Life in North American society embodies a basic contradiction between capitalism - the luminous bourgeois ideals of peace, freedom, opportunity, love, and community and the harsh, brutal realities of the irrational economic system which encourages these ideals and feeds off their unobtainability. The whole function of trade and commerce is to exacerbate this disjunction.
Business destroys the coveted bourgeois values and the familial structures set up to secure and nurture those values. Social mobility, success, depends on brutality; this is the primary law of capitalism. Capitalist competition severely limits the ability of most people to become very close to any other people.
Religion is an important prop of bourgeois ideology, the Church represents a community of sorts. And in it's inability to comfort anyone the church shows its impotence. It is one more bourgeois ideal that does not work.
Family ties, social mobility, quest for security, companionship, and even religious values all relate and correspond to real universal human needs for community, love, respect, support, appreciation.
Social institutions which function in four levels of familial affiliations — the nuclear family, the extended family, the ethnic community, and the Church — upon which the we rely to provide and protect these values, wither before the irrational, destructive forces of capitalism, the main goal of which is profit, not the meeting of human needs.
Each institution strives unsuccessfully to create an ideal community. In all cases, the needs of business destroy whatever communal aspects these associations might provide. In fact, it is the very effort to conserve and support these families that becomes corrupted by business and destroys them.
Capitalism, at its best, must destroy human life and associations to exist. Thus, the more vigorously bourgeois society strives to achieve the ideals it has set for itself, the more destructive and corrupt it becomes.
Economic dependence is a debilitating experience for anyone in this society.
Afterthought: May the new year bring light to more people. From their own personal darkness, may each one be emancipated by his/her own free will.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Saturday, December 24, 2005
The Capitalist Who Stole Christmas
Hope you have a "Merry You-Know-What" and enjoy your "Christmas vacation"; oops I mean winter closure.
In a desperate cry to escape the tortures inflicted upon me this side of the wall of separation between church and state. I cry for help. This is not a rant about the gumming up of civilized discourse in a phlegm of hateful resentment of everything secular.
Christmas today is an exuberant display of human ingenuity, capitalist productivity, and the enjoyment of life. I'd actually prefer if people saw what it was they were celebrating and called it just that. In this case why bother with the terminology call it what it is - 'Winter Shopping Festival.'
It is not just on religious issues that the media and the intelligentsia seem determined to suppress, it's an ongoing symptom that plagues the entire passive aggressive global society. In the international jungle, made more dangerous by terrorist networks that circle the globe, anything that it is not defended is in jeopardy.
And if we let liberal ideals govern the nature of holidays, we'll learn that the best customs of Christmas, from carols to trees to spectacular decorations, have their root in pagan ideas and practices. These customs were greatly amplified by American culture, as the product of reason, science, business, worldliness, and egoism, i.e., the pursuit of happiness.
Undermining a sense of the worthiness of a society undermines that allegiance -- and, without allegiance, there is no defense. No society can survive in the long run without the allegiance of its people.
Christmas shopping is like pornography -- nobody wants to admit they've seen it, yet everybody seems to know what it looks like.
The majority of the population take part in the tradition of commercialized, secular Christmas. Why? Because it's fun, especially for the kids in the family. What kid doesn’t like candy canes, snowman cookies, Santa Claus, parties and toys?
It’s almost impossible to be a kid in North America or Western Europe and not get enraptured by the “magic” of the Christmas season. We all know that the stores we got our loved ones gifts from and the reatil sales associates who served us were referring to the commercialized, secular Christmas—the one that fattens their profits while raising credit card debt.
Essentially, Christmas has been captured by capitalism. The Grinch hasn’t stolen Christmas. Capitalism has.
Christmas is gradually being secularized into a season of general merrymaking and loads of money making. It is in transition from religious “holy day” to secular holiday.
The retail industry's main goal is for you to buy something. They will jump on any excuse you might have, to not only excite you to shop, but woo you into their establishments.
