CAPITALISM AND SLAVERY

July 2, 2020 Commentary

As Americans become more aware of the history of slavery, it’s essential that we understand the root of the problem. Modern slavery did not start on a happy plantation that was “Gone With the Wind”, but by the French, Dutch and British East India Trading Companies; corporation which from their beginnings were not just concerned with protecting the assets of their investors while they were engaged in both trade and politics, but were bent on ruling the world. They were using slave labor, transporting enslaved people throughout the East, and expanded into the America’s as demand for slaves increased.

In the 18th Century a man’s worth was judged by how many people he could command. The land-owning aristocrat with servants and tenants is obviously a man of worth and commands many people. With the Division of Labor and the first factories, mass production created cheap commodities and the common laborer was able to become a consumer of these commodities. Therefore, the common laborer suddenly had “hundreds of factory workers at his command” by virtue of his having any commodity that took hundreds of people to produce it. Adam Smith in THE WEALTH OF NATIONS in 1776 said that the “ savage and barbarian” is “worse off than the poorest man in England”. The “savage and barbarian” had no commodities, hence no people at his command, therefore no worth.

Adam Smith goes on in this twisted logic to say that “the profits available from using Negro slaves on the sugar colonies were such as to justify their use.” Once the Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow justified the use of slaves in the pursuit of profit, the game was over. Adam Smith is famous for encouraging regulation in order to protect the buying power of the poor downtrodden classes. The Negro was somehow not part of any class. Smith’s blindsided ignorance is astonishing. As the Protestant Ethic merged seamlessly with the Bible of Capitalism, the stage was set for Christianity to embrace an Ethic that dehumanized an entire race in pursuit of an Ethic that turned Ethics on its head.

Open the Pod Bay Doors HAL

April 3, 2019 Commentary

I like to write with a pen on paper. I like food and I like people. I’m a waiter. I like being a waiter. I like describing food, writing orders, interacting with customers, giving the order to the cook, serving the food, seeing satisfied families, couples and people. I like the job. It fits like a glove.

I used to work at AT&T and while there I was running Human Resources type sessions about Hertzberg Motivational Hygiene Theory. The bottom line was that the “Work Itself” is the most compelling reason people are satisfied in a job, and satisfied people stay in their job. They, AT&T, turned “Work Itself” into it’s exact opposite, but that’s another story.

Suddenly the Computer has come into the restaurant where I work. Two input screens. No more checks. Scraps of paper and then navigating with fingers on a screen; five layers in to get a diner into the digital world. Each item is another screen. Focused on the screen, people become a background blur; a background blur that I don’t want to interact with so as not to screw up my inputting. Hit SEND, don’t forget to hit SEND, and the order is transmitted to the cooks. Two terminals at the kitchen end, one for hot and one for cold. What could possibly go wrong? I go back to make sure they’ve got the order, and that they have it right.

My order input time has tripled, and I can’t wait to get away from the people at the table so I can get to the computer screen and get the order in. I’ve also had to refigure my time dealing with the immediate items like drinks and appetizers verses the main diner items, as the data entry has become an extra step, which is directly visible to the custom. The data entry is now part of their dining experience. On the second night of operation a customer commented that we ”all looked like a bunch of robots”. I’ve become a cog in the machine.

It just doesn’t feel right. I don’t feel right. There’s an anxiety that I feel when I get to the screen. It’s not like writing or surfing on a computer. It’s physically touching a screen to input information that is hierarchically absurd. If one hits the wrong button or makes a mistake, backing out of it is way more cumbersome than getting in to it.

The morning after the new system was installed, the NY Times had a front-page story with a picture of a sleek white plastic robot waiter in Japan serving drinks to ladies in a cocktail lounge. Later that night I was channel surfing through the movie “Terminator 3” when the good guys plugged into Skynet in order to save the world and inadvertently doomed the world, since the people that make movies and videos use different software for this, including programs for video transcoding which are useful for this. Quoting Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot”, in the August 2018 Common Ground “Everything, it seems, depends on HMI, the HUMAN-MACHINE-INTERFACE. In a world increasingly controlled by smart machines, who will be master and who will be slave?”

With the introduction of the Human-Machine-Interface, “Work Itself” is now dominated by the Screen. We fit into it. The giant steel and iron frame of the industrial era has been replaced with an interactive screen that demands our absolute attention. The machine has taken over.

