I tagged this article to read when I had more time and promptly forgot it.

Pfaff’s reading of economic history confirms my own deep belief that the limits of responsibility are set at home, within the self-sustaining community.

Great discussion and “bonne année”.

Mark E. Smith

spot on my good man.  spot on.

great thought here folks.

Anarcissie
If this seems contrary to human interests, remember that capitalism and the state are replicated in daily life.  What’s going on isn’t being brought to us by the Saturnian ant men.

quite so.  as much as we would like to externalize everything and dig out the enemies, we are missing the essence.  want to find the devil, the evil, the callousness, the greed, the hatred, the war, the everything bad in this world?  look in the mirror.  look in your heart.  this is how we change the world.  no more pointing fingers.  no more externalization.  only internalization, forgiveness and love can save us now.

I believe that all this trouble started all the way back when Abraham decided to sacrifice the goat instead of himself. Thereby he set a bad example for Isaac, whose descendants, so to speak, are we—a totally gutless bunch building troubles upon troubles.

KDelphi;

Truly this is not what many want, they still believe that they have a choice, though the time for choosing has long passed. It would have been much easier not to have had to look into our existence to find who we are. It is inconvenient for some to find themselves in this moment of the physical world.
To find that one is uncivilized is like waking up from a bad nightmare, but explains much in ones past.
There are still many battles to go so don’t give in easily. Love is not pacifism.

Depressing, but, sadly, spot on. Or, maybe not sadly, and, certainly not surprising.

Hasnt everyone had a sneaking suspeicion that this could, shouldnt ,wouldnt last It always seemed to be so surreal…I’m not sure that we dont want it that way.

The civilized nations and their city states are unsustainable, industrialized civilization is unsustainable. We are on the brink the crash and it is going to be painful. Wishing it away is not an option, hoping for someone to change it wont make it better.
Pretending that this time is somehow the same as the last is ridiculous. Pretending those that in the hierarchy are concerned about the humans that they control is ridiculous.
To hang on to a culture and go down with that culture is not unlike frogs placed in a pot of water and being slowly brought to a boil, we all die.
Time to get out of the pot, time to walk our own way, time to stop listening to those that that have nothing to loose, time to stop listening to those who would go down willingly with the culture and walk into the showers to be gassed.
It is not reasonable to argue that civilization is redeemable even if you are dependent upon the scraps it may through you from time to time.
Any one seeking proof can find it on the internet along with proof that UFO’s do or do not exist.

TAO Walker:
’
...  The thing has become one huge positive-feedback-loop….’

Quite so, and all undamped positive-feedback loops blow up.  As Marx said, “The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.”  This is part of the plan—the system is built up, it collapses, the strong survive and eat the weak, and a new cycle is started.  This is what change looks like.

Eventually, perhaps, the catastrophic phase will be so great as to destroy the human race in its entirety.

If this seems contrary to human interests, remember that capitalism and the state are replicated in daily life.  What’s going on isn’t being brought to us by the Saturnian ant men.

Mark E Smith—sorry, youre right. i have been tired ever since i started moving…

I am glad to hear that you feel that way. I am also glad you are doing well. I am not trying to be condescending here, I am just a social worker (sigh) lol. Once one, always one? Who knows.

Thanks for the link, and I agree! Krugman would be SO much better than Geithner…

I wonder what Paul_GA and others would have to say about others who were like you, and, still are. (I was homeless also, from the time I was a teen, and, then again in my 20s). I am not being confrontational, I would just like to know. I wonder about the libertarian position on such things.

Mark E Smith,. what do you say?

Only when you have been there, do you realize that it could happen to anyone , give the right circumstances, and, you think “HTF did I end up here?”!

That is what concerns me about libertarianism. If they could address that, perhaps it would help??

Quite so, AWM—some saw this coming, but they were like Cassandra trying to warn the Trojans of the dangers of the Trojan Horse.

I doubt any of them feel like gloating now, though.

Blackspeare, I doubt even a major war could save the Status Quo. The world and this country have both changed in 60+ years, and all that thinking “inside the box” can do, as I see it, is delay the crunch’s onset. Change—major change—is coming for the world and the USA, whether we want it or not. And it’ll be painful.

