"Just Business:" Capitalism is an Anti-Social Disease

Thursday 08 July 2010

by: Dave Lindorff | This Can't Be Happening | Op-Ed

Looking at the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, where the results of the greed of corporate executives at BP, TransOcean and Halliburton, not to mention the greed of paid-off regulators in the Minerals Management Service and the members of the House and Senate who took dirty money to water down drilling regulations are on ready display, I was reminded of a prominent business leader in New York, recently deceased.

Told by his sister of a young woman she knew who had posted a sign on her wall saying, “Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have,” this executive, who had held a top position in the multinational media industry, sniffed, “Ugh! That’s terrible. If people thought like that, no one would strive to do anything.”

Of course, hundreds of thousands of people--teachers, nurses, park rangers, musicians, writers, artists, small farmers and social workers--spend their lives working at low wages trying to make others happy and better educated, or to produce things that people need or that bring joy to others, content that their lives have meaning. Yet this same individual, who was worth perhaps a hundred million of dollars, spent his life simply amassing ever more wealth, which is what the rich and powerful do. He worked hard raking it in, riding roughshod over employees, competitors, and workers, all with the goal of obtaining more wealth, though he had no hope of ever spending what he had. When he died, he left behind a family squabbling over the spoils.

And how different, really, was he from most wealthy, powerful people? To be sure, some give extravagantly to charity, especially when they die, but their bequests can never compensate for the harm they do in their lifetimes.
The corporate manager or owner is a sociopath

Let’s face it. Capitalism is a disease--a raging infection that causes its hosts to become sociopaths.

When I lived in Hong Kong, where I worked as a correspondent for Business Week magazine back in the mid-1990s, my wife Joyce and I adopted a baby boy from a local Hong Kong orphanage. For the first six months, under the terms of the adoption process, we had Jed living with us in a foster-care arrangement, which required us to take him to regular visits to Queen Mary Hospital’s toddler clinic. There we often met a British couple who at the same time as us had adopted two boys, both with physical disabilities--one affecting his walking, and the other his vision. The man was someone I knew professionally--a major figure in the international investment banking industry who worked for a large British bank. I knew he had been centrally involved in lucrative deals in Southeast Asia that had financed some poorly planned infrastructure projects that were displacing and destroying the lives of tens of thousands of poor people, and that he had actually been indicted in one country for having misled the government there about the risks involved in the loans. But here he was, with his two adopted kids, just a model father: loving, patient and kind.

I was struck by this man’s ability to segment his personality into two discrete halves--a caring human being, and a profit-maximizing monster.

But over the years, I’ve come to realize that he didn’t realize he was a monster, for this is really the marvel of capitalism: its ability to treat as a virtue the ruthless pursuit of profit.

Corporate tycoons and managers have for several centuries now wreaked havoc on workers, and on the environment, yet because they also control the government, the schools and the media, we have, especially here in America, come to celebrate their sociopathy. “It’s just business,” we say, as millions of people are laid off when sales are down, or when some investment bank or leveraged buyout house arranges for a takeover of some enterprise and promptly tosses half the workforce out on the sidewalk. “It’s just business,” we say, when a bank tosses thousands of people out of their homes because, laid off from their jobs, they’re late in making a few mortgage payments. (This, by the way, is where capitalism differs from communism or state capitalism. In countries where the state and economy are centrally run, few people speak glowingly of the maximum leaders of society as being virtuous or fulfilling their proper role. By and large they are resented or hated.)

Now we have a well spewing toxic crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico in the biggest purely man-made environmental disaster in the history of the Gulf and of the United States. That’s “just business” too: the company’s managers were paying over $1 million a day to rent the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig from TransOcean, and so they cut some corners to get the well finished so they could cap it, and get rid of the rig. Unfortunately, the corners they cut ended up causing a blowout that killed 11 men, sank the rig, and broke open the wellhead.

“Just business.”

The truth is that capitalism is but a blip in the history of mankind. Think about it. For almost all of history and prehistory, humans and pre-humans alike lived in communal arrangements where the group, or tribe or clan worked towards a collective goal of survival. There were leaders who rose to the top through merit, which was fairly easy to establish: the leader was either smarter, or stronger, or had more friends and allies than the rest. But the leader’s prime qualification was that he or she was deemed best able to protect and promote the survival of the whole group.

