Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

As Dr. Barnett has often said, politics lags way behind globalization (business). My own feeling is that this lag allows cartels to get away with too much in the name of the bottom line. Yes, the marketplace should be competitive, but it does not need to be inhuman or unethical. I believe we need to develop more rules of international oversight to meet the ever growing expansion of globalization. I also think what turns a lot of folks off to capitalism on a personal level is its lack of morality. The very phrase "It's only business, nothing personal" indicates a kind of szichophrenia, i.e. you can screw someone over at the office and say grace with your family at dinner time.

It has something to do with the following
Someone works to live and someone lives to work.

Main thing in my life is not work it is everything else, but seeing that when your life is packed in an "american" market you can only see work , work at home, sleep , work, I can not see time for a good vacation, for arts, for music, slow enjoyment of life.
In my view citizens of US view the life as fast food and that view is also presented in their market economy and their use of global resources.
Market economy , job, capitalism should only represent about 10% of our working day, not 90%.
We should enjoy ourself in life, not in work work work so that someone capitalizes on our hard work in NY stock exchange or London and wreak our daily routine for something like profit.
We want to live and not be "slaves" to today's market economy which tends to envelope your life to suffocate you.
After your day of work in USA do you have some time to walk by a river, to go to a local mountin, and still go tomorrow on a job , or are you locked all working days in sleep eat work transport eat sleep cycle so that all that you have left is weekends and sometime not even that , and can you find truly a rest in your holidays or you try to use them as fast food.

In the last three years,the net profits of big companies is been the
biggest ever(eg;Exxon $40blns) and yet we have recession, why?
this has been the subject of much discussion of the economists. is it
because of overproduction? no. it is because of underconsumption.
that means lack of power to purchase, yes. any supply is not going to find its demand,because,demand has a direct relationship with the
power to purchase.and the base for power to purchase is based on
the distribution of the wealth of the country.when 1% of the population (3 millions) has the same earning of the 70% of the population (it is not because they are smarter either). the problem is
lack of proper wages and social benefits. if we look at the recession,
one after the 1853,the oct.1929-1933,what lord keynse was saying,
is ,you can't leave it to the inviseable hand of the market,Govrn. has
to intervien,thats why Franklin Roosvelt put those programs in effect.
In 1973 & after, Milton Friedman came & replaced keynsian.Reagan,
follows what Milton suggests;cut labor cost,smash uoins, cut social
benefits(like what Bush 1, clinton,and now bush2,are doing),quiet the opposite what they have in Europe.until or if we have another
invention,like steam,logomutive,or automobile,the only solution is to
raise wages and increase benefits,and standard of livings

Take Theil's like Naomi Klein's. Different narratives.

Heh... And my conservative friends wonder what I mean when I say European countries are becoming next to worthless as allies, or anything else.

I know an American who has been working in Europe for a year. This person is in a managerial position and is facing a lot of resistance from subordinates. Some of it is due apparently to the general "annoyance" with the United States and it's policies over the last decade. Much of it, however, is directed at my friends work ethic. My friend is a fairly typical executive type. In early, leaves late, comes in on some Saturdays. This is not going over well with the locals.

Europe has never much liked the globalized world order. They didn't build it, and they generally don't like competing in it. The European countries have a self-image as organic Herderian communities. They are indoctrinated for socialism and, frankly, they have a greater aptitude for socialism than we do. Friedrich List and Jean-Baptiste Colbert are their founding fathers in terms of economics, not Adam Smith. On the landward side of the Strait of Dover, the state is always the leading actor in the economy. The Continental Europeans resented a global market built by the Brits 250 years ago, and they resent its linear descendant, maintained by the Yanks, today.

Nothing ever changes.

Unfortunately, our own kids are not getting a good picture of the reality either. But it is worse in Europe.

One of my pet theories is that the major fallacy in traditional Marxism is the idea that capitalism leads to class consciousness, class solidarity, and ultimately, class conflict. In reality, the opposite is true. Because of the expansive nature of capitalism, it causes diverse groups to come in contact with each other, leading to cause people to identify not along common lines of economic class, but rather, along lines defined by religion, nationality, and ideology. As contact among diverse groups increases, there is a tendency of some members of these groups to feel threatened by the process, hence the correlation between globalization and the rise of religious fundamentalism.
Traditional leftists (I hesitate to call them Marxists, because IMO today's leftists are more like descendants of Bakunin than Marx) are in reality just another such ideological social group, like Catholics or Muslims. Their retreat into fundamentalism is really no different from the sort of fundamentalism we are observing within other ideological groups. I see the recent popularity of strident atheism in Europe as having similar origins. Traditional leftists have disproportionate strength in academic circles, and they are using that strength to promote a fundamentalist agenda in opposition to globalization, quite similar to what we see being done by Islamic fundamentalists in places like Iran.
Because we think of Europe as being "like us" we tend to ignore the fact that it is being shaped by globalization just like every other place in the world. Ultimately, the fundamentalists will lose, but they can do a lot of damage before that happens.