I had written this poem several months ago but it didn’t quite fit the post that it was posted in originally ,so i have reposted it.

The masters try their trade
whilst the many are waylaid
the words are spoken
yet the promises are Brocken

truth is avoided or worse
it is manipulated within a magnificent verse
that leads the resistance to quarrel over petty items
that hide the facts of substance

for an argument is welcome
if it deviates from the path
the path that is known to very few
yet questioned by even less

some attempt to spark a flame
a flame that will demonstrate the shame
hidden within a hideous game

played by the magnates who choose prowess and greed as their tangent
to benefit their caste
but how long will it last
before it is said ,that it has come to pass

that the road of the few is not the road of the many
who choose to live and give
for the benefit of community
and not necessarily conformity

for justice has many eyes
of which all are not blind
in order to see
one must be free
to speak one’s mind
what is dearest to most
the father the son or the Holy Ghost

You ain’t seen nothing yet——the worst is yet to come.  BHO’s massive trillion dollar spending spree will bankrupt the USA, devalue the dollar, and create a world-wide inflationary cycle the likes of which have never been seen.  FDR’s free spending programs were saved by WW II.  BHO won’t have the luxury of a major war to absorb the devalued dollar and act as a economic course corrector.

—-Or is it the cannibalistic version?

So the vassals owe the banks. The banks will have their money. It remains my job to explain to vassals how they might best meet their new sentence of debt. For this great task we return from the Oilan front to the domestic war rooms.

We loyal vassals, we civil-minded types, we chart our strategies anew, go on the offensive, throw deep, blitz the opposition, pound the media, ram through smashmouth bills, man up, gut it out, and storm to victory over those who would deny the banks their due.

Having exhausted earlier practical policies, we need something new yet timeless, forward looking yet ancient, elegant yet primal. Something that works, that lives, that breathes profits.

Let me think, just off the top of my head.

Off with their heads? Why not?

Cannibalism. For profit.

The great resource that remains, and yet remains bothersome, is the unemployed, and the underemployed, and the vast imprisoned populace, and the ill, and the dissidents, and select others. Tainted vassals everywhere. Ergo.

Cannibalism for profit. Now we have to sell it.

One cannot simply say to vassals, Ahoy there ye kindred Vassals, henceforth, we must cannibalize our way to prosperity! Too grating.

[Note to self – have editor polish this text, this epic, this handbook that I have begun to incorporate into my daily routine: The Life and Duties of Stan D. Garde, Executive Sloganeer. Render audience appropriate.]

There is no getting around it. Cannibalism becomes the dawn of the millennium. Cannibalism by the banks, with the banks, for the banks. Cannibalism for the greater glory of the Incorporated Estates of Earth. Cannibals arise, unite, devour!

http://apracticalpolicy.org/the-vassals-handbook/

Many people saw this coming but they weren’t just ignored they were ridiculed. The run up to this crisis has happened many times in the past and has always ended up with the same result. We are told that we need to have a central banking system to avoid recessions since we keep having them why do we keep the central bank system since they keep failing at the one thing we are told that they were created for

KDelphi, you’re obviously responding to my comment, not to Paul’s.

I’m not going to apologize for what I wrote because I didn’t work with “those people”—I was one of them for more than twenty years. During that time I was invisible and untouchable. Once I got a place to live and started writing, doctors, lawyers, physicists, professors, and other writers began seeking out my opinions and advice. They didn’t know I was one of “those people,” and thought from my writing that I was one of them.

I’m glad to see that you agree with my premise, even if the way that I worded it offended you.

Here’s an article by someone I correspond with frequently, retired NASA physicist David Griscom:

Mr. Obama, Fire Geithner & Hire Krugman NOW!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Mr-Obama-Fire-Geithner—by-David-Griscom-090324-257.html

Krugman has a Nobel Prize, Geither is an incompetent. But Krugman isn’t a toadying bureaucratic team player like Geithner. He isn’t guaranteed to go along to get along and not rock the boat. Geithner is part of the problem and cannot be part of the solution, so he’s the one in charge, not Krugman who could easily upset the apple cart.

