The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct, not to destroy. -Thomas Paine, "First Principles of Government," 1795.
I think most of us would agree that capitalism is a pretty good economic system. Free markets create wealth, which makes a higher standard of living for us all. I can't help but wonder, though, about when pure capitalism conflicts with the common good. There seems to be an inherent tension between our natural instincts to acquiring as much wealth and power as possible and taking care of each other.
I learned my own lessons about this conflict as a youngster, back in the 50's. My parents decided to pull out a little capitalism, in order to encourage us kids to be more efficient in our work. We could earn one cent for every ten sour dock weeds we pulled from the oats field. Earning some money was unprecedented and we were excited. My brother and I dove into our work enthusiastically. We were going to earn our own money! It became quickly apparent that I was going to earn much more than my little brother. After all, I was taller, stronger, and had longer arms than he did. Why shouldn't I get paid more? His frustration at not having a fair chance to compete with me was overwhelming and his reaction was an outright tantrum.
As he flailed about on the ground, I heaped insult to his injured pride by nudging him with my booted toe telling him to quit smashing the grain. He jumped up and ran shouting, "I'll tell Mama!" I reminded him that Mama's gone with Dad to town. I probably added "Ha ha!" He was instantly down in the oats again, smashing another patch, screaming, kicking and crying.
I hadn't really done anything wrong, and yet somehow this situation really pulled at my conscience over the years. My little brother was enraged and humiliated (much to my amusement at the time) when all I was doing was following my parents' rules of economic engagement. I couldn't shake off the fact that my longer legs and sharper view of those sour docks were the means of out-competing my little brother for sour dock weeds. And I eventually remembered how Mom required me to open my gunny sack and divide my weed stalks to supplement my little brother's paltry collection before Dad came in from plowing corn and passed out the pennies. I was obedient; I was learning that supporting my brother was somehow more important than my own personal gain.
Fast forward a few years to my next lesson in the common good. Throughout our childhoods, we had no allowance, just a dime or two to spend when we were privileged to go to town with our parents. No one in my family was a stranger to hard work. Even us kids worked from sunup to sundown, by the time we were 11 or 12. I just accepted it as part of our good life in the country. Then I had a conversation at my eighth grade graduation with another rural student from a wealthier family. He got what he called an allowance, far more than I could imagine, and every time he worked he was paid personally. This to me was almost beyond belief. In my family, we almost never possessed money of our own.
So that spring, armed with this information proving how weird my parents were for making us work so hard for nothing, I tried repeatedly to persuade Mom we should be paid. Mom said we were paid well: a place to sleep, food to eat, clothes to wear, hunting and fishing in season, barrel staves to fashion into skis if we had the courage to use them on our steep bluffs, a free swimming hole in the creek, etc. She added that I should talk to Dad. He added that work was a privilege to contribute to the whole family's survival, like he and Mom did. He seemed to really appreciate my maturity to bear my share of the work to make our farm prosper for our family. I didn't get anywhere with my child labor protest. If only I had known that my parents were so un-American. Imagine working for the common good, rather than my own personal benefit!
Decades later I discovered the democracy-building conflict at the heart of our American capitalism. On the one hand, we are all subject to greedy impulses for power and money. On the other hand, we are all created to look out for the common good in all our enterprises. Adam Smith, our philosophical founder of American capitalism, did not settle this conflict in favor of greed. That false understanding is the fallacy of the new American capitalism currently destroying our wealth as a nation.
Jesus actually had quite a bit to say about this conflict in His time, though I've never heard anyone call him a "socialist." What I began learning in the 50's is now almost totally unlearned on Wall Street. The American values of capitalism so strongly held by my parents and millions of other American farm families then, who knew their prosperity was founded on their attention to the common good, are almost gone now in favor of a kind of laissez faire capitalism that contradicts the Bible and would make our Constitution writers turn over in their graves.
But don't take my word for it.
See the following links on writings by Stacy Mitchell on Big Banks, by Alexander Eichler on Wall Street and mental health, by George Monbiot of "The Guardian" on the industrial psychopathology of the wealthiest one percent that is bankrupting us all, and a summary of revolutionary instruction based on The Bible, Thomas Paine and Adam Smith now needed in America, not published in my column.
