.30 an hour for 12 hours, six days a week. Where is it written, where has it been ordained, that some work needs to be rewarded 10 times, or 100 times, or 10,000 times more than other work. Is some sweat worth so much more?
And speaking of the common good, who says that a defense contracter sending part of his kicjback to a lobbyist is contributing to it more than the kindergarden teacher who shows up for work every morning at 7:45 with a smile on her face and a song inher heart? Isn’t the opposite true? Shouldn’t the individuals involved be rewarded accordingly?
It seems inevitable, with such skewered values, that our system would be inefficient and non-competitive. Surely, there must be more productive and profitable uses for our excess capital that Bill Gates Pleasure Dome or Barry Bonds bling bling. How long til someone figures this out and beats us at our own game?
Oh, our privaleged, preeminent position in the world may continue on for a time, based as it is on historical imperative and a kickass military. But if things continues as they are, our society will become will be rotten and hollow inside, and
will soon crack and crumble.
There are those who would argue that this
is where we are today. That Western Civilization is coasting along
on inertia and accumulated capital, which allows it to be wasteful and
profligate, and remain in denial of the impending disaster. That our
post-industrial democracies are carrying huge non-productive populations
on the books,
as well as millions of marginal workers with marginal lives who are starting
to go off like human IED’s along the roadsides of our lives.
Can Capitalism be fixed, in the mongrel dog sense of the word?
Can it be tamed, and cured from eating its own young? Are there any alternatives to the Wall Street/World Bank version of the beast?
Scandinavia has produced some promising results, although
it remains to be seen if these ideas can be transferred to a huge, heterogeneous
population.
Word out of China is spooky, sounding like 1984 meets
Soylent Green. Spooky because we can’t ignore this model; they already
have us outnumbered, and will soon have more money than we do.
The only thing we are sure of is that if we don’t change
course, pretty damn quick, we are off the precipice and on the long dive
down. We fear the crash at the bottom will not be pleasant.
|