It’s the Peter Principle writ large. Promote people above their level of competence and they’ll remain loyal because they know they could never have reached such heights on their own. The power structure we call a system of government is just a bureaucracy designed to shield our rulers from our wrath and that’s the ONLY thing it is capable of doing properly.

Paul—I would agree on most of it. Please dont refer to unwed mothers as illiterate or homeless as drooling..I know that you didnt mean that all of both were either, but, I worked with “those people” for many years. As you say, they deserve much better and, most are NOT stupid. Many are just unfortunate or victims of circumstance. Some are sick, physically or neurologically.We could offer them all the help they need to get back on their feet, if we didnt spend so much on Empire..I’ve thought of that recently. We assume for years that THEY must bve SAMART, but, honesetly, couldnt you or I do better at running the govt, anytime, without all the opportunities they have?

Yes, we have to stop giving our vote to the lesser of two evils. We will just get more evil.

I am for anything that will take this govt out of the hands of the elitist war mongers. Our country is going to die, I am afraid!

KDelphi, it is beginning to dawn on me that the old American tradition of direct, participatory democracy is still alive and well in New England where citizens vote on budgets and laws instead of voting for unaccountable candidates to make their decisions for them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_meeting

While Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Socialists, and others may not agree on much, I think there is a majority now who are agreed that government of, by, and for the people, is a much better idea than government of, by, and for the wealthy elites, the banks and financial institutions, the big multinational corporations, and the military-industrial complex.

If we just stopped voting for candidates and refused to vote until we were allowed to vote directly on budgets, laws, and policy, stopped delegating our power to people we cannot hold accountable and retained that power to ourselves, we could turn the whole thing around within four years. The political parties and the lobbyists would be obsolete at the local level within a year, at the state level within two years, and at the federal level within four. We’d have our peace dividend and we’d be able to establish a sustainable economy.

Handing power to people we cannot hold accountable inevitably leads to corruption. Retaining power at the local level where everything has to be done openly allows everyone to hold their neighbors accountable. The rich are a minority and can never compete on a level playing field. If we stop voting for them, they’ll have no more power over us. Their only claim to being a legitimate government is the consent of the governed, obtained by holding elections.

We’re not children who need grownups to make our decisions for us. Even an illiterate welfare mother knows what our most brilliant politicians do not: that we need food, clothing, shelter, jobs, education, and health care before we can think about spending trillions of dollars on bombs and foreign wars. Even the drunk, drugged-out, and drooling homeless people in my city could do a better job of governance than our politicians, because they’d make sure that everyone had food to eat and a place to sleep before spending money on sports stadiums and unrentable condos. Half of them are veterans—how can they be good enough to die for our country but not good enough to run it?

Paul_Ga—I would agree, except that I think we might disagree as to what is and what is not a human right, simpley because you were b orn. NO one asked to be, you know.

I totally agree that the standard of living of the avg USAn will be Third World , unless we stop this military empire. If I thought that there were enough in the Libertarian and Socialist Parties, or, if I thought we could reconcile the huge differences, we would have a viable chance at a third party…

The duopoly is giving us the worst of both worlds.

KDelphi, I’m under no illusion that somehow, a totally libertarian America can be created without a genuine miracle; I know there’ll have to be some sort of “socialist” programs available for people who have nowhere else to turn—Americans won’t have it otherwise. But I firmly believe this country can have butter (social programs) without having guns (a big military and imperial ambitions to match). The Demos, like the Repubs before them, are trying to have both guns and butter, and *it can’t be done*.

Give up the guns, keep the butter. Simple. If we try to have both, we will likely LOSE both.

AWM, I think no one saw this coming because they thought that really bad recessions were a thing of the past, that almighty government had made them obsolete; we may yet discover to our sorrow that depressions are very real, too. Hubris is a dangerous thing.