Capitalism doesn’t care. The market doesn’t care. All that matters is how to make the best profit possible from selling products to the public.
One reason you might shop is to buy a present for someone. In the very late fall, a majority of the population is not only buying one present for someone, but many presents for many people, to the delight of the retail stores (and hopefully the delight of the recipients).
Life requires reason, selfishness, capitalism; that is what Christmas should celebrate -- and really, underneath all the pretense, that is what it does celebrate. It is time to take the Christ out of Christmas, and turn the holiday into a guiltlessly egoistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration.
And -- before it becomes taboo -- a Happy New Year. Oh wait! It's the beginning of a new tax year, and the next five or six months will be spent working for the government.
In a desperate cry to escape the tortures inflicted upon me this side of the wall of separation between church and state. I cry for help. This is not a rant about the gumming up of civilized discourse in a phlegm of hateful resentment of everything secular.
Christmas today is an exuberant display of human ingenuity, capitalist productivity, and the enjoyment of life. I'd actually prefer if people saw what it was they were celebrating and called it just that. In this case why bother with the terminology call it what it is - 'Winter Shopping Festival.'
It is not just on religious issues that the media and the intelligentsia seem determined to suppress, it's an ongoing symptom that plagues the entire passive aggressive global society. In the international jungle, made more dangerous by terrorist networks that circle the globe, anything that it is not defended is in jeopardy.
And if we let liberal ideals govern the nature of holidays, we'll learn that the best customs of Christmas, from carols to trees to spectacular decorations, have their root in pagan ideas and practices. These customs were greatly amplified by American culture, as the product of reason, science, business, worldliness, and egoism, i.e., the pursuit of happiness.
Undermining a sense of the worthiness of a society undermines that allegiance -- and, without allegiance, there is no defense. No society can survive in the long run without the allegiance of its people.
Christmas shopping is like pornography -- nobody wants to admit they've seen it, yet everybody seems to know what it looks like.
The majority of the population take part in the tradition of commercialized, secular Christmas. Why? Because it's fun, especially for the kids in the family. What kid doesn’t like candy canes, snowman cookies, Santa Claus, parties and toys?
It’s almost impossible to be a kid in North America or Western Europe and not get enraptured by the “magic” of the Christmas season. We all know that the stores we got our loved ones gifts from and the reatil sales associates who served us were referring to the commercialized, secular Christmas—the one that fattens their profits while raising credit card debt.
Essentially, Christmas has been captured by capitalism. The Grinch hasn’t stolen Christmas. Capitalism has.
Christmas is gradually being secularized into a season of general merrymaking and loads of money making. It is in transition from religious “holy day” to secular holiday.
The retail industry's main goal is for you to buy something. They will jump on any excuse you might have, to not only excite you to shop, but woo you into their establishments.
Capitalism doesn’t care. The market doesn’t care. All that matters is how to make the best profit possible from selling products to the public.
One reason you might shop is to buy a present for someone. In the very late fall, a majority of the population is not only buying one present for someone, but many presents for many people, to the delight of the retail stores (and hopefully the delight of the recipients).
Life requires reason, selfishness, capitalism; that is what Christmas should celebrate -- and really, underneath all the pretense, that is what it does celebrate. It is time to take the Christ out of Christmas, and turn the holiday into a guiltlessly egoistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration.
And -- before it becomes taboo -- a Happy New Year. Oh wait! It's the beginning of a new tax year, and the next five or six months will be spent working for the government.
Monday, December 19, 2005
Are you a Macaulayalee?
Thomas Babington Macaulay's speech of Feb 2,1835, to the British Parliament speaks volumes of where we as a nation stood. Then his Minute on Indian Education, delivered in 1835 again spoke volumes of us and what was expected of us, "...a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect..."
Suggested Reading:
http://www.hindu.org/publications/fgautier/selfdenial.html
http://www.geocities.com/ifihhome/articles/sk001.html
Suggested Reading:
http://www.hindu.org/publications/fgautier/selfdenial.html
http://www.geocities.com/ifihhome/articles/sk001.html
Thursday, December 08, 2005
The Second Slice of the Chinese Melon
About 200 years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte returned from China and said, "That is a sleeping dragon. Let him sleep! If he wakes, he will shake the world."
