Thinking Things Over  (#12)
CAPITALISM'S CANCER:  MACRO-PARASITISM
As a long-time student of Friedrich List, Max Weber and Edgar Salin, I should be less bewildered
than I am by what is happening, both nationally and globally, in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
I.e. where the unwittingly weakened nation-state - formerly a bulwark against plain-levelling & globalization -
no longer tempers the social, economic and other pitfalls foreseen by Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, etc.
Where - as the Laffer & Rider Curves illustrate in the tax & the social fields - excessive poor/rich gradients
are upsetting the delicate social fabric, thus washing away fertility factors with uncontrolled erosive powers.
Where indeed, as Patrick Martin pointed out, monopolistic capitalism and the associated myopic greed
are no longer kept in check by Adam Smith' invisible hand, i.e. by the balance of contradictory interests.
And where the capacity for self-correction is increasingly inhibited by loss of freedom, mooring & orientation
which led to market frenzies & false alpha birds feeding on hype & bubbles, reminiscent of the Roaring 20s.
Just as technological leaps may stress but not accelerate beyond natural limits man's & society's evolution,
return on investment rates above real productivity gains & organic growth are predatory and not sustainable.
M&As - if driven by managers, lawyers & funds on the back of other stakeholders - are thus Ponzi schemes
where shareholder value adepts can maraud with stacked Monopoly cards due to micro-economic laws.
Like compulsory social insurance systems whose doom is delayed or obscured only by inflation, war, etc.
And where the most daring operators are state-supported by magistrates hood-winked into fiscal deals.
Society wised up against churning of accounts by undelicate trustees, but not yet against macro-parasitism
which feasts on ignorance, sucks & devours a firm's life-preserving substance, & weakens society's pillars.
Thus, and though this may not yet be fashionable, I'm inclined to lean back, think things over & invite others