Everything is a potential market to the capitalist, but it’s time to end the suffering of ordinary Americans, which is very good for the profit margins, and make human life a top concern.
ON AUGUST 24, 2015, PAUL BUCHHEIT WRITES ON NATION OF CHANGE:
TO FOLLOWERS OF AYN RAND AND RONALD REAGAN, AND TO ALL THE BUSINESS PEOPLE WHO DESPISE GOVERNMENT, ‘COMMUNITY’ IS A FORM OF ‘COMMUNISM.’ EVEN TAKING THE
TRAIN IS TOO COMMUNAL FOR THEM. AMERICANS HAVE BEEN LED TO BELIEVE THAT ONLY INDIVIDUALS MATTER, THAT EVERY PERSON SHOULD FEND FOR HIM/HERSELF, THAT “WINNER-TAKE-ALL” IS THE ULTIMATE GOAL, AND THAT THE WINNERS HAVE NO RESPONSIBILITY TO OTHERS.
TO THE CAPITALIST, EVERYTHING IS A POTENTIAL MARKET. EDUCATION, HEALTH CARE, EVEN THE RIGHT TO WATER. BUT WITH EVERY MARKET FAILURE IT BECOMES MORE CLEAR THAT BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS CAN’T BE BOUGHT AND SOLD LIKE CARS AND CELL PHONES. THE PURSUIT OF PROFIT, WHEN ESSENTIAL NEEDS ARE PART OF THE PRODUCT, MEANS THAT NOT EVERYONE WILL BE ABLE TO PAY THE PRICE. SOME WILL BE DENIED THOSE ESSENTIAL NEEDS.
GLOBAL FAILURES
CAPITALISM HASN’T BEEN ABLE TO CONTROL RUNAWAY
GLOBAL INEQUALITY. FOR EVERY $1.00 OWNED BY THE WORLD’S
RICHEST 1% IN 2011, THEY NOW OWN $1.27. THEY OWN ALMOST
HALF THE WORLD’S WEALTH. JUST
70 OF THEM OWN AS MUCH AS 3.5 BILLION PEOPLE.
CAPITALISM HAS NOT BEEN ABLE — OR WILLING — TO CONTROL THE “RACE TO THE BOTTOM” CAUSED BY
“FREE TRADE,” AS MID-LEVEL JOBS CONTINUE TO BE TRANSFERRED TO LOW-WAGE COUNTRIES.
NOR HAS CAPITALISM BEEN ABLE TO CONTROL GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION, WITH TRILLIONS IN
SUBSIDIES GOING TO POLLUTERS THAT DON’T EVEN PAY THEIR TAXES, AND WITH CORPORATIONS IGNORING ANY SEMBLANCE OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AS THEY SEEK WAYS TO
PROFIT FROM GLOBAL WARMING.
JOB CREATION FAILURES I
WITH OR WITHOUT GLOBALIZATION, MIDDLE-CLASS JOBS ARE
DISAPPEARING, EVEN
HIGHER-END POSITIONS IN FINANCIAL ANALYSIS, MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS, LEGAL ASSISTANCE, AND JOURNALISM. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS MAKING THIS HAPPEN. MILLIONS OF AMERICANS HAVE HAD A ROLE IN THE GREAT AMERICAN PRODUCTIVITY BEHIND THIS TECHNOLOGICAL TAKEOVER, BUT CAPITALISM ALLOWS ONLY AN ELITE FEW OF US TO REAP THE DISPROPORTIONAL PROFITS.
REPORTS OF JOB RECOVERY ARE BASED ON LOW-INCOME JOBS, MANY OF THEM PART-TIME.
LAYOFFS ARE CUTTING INTO THE MILITARY AND TECHNOLOGY. GALLUP
DISCOUNTED WALL STREET’S JOB-CREATING ABILITY. AS NOTED BY FORMER WALL STREET JOURNAL ASSOCIATE EDITOR
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, THE US RATE OF UNEMPLOYMENT IS 23 PERCENT WHEN LONG-TERM DISCOURAGED JOB-SEEKERS ARE INCLUDED. THAT’S CLOSE TO THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION.