Anthropologists have found endless variants on the organization of human societies in so-called “primitive” societies, some very top-down and hierarchical, and some very communal and cooperative, but the common thread seems to be that the general welfare of the social unit was a key objective, and the difference between ruler and ruled, in terms of wealth and well-being, was generally very narrow.

A second feature of mankind’s history until only the last few hundred years or so, has been that nature has been respected, and even revered.

Capitalism has completely done away with this traditional reality of human existence. In capitalism, the welfare of a large proportion of society is simply ignored or openly put at risk. The capitalist views the low-wage worker and the unemployed person as just another resource to be subjugated and exploited, along with the rest of nature. Educated workers are sometimes treated slightly better, but only slightly, simply because they are deemed a bigger investment, worth hanging onto longer, until the investment has been amortized and they too can be trashed.

In the final analysis, though, there is no concern for the society, for the well-being of the group. The only thing that matters, the only virtue, is profit maximization and increased share value, which means bigger bonuses for management and bigger returns for the investor.

For a while, mankind, and the earth, could tolerate this sociopathic ideology, but we’ve clearly reached the point where it has to be recognized as a fatal disease. Capitalism and the greed it engenders and elevates to a virtue now threatens to finish us all off.

“I want my life back,” wails BP CEO Tony Hayward, whose push for ever greater profits at BP led directly to the decision to cut corners on the Deepwater Horizon drilling project. What an arrogant illustration of the selfishness of this narcissistic sociopathy. A huge swath of the earth’s precious ecology is put at grave risk from his actions, and Hayward is bemoaning his personal discomfort, when a mentally healthy person in this position would either be committing ritual hari kiri or would be atoning by donning sackcloth to devote his remaining years to cleaning oil-soaked birds and porpoises.

It’s time we recognized this capitalist disease for what it is. The young woman with her inspirational wall message had it right. We need to reject the capitalist’s siren call for more and more, and to start being happy with what we have. Then maybe we can all start caring for the well-being of those around us, instead of seeing them as competitors for the things we covet.

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Comments

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Great article. It's

Thu, 07/15/2010 - 16:34 — Anonymous (not verified)

Great article. It's unfortunate that the tenets of capitalism have been so deeply ingrained into the public psyche that it makes it nearly impossible for many to even imagine what a different system could be like.

Capitalism is like a vacuum that sucks wealth into the ever-expanding pockets of an extreme minority of human-beings. Those who have pushed the envelope to its current point have created a paper world with thin walls that supersedes and overwhelms reality far too often.

There is nothing wrong with

Thu, 07/15/2010 - 18:08 — Uppity Woman (not verified)

There is nothing wrong with wealth as long as we keep it in proper perspective. Wealth is a state of mind that includes being happy with what one has, as long as one has enough. Wealth is also about deciding for one's self what is of greatest value. Wealth necessitates equity and equality because none of us is richer than our poorest citizen on several fundamental levels (the most notable involving issues of health and safety). The more we share wealth, the more wealth we receive in return. This attitude is catching on, and ultimately promises to transform how we view wealth on planet Earth. People stuck in avarice mode are dominating the system right now, but they will soon experience the fruits of their labors because the system they advocate is unsustainable.

Yes, uppity lady, but the

Thu, 07/15/2010 - 20:02 — Anonymous (not verified)

Yes, uppity lady, but the trouble is that while the people 'stuck in the avarice mode' are rotting the system from within they are also bringing down all the millions of ordinary folk who do a solid day's work and, in a grossly capitalist system like this one, are the victims. Your sentiments are fine but I think you are in cloud-cuckoo land. Scan the country. You will find millions of people hungry and homeless because of the likes of Rubin, Greenspan, and the unspeakable Summers and Geithner. Their policies are nothing short of criminal. What we need in America is some genuine thinking that will come only from a rich education. Our schools have been taken over by business, which is the new god. It will take some time to reverse all that. The people in charge of this country are ruthless. If you oppose them at a deep level you will die, maybe not literally, and not quickly, but you will die nonetheless. We need to gather strength from each other. The Tea Party people do, and their ideology is brainless. Where is the loyal. sensible opposition, the one that voted for Obama? Where, for that matter. is Obama? Dining with Geithner and Summers.

I would say capitalism is an

Thu, 07/15/2010 - 22:29 — notamerica (not verified)

I would say capitalism is an unsustainable disease.

I used to work for a small US company that was bought out by GE.

We had historically been growing our small business at about 2.0% per year for the over ten years that I had been there.

GE came and told us we would be growing at 20% to 25% per year.