This article starts with the following fallacy

“The globalization of the international economy launched by the United States as an accidental policy of the Clinton administration “

This was no accident

To say it was is on par with
No one saw this coming

TAO Walker is on the money here..I agree , in part, Kasrma’s Hammer, I would dearly love to see capitalism die, but, I am not much enjoying watching people suffer and die in the process. Let the purveyors of it hang by their own bootstraps and seize their assets to feed the victims.

CJ—“And so, globalization was hardly necessary to suicidal tendency. ... C’mon! American capitalism was founded on slaughter and slavery. American capitalism, as much as European, is founded on colonization/imperial ambition.

But since we got ourselves to this time in space, I can’t see why we still refuse to socialize rewards as willing to socialize losses. Well, I can see why, especially given constant barrage of propaganda. But also true we just can’t seem to shake much- and long-celebrated (really suicidal) profit motive.”

Yes. Excellent points.

Eso—good point about population control. No one ever speaks of it anymore, even when, it seems that , having large families is the “craze”. maybe people think that , as we continue on our capitalistic adventure,(wheee!) we will drop all chld labor laws again, and, they will be ahead of the game! Eliminate the need for schooling peons, etc. Saves taxes!

purplegirl—Yes! But WILL Evan Bayh go fuck himself? I dunno…he may be too busy fucking us!

Mark Smith-

“The global suicide dates back at least 6,000 years to patriarchy which forced people to submit to becoming an ecologically nonviable species or be killed. Suddenly we were no longer a part of the planet but its owners and masters. Land, trees, animals, and people were no longer part of a reciprocal system, but mere commodities. Turning a living planet, our only habitat, which sustained us for aeons, into a paved and polluted wasteland for profit, was called “progress.” Turning living things into dead things was called “technology.” Respect for life became quaint and impractical, and mass murderers were glorified as heroes and conquerors.”

yes, but there are groups of people who live “un-civilized” who know better than to soil their own nests. I realize that we are busy destroying them in the name of globalization and “improving their standrards of living”. Perhaps we could learn something form them, as we destryoy them?Sad..that we cannot stop destroying them

Paul_GA—I would agree with Ron Paul on this much—-we have the worst of both worlds here! As a Socialist, I would prefer an actual free mkt to what we have now! The Captains of INdustry would fall off the edge of a level playing field.(or, Social Darwinists would throw them off—and I would help)..but, I cannot go with the yoyo (youre on your own) society that Paul wants..

Sorry so much quoting—just found comments very interesting here

It doesn’t have to be a horror show.  Read Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, available free on line.

author is a confused spin doctor.

I think Pfaff is confusing the faux capitalism of the present time for genuine, laissez-faire capitalism. As Ron Paul once said: “Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven’t had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It’s not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism!”

So what sort of system is this? Global mercantilism. As Murray Rothbard said: “Mercantilism is a system of statism which employs economic fallacy to build up a structure of imperial state power, as well as special subsidy and monopolistic privilege to individuals or groups favored by the state.”

The global suicide dates back at least 6,000 years to patriarchy which forced people to submit to becoming an ecologically nonviable species or be killed. Suddenly we were no longer a part of the planet but its owners and masters. Land, trees, animals, and people were no longer part of a reciprocal system, but mere commodities. Turning a living planet, our only habitat, which sustained us for aeons, into a paved and polluted wasteland for profit, was called “progress.” Turning living things into dead things was called “technology.” Respect for life became quaint and impractical, and mass murderers were glorified as heroes and conquerors.

If only there was a way to safely dispose of radioactive wastes, and to clean up the microscopic particles of uranium, plutonium, and other long-lived carcinogens that have been dispersed from our mines, powerplants, and weapons, picked up by the trade winds, and distributed randomly throughout earth’s oceans, rivers, lands, and cities, perhaps there might be hope. Instead, every moment of every day, we make things worse because it is profitable for some.

There is no hope. There is no change. Capitalism will not give up the bomb. Communism will not give up the bomb. Even socialist Hugo Chavez has spoken of allowing uranium mining in Venezuela. France has decided to compensate some victims of its nuclear weapons programs but the United States has not. We are deliberately bent on suicide because under patriarchy life has no value, only death has worth.

