It ain’t broke, but capitalism needs fixing
Capitalism, in its current form, has no place in the world around us
by Warren Kinsella
Capitalism, in its current form, has no place in the world around us.
Those words are not mine. They’re a quote, from a fellow named Klaus Schwab.
For the many who are unlikely to have heard of Klaus Schwab before, rest assured — he’s no socialist rabble-rouser.
He’s a billionaire, in fact, and the founder of something called the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper was at Schwab’s Davos gathering last week, as were dozens of other world leaders and billionaires.
While Harper didn’t perform the last rites on capitalism, plenty of others weren’t so shy.
The capitalist “model” needs to be radically revised, said another billionaire, David Rubenstein, and if we don’t, “we’ve lost the game.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in the keynote Davos address, agreed: “We need to debate new methods,” she said.
As I told Krista Erickson on her Sun News Canada Live show, Davos 2012 was different from previous years. Among other things, it was interesting.
It wasn’t the usual orgy of self-congratulation, either.
For the first time — and, as I related to Krista, you can thank the Occupy kids for this — the masters of industry and politics have acknowledged that, well, maybe we’re not so perfect after all.
Don’t just take this leftist’s word for it, either.
Ask Frank Luntz, a conservative icon and a pollster who helps rightist politicians — from Harper to George W. Bush — to change the way in which they communicate with voters, and thereby win more popular support.
Here’s what Luntz had to say about capitalism when he spoke to the association of Republican governors at a closed-door meeting in Florida a few weeks back: “The public … still prefers capitalism to socialism, but they think capitalism is immoral.
“And if (we conservatives are) seen as defenders of ‘Wall Street,’ we’ve got a problem.”
Therefore, Luntz said, don’t attack the Occupiers.
Say to the Occupiers and to the public, “I get it.”
Don’t deny that there is inequality. Don’t deny the need to “fix” the system, Luntz said.
To me, and those like me, Luntz’s words — and those of Schwab and Rubenstein and Merkel — are simply common sense.
When communism collapsed under the weight of its own sins, why did so many arrogantly consider that capitalism would be immune to change? It wasn’t. It isn’t.
It’s a mistake to regard the surge in anti-capitalist rhetoric as far-Left polemics.
To dismiss critiques of capitalism, as perhaps Harper is wont to do, is a bigger mistake.
Starting in 2009, the Tea Party movement demonstrated that one can be opposed to the emblems of capitalism — 25-year-old millionaire investment bankers, obscene CEO payouts and perks, government bailouts — without being a communist.
By coincidence, on the day Davos was unfolding, I was talking with some of the kids found at the last Occupy movement camp in Canada — by the ocean in Harbourfront Park, in St. John’s, N.L.
As the sea crashed against the harbour walls, and gulls swooped overhead, I asked Mark Dacey and Jim Parsons whether they were — as conservative pundits so often claim — old news.
The obscene gap between the rich (the 1%) and the non-rich (the 99%) is a “blight” on modern society, said Dacey, a thoughtful Memorial University student.
“We’re sending the message to our governments and corporations that we will not rest until it has been corrected,” he said.
But they’re saying you’re defeated, I said.
Parsons, a writer, laughed.
It’s winter, he said. In the spring, “we’ll spill out again into public spaces, and start to attract more people again with our ideas.”
If what we saw in Davos this week is any indication, some aren’t waiting for the snow to melt.
How typical socialist. Socialists screws up the economy, and they blame capitalism and demand more socialism! You people can’t get it through your thick skulls that it’s socialism that is the problem. Boy are we doomed.
The recent phenomenon of a congruence of interests between big “capitalists” and the state is not capitalism in need of reform but fascism in need of rejection. In the fascist structure, there is a category of small time profitors whose role is to brainwash people to believe that an ever more powerful state continues to represent their interests rather than merely throwing them bones to keep the appeased.
There is no such thing as innocent scavengenging on the corpse of the classical liberalism values. Warren Kinsella is such as small level scavenger salivating at the sudden pro-statist stance of billionaires. Not even the debusolated Occupy Movement membership buys this b.s. Why does Mr. Kinsella think that we would be more gullible?
Once again Mr. Kinsella brings forth an article for a Liberal to get elected and not one that recognizes a preceived problem with proposed solutions. He say “tell them “I get it”" but “don’t deny the need to “fix” the system” – these are speaking points!! The Liberals have alway been good at speaking to that which wants to be heard but have also been extremely short on the “Action” part once they get elected.
John Robson had it right when he said (I para-phrase) there are no new economics, only old ones that work or don’t work put in a new wrapper!
“It’s a mistake to regard the surge in anti-capitalist rhetoric as far-Left polemics.
To dismiss critiques of capitalism, as perhaps Harper is wont to do, is a bigger mistake.
Starting in 2009, the Tea Party movement demonstrated that one can be opposed to the emblems of capitalism — 25-year-old millionaire investment bankers, obscene CEO payouts and perks, government bailouts — without being a communist.”
OWS (too much corporate power) and the Tea Party (too much government power) are looking at the same problem from opposite sides (The collusion of the two).
The problem is that many of the OWS types (certainly those we’ve seen up close in Canada) think that they can solve the problem by concentrating more power in the hands of one half of the unholy partnership. It’s glaringly obvious in the States, where there is a revolving door between the upper echelons of Treasury (under Dems and Repubs) and the executive boardrooms, that such a plan will change nothing.
That’s assuming they even articulate their message that far. Mostly it doesn’t seem to get much farther than demands for more social goodies, forget system reforms. For instance, Occupy Calgary made homelessness in the city their meat and potatoes. All well and good, but what does that have to do with curbing shenanigans in the financial industry?
Constantin’s first paragraph explains the problem perfectly. We should have actual capitalism first before we can talk of the need, should there be any, to reform it. It simply does not exist in the western world.