Well, China is wide awake today, economically and strategically. The fastest growing region on the global landscape with an economy that came out unscathed out of the East-Asian Currency Crisis and the SARS epidemic just to bolster its place as the 6th largest GDP in the world. As of 2003, China was the world’s second largest economy—only surpassed by the U.S.—and had the highest growth rate of any major country. And not to mention an open arm welcome into the WTO General Council with a makeover from the World's Factory as the World's Market.
What baffles North American Economists the most is the Chinese economic engagement came with a learning curve so steep its continuing development poses a threat to them? China challenging North America's strong holds of industry & manufacturing comes with a lot of political ‘shock’ and wee bit of economic ‘awe’.
China’s economy opening up to the outside world worries those who fear that country’s huge pool of low-cost labor will drain jobs from the North American shores, and less expensive goods will spark trade problems. China’s untapped market present huge opportunities for North American businesses that would surely outweigh any loss of jobs, but the sort of jobs that had left to China a long time ago were the low-wage, low-skill jobs. Will the day when higher-wage, high-skill jobs are outsourced to China mark the epic struggle pitting the American eagle and the Chinese dragon?
There is a distinction to be made between deepening economic ties, fostering multinational trade and global manipulation by companies for their own vested interests. Outsourcing might be distressing to the system prevailing, unwilling to accept the pace of change. But unlike ever before, North America's impotency to produce timely innovative cutting-edge technologies, ideas and industries is hurting its image.
The real question is how many consumers of the 'Welfare Capitalist Economy' actually see the effects of 'Neo-Imperialist Globalization'.
The achievements on the economic plane of life in North America outstrip progress on the political plane to such an extent that economics and politics have lost their synchronicity. The flattening of the global economic playing field, in cohesion with a bastardized global political plane leaves a fertile ground for the gutters of the world to pool together.
Capitalist ruling classes in North America, have an attitude toward government economic policy that needs to be checked. This should ensure the operations of the Chinese marketers do not impede our ability to create jobs in North America and protect the working people of North America from the tremulous changes of supply and demand.
It should come as no surprise that China, of all the bureaucratized and degenerating workers states, has been able to make the greatest progress toward capitalist restoration. The strategic vision of the Chinese bureaucracy to align themselves with the neo-capitalist entrepreneurs of the globe are responsible in their getting rich and morphing into capitalists while the great majority in China, are suffering a decline in their living standards.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has embarked on a pragmatic and outward-looking program of economic development that focuses primarily on exports, foreign investment, technology and closer ties with the West.
The Chinese leadership clearly realizes that domestic development and sound trade expansion rely on stable international economic conditions. China is rapidly becoming the world's biggest "low-cost" manufacturer, flooding the global marketplace with relatively cheap electronics and appliances.
The domestic market in China is rapidly developing, showing every indication of becoming, within as little as another generation, at least as important as the United States as a mass market for global suppliers of everything from computers, cell phones, and other electronic goods to automobiles, refrigerators and other consumer durables. China is already at least as important as the United States in terms of incremental growth in imports.
The Made-In-China world we live exists mainly thanks to the manufacturing plants on the mainland, that take advantage of low wages and high productivity (very high rates of exploitation) and a substantial percentage of China's exports are the fruits of foreign firm production in China (rather than indigenous Chinese firms).
China-"the world's sweatshop" has long been lusted after by multinationals eager to gain customers in the world's most populous domestic economy and to exploit China's natural resources and relatively low cost (and abundant) workforce.
In a world where China's emergence as a major base for foreign firms to assemble manufactured goods;
• Where its influence over the free flow of capital, goods and executive talent across the globe is rocking the delicate balance between economic and military carrot and sticks.
• Where ever-closer political ties have blurred the lines between friend and foe.