Russell Means says that we need matriarchy, which is not a hierarchical but an egalitarian system with respect for Grandmother Earth, but world leaders and captains of industry aren’t going to listen to some old Indian. Even what CJ called the, “techno-marvel that is indoor plumbing,” is nothing more than taking valuable fertilizer and fuel and using it instead to irreparably pollute the world’s water.

There are one-celled animals who can control their reproductive rate in accordance with available resources so as to avoid our cyclical overpopulation/die-off pattern that leads inevitably to extinction in ecologically nonviable species like our own. We’re dumber than brainless amoebae.

Capitalism? Don’t make me laugh. Food, water, air, people, animals, and plants, everything which lives or sustains life, are not commodities. The minute we became domesticated animals rather than free creatures, by allowing somebody to fence off a portion of land where food grew on trees, so that anyone who wanted to eat had to work for the money to pay for what had previously been freely available to all, and called it “civilization,” we forfeited our right to exist.

Goldwater’s Girl latched on to a charismatic Rising stra in the Dem party and worked the scam from within. She and the other covert operatives, The DLC were merely Repugs who jumped ship when the Moral Majority was installed as the Repugs taskmasters. Funny thing is that the Moral Majority did not see they were just the facade the Corps were using to elicit Gutteral reactions. They just need them to be so fired up they wouldn’t notice their agenda was not driving the party- It was the Corps.
As for the DLC they were working th eother side of the reactionary street- firing up the left while continuing to serve their Corp Overlords - ‘The Thrid Way’ doctrine. I never heard that doctrine, I had to find it on line years later.
Of Course Hillary’s campaign made it obvious who she still worked for- What Dems says ‘We could oblterate Iran’?? What Dems praises a Repug opponent while demonizing a fellow Dems candidate? What Dem uses lap dogs to throw primaries she knows she can’t win (if Obama & Edwards were on the MI ballot- she’d have been in 3rd place- at best). Funny of her supposed 18 million supporters, she could get them to kick down a few bucks each to pay off her debt- because she didn’t Have 18 million people who voted for her- that’s just the number she was able to steal. Besides What Dem would Dare Evoke the assasination of RFK 3 Times(!!!!) to fear people into voting for them? 3rd times a charm Hillary. Frankly by the Third time it was clearly a request!Hillary even proclaimed her experience as First lady to qualify her for the Presidency! Wasn’t that Exactly what they were accused of and denied? Would Jackie Kennedy have made such a claim, Roslyn Carter- hell even Mommy Dearest Nancy (when in fact she probably did run the presidency since Ronny HAD alzheimers while in office)
Now their lil’ minions are rearing the envious green heads again about Obama’s budget!?! Do they not read the Polls and realize We hate a good portion of Dems in congress as well as their Repug Cohorts?Evan Bayh can go fuck himself! Pull off that Blue over coat Evan, I know there a Red Coat underneath!treasonous SOB!!!
The Clintonites need to be run out of office just like their co conspirators on the Right- if not outright prosecuted. They have worked to destroy the middle class and thus our country’s economic strength. These Two faced SOB’s didn’t just Cave for Bushies, they PAVED the way!

An article like this is interesting, but would be more productive if even a hint of what the author would consider a good path forward were given.  Looking back on failure is useful, but only half of a solution.

An article like this is interesting, but would be more productive if even a hint of what the author would consider a good path forward.  Looking back on failure is useful, but only half of a solution.

A good article. But by combining the written with the need to reduce our population by 6 billion, I come up with our Earth being, at last, allowed to go fallow and let the forests return. The French, Russian, Chinese (and a few other) Revolutions tried to solve the problems of globalizing (like sour milk curdling into cottage cheese) by terror. It did not work. Can anyone think of the solution? I believe there is but one.

Slavery? The “Company store”? Globalization is why I refused the Clinton cause. The book by David Icke “global Conspiracy” is a good read (though long) and just ignore the “Lizard” thing. The freedoms that the global-one world order henchmen want to steal from us have gained us the advancements of the last 10,000 years. It’s interesting the Chinese are trumpeting the global currency horn. Buy a 1 year supply of food and medicine and learn to grow your own food. the agenda includes RFI chips and predator drones. FREEDOM !!!........