I remember the insane look in the GE speakers eyes. I asked him how they would manage that growth and was it sustainable.

His answer was he didn't know, he was just there to tell us what the new growth must be in order to feed the Corp monster that was GE.

I quite soon after (after they started marginalizing all the newly acquired slaves) and started my own small business serving all my old customers and acquaintances.

I was lucky I was able to survive because I didn't have a family to worry about.

Others who where not so fortunate had to stay on and suffer with their new Corp master.

Capitalism itself is not a

Fri, 07/16/2010 - 01:42 — Anonymous (not verified)

Capitalism itself is not a disease, greed and avarice are the diseases. Capitalism fails for the same reasons that everything else does. It fails because of the failures, frailties, and the nature of man. Once greed and avarice are allowed to enter the picture and then take hold the problems begin. When Capitalism is left to its own devices and is left unregulated or is deregulated then that is when greed and avarice are allowed to enter. When those who engage in greedy and avaricious activities that end up harming others go unpunished then greed and avarice are allowed to flourish.

Human beings have an innate

Fri, 07/16/2010 - 03:21 — JohnLG (not verified)

Human beings have an innate drive to cooperate but also, to varying degrees, to dominate. History is replete with tyrannical monarchs and warlords, feudalism, oppression and slavery. The opposing theme, the struggle for enlightenment, liberation, and love, threads through this as well, but capitalism is not the great blot on an otherwise peaceable kingdom. Neither is business a bad thing in itself. Rather it is the notion that the pursuit of profit trumps any other consideration that turns business pathological. And too many of us are only too willing to embrace this nonsensical propaganda even when it is contrary to our personal interests. Untempered greed is put forward as a core American principle; even an authentic religious value. This is crazy when you think about it. How can behavior that is disruptive in the home or the schoolyard be a positive force when writ large in society? Pursuit of self interest, initiative, and innovation, yes, but also promotion and protection of the common good, and some ground rules to help keep the balance.

From

Fri, 07/16/2010 - 12:54 — Francisco D'Anconia (not verified)

From http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/economics/money/1826-Franciscos-Money-Speech.html

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?

"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth
...

Read the whole speech!

Atlas Shrugged was supposed to be a warning, not a newspaper!

Yeah, yeah. Capitalism is

Sat, 07/17/2010 - 11:03 — Dave Lindorff (not verified)

Yeah, yeah. Capitalism is value neutral. It's just bad people.

And money doesn't make money.

Tell that to Goldman Sachs. They sure make a lot of imaginary value as they rip of the taxpayers of the nation.

I think it's clear that capitalism, by valuing growth over all other things is fundamentally an evil, a perverter of human society and psychology. Nobody needs more than the amount of income that provides for a comfortable life, and even that is problematic. What people really need for happiness is a sense of meaning in their lives, which comes from helping others--something that is completely outside of the whole concept of capitalism.

You cannot expect an ideology based upon the concept of greed and avarice to produce a good social outcome.

Dave Lindorff
www.thiscantbehappening.net

Capitalism is nothing more

Sat, 07/17/2010 - 15:52 — Anonymous (not verified)

Capitalism is nothing more than an economic system and the most effective one as is evidenced by its implementation by the communist Chinese. Socialism can also operate with a capitalist economic system as many believe it does in Europe. How capitalism is implemented and what rules it operates under is still a function of man.
Goldman Sachs is a prime example of what happens when greed and avarice are allowed to enter the system, and the failure to prosecute them is what allows greed and avarice to flourish. That is a failure of man not capitalism.

This is an argument

Sun, 07/18/2010 - 12:03 — Dave Lindorff (not verified)

This is an argument libertarians and free-market ideologues always make to defend the indefensible ideology of capitalism, but it could as easily be said of any ideology--socialism, catholicism, judaism, buddhism, or whatever. It's not the "ism"'s fault. It's the fault of bad people acting in the name of the ism.

I disagree. Capitalism is espousing essentially vile values of avarice, greed and concern for only self. Nothing good can come from that. It's like fascism, which is also evil at its core.

I'm willing to grant that socialism, which has a stated goal of maximizing the welfare of all, or christianity, which espouses the goals of love thy neighbor as thyself, and do unto others as you would have them do unto you, at least start from a premise that is praiseworthy, and that they could fail not because of their essense but because of evil behavior by humans acting in their name, but I won't believe that of Nazi ideology, or capitalist ideology, which start from a vile premise.

