tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post5243465887312821239..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: WeekendDale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-27199067488576967632015-07-19T17:09:48.369-07:002015-07-19T17:09:48.369-07:00> . . .binge-streaming seasons of sfnal tee vee...> . . .binge-streaming seasons of sfnal tee vee shows. . .<br /><br />Binge away, with my blessing! ;-><br />(Have you seen the initial episode of Black Mirror?<br />The one with the pig? :-0 ).<br /><br />I'm always bingeing YouTube these days. It's a great<br />venue for folks like Noam Chomsky:<br /><br />2014 "Noam Chomsky": Why you can not have a Capitalist Democracy!<br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mxp_wgFWQo<br />----------------<br />[O]ne of the relations between capitalism and<br />democracy is contradiction. You can't a have capitalist democracy.<br />And the people who really. . . believe in markets, or<br />at least pretend to understand them -- . . . Milton Friedman<br />and other apostles of so-called libertarianism -- . . . don't<br />call for democracy. [What they call "freedom" is] not<br />the freedom of a working person to control their work, their<br />lives. . . it's their freedom to submit themselves to<br />control by a higher authority. . . [Libertarians] don't like democracy. And<br />they're right -- . . . capitalism and democracy really are inconsistent.<br /><br />[Libertarians are] in favor of private tyranny -- . . .which is<br />what corporations are. It's worth bearing in mind how radically opposed<br />this is to classical liberalism. They like to invoke, say, Adam Smith.<br />But if you read Adam Smith, he said the opposite. . . [T]he claim is that he<br />was opposed to regulation, government regulation, interference<br />in the markets. It's not true. He was in favor of regulation. . .<br />when it benefits the working man. He was against<br />interference when it benefitted the masters. That's traditional<br />classical liberalism. [W]hat's called "libertarian" in<br />the United States, which likes to invoke the history that they've<br />concocted, is radically opposed to basic, classic libertarian<br />principles. And it's kind of astonishing to me that a lot of<br />young people. . . are attracted by this kind<br />of thing.<br /><br />[Y]ou can, after all, read the classical texts.<br />[Take]. . . Adam Smith. Adam Smith at the time. . . was<br />considered to be a dangerous radical. . . Because he was<br />pretty anti-capitalist. . . He condemned what he called "the vile<br />maxim of the masters of mankind: all for ourselves, and nothing for<br />anyone else". That's an abomination. Take the phrase<br />"invisible hand" -- everybody's learned that in high school or college.<br />Adam Smith actually did use the term -- rarely. But take a look at how<br />he used it. In _Wealth of Nations_, his major work, it's used once. And<br />if you look at the context, it's an argument **against** what<br />is now called neoliberal globalization. . . [H]e said suppose,<br />in England, that the merchants and manufacturers invested abroad<br />and imported from abroad. He said, well, that would be profitable<br />for **them**, but would be harmful to the people of England.<br />However, they will have enough of a commitment to their own country,<br />to England -- which was called a "home bias" in the literature --<br />they'll have enough of a home bias so that, as if by an invisible<br />hand, they'll keep to the less-profitable actions and England will<br />be saved from the ravages of what we call neoliberal globalization.<br />That's the one use of the term in _Wealth of Nations_.<br /><br />In his other major work, _Moral Sentiments_, the term's also used once. . .<br />He says, suppose some landlord accumulates an enormous<br />amount of land and everybody else has to work for him. . .<br />[T]hat won't turn out too badly, [because] the<br />landlord will be motivated by his natural sympathy for other people,<br />so he will make sure that the necessities of life and the goods<br />available will be distributed equitably to the people on his lands<br />and it'll end up with a relatively equal and just distribution of<br />wealth, "as if by an invisible hand." [T]hat's his other use of<br />the term. [C]ompare that with what you're taught in school, or<br />what you read in the newspapers. And it goes across the board. . ."<br />====<br /><br /><br />That Adam Smith. What a Commie! ;-><br /><br />jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.com