• Where North American corporations are willing to sacrifice manufacturing jobs, technology and military security in pursuit of quick profits.
• Where multinational affiliates, these outposts of American capitalism are used by the Chinese to manufacture products exported back to the US thereby creating a trade imbalance.
One begins to wonder the role of China in the North American economy is it one of a ‘strategic competitor’ or is it one of a ‘strategic partner’. Bureaucrats and capitalists on both sides of the mutually incompatible social systems are counter posed to the working class of the world. Be it the world's capitalist countries or the degenerating workers states they outsource to.
East Asian efforts to penetrate the North American industry, to gather innovative technology and sensitive business information, have made headlines in the past. Today the world is changing before our very eyes. Some old rivalries are fading while others are coming to the forefront. Today's friend may become tomorrow enemy and visa versa. This is especially true in the rapidly changing world of shifting political alliances and changing boundaries for economic competition.
Neither China nor North America will ever be a paradise for workers. But workers, like institutional investors, must have the confidence in financial institutions, stock markets and government regulators for an economy to grow.
China is an economy undergoing rapid transformation. Its rapid growth has brought great opportunities and challenges—both for China and for the rest of the world. Some producers see Chinese competition as a threat. They worry about losing market share, about the impact on their markets from highly competitive Chinese exports. That's as familiar a refrain as it is an understandable one.
But China's growth has brought immense new opportunities for exporters—of primary commodities, of manufacturing inputs and of finished goods. China is contributing to the growth of world trade, not displacing it from elsewhere.
And competition from Chinese exports has benefited consumers across the world as well. Let us not forget that competition is one of the great benefits that freer trade brings, even when it forces some painful restructuring for those firms unused to it.
But China, too, is undergoing major and sometimes painful restructuring. It is a large and populous country. It has a cumbersome and inefficient bureaucracy, especially at the local level and in state-owned enterprises. Many of its citizens still live in abject poverty, and the gap between rich and poor has widened. It faces enormous demographic challenges as its population ages rapidly over the next few decades. Its banking system is saddled with bad debts that will, ultimately, have to be written off.
Chinese policymakers are seeking to maintain economic growth at levels that can have an impact on poverty while avoiding inflationary pressures that would ultimately hamper growth. And they are often relying on policy instruments that are at best unreliable in what is increasingly functioning like a market economy.
The challenges for China are not new, of course. The transition we are witnessing today started more than two decades ago. Adjustment is a relatively slow process even in small simple economies—and China is neither small nor simple.
What has changed is the extent to which all our economic fortunes are now linked with those of China. Its sheer size and its dynamism make it increasingly important for global economic growth. With Japan's economy largely stagnant for much of the 1990s, China played a crucial part in sustaining and helping to fuel Asian economic growth. With European growth still lackluster, the opportunities offered by Chinese growth are increasingly important for North America. It is in all our interests that the Chinese economic miracle is sustained.
Well, China is wide awake today, economically and strategically. The fastest growing region on the global landscape with an economy that came out unscathed out of the East-Asian Currency Crisis and the SARS epidemic just to bolster its place as the 6th largest GDP in the world. As of 2003, China was the world’s second largest economy—only surpassed by the U.S.—and had the highest growth rate of any major country. And not to mention an open arm welcome into the WTO General Council with a makeover from the World's Factory as the World's Market.
What baffles North American Economists the most is the Chinese economic engagement came with a learning curve so steep its continuing development poses a threat to them? China challenging North America's strong holds of industry & manufacturing comes with a lot of political ‘shock’ and wee bit of economic ‘awe’.
China’s economy opening up to the outside world worries those who fear that country’s huge pool of low-cost labor will drain jobs from the North American shores, and less expensive goods will spark trade problems. China’s untapped market present huge opportunities for North American businesses that would surely outweigh any loss of jobs, but the sort of jobs that had left to China a long time ago were the low-wage, low-skill jobs. Will the day when higher-wage, high-skill jobs are outsourced to China mark the epic struggle pitting the American eagle and the Chinese dragon?