I won't deign to defend

Mon, 07/19/2010 - 03:16 — Anonymous (not verified)

I won't deign to defend against what is an obvious attempt to stereotype rather than argue the actual facts. And attempting to compare Capitalism which is merely an economic system as I already pointed out with Nazism a political system that advocated hatred and violence is trying to compare apples and oranges. Capitalism merely espouses producing products for a profit and is a system in which ownership is private. Neither of which are evil. Without profit businesses would go out of business. That is a simple fact of life. As for ownership being private I also see nothing wrong for that except for cases where the business involves the public welfare. I don't believe the government should be in the business of building automobiles, refrigerators, television sets, or computers for example, all a function of capitalism although I do believe they have a role in regulating those products and companies for such things as consumer protection and safety. Areas where the government does have a role in ownership as well as the public welfare are making available safe water and sewage systems, and roads. They also have a strong role and responsibility in providing fire protection, and police.
As I have stated earlier and still stand by when government fails to regulate and/or fails to enforce regulations then that is a failure of man not of Capitalism. You say that Capitalism espouses the vile values of avarice and greed. I certainly agree those are vile values but fail to find anywhere where Capitalism espouses those values.

As good an exposition of the

Mon, 07/19/2010 - 14:12 — Dave LIndorff (not verified)

As good an exposition of the Libertarian position as I've heard, but it is fundamentally flawed. Capitalism is certainly a political ism, as much as is socialism. Neither one talks about a political structure, but presumes one. Socialism says that society or the public should own the means of production. Capitalism says individuals or groups of individuals (investors) should own the means of production.

Each of these systems leads to a type of politics unique to the economic system that is underlying it. In a capitalist system, the politics tend inevitably to favor those with the money, ie the owners, because they have the ability to buy the influence. In a socialist system, the political system tends to favor the workers, because they are the ones with the control of the assets.

Certainly each of these systems is open to perversion and corruption, but in one, the political system is perverted to favor the few. In the other, if it is perverted, it at least tends to benefit the many.

I won't go into fascism, but the same argument holds.

It's simply to facile to say capitalism is just about ownership and has nothing to do with politics. Why do you think Friedman's book was called "Capitalism and Freedom"? (And why do you think the Chicago Boys' work in Chile went to prop up a fascist dictatorship?)

I see the attempt at

Tue, 07/20/2010 - 04:08 — Anonymous (not verified)

I see the attempt at stereotyping again the obvious sign of a weak argument on an opponents part.
Again you try to equate capitalism with political systems. Well how do you explain the socialist European countries using the capitalist economic system. Which are they Socialist or Capitalist since you seem to think the two are unique and you have to be one or the other? What about the communist Chinese. Which are they?
And what about yourself? I notice you advertise your website every time you sign your name? I don't think you are independently wealthy so I would guess that you hope to attract people to your site and make money either by accepting advertising, a subscription fee, or donations from your readers. You can assign whatever altruistic notions you want to your starting a site, capitalism doesn't prevent anyone from being altruistic. Nor does it discriminate as to how you receive your money. But a site does require money to operate it. Since your site is not owned by the state, it is owned by you or maybe you and some partners and you need to make money to operate it is capitalistic. Unless of course either you or your partners are funding it out of your pocket every month. So are you evil?
What you still fail to see is that capitalism is an economic system. It never operates by itself in nation states and is always paired with a political system. In the U.S. it is paired with Democracy, in Europe with Socialism and in China with communism. All three of which are different political systems but use the same economic system.
As for Friedman and the Chicago boys you just make my point. Those are individuals not a system. Friedman was an economist expressing an opinion as an individual and had no control over how capitalism is implemented. Unfortunately his opinion has been listened to and he has swayed the opinion of many who do make the rules. But such is the nature of writing just as you yourself express opinions and through that attempt to influence how people see things. The Chicago boys I'm not familiar with.

I see you haven't replied

Wed, 07/21/2010 - 08:15 — Anonymous (not verified)

I see you haven't replied but just one more thing on this. As for Milton Friedman there are others that are opposite him such as Joseph Stiglitz and George Soros my point being that Friedman and even the Chicago Boys aren't Capitalism but only someone expressing an opinion about it or employing their version of it. In a way Capitalism is a little like religion. There is only one bible but there are a multitude of religions each with their own interpretations of what it says. The trick is to sort the bad from the good and pick the good as the interpretation to use and employ.