JOB CREATION FAILURES II
CLOSELY RELATED TO EMPLOYMENT WOES IS THE
COLLAPSE OF CORPORATE INVESTMENT IN NEW PRODUCT R&D, FROM
40 CENTS PER DOLLAR IN THE 1970S TO 10 CENTS NOW. CEOS ARE CHOOSING INSTEAD TO
SPEND ALMOST ALL OF THEIR PROFITS ON BUYBACKS AND DIVIDENDS TO ENRICH INVESTORS.
HEALTH CARE FAILURES
THE CAPITALIST PROFIT MOTIVE ALLOWS THE COST OF A
HEPATITIS PILL THAT COSTS $10 IN EGYPT TO SELL FOR $1,000 IN THE UNITED STATES, AND THE COST OF A
BLOOD TEST TO RANGE FROM $10 TO $10,000 IN TWO CALIFORNIA HOSPITALS (A 100,000% MARKUP AT THE SECOND HOSPITAL).
PATENT ABUSE IS ONE OF THE FACTORS MAKING THIS POSSIBLE. PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES CAN
TWEAK A DRUG WITH A MINOR CHANGE TO CREATE A “BRAND NEW” DRUG WITH A NEW PATENT.
ANOTHER HEALTH-RELATED SCAM THAT AFFECTS MOST OF US IS
BOTTLED WATER. ACCORDING TO FOOD & WATER WATCH, ABOUT
HALF OF IT IS FILTERED TAP WATER WITH FANCY NAMES, AS EVIDENCED IN ONE CASE BY AN ACTUAL “TAP WATER”
LABEL ON A COMPANY’S PRODUCT. YET WITH THE DEMISE OF COMMUNITY WATER FOUNTAINS, AND THE BARRAGE OF ADVERTISING FOR “SAFE AND PURE” DRINKING WATER, UNSUSPECTING AMERICANS PAY DEARLY: FOR THE PRICE WE PAY FOR A BOTTLE OF WATER WE WOULD BE ABLE TO FILL UP THAT BOTTLE
A THOUSAND TIMES WITH TAP WATER.
HOUSING FAILURES
BECAUSE OF THE “INVISIBLE HAND” OF THE FREE MARKET, IN JUST
35 YEARS THE INVESTMENT WEALTH OF THE SUPER-RICH HAS GONE FROM
15% OF MIDDLE-CLASS HOUSING TO ALMOST 200% OF MIDDLE-CLASS HOUSING.
EDUCATION FAILURES
A REMARKABLE STORY OF PRIVATIZATION FAILURE IS
TOLD IN THE STORY OF CHARTER SCHOOLS IN FLORIDA, WHERE JEB BUSH STILL HOLDS DEAR TO HIS DELUSIONS OF FREE-MARKET EDUCATIONAL SUCCESS.
THAT’S JUST ONE EXAMPLE.
IN GENERAL, CHARTERS ARE RIDDLED WITH FRAUD AND IDENTIFIED WITH A
LACK OF TRANSPARENCY THAT LEADS TO EVEN MORE FRAUD. SINCE 2001 NEARLY
2,500 CHARTER SCHOOLS HAVE BEEN FORCED TO CLOSE THEIR DOORS, LEAVING OVER A QUARTER-MILLION SCHOOLCHILDREN BETWEEN ONE BAD BUSINESS DECISION AND THE NEXT. A REPORT FROM
PR WATCH SUMMARIZES THE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS SPENT ON CHARTERS WITHOUT ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE PUBLIC.
DISPOSABLE AMERICANS
CHRIS HEDGES
WROTE: “HUMAN LIFE IS OF NO CONCERN TO CORPORATE CAPITALISTS. THE SUFFERING OF THE GREEKS, LIKE THE SUFFERING OF ORDINARY AMERICANS, IS VERY GOOD FOR THE PROFIT MARGINS OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS SUCH AS GOLDMAN SACHS.”
PEOPLE BECOME MEANINGLESS IN A SUCCESSFUL CAPITALIST SYSTEM.