Funny, I just finished reading Walter Russell Meade's "God and Gold" (on your recommendation. This article fit in perfectly with the theme of that book.

One thing that caught my eye in that article; some of the German textbooks give advice on operating as a union member. I wonder what the reaction would be if small business owners were to insist on equal time ("How to start and run your own small business")?

Adam Smith was a genius, but what he saw as the "invisible hand" of the marketplace is, unfortunately, not seen by most people unless they have made an effort to discern it.

It is very disturbing to learn that anti-capitalism is being taught as doctrine in France and Germany.

As you stated in your personal manifesto about your life, it is amazing what a good education and the application of hard work will produce for a person in a reasonably free market. Good for you and may you live long and prosper.

I always like to tell people about how two college dropouts working together in a garage started a company that produced from intellectual capital alone millions of jobs, a few billionaires, hundreds of millionaires, and products that have made life more productive the world over. I refer, of course, to Paul Allan and Bill Gates who started Microsoft.

The anti-capitalists believe it is all a zero sum game. The truth is that when markets are reasonably free and people are incentivized we see what we have today, which is the highest standards of living ever. I'm 74 and in the span of my lifetime we have gone from depression to a country of unmatched prosperity and technological miracles. Government planning did not produce that.

I'm not rich, but I'm far better off than I ever dreamed I might be. I suspect that a lot of that has to do with the fact that I showed up early and stayed late most of my working life.

While stationed in Berlin 1985 - 1988 (Cold War still on), I saw the Germany 35 hour work week commence.

Since my secretary went home on Fridays at lunch, I had to curtail much of my activities on these days -- so as to watch her phones, etc.

Then I had work longer than normal on the weekends -- so that I could catch up on the time I had lost on Fridays covering her job.

Little did I know at the time, that this was would become a microcosm of the European/American relationship.

A good quick summary of the development of economic theory is still the Robert Heilbroner (sic) the "Worldly Philosophers." now in 6th edition or so. While capitalism and the market economy is still and probably always will be the great engine of change in society it is still not warmly received by those that can only benefit from it but don't really control it. European history is dominated by control by elites, not by market forces. The question for the next 100 years is will the Europeans opt for the distinct pleasures of the cafe society or will they pull their weight in a world that needs their riches and brainpower. That answer may again determine world history as it did in the 20th century when the Europeans led the world into a dark age of militarism.

It seems to me that Marxism/Communism in practice, as opposed to its theory, played in Europe as a reaction to a history of Aristocracy, not Capitalism. Thus it succeeded in Russia and other feudal states, and never really appealed in the USA, where Capitalists wheatever their faults, and especially entrepreneurs, are not parasitic royalty.

Having said that though, the USA does seem to overemphasize market economics to the exclusion of all else, to the point where if it isn't valued monetarily, it isn't valued.

There are, of course, a number of problems with this Continental view of economics and society. Luckily, the majority of these problems afflict those who think that, like the earlier poster commented, a working man should only work 10% of the day and have everything else given to him. Where we run into trouble, as Americans, is not in somehow betraying ourselves by working too hard (a laughable concept, in my mind, but maybe that's just the Calvinist in me), but in linking ourselves too closely to those who want something for nothing.

The fundamental problem with this anti-capitalist ethic is when it runs into the fact that, to work to any serious degree, everyone has to go for it. If one guy sneaks out and works extra hours because he wants to achieve something with his talents, the system collapses. Thence we find nations where overtime isn't allowed, rather than being encouraged; where any earnings over the allowed median are punitively taxed; where entrepreneurial activity is disallowed (by the government) or mocked (by fellow 'workers'). But a nation, say, France, can't export an ethic of laziness; all they can do is sit around and gripe when someone young and hungry, say, China, or even the US, comes up and laughs and eats their lunch.

All such societies can do is lollaround in cafes or universities, bitch, and try to make other folks somehow feel guilty for hard work and dedication, as if those were sins. Luckily, for the majority of the world, such complaining is simply laughable.

I think that "The Simpsons" presents a more accurate picture of most Americans' work ethic than the comments here do. Most people, in America and everywhere else, would like to have shorter work hours at the same rate of pay because for most people, their day jobs are not terribly fulfilling. At present, however, that is not economically feasible. They are in the process of discovering this in Europe. If European workers want to be paid the same amount for less work, then employers will inevitably move to places like India or China (or even the U.S.). The only alternative is to promote immigration to bring in non-European workers who are willing to work longer hours for less pay, but of course, that also has all kinds of collateral consequences, and at the end of the day, that too will result in forcing European workers to take less pay or work longer hours. This process is what is responsible for the anti-capitalist backlash reflected in the writings cited in the initial post. However, the left is just doing a King Canute.