Profit maximization is a 'clean', strong forcing idea, i.e. one that allows for the abstraction from local context. It binds human actions together in a social structure that proves very hard to disentangle. Communal welfare cannot abstract from life in this way. The internal motivation hinges on local outcomes and thus erodes, leading either to societal collapse or suppression, which represent more primitive forcing ideas, namely following orders and immediate survival.
All about: capitalism
Review: Capitalism by Jürgen Kocka
This is the first of some short book reviews here on creativechoice. I love reading and will share my thoughts about the books that I are think are worth my readers' while. The short book Capitalism: A Short History begins with a concise discussion of the most important figures in the history of the concept ...
Reading: The Reckoning by Theodore Roethke
Theodore Roethke (1908-1963), a sickly boy who transformed into a bear of a man with father issues, was according to many critics the greatest of the American poets. While browsing a collection of his poetry on the Internet, I stumbled upon a poem about reckoning. I understand from his biography that he sought for redemption ...
Virtual capitalism
Margrit Kennedy, who died two years ago today, was one of the greatest advocates of an interest and inflation free money system. She was among the first to predict that we "cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet". Of course this is true. Logically, there are two ways out. We can try to stop ...
Bullshit Job Rap
We perform empty tasks to protect the status quo of the one percent Hell-bent on endless wealth multiplication and profit enlargement The fruit of our labor is trickling bottom-up on the escarpment We're the indentured workers who slave for money just to pay our rent "It's the economy, stupid" preaches Donald Trump who knows how ...
Will Work For The Commons
for like minded people around the world who find themselves in a similar predicament We are educated people in our thirties, some of us have families. We feel the responsibility to comply with the system for the safety of our loved ones. Every day, we reluctantly choose to work for companies that don't (and can't) ...
Planning book to help save the world. Got ideas?
Lately, I was reading "Eaarth" by Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org, and enjoyed it a lot. It accurately describes our predicament, as a society that has breached the safe limits of carbon in our atmosphere. It's key proposal, to take to local solutions, is something I completely underwrite. At some points of the book ...
Mixed revolutionary ramblings
Every day now I become more averse to the system. I observe how my own mind struggles, and how it always shouts the word "local" in both my ears as the key to a solution. A local community is larger than a Greek oikos (etymological origin of the word economy) or household, but smaller than ...
It is what it is?
Working relations are about power. You sell your labor (remuneration is essentially the primary reason for working) or else... Or else you could be reprimanded, suspended, or even - fired. That infernal metaphor is a powerful aid in the manufacturing of the worker's worry, that are designed to last until all productivity has been sucked ...
Infinite gross, revisited
We hold this truth to be self-evident, that we cannot grow the material economy indefinitely on a finite planet.* Such growth however, is exactly what is needed to keep the economic system from falling apart, as many studies have shown.**
What about the "service economy"? Could it be the solution to grow an economy indefinitely? Of ...
What about the "service economy"? Could it be the solution to grow an economy indefinitely? Of ...
Safehouses against capitalism
I'm penning these words while the election in the US is underway. Both candidates seem to give absolute priority to 'repairing the economy', to creating jobs, install the necessary pipelines, wage the necessary wars and destroy the necessary wildlife sanctuaries to keep gas conveniently low at the pump. This is insane and disgusting. What are ...
Review of 23 Things they don’t tell you
Last year, the Korean star economist and acclaimed "intellectual voice of the antiglobalisation movement" Chang Ha-Joon followed up on his best selling "Bad Samaritans" and "Kicking away the Ladder" with a smartly constructed volume named "23 Things they don't tell you about Capitalism". Meanwhile, a German translation has been published with the word "Lies" in ...