"Banking used to be an agreement between neighbors, not a transaction between chairmen of the board. It's time for a new set of rules—banking policies for the 99 percent."
http://www.newrules.org/banking/news/banking-rest-us
"Twenty eight stockbrokers participated in various simulations and intelligence tests, and then compared their results to a group of psychopaths. (It was) found that the traders showed a higher degree of competitiveness than the psychopaths -- and that the traders were surprisingly willing to cause harm to their competitors if they thought it would bring them an advantage."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/26/stockbroker-psychopath_n_981950.html
Here's George Monbiot of The Guardian on the wealthiest one percent: "Our common treasury in the last 30 years has been captured by industrial psychopaths. That's why we're nearly bankrupt. If wealth were the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1% make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the self-attribution fallacy. This means crediting yourself with outcomes for which you weren't responsible." http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/07/one-per-cent-wealth-destroyers
Here's a summary of the evidence supporting revolutionary instruction for America, now more relevant than ever:
There we were, sixty years ago, in our parents' experiment with a cultivated greed economy set up especially for us children. On that day it backfired. But to resolve things, I ended up having to share half my weeds with my little brother. Now the same thing is backfiring for our American wealth today. Problem is, who of the 99% will take authority vested by our constitution to insist that our banks, brokers and the wealthy one percent return to our foundational capitalist principles?
We the 99% haven't fulfilled our management role as governors of the people, by the people, and for the people to make sure these top players in the money game follow our original capitalist philosophy. That's what's wrong with Romneycare, Obamacare, and whatever Teapartycare would look like if they ever get the chance at setting up the game. That's what's right about the core
The Bible: document the common good of money. Parable of the grape harvesters.
And I've been part of a family effort to form a little economic incentive to get some work out of my grandchildren. We have rocks in the garden and lawn needing to be picked up. Toy dump trucks and little red wagons were deployed. Negotiation began over how many rocks brought to the rock pile were worth a dollar. Arguments ensued over compensation for bigger rocks vs. pebbles. Then came the compensation argument over one child's rocks laboriously hauled from the far corner of the lawn vs. rocks found near the pile and ceremoniously tossed on. The profits for this entrepreneurial child piled enormously faster. Complexities and charges of unfairness soon rivaled Wall Street hedge funds.
Soon we parents and grandparents spoiled the profit fun. We applied the adult principle of having one economy: the common good of the family. But the challenge of getting more does build problem-solving skills in math and in negotiation. So we will relegate this separate child-centered economy to easily observable jobs where counting of product can be compensated and collaboration is less important.
It got me thinking about how I learned to handle money. I remember back in the 40's only one time I was given money for work done. There was no "allowance." My parents kept a penny jar. Oats fields were vulnerable to sour dock weeds. Dad needed to go to town. Mom didn't want the children hanging around with nothing to do. We each were handed a gunnysack and sent to the oats field nearest the house, past the penny jar on the top shelf by the door. The promise was ten weeds for a penny. I had visions of chewing gum and dairy queen. The acquisition instinct kept us busy for more than an hour, and the fields provided several summer mornings of labor with minimal parent supervision.
But feeding and watering livestock and poultry, weeding the garden, shoveling manure out of sheds, milking the cows and countless other tasks were compensated for by the common good. It was enough to know
The old tax system was transparent. By April 15, those of us working for a living knew how much we paid in taxes. We didn't like it then, and still don't. But we knew our taxes then. Now we don't.
The new tax system robs us blind, imposed not by democratic government edict, but by plutocratic corporate stealth. It began when we ignored a vital cause of our own revolution at our nation's birth: The history of British government, in collusion with the East India Tea Company, believed in unrestrained global laissez faire economics. They tried to squelch private commerce in the tea market of our thirteen colonies. Colonists said no, and organized the original Boston Tea Party. It was successful.
Now we again have legal theft via extraction of huge amounts of money from millions of people at small amounts. We need another Tea Party.
First of all, see where our money concentrates.
Forbes Magazine just released a story on the top forty hedge fund operatives of 2011.
http://www.alternet.org/world/154671/A_Single_Hedge-Fund_Hustler_Makes_More_Than_85%2C000_Teachers%3A_Why_Are_Our_Priorities_So_Messed_Up%3F/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2012/03/01/the-40-highest-earning-hedge-fund-managers-3/
Last of all, read the Bible. Passages where the primary agenda is economics as a moral choice far outnumber those passages that focus on religion or theology. Unfortunately, along with me and me parents, we have been taught to read even the explicitly economics passages through our learned lens of religion. Start with Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount" Matthew 5-7. Note that this passage was paramount as a literal guide for life for Christians in the first three centuries. They did not interpret it away as for another time or dispensation.
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David Graber
RR 1 Box 1211D
631 Woodley Ln
Hardin, MT 59034
406 665-3373
www.greenwoodfarmmt.orgBonnie's email
graberbj@gmail.com