There is a distinction to be made between deepening economic ties, fostering multinational trade and global manipulation by companies for their own vested interests. Outsourcing might be distressing to the system prevailing, unwilling to accept the pace of change. But unlike ever before, North America's impotency to produce timely innovative cutting-edge technologies, ideas and industries is hurting its image.
The real question is how many consumers of the 'Welfare Capitalist Economy' actually see the effects of 'Neo-Imperialist Globalization'.
The achievements on the economic plane of life in North America outstrip progress on the political plane to such an extent that economics and politics have lost their synchronicity. The flattening of the global economic playing field, in cohesion with a bastardized global political plane leaves a fertile ground for the gutters of the world to pool together.
Capitalist ruling classes in North America, have an attitude toward government economic policy that needs to be checked. This should ensure the operations of the Chinese marketers do not impede our ability to create jobs in North America and protect the working people of North America from the tremulous changes of supply and demand.
It should come as no surprise that China, of all the bureaucratized and degenerating workers states, has been able to make the greatest progress toward capitalist restoration. The strategic vision of the Chinese bureaucracy to align themselves with the neo-capitalist entrepreneurs of the globe are responsible in their getting rich and morphing into capitalists while the great majority in China, are suffering a decline in their living standards.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has embarked on a pragmatic and outward-looking program of economic development that focuses primarily on exports, foreign investment, technology and closer ties with the West.
The Chinese leadership clearly realizes that domestic development and sound trade expansion rely on stable international economic conditions. China is rapidly becoming the world's biggest "low-cost" manufacturer, flooding the global marketplace with relatively cheap electronics and appliances.
The domestic market in China is rapidly developing, showing every indication of becoming, within as little as another generation, at least as important as the United States as a mass market for global suppliers of everything from computers, cell phones, and other electronic goods to automobiles, refrigerators and other consumer durables. China is already at least as important as the United States in terms of incremental growth in imports.
The Made-In-China world we live exists mainly thanks to the manufacturing plants on the mainland, that take advantage of low wages and high productivity (very high rates of exploitation) and a substantial percentage of China's exports are the fruits of foreign firm production in China (rather than indigenous Chinese firms).
China-"the world's sweatshop" has long been lusted after by multinationals eager to gain customers in the world's most populous domestic economy and to exploit China's natural resources and relatively low cost (and abundant) workforce.
In a world where China's emergence as a major base for foreign firms to assemble manufactured goods;
• Where its influence over the free flow of capital, goods and executive talent across the globe is rocking the delicate balance between economic and military carrot and sticks.
• Where ever-closer political ties have blurred the lines between friend and foe.
• Where North American corporations are willing to sacrifice manufacturing jobs, technology and military security in pursuit of quick profits.
• Where multinational affiliates, these outposts of American capitalism are used by the Chinese to manufacture products exported back to the US thereby creating a trade imbalance.
One begins to wonder the role of China in the North American economy is it one of a ‘strategic competitor’ or is it one of a ‘strategic partner’. Bureaucrats and capitalists on both sides of the mutually incompatible social systems are counter posed to the working class of the world. Be it the world's capitalist countries or the degenerating workers states they outsource to.
East Asian efforts to penetrate the North American industry, to gather innovative technology and sensitive business information, have made headlines in the past. Today the world is changing before our very eyes. Some old rivalries are fading while others are coming to the forefront. Today's friend may become tomorrow enemy and visa versa. This is especially true in the rapidly changing world of shifting political alliances and changing boundaries for economic competition.
Neither China nor North America will ever be a paradise for workers. But workers, like institutional investors, must have the confidence in financial institutions, stock markets and government regulators for an economy to grow.
China is an economy undergoing rapid transformation. Its rapid growth has brought great opportunities and challenges—both for China and for the rest of the world. Some producers see Chinese competition as a threat. They worry about losing market share, about the impact on their markets from highly competitive Chinese exports. That's as familiar a refrain as it is an understandable one.