Pfaff makes excellent points, if not quite in depth enough. Perhaps it wasn’t called the “free market,” but that arose in 16th Century Holland with the rise of Dutch merchant class. No, not finance capitalism if that’s what Pfaff means. But “free-market” enough.

Marx would have replied to Pfaff by pointing out that capitalism has always been a bundle of contractions that regulation only served to delay blossoming into disaster. Not that Marx could possibly have foreseen nine lives. (While Naomi Klein is redundant when she writes of “disaster capitalism,” what with capitalism defined by tendency to disaster/suicide.) It was moderated somewhat by (relatively) strict regulation circa 1935-1995, though yes, globalization (long before Clinton arrived) was new thing. Really, circa 1935-1975—a mere four decades out of close to five centuries of “suicidal” capitalist system of economic provision. (Theorists come after history, not before. Theorists theorize of what is already past or no more than current. Smith didn’t simply scribble down a couple ideas to which [mostly extent] nations immediately subscribed. Doesn’t work like that. But Marx did write of how captains of industry are also victims—in finding themselves alienated, or rather atomized.)

But sure, globalization facilitated—at what one might call a “faster rate of return”—suicidal tendency. Also by ever more specialized “specialization” that is both mother and child of technological invention. By now to the point of incipient destruction of the planet, something none back then foresaw. Not even Malthus, who turned out wrong anyway, though the joint has gotten crowded. But not so crowded all couldn’t be adequately fed and housed were it not for “rationalized” (farm-subsidized) insanity that is capitalism.

I’m skeptical of Pfaff’s second and third “suicidal qualities,” since as noted previously. There was never much real “risk,” let alone assumption of “responsibility.” Paternal capitalism of 19th Century was merely Gilded fraud. People starved then same as now. Now far less excusable given two-sided coin that has been and remains technological “progress.” We’re not wiser or more civilized than before, despite techno-marvel that is indoor plumbing.

What responsibility? When? On the part of whom? Bourgeoisie? The same who sold out French working class at the time of that revolution?

There was always TALK of responsibility, never PRACTICE of responsibility. Same for risk. I’d qualify this by noting that during America’s period of westward expansion—AFTER “purchases” of real estate still dwelled upon by indigenous peoples—some kind of actually Smithian thing might have prevailed in a kind of anarchistic way. Made possible by grant in the case of vast capaciousness. When government (owned then too) by capitalists back east said, “Okay, let’s do it, since we’ll profit eventually.” Which they did once rail stretched from coast to coast. But settlers profited too, enough to render white bourgeois ideology almost a reality. Still, alienation to which capitalism cannot but lead resulted.

And so, globalization was hardly necessary to suicidal tendency. There has never been—save (maybe?) for a few short decades in all those centuries, and then only locally—capitalism other than suicidal version. No matter the form contradiction that lays at the heart of capitalism takes: local or global. C’mon! American capitalism was founded on slaughter and slavery. American capitalism, as much as European, is founded on colonization/imperial ambition.

But since we got ourselves to this time in space, I can’t see why we still refuse to socialize rewards as willing to socialize losses. Well, I can see why, especially given constant barrage of propaganda. But also true we just can’t seem to shake much- and long-celebrated (really suicidal) profit motive.

William Pfaff probably recognizes, even though he doesn’t refer specifically to it here, the large and growing factor ideological/institutional/electro-mechanical ‘amplifiers’ have been, in driving “global capitalism” to the “disaster”-ridden CONclusion he describes so well here.  The thing has become one huge positive-feedback-loop, shaking to-pieces from the the intolerable effects of its own relentlessly-intensifying heterodyne whine.

Throwing tons of “money” into its innards, in the vain hope of damping-down some of the terrifying din of its self-destruction, is certain to prove just one more feckless exercise in F-U-tility….and we’re right now only in the early stages of the most spectacular aspects of the “process.”  Hang onto your hats!

HokaHey!