Paul Buchheit, a college teacher, pretty much accurately identifies the failure of monopoly greed capitalism, which, for a long time, I have termed “Hoggism,” propelled by greed and the sheer love of power over others. “Hoggism” institutionalizes greed (creating concentrated capital ownership, monopolies, and special privileges). “Hoggism” is about the ability of greedy rich people to manipulate the lives of people who struggle with declining labor worker earnings and job opportunities, and then accumulate the bulk of the money through monopolized productive capital ownership. Our scientists, engineers, and executive managers who are not owners themselves, except for those in the highest employed positions, are encouraged to work to destroy employment by making the capital “worker” owner more productive. How much employment can be destroyed by substituting machines for people is a measure of their success––always focused on producing at the lowest cost. Only the people who already own productive capital are the beneficiaries of their work, as they systematically concentrate more and more capital ownership in their stationary 1 percent ranks. Yet the 1 percent are not the people who do the overwhelming consuming. The result is the consumer populous is not able to earn the money to buy the products and services produced as a result of substituting machines for people. And yet you can’t have mass production without mass human consumption made possible by “customers with money.” It is the exponential disassociation of production and consumption that is the problem in the United States economy, and the reason that ordinary citizens must gain access to productive capital ownership to improve their economic well-being.
But Buchheit offers no solutions to reform the system. If only Buchheit could grasp the economics of reality wherein fundamentally, economic value is created through human and non-human contributions. NOTE, real physical productive capital, which is what Buchheit implies as “money owned,” isn’t money; it is measured in money (financial capital), but it is really producing power and earning power through ownership of the non-human factor of production. Financial capital, such as stocks and bonds, is just an ownership claim on the productive power of real capital. In the law, property is the bundle of rights that determines one’s relationship to things. As binary economists Louis Kelso and Patricia Hetter put it, “Money is not a part of the visible sector of the economy; people do not consume money. Money is not a physical factor of production, but rather a yardstick for measuring economic input, economic outtake and the relative values of the real goods and services of the economic world. Money provides a method of measuring obligations, rights, powers and privileges. It provides a means whereby certain individuals can accumulate claims against others, or against the economy as a whole, or against many economies. It is a system of symbols that many economists substitute for the visible sector and its productive enterprises, goods and services, thereby losing sight of the fact that a monetary system is a part only of the invisible sector of the economy, and that its adequacy can only be measured by its effect upon the visible sector.”
Buchheit needs to expand his thinking to address concentrated capital asset ownership and how the pursuit of the lowest cost production of production of products and services has led to and will continue to lead to globalization of production and replacement of human labor with “machines” that will replace work. And without work, under the present capitalist system, there will be hordes of citizens of zero economic value, unable to earn enough money to support themselves or their families and become “customers with money” to support the system. Thus, once the wealthy ownership class has completely acquired the OWNERSHIP of the non-human means of production there will be no “customers with money” to pursue as the vast majority of the worlds population will simply be economically enslaved, dependent on what welfare and charity the wealthy ownership class and their puppet politicians decide to extend.
Of course this does not have to be the case when ONLY measured by work, a majority of people will cease to provide a means to earn an income. The economic and political alternative is to reform the system to empower EVERY citizen to acquire ownership in FUTURE wealth-creating, income-producing capital assets resulting from technological invention and innovation.
In the larger picture, globalization is enabling multi-national corporations (those that produce not only in the United States but in other countries as well to produce and sell products and services internationally using the cheapest labor rates, as well as non-human productive capital. In real growth measures, productive capital is increasingly the source of the world’s economic growth and will continue to be so at an exponential rate, resulting in far less need for people to work. Because globalization and tectonic shifts in the technologies of production will accelerate the end of work by destroying jobs and devaluing the worth of labor, it is imperative that productive capital assets become the source of added property ownership incomes for all. The reality is if both labor and capital are independent factors of production, and if capital’s proportionate contributions are increasing relative to that of labor, then equality of opportunity and economic justice demands that the right to property (and access to the means of acquiring and possessing property) must in justice be extended to all.