But China's growth has brought immense new opportunities for exporters—of primary commodities, of manufacturing inputs and of finished goods. China is contributing to the growth of world trade, not displacing it from elsewhere.
And competition from Chinese exports has benefited consumers across the world as well. Let us not forget that competition is one of the great benefits that freer trade brings, even when it forces some painful restructuring for those firms unused to it.
But China, too, is undergoing major and sometimes painful restructuring. It is a large and populous country. It has a cumbersome and inefficient bureaucracy, especially at the local level and in state-owned enterprises. Many of its citizens still live in abject poverty, and the gap between rich and poor has widened. It faces enormous demographic challenges as its population ages rapidly over the next few decades. Its banking system is saddled with bad debts that will, ultimately, have to be written off.
Chinese policymakers are seeking to maintain economic growth at levels that can have an impact on poverty while avoiding inflationary pressures that would ultimately hamper growth. And they are often relying on policy instruments that are at best unreliable in what is increasingly functioning like a market economy.
The challenges for China are not new, of course. The transition we are witnessing today started more than two decades ago. Adjustment is a relatively slow process even in small simple economies—and China is neither small nor simple.
What has changed is the extent to which all our economic fortunes are now linked with those of China. Its sheer size and its dynamism make it increasingly important for global economic growth. With Japan's economy largely stagnant for much of the 1990s, China played a crucial part in sustaining and helping to fuel Asian economic growth. With European growth still lackluster, the opportunities offered by Chinese growth are increasingly important for North America. It is in all our interests that the Chinese economic miracle is sustained.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Outsourcing
Outsourcing: a.k.a. Industrial prostitution - To whore out work to less fortunate, less informed, more vulnerable workers who will do the labor because they need the work, the money and the security of having a job.
If that's not what outsourcing is what is?
Outsourcing: Manufacturers cutting corners by exploiting workers on some other corner of the globe today for their own personal profits, reducing productions costs.
I thought that was what Imperialist conquests were all about. I thought those days were over. I thought the world was a better place today in comparison to the world described in my dilapidated old history books. I guess I was wrong to come oot of those classrooms feeling it was a better place we lived in today.
Its just too many people dont care to see through it all. Its just too many people intend to live the American pipe dream; to make it being in the capitalist heart land of the world but more often get hit by the realities of the Welfare capitalist economy that they live in. Factory workers are great ... they hardly ever save any money they blow it all away... in booze, food, mortgage. the service industry workers are even better they talk the talk ... but can hardly get anywhere close to walking the walk.
And with all those war monging inbred plaid clad bible thumping red necks, taking advantage of every immigrant that sets foot on the land, with all those political hang ups, socio-economic hiccups. What's it going to take to tear down these walls of mistrust... These walls of hatred .. these walls of racial prejudices, of religious hegimony, of social inequalities...
maybe a whole lotta love...
If that's not what outsourcing is what is?
Outsourcing: Manufacturers cutting corners by exploiting workers on some other corner of the globe today for their own personal profits, reducing productions costs.
I thought that was what Imperialist conquests were all about. I thought those days were over. I thought the world was a better place today in comparison to the world described in my dilapidated old history books. I guess I was wrong to come oot of those classrooms feeling it was a better place we lived in today.
Its just too many people dont care to see through it all. Its just too many people intend to live the American pipe dream; to make it being in the capitalist heart land of the world but more often get hit by the realities of the Welfare capitalist economy that they live in. Factory workers are great ... they hardly ever save any money they blow it all away... in booze, food, mortgage. the service industry workers are even better they talk the talk ... but can hardly get anywhere close to walking the walk.
And with all those war monging inbred plaid clad bible thumping red necks, taking advantage of every immigrant that sets foot on the land, with all those political hang ups, socio-economic hiccups. What's it going to take to tear down these walls of mistrust... These walls of hatred .. these walls of racial prejudices, of religious hegimony, of social inequalities...
maybe a whole lotta love...
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