{"id":1450,"date":"2012-05-31T09:35:54","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T08:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/avbp.net\/?p=1450"},"modified":"2012-05-31T12:21:29","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T11:21:29","slug":"capitalism-has-failed-remind-me-what-is-it-exactly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/?p=1450","title":{"rendered":"CAPITALISM HAS FAILED. Remind me; what is it exactly?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the excellent blog, CAPITALISM HAS FAILED<\/a>,\u00a0on Bill Totten’s site, \u00a0Sara Robinson, MS, APF points out the shortcomings of what she calls “the model”:<\/p>\n

The problem, in a nutshell, is this: The old economic model has utterly failed us. It has destroyed our communities, our democracy, our economic security, and the planet we live on. The old industrial-age systems \u2013 state communism, fascism, free-market capitalism \u2013 have all let us down hard, and growing numbers of us understand that going back there isn\u2019t an option.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u00a0thought\u00a0her article\u00a0would\u00a0help me in my new hobby: capitalism.<\/p>\n

Actually, although well-written and drilling down to meaningful details, like most academics Sara misses the point by using unclear language and terminology and looks at the subject from muddled viewpoints. \u00a0This is slightly surprising because there are a lot of practitioners out there who will give you\u00a0presentations and consulting to guide you through the chain from deep values to vision- mission to policy to principles to systems to processes to practices to work routine descriptions when it comes to banks, for example.<\/p>\n

Bit maybe her article illustrates the problem: that we live in such a complex world, use language and terminology in a \u00a0muddled way, have democratic systems that we cannot participate\u00a0actively\u00a0in, that we as Earth citizens have ended up with results we did not want. It illustrates the plight of the intellectual class who wade around in ideas and never get their hands “dirty” \u00a0dealing with real organisations, real policy, real board decisions etc. This\u00a0intellectual\u00a0class is maybe \u00a0duped into thinking that if you\u00a0could\u00a0just invent the perfect “model” or “system” and bring “order” into the way we live – maybe a new world order – then failure\u00a0would\u00a0not happen. I think many in this class believe if we just\u00a0monetarise\u00a0\u00a0everything and have\u00a0government\u00a0get out of the way we will not see\u00a0failure. \u00a0It’s not their fault, the game is rigged to allow them to say what the hell they like. Nothing changes.<\/p>\n

Clarification #1<\/strong>. Models do not fail you. \u00a0They may contribute to your success positively or negatively. Look at it this way: I\u00a0would\u00a0rather have an excellent teacher using older models to teach my child than a substandard one using modern methods. The moment you start the model discussion you shift responsibility. The last time I looked, the police were still responsible for crime. Could they turn around and say “we didn’t catch the\u00a0criminals\u00a0because\u00a0we used the \u00a0model that \u00a0failed us”? Maybe it\u00a0would\u00a0be more convenient for the\u00a0criminals\u00a0to argue in their\u00a0defense\u00a0” We broke the law\u00a0because\u00a0the model failed us”.<\/p>\n

Clarification #2.<\/strong> Responsibilities\u00a0are written into the constitutions of nations. Each nation’s\u00a0constitution\u00a0is unique. There is no “we” using the same model. If there are starving people in a nation then look to the\u00a0constitution\u00a0and division of responsibilities to find where blame lies-<\/p>\n

Clarification #3. <\/strong>Economic\u00a0models and the Industrial-age “systems” (sic) are not the same thing. A system is not a model and anyway, the so-called economic model is again, hard to pin down. Show me the textbook on that one!<\/p>\n

I have several comments on this Capitalism thing (which by the way I am STILL researching a\u00a0clarification\u00a0on – the joy of a hobby)<\/p>\n

All failures of performance need to be analysed on the spot working from the point of failure.<\/strong> If something goes wrong in \u00a0a factory, teams rush to “the spot” to investigate. They ask “why” five times – like “why did the machine fail?”. Then if the answer was, “Not maintained” – “why was it not maintained” etc etc until the root cause is found.<\/p>\n

One key to all system changes is to analyse\u00a0behavior first.<\/strong> You can\u00a0analyse\u00a0behavior\u00a0of things, people and even systems depending on the level you take. For example: the daily activities of the citizens of a nation are depleting their resources in an unsustainable way. Why? Because they are set up that way.<\/p>\n

Capitalism is not a system, it is a grammar.<\/strong> Grammar is the systematic study and description of a language, but the terms is used more widely in for example, the “grammar of film”. So I would like to say that capitalism is what comes out from a systemic study and description of ….. well, both normal language and films communicate value, so I guess that would make capitalism the language of money.<\/p>\n

Capitalism as a grammar is not a set of rules as such, rather a description.<\/strong> The rules of grammar are not like scientific laws, and not like rules of, for example, driving. They are merely descriptive – describing how people who use the language use it and the perceive its uses. \u00a0We have the rules of punctuation for example. What makes them rules is that everyone accepts them and the practice has evolved. And it is still evolving. I just started a sentence with”and” – considered bad practice in school.<\/p>\n

The law of supply and demand is one such grammatical item. It has actually never been shown to work in practice, and neither in theory. Its is a rough description of how people talk about money.<\/p>\n

Let me make this clear: capitalism is not destroying the planet – people are. It is that simple. Capitalism could exist, like some\u00a0ancient\u00a0language, and never be used.\u00a0People\u00a0could\u00a0still destroy the planet. Or not. If you never pushed the accelerator,\u00a0fuel\u00a0would\u00a0never get burned and carbon dioxide\u00a0would\u00a0never get into the atmosphere. Capitalism has not failed, people have.<\/p>\n

If use of grammar creates a problem you change it. <\/strong>Use of language to communicate over radio has evolved to ensure safety, for example. So we\u00a0could\u00a0consider making some changes in the grammar of capitalism.<\/p>\n

In fact, just as the situation changed for\u00a0communication\u00a0when wireless\u00a0communication\u00a0between boats and planes appeared, the situation is changing when the parking lot we have made the Earth into is full.<\/p>\n

A subject for my next foray into my latest hobby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the excellent blog, CAPITALISM HAS FAILED,\u00a0on Bill Totten’s site, \u00a0Sara Robinson, MS, APF points out the shortcomings of what she calls “the model”: The problem, in a nutshell, is this: The old economic model has utterly failed us. It has destroyed our communities, our democracy, our economic security, and the planet we live on. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capitalism-a-hobby"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1450"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1453,"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450\/revisions\/1453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}