My wife worked in Hospice home care for many years.
Toward the end of her career, an MBA took over for the company that was originally run by a nurse administrator. The new “bean counter” in charge, increased the nurse’s workload by 50%, while increasing the marketing and IT sections. More computer time, less people time. Humanity sacrificed for efficiency.

I’ve also been watching the decline in human contact during my weekly supermarket shopping. The clerks used to take my money or credit card, run the transaction, and give me back my receipt or change, with a brief exchange of words and smiles. Now, with the new improved Screen experience, the clerk stares at the cash register screen, while I, the customer, navigate through the credit card screen. Neither of us talks nor makes eye contact, as we each stare at our individual screens until the transaction is complete. “Thank you and have a nice day.”

Casey Schwartz’s “Save Us From Our Phones” (NYTimes 8/16/18), “The liberation of human attention may be the defining moral and political struggle of our times”, writes James Williams, a Silicon Valley-type philosopher in “Stand Out of Our Light”. We are transfixed by our screens, thumbs twitching, lost in traffic, lost on the street. A week before Christmas 2017 there was a published study about the street traffic on Fifth Avenue in NYC. It seems as if “walking while texting” or simply being on the phone, is causing pedestrian blockages and slowing down the rushing masses. A savvy world traveler once compared lunchtime on Fifth Avenue to a crowded street in India. We have this jam-packed moving mass of people and half of them are now on their phones, with their attention totally on the machine. It was bad enough to start, it only gets worse.

As I’ve shared this essay with a few people, the most common response is an all too familiar recognition that this indeed is also their experience. They then usually start to recount their experience, and the doctor or nurse interaction is the most common. Where the doctor used to come into the room, look you in the eye and ask you about your condition, they are now on the machine within seconds of a “hello”. An individual told me that they we’re so annoyed by the doctor being focused on the computer while doing the interview, that they took out their phone and started checking messages.

Somewhere in all this mayhem and alienation, somebody is doing very well. I suspect it’s the bean counters within the industries and the heads of the software companies. For a brief period during my earlier years I flirted with becoming an “efficiency expert” or Industrial Engineer. I was involved with a series of projects where I was able to maximize people’s efficiency in order to produce financially positive results. In all cases, I started with the individual and build the working arrangements around them. In all cases, the “Work Itself” improved and the financial results proved it out.

I look around at the situation I’m currently in, at the grocery store, at the doctor’s office, all around me, and it looks like the opposite of “efficiency”. The accountants in the back room or managers in the Executive Suite are making the decisions based on what they perceive to be the “bottom line”. “Hit One Button” to get your final results, it saves time. It doesn’t matter that it took more time at the front end, because those are the “low level” workers interacting with the customers or clients. It save time at the back end and the folks in the back room are running the show.

It’s like the Wizard behind the curtain in “The Wizard of Oz”, putting on a ferocious face in order to keep you in line. You somehow become out of step if you’re not keeping up. The genie is out of the bottle, and we forgot to consult with our ethicist before letting him out.

“Open the Pod Bay Door HAL…I’m Sorry Dave , I can’t do that.”

Crimes Against Humanity

March 29, 2019 Commentary

A Crime Against Humanity

I’m definitely not an Early Adapter to the technology. I was and Early Adapter to a lot of things when I was “earlier”, but since becoming “later”, I’m slower to adapt. I also am no longer impressed with the “first” of anything.

In all cases concerning our new and improved technologies, screen time has increased and human contact has decreased. The Screen requires our complete attention. We serve the machine in the name of efficiency and profit, and where is all this newly found profit going? Probably the same place all the newly found time we have from all these new labor saving devices, our imagination.

The profits are going to the very, very, rich. Every day there’s another merger. Every merger leads to another shrinking of the competition. The whole point of Capitalism was that competition would decrease prices, which would give more products to all the citizens, which would increase the wealth of all the people, which would increase the Wealth of the Nation (Adam Smith, “Wealth of Nations).

The Rate of Return on Capital is always greater than the Rate of Return on Labor, R > G (Thomas Piketty’s “Capital In the 21St Century”). We now have this economic system that demands ever-increasing profits, as part of the fiduciary responsible of the people in charge. No mention of human responsibility, civic responsibility, or social responsible.

We have let a system that was meant to regulate the growth of wealth within a society, turn on itself, and serve a minority of plutocrats who are fighting for fascistic control. Capitalism, as it has evolved, is Fascistic, top down, state socialism for the corporate elite. Hitler unapologetically called it National Socialism. We call it Capitalism. I call it a crime against humanity.