The question that Buchheit should be raising that requires an answer is now timely before us. It was first posed by Kelso in the 1950s but has never been thoroughly discussed on the national stage. Nor has there been the proper education of our citizenry that addresses what economic justice is and what capital ownership is. Therefore, by ignoring such issues of economic justice and capital ownership, our leaders are ignoring the concentration of power through monopoly ownership of productive capital, with the result of denying the 99 percenters equal opportunity and access to become capital owners. The question, as posed by Kelso is: “how are all individuals to be adequately productive when a tiny minority (capital owners) produce a major share and the vast majority (labor workers), a minor share of total goods and services,” and thus, “how do we get from a world in which the most productive factor—physical capital—is owned by a handful of people, to a world where the same factor is owned by a majority—and ultimately 100 percent—of the consumers, while respecting all the constitutional rights of present capital owners?”
Those seriously interested in exploring non-conventional solutions need to read the article
A New Look at Prices and Money: The Kelsonian Model for Achieving Rapid Growth Without Inflation at
http://www.cesj.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/pricesandmoney.pdf. In this paper, a case is made for a major transformation of any nation’s monetary system so that in the future new money would be created in ways that would unharness the full productive potential of society, while closing the growing wealth gap between the richest 10 percent and the rest of society — and to do so voluntarily without the need to redistribute existing wealth. Prices, wages and interest rates would be controlled under the proposed model of development completely by competitive market forces, not by the whim of central bankers, politicians or organized power blocs.
It is imperative that we address the structural problems of the system and reform the system to result in forward-looking growth.
Each year our national public debt has become harder to service because pretend-and-extend policy making has created a depression in real, capital asset investment and consumption (not the gambling casino stock market trading second-hand [owned] stock, because the extent of all productive capital asset OWNERSHIP is concentrated.
In concentrated capital ownership terms, roughly 1 percent own 50 percent of the corporate wealth with 10 percent owning 90 percent. This leaves 90 percent of the people scrambling for the last 10 percent, with them dependent on their labor worker wages (saving from denial of consumption) to purchase capital assets. Thus, we have the great bulk of the people providing a mere 10 percent or less of the productive input. Contrast that to the less than 5 percent who own all the productive capital providing 90 percent or more of the productive input, and who initiate and oversee most of the technological advances that replace labor work by workers with capital work by the owners of productive capital assets. As a result, the trend has been to diminish the importance of employment with productive capital ownership concentrating faster than ever, while technological change makes physical capital ever more productive. Corporate decision makers know this, whether in the United States or China, or anywhere organized assemblies of people engage in production. Technology is an easier and faster way to get a job done. Because technology increases the profitability of companies throughout the world, technology always has the advantage over human labor when the costs of them are the same. But because this is not well understood, what we as a society have been doing is to continually shift the work burden from people labor to real physical capital while distributing the earning capacity of physical capital’s work (via capital ownership of stock in corporations) to non-owners through make-work job creation, minimum wage requirements, and welfare programs. Such policies do not function effectively.
Even with historically low interest rates when the federal government borrows, say to repair obvious deficiencies in roads, rails, water systems and more and to upgrade such or finances the military-industrial complex, which perpetuates continuous war, only the people who already own productive capital are the beneficiaries of debt through contract work sold in the name of job creation, but in reality systematically concentrates more and more capital ownership in their stationary 1 percent ranks. Yet the 1 percent are not the people who do the overwhelming consuming, and instead “re-invest” to further accumulate ever more capital wealth ownership. The result is the consumer populous is not able to earn the money to buy the products and services produced as a result of substituting machines for people. And yet you can’t have mass production without mass human consumption made possible by “customers with money.” It is the exponential disassociation of production and consumption that is the problem in the United States economy, and the reason that ordinary citizens must gain access to productive capital ownership to improve their economic well-being.
The ever-growing trillions of dollar debt liability will come due on the heirs of today’s Americans.
Nor is the suggested solution by Reich and others to spread wealth by extracting a more heavy tax on the growing share of wealth accumulated by the owners of wealth-creating, income-producing capital to redistribute as a “universal basic income” viable and sustainable. Those who are productive, either through their labor or through the application of the productive capital assets they own will object to taxing their productive input to subsidize the idleness of millions of “takers.”
Under this proposed scheme, there would still be OWNERS of private property, and the productive, wealth-creating, income-producing private property OWNERS would be taxed to support a substantial REDISTRIBUTION of wealth in order to provide a “basic income” to EVERY citizen. This is the very essence of socialism.
