Capitalism: A Love Story

For the last week plus, I've been dealing with pneumonia.  I was probably coming down with it as early as Wednesday the 23rd, but it was Sunday that I began to feel truly awful.  On Monday, I went to the ER and was diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia.  I was prescribed antibiotics, given an IV of antibiotics and fluids, and sent home.  Now at the end of the week, I am recovering.  I still have a way to go to regain my strength, but the antibiotics are working.  Another American health care system success story!  The story will be complete in a few years when my bankruptcy disposes of the bill.

Saw Michael Moore's latest movie.  It's pretty good, pretty powerful.  It ends with a bit of intellectual mess, offering up "democracy" as the alternative to "capitalism," but I think Michael realized that it just would not work in America even for him to get tied to advocating "socialism."  Not that those are the only two alternatives possible, but they do seem to be the limits of our imagination today.  Either we leave the corporations, banks and elites free to do what they want ("Capitalism", which is Good), or we go the way of "Socialism."  And "socialism" is bad!  It equals goosestepping Bolsheviks presided over by the grinning face of Stalin.

Of course, I have seen some argue that what we have today is not really "capitalism" at all, but more properly termed "Corporatism."  I can see a lot of merit to that argument.  After all, if "capitalism" is "private ownership of the means of production," and "socialism" is "state ownership of the means of production," then a system where corporations own the means of production should be called "corporatism."  It is only by honoring the legal fiction that "corporations are people too" that we can pretend this is a capitalist system.

The statistics and facts in Moore's book are accurate.  He's right: the finance capitalists have looted the economy, and the political system has actively assisted them.  Then it turned around and handed them $700 billion to bail out the institutions they used in their crimes.  Meanwhile, ordinary people have been subjected to "true capitalism."  The capitalists have run for their government handouts.  Ironic.  His ideas for solution are a bit anemic.  Populist resistance such as the occasional sit-in strike or "squat in your own house" won't truly change anything.  Worker-owned enterprises would, of course, and that is an issue worth exploring at the corporate level.  Can some form of true worker-ownership be imposed on the corporate form?

Corporations have to be subjected to the control and benefit of society.  That is the true long-term solution to the mess.  While people have a right to property, they have no inherent right to corporations as we know them.  They have no right to limited liability.  Limited liability is a creature of statute, so the government has every right to change it as the government sees fit.  Limited liability was created to serve a public purpose.  By imposing controls on the corporate form -- or any other limited liability form of entity -- the government can effect real changes.  This is one of my core ideas.

The movie was inspiring, though.  I found myself moved in places.  I found myself wanting to get out and do something.  I want to be part of creating the revolutionary movement.  It's going to need ideas guys and wordsmiths, people willing to get out and make speeches, argue in council.  I'll do those things.  Maybe we need a new party.  You know how Americans -- especially young ones -- love a party!