Equilibrium

December 26, 2011 Poetry

Equilibrium

It’s not for being my well being,
…but for any being on the planet
…to be in need just shouldn’t be.
The laws of equilibrium dictate
…that the Political Economy will not equilibrate
…till the wages in Africa
…are at par with the wages here.

IF IT’S NOT CHOCOLATE DON’T EAT IT
2001

SPIRITUAL POLITICAL ECONOMY – Part 1

July 13, 2011 Commentary

Spiritual Political Economy

is the study of the interrelationship between the spiritual and material aspects of humanity and the economic and political institutions and processes necessary to support and sustain our livelihood and evolution.

Spiritual Political Economy is interested in analyzing and explaining the ways in which our engagement in various sorts of spiritual practices affects the allocation of resources in society through the natural laws of the universe, as well as the ways in which the nature of the economic system and the behavior of people acting on their socio-economic interests affects the form of spiritual practices and the kinds of rules and policies that are agreed upon.

Spiritual Political Economy recognizes the inherent separation between spiritual and economic institutions and practices, but also recognizes the necessity for considering these seeming disparities in order to provide a framework for dealing with an emerging order that is historically unique, seemingly uncharted and consequently fearful for many.

Spiritual Political Economy honors the origins of economic thought and seeks to return to the moral imperative from which it was born. Adam Smith’s THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS is a necessary prelude to the WEALTH OF NATIONS. The Golden Rule, DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU, is “written into our genes” and is a necessary dictum for conscious evolution.

Spiritual Political Economy rejects the notion that humanity is morally stagnant and incapable of advancement beyond material goals, and embraces the concept that we are living, breathing beings in a continuous state of change, and our destine is to return full circle to the source from which we came.

Spiritual Political Economy honors the nature of the Dialectic Process and presumes that the emerging Thesis or new Paradigm is evident today in the emerging social fabric that is the result of centuries of evolution.

Spiritual Political Economy recognizes that the diversity within the natural order is reflected in the social order and that the health and wealth of communities depends on a healthy interrelationship between all the seemingly disparate elements in the society. Our social order is more web than hierarchy, and common sense is comprehensible to all.

Spiritual Political Economy recognizes the immanent collapse of materialism as manifested by global corporate capitalism, that unregulated capitalism fosters greed and avarice, has run it’s course, and will lead to the suicidal end of the human race; and recognizes that the inevitable end of materialism means the emerging of a new spiritualism throughout humankind.

Spiritual Political Economy seeks to define the possibilities and potential implications of the emerging globalization of localism through internet based communications, computer assisted manufacturing and sustainable food production, which are co-jointly fueling hope and optimism for a population that is weary of war, starvation, rape and genocide and longing for peace, prosperity, and health.

GMO Letter to Feinstein, Boxer and Woolsey

June 2, 2011 Commentary

Letter to Senators Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, and Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey

There appears to be a revolving door between just about every industry in the United States and the agencies that we have created to regulate them. The Department of Agriculture is no exception. In January, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, with the “heavy handed” urging of President, ‘I’ve-got-an-organic-garden-in-my-back-yard’, Barack Obama, approved the coast to coast planting of Genetically Modified alfalfa, sugar beet and corn seeds. Genetically Modified seeds or GMO’s, incorporate a disruptively violent process of splicing poisonous genes into the DNA of plants in order to ward off pests, which eventually destroy natural seed stores via airborne contamination. The entire feedlot of the country, affecting milk, meat and produce, could potentially be contaminated within a year.

We face an IMMEDIATE CRISIS. Despite repeated industry claims to the contrary, a recent Canadian study (Daily Mail, May 20, 2011) shows Bt toxins (Bacillus thuringiensis) implanted into food crops to kill pests, showing up in 93% of the blood samples taken from pregnant women.

On May 6th, 2011, we held a forum in San Rafael, CA where over 300 people came out to hear Norman Solomon moderate a panel of GMO experts: Good Earth Natural Food Store owner and “Non GMO Project” founder Mark Squire, “Seeds of Deception” author Jeffrey Smith, “Uncertain Peril” author Clair Cummings and legal council for the Center for Food Safety Rebecca Smith.

In order to protect the imminent threat to our food supply Organic Consumer Association’s founder Ron Cummings is organizing a Millions Against Monsanto Washington, DC lobbying event for World Food Day on October 17. Doctor Bronner’s son is organizing a New York to Washington march that same week. We in Marin County are organizing a lobbying effort in Sacramento in September and will join World Food Day activities in Washington, DC in October.