The outcome is that the wealthy ownership class will still be the OWNERS of America’s productive capital assets and essentially, as OWNERSHIP LORDS, dominate the vast majority of citizens, who through a powerfully political government elite will be their “slaves”––”slaves” as in welfare and charity slaves, which the advocates of this proposal refuse to acknowledge.
The ONLY way out of the deepening economic inequality and the national debt hole is not to pursue austerity and cut spending (consumption), especially since there is a level below which you cannot go, but to increase income (production).
This is “Say’s Law of Markets.” It is based on Adam Smith’s first principle of economics, articulated in The Wealth of Nations: “Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.” The obvious corollary, of course, is that you can’t consume what hasn’t been produced — which is exactly the United States’ problem as well as other debt-ridden countries.
In short, you can mint, print, or borrow all the money you want, but if you’re not producing a marketable good or service for consumption, even if you have a mountain of gold, silver, or government debt paper backing your currency, you are trying to get out of a hole by digging it deeper.
If something doesn’t exist, you can’t consume it. the only thing that’s going to get the United States and other debt-ridden countries out of the hole they are in is to increase production dramatically, not cut consumption and pursue austerity.
Rather than focus on Job Creation that holds back technological invention and innovation, our economic policies should focus on wealth-creating, income-producing capital Ownership Creation, whose result will be REAL job creation where necessary to support rapid technological and societal development as we build a future economy that can support general affluence for EVERY citizen and provide inclusive prosperity, inclusive opportunity, and inclusive economic justice.
Given that there is no question that robotic technology will continue to expand the productivity and in large measure destroy jobs and devalue the value of human labor, the question that SHOULD be urgently addressed is WHO SHOULD OWN THE FUTURE TECHNOLOGY ECONOMY? Will ownership continue to concentrate among the 10 percent wealthy ownership class who now OWNS America, or will we reform the system to provide equal opportunity for EVERY child, woman, and man to acquire personal ownership in FUTURE productive capital assets paid for with the FUTURE earnings of the investments in our technological future?
The article asks that you ask yourself: “How is anyone going to make any money when there is ever less opportunity to work?” This is manifested in the myth that labor work is the ONLY way to participate in production and earn income, and that individual talent and effort are what distinguish the wealthy from the non-wealthy.
A sounder solution is to empower EVERY child, woman, and man to acquire personal OWNERSHIP stakes in America’s future productive capital assets by providing equal opportunity for EVERY citizen to OWN and to have access to acquiring wealth-creating, income-producing capital wealth (the whys and hows of becoming rich). And to ensure at death, using a transfer tax, that concentrated wealth estates are dispersed so that no “family” stays permanently wealthy and politically powerful.
The financial mechanism required must provide EVERY citizen an equal annual amount of newly issued money to be specifically used to form new productive assets determined by feasibility analysis using the logic of corporate finance––that the investments will produce earnings out of which to pay for the initial investment and provide the asset value for the new money issued for the extension of capital credit. The actual capital credit loans also must by interest-free as there is no conventional borrowing involved from people who have denied themselves consumption and saved in order to invest. This is all new money essentially issued by the Federal Reserve. The capital credit also must be insurable using private capital credit insurance or a government reinsurance agency (ala the Federal Housing Administration concept). Thus, no citizen would ever be exposed to a reduction in their wages, if they are employed, or any other extraction of their personal equity wealth.
The whole discussion on reforming the money and credit system leads to defined policy actions, as does tax reform. Let’s take taxes first.
Four principles must guide the tax reform. 1) Efficiency: the tax system raises enough money to run the government without giving too much disincentive to produce. 2) Understandability: people should be able to pay their taxes without having to become an expert. 3) Equitability: people must be taxed in accordance with their ability to pay. 4) Benefit: people who receive the benefit should pay for it.
Thus, the fairest tax given these principles is a single rate imposed equally on all income above an exemption sufficient to enable people to live in reasonable comfort. In addition, the tax laws must permit a tax deferral on income used to purchase capital assets, up to an amount sufficient to generate an adequate and secure income.