This is our “Cairo Moment”. Our corporate controlled government has gone too far. We will stop Monsanto. Little people like myself are fed up, are “mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore”.

Real politicians follow the lead of the people they represent. This is your time to step up and do the right thing. Fill the gaping regulatory hole left by the FDA to protect American’s, by actively working to require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods. Education and organization is the first step, restoring democracy is the second step and stopping Monsanto is our final goal.

For over forty years, I have supported the organic food movement with every purchase I make. As a human being, I firmly believe I should have the right to know if my foods have been genetically engineered. Under current FDA regulations I don’t know if GE ingredients are in the foods I purchase and feed my family. Labeling is essential. If Kraft and Kellogg’s can label the GM products they sell in European countries because the Europeans have demanded it, they can certainly do it here in the United States.

92% of the American public wants the federal government to require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods. ABC News stated, “Such near-unanimity in public opinion is rare.” I HOPE you will listen to me and the other 92 percent of the American public who want mandatory labeling and show your support for American consumers by supporting and co-sponsoring legislation requiring mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods.

Food Crisis

May 5, 2011 Scrap Book

In January, Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, authorized the unrestricted commercial cultivation of genetically modified alfalfa from sea to shinning sea. Within one year of this planting, the entire milk supply and cattle feedlot in this country could potentially be contaminated. Next came the sugar beets that account for half of America’s sugar supply. The “third shoe to drop” came as Tom Vilsack approved the splicing of the enzyme alpha amylase into corn used to manufacture ethanol.

Friday January 28, 2011 New York Times, B1 – U.S. APPROVES PLANTING OF MODIFIED ALFALFA

Saturday February 5, 2011 New York Times, B3 – U.S. SAYS FARMERS MAY GROW ENGINEERED SUGAR BEETS

Saturday February 12, 2011 New York Times, B1 – U.S. APPROVES CORN MODIFIED FOR ETHANOL

For over fifteen years now, Monsanto has been introducing Genetically Modified Organisms, GMO’s, into our food supply, primarily with soybeans, cotton, corn and canola. The Corporate takeover of our food has been a slow and insidious process, and today it is nearly impossible to find 100% organic soy or corn, that is not contaminated. Ready-to-retire seed-saving-farmer Percy Schmeizer from Alberta Canada has been fighting Monsanto for the last ten years. THEY sued him for stealing THEIR seeds, which migrated over to HIS property and polluted HIS crops. The “chutzpa” and influence of these corporate giants is unbelievable.

The proven ill effects of GMO’s have been well documented by Jeffrey Smith in a number of books including GENETIC ROULETTE. Liver and kidney damage, along with reproductive problems are common. Third generation mice are not reproducing, and second-generation cattle are reproducing 40% less. Public opinion polls indicate that 90% of the people in this country want to have labeling of GMO’s, while over 50% of the people don’t want Genetically Modified food at all. Most of Europe rejects GMO imports. Uncontrollable super weeds are developing in areas where GMO herbicides and pesticides are polluting the soil. General Foods and General Mills have serious concerns that the new GMO Amylase modified ethanol corn will migrate to the sweet corn and kill the “flake” in corn flakes. The GMO test splicing of pharmaceuticals in food products; i.e., Prozac in corn, persists and is expanding.

We face a crisis, an immediate threat to our food supply and the end to certified organic foods as we know it. The revolving door between the Department of Agriculture and the giant food and seed companies, is typical of the same revolving door between Goldman Sacks and the financial regulators, between the nuclear industry and the nuclear regulators, between the oil industry and the oil regulators, between the war machine and military industrial complex, between corporate privatization and deregulated government.

The Corporate Colonization and GMO pollution of the food supplies in Paraguay, India and Mexico are well underway. We are the now target, but we have the tools to fight back. We have access to Social Networking, Television and Face to Face contact. We can make a difference. Get informed, use the internet, get involved, talk to you friends and neighbors. Make a difference. Just do it.

2011 – Most Important Year in History

March 28, 2011 Commentary

2011 – Most Important Year in History

Over the years, I’ve noticed that the last few weeks in January frequently have some astrological earth shattering news or entrepreneurial opportunity smack me in the face like when I discovered you can use now services from http://elitist-gaming.com for your video games. This year was no different: “The year 2011will be one of the most important in human history“, says ASTROLOGY TODAY (Jan 2011) ….accelerated time of change….incorporate new views…. be willing to innovate…be an agent of change…leap in collective consciousness ….no separation between spiritual and physical …as we help others we help ourselves.” What a positive mouthful, hold on to your hats.

Then the news started.

New York Times Mon 1/17 Front Page:

“Data Overload Can Be Deadly” – The Army has figured out that “multitasking” doesn’t work and might actually have negative effects, like the wrong people getting killed because a soldier has too much information to deal with and can’t make an intelligent decision. The Army is using MINDFULLNESS training to help soldiers focus. They are teaching soldiers to concentrate on a FEELING in their body, while sitting still. Unbelievable, they’ll be sending soldiers to Spirit Rock pretty soon. Wait long enough and everything changes.

Tuesday 1/25

“Cold Jumps Arctic Fence”… the world seems to have “flipped upside down”, as stalactites hang from a subway in Brooklyn, a deep freeze spreads across Europe and there’s no snow in the Arctic. It’s always good when mainstream media gets anything right.

Wed 1/26

“Financial Crisis Was Avoidable, Inquire Finds” … greed, ineptitude, corruption, heedless risk-taking, failure in regulation and corporate mismanagement are all highlighted as the actual cause of the financial meltdown, which was brought to us by Alan Greenspan, Bernanke, Paulson, Geitner and the Bush’ies, who are all signaled out by Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission chairman Phil Angelides and chided in Shakespearean language, “The fault lies not in the stars, but in us.” Real news two days in a row.

Thursday 1/27

“Pitcher Spurns $12Million, to Keep Self Respect” … for the first time ever, a professional baseball player Gil Meche turns down a $12 million dollar salary because he doesn’t want to sit on the bench and collect money he wasn’t earning. What a concept! Integrity over money, and in the same spot, on the front page below the fold, as yesterday’s Financial Meltdown story. Wall Street Greed caused the problem, and a Main Street individual can solve the problem

Friday 1/28, Business Page

“US Approves Planting of Modified Alfalfa” – Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack authorizes the unrestricted commercial planting of genetically modified alfalfa. This could potentially contaminate the entire feedlot of the country within a year. Alfalfa is what the milking cows and the cattle eat. This is insane.

In summary, the Army figured out that multitasking doesn’t work and is using Mindfulness Meditation Techniques. The world has been turned on its head. Greed and corruption is the cause of the financial meltdown, and we know who is responsible. A superstar turns down $12M to keep his self-respect. The Department of Agriculture declares war on the organic food movement.

All this in the same week that the uprising in Tunisia and Cairo started. Think there’s something in the air??????

The year started out so hopeful

March 22, 2011 Commentary

The year started out so hopeful

The year started out so hopeful. ADBUSTERS published an article by my old Political Economy professor, Robert Heilbroner, Final Reflections on the Human Prospect and PARABOLA published A Reverence for the Divine, by Peter Kingsley. Both articles flipped conventional thinking on its head and both articles offered HOPE for the future. Hope has sure come into abuse and misuse over the past year, but for a brief few weeks, I felt like it was reemerging as a real prospect.

Heilbroner, your typical elbow-patch-pipe-smoking-liberal-tweedy professor, wrote Final Reflections in 1975, as I, with his encouragement, was dropping out of graduate school and heading to California. He updated it in 1990 and ADBUSTERS, the most anti-capitalistic publication in the mainstream market, published his thoughts twenty years later in 2010, wow. He talks about the end of capitalism and the dangerous mentality of industrial civilization itself. He sees us moving into a postindustrial era where characteristics of many pre-industrial societies, such as the exploration of inner states of consciousness and a more communal social organization, rather than material accomplishments and individual achievement, become the norm.

Peter Kingsley essay is from his new book, REALITIES. He asserts that 6th Century BC Greek philosopher Parmenides, the father of Logic, developed his thesis from a previously unknown Shamanistic practice called Incubation, not from some head tripping dry abstract thinking. Incubation meant going deep inside, shutting down the body, going into the darkness of a cave, for anywhere from a week to a month, and finding the still point of deep mediation, visiting the underworld or the otherworld.

Heilbroner, author of the most famous Political Economy book of the 20th Century, THE WORLDLY PHILOSOPHERS, and Kingsley, well-respected theologian and philosopher, have both turned western philosophy on their head. As one of my long-term projects has been writing a “Spiritual Political Economy”, both these publications gave me much food for thought, fit into my own philosophy and gave me what I needed.

That was then, a time of hope. This is now, a time of unprecedented disasters, one after another. I’ll continue catching up to the present with my next post, which will start with the events at the end of January.