Thus, every citizen should have a Capital Homestead Account (CHA) or Economic Democracy Account in which he or she can accumulate a reasonable ownership stake of income-generating assets on a tax-deferred basis. A CHA (a super-IRA or asset tax-shelter for citizens) would be available at their local bank to purposely acquire a growing dividend-bearing stock portfolio to supplement their incomes from work and all other sources of income. Now — how do they buy the assets in the first place on which to defer the taxes?
That’s where the necessary money and credit reforms kick in. Obviously, if a rich person or a corporation can finance new capital without using past savings, so can everyone else — and it’s better for the economy. The fact is, the more people who are productive, the more income there is, and the more income there is, the more demand there is, and the more demand there is, the more people can produce and sell ad infinitum.
Thus, every child, woman, and man can open up a Capital Homestead Account or Economic Democracy Account in which every individual can accumulate up to, let’s say, $1 million on a tax-deferred basis. And at a ROI (“Return On Investment”) of a conservative 20 percent (in direct new asset-based new stock issues), would generate taxable income of $200,000 every year.
Further, companies can be encouraged to pay out all earnings as dividends by making dividends tax-deductible by the corporation — and substantially raising the corporate tax rate to give more encouragement. That way a corporation has a choice: avoid all taxation of income by paying it out to the shareholders (who can pay taxes on their dividends the same as any other income), or pay even more taxes than they do now.
Besides, if they finance growth by selling new shares instead of retaining earnings, the new shareholders are going to need the full stream of profit attributable to their shares to pay for those shares. Issuing shares instead of retaining earnings to finance growth will create a lot of new shareholders, and create a lot of new demand to justify more growth and jobs.
Thus, if everybody has the right to borrow money to purchase new shares that pay for themselves out of future dividends — and all profits are paid out as dividends — ordinary people can become capital owners without risking anything they might have at present, which for most people in the United States is not a risk because they don’t have anything to lose at present as it is. If the money is created using interest-free capital credit, there will always be enough money for new capital formation — and for creating new owners without taking anything from anybody else.
What about security for the capital credit loans? What if the borrower defaults, i.e., doesn’t make the loan payments?
There’s an entire industry that already exists to help people handle risk. It’s called “insurance.” Using the risk premium on all loans as an actual insurance premium (ala the Federal Housing Administration concept), a borrower or lender can take out a capital credit insurance policy that pays off in the event of default.
Instead of tax, monetary and inheritance policies favoring the top 1 percent at the expense of the 99 percent, these comprehensive policy and program reforms should become national policy as a necessary solution to correct the systemic injustices of monopoly capitalism. The current system perpetuates budget deficits and unsustainable government debt, underutilized workers, a lack of financing for financing advanced energy and green technologies, and outsourcing of U.S. industrial jobs to low-wage countries, trade deficits, shrinking consumption incomes among the poor and middle class, and conventional methods for financing productive growth that increase the ownership and power gaps between the top 1 percent and the 90 percent whose combined ownership accumulations are already less than the elite whose money power is widely known as the source of political corruption and the breakdown of political democracy.
The unworkability of the traditional market economy is evidenced by the diverse and growing deficits––federal budget deficit, trade deficit, city, county and state budget deficits––which are making it increasingly impossible for governments at every level to function. The increasing deficit burden is the result of the growing numbers of people who cannot earn, from legitimate participation in production, enough income to support themselves and their families. Thus government is obliged to “redistribute” to starve off economic collapse. The key means of redistribution is taxation––taking from the legitimate producers and giving to the non- or under-producers––to make up the economy’s ever wider income and purchasing power shortfalls.
The fact is that political democracy is impossible without economic democracy. Those who control money control the laws that foster wage slavery, welfare slavery, debt slavery and charity slavery. These laws can and should be changed by the 99 percent and those among the 1 percent who are committed to a just and economically classless market economy, true equality of opportunity, and a level playing field in the future for 100 percent of Americans. By adopting economic policies and programs that acknowledge every citizen’s right to contribute productively to the economy as a capital owner as well as a labor worker, the result will be an end to perpetual labor servitude and the liberation of people from progressive increments of subsistence toil and compulsive poverty as the 99 percent benefits from the rewards of productive capital-sourced income.
