The $64,000 question

wv wrote:

Why do the masses of voters and nonvoters allow that?

Ideology.

bnw wrote:

I suspect he pees in the very wheaties that pays his salary.

MIT pays him to be knowlewdgable and speak his mind.

Good universities are not real big on the “shut up and conform to the powers that be” routine. That would kind of defeat their purpose. Or, real purpose.

And there’s nothing Chomsky commends that isn’t being successfully done somewhere in the world.

That’s one of the things he’s paid to know.

A long time ago there was a discussion on the board about how the US educational system was designed to create dedicated little worker drones – not to teach critical or independent thinking skills. It does its job very effectively.

Another major element of capitalism: It is the first globally organized economic system, and the first to actually require this global organization. It, unlike any previous economic system, must grow or die, and it must unify once local and separate economies into one, sprawling, capitalist market. This is accomplished, largely, by separating humans from each other, through the mass acceleration of the division of labor — also completely unique to capitalism. Inevitably, inexorably, this creates neck-breaking hierarchies that did not exist prior to capitalism — thousands of tiers where we once had a few. Each tier with arbitrarily set “value,” never set by the workers themselves. Always set by bosses.

And to further push this inevitability: all the incentives for the capitalist system call for the optimization of profit per each transaction, with more profits for the capitalist the more he or she can generate those transactions. Which leads to the necessity of growth. Which leads to the formation of corporations. Which leads to the formation of multi-national corporations. Which leads to the buying up and consolidation of those multi-nationals, etc. etc .

Until they crash and burn, government bails them out, and we start the whole round of madness again.

We shouldn’t be negotiating for more regulation of capitalism. We should outright replace it with new economic forms which are democratic, anti-autocratic, local, not unified, federated, cooperative, not competitive. As long as we continue with the present system, we will never end its stranglehold on power, its autocracy, its anti-democratic actions. And, ironically, we won’t even be able to regulate it, because it naturally reorganizes to fight against that and controls our politics. Who is going to regulate it? The people who depend upon its crumbs to fund their campaigns?

It must be killed and replaced. It’s basically a terrorist organization without a leader, and you can’t negotiate with it.

Along those lines, question for ya:

Do you think it would be effective, at all, to talk about our history of anti-capitalist activism, or the fact that America itself wasn’t a predominantly capitalist nation until after the Civil War? As in, we had more than two centuries of being “pre-capitalist” in most quarters. That once was our norm, and our tradition.

Small farmers and direct producers, for small, local markets. They weren’t capitalists, and they didn’t typically operate within a capitalist sea. When people think back, sometimes longingly, to “the good old days,” they often, without knowing this, long for a pre-capitalist world. The self-employed, independent, families that self-provisioned, etc.. That’s not “capitalism.” Capitalism actually creates extreme dependence — again, from the ground up. On employers, the global system, “the markets,” etc. etc. On government bailouts of that system and those markets.

It wasn’t always so.

nittany ram wrote:

A long time ago there was a discussion on the board about how the US educational system was designed to create dedicated little worker drones – not to teach critical or independent thinking skills. It does its job very effectively.

Yes it has.

zn wrote:

bnw wrote:

zn wrote:

wv wrote:

Why do the masses of voters and nonvoters allow that?

Ideology.

bnw wrote:

I suspect he pees in the very wheaties that pays his salary.

MIT pays him to be knowlewdgable and speak his mind.

Good universities are not real big on the “shut up and conform to the powers that be” routine. That would kind of defeat their purpose. Or, real purpose.

And there’s nothing Chomsky commends that isn’t being successfully done somewhere in the world.

That’s one of the things he’s paid to know.

#1, Yes his largesse is due to CAPITALISM. He does pee in his wheaties.

#2. Where are his examples? Would love to see something on the scale of a nation that spans a continent with a minimum of 200 million people of multi-racial multi-cultural make up. Scale is everything and that is where he fails.

#1. No it’s not. Not at a private university with a 13.5 billion dollar endowment, it’s not. In fact the reason we have such things as universitues is so that not everything gets crushed down into the same “propaganda for the present system” sound bites. That’s because in a democracy, we’re NOT supposed to all think the same…or, it’s not really a democracy. Those who believe in democracy therefore actually value there being diverse ideas.

#2. Name a thing, I’ll name the example. Just don’t keep moving the goalposts. That way we don’t have to make up things like the idea (supported by nothing) that the larger the population the less you can deviate from capitalist oligarchy.

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#1. Oh yes it is. It very much is. That $13.5 billion endowment is averaging a return of 13.2% per year! You can’t get that return on government bonds or notes! You get that return from CAPITALISM. The same CAPITALISM that created the endowment. Diverse ideas, please! Like the stifling of any dissent (supported by facts) regarding man made global warming?

#2. No, Chomsky needs to name his real world examples that solve the capitalist tendencies of mankind. Yes, scale does matter.

zn wrote:

bnw wrote:

#1. Oh yes it is. It very much is. That $13.5 billion endowment is averaging a return of 13.2% per year! You can’t get that return on government bonds or notes! You get that return from CAPITALISM. The same CAPITALISM that created the endowment. Diverse ideas, please! Like the stifling of any dissent (supported by facts) regarding man made global warming?

#2. No, Chomsky needs to name his real world examples that solve the capitalist tendencies of mankind. Yes, scale does matter.

B, they have investments that earn interest in societies that are not based on the american oligarchic model of mega-corporate capitalism. Either way, universities, and what they stand for, existed long before the american brand of mega-corporate oligarchical capitalism, and also exist in places where that particular brand of capitalism does not hold sway.

And of course, either way, if the world always followed the entire “never criticize the powers that be” approach, we would all still be living under catholic-dominated medieval feudalism. So generally, you won’t hear people around here going for the “conformity is your first obligation” routine.

I can name all the real world examples of everything NC is talking about. And NC has thousands upon thousands of pages online. It doesn’t all rest on one article. In fact if you turn to print he has more than 100 books. So on examples, you could read more, or I can just tell you.

From wikipedia:

Chomsky was voted the world’s leading public intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll jointly conducted by American magazine Foreign Policy and British magazine Prospect. In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted seventh in the list of “Heroes of our time.”

He is the most widely read american author worldwide.

Sure universities were around but not with $13.5 billion endowments earning 13.2% interest. That is due to capitalism. List the societies! 13.2%! At that rate these days I call complete and total BS on your assertion in your first sentence. List those “societies”. 13.2%. Wow.

What about me would make you think that I defend “conformity”? Especially here. Really? Other than an occasional poster chiming in I’m the only regular poster that essentially stands alone in regards to support for capitalism, Trump, defense of marriage, secure borders and against the religion of man made global warming. Plus I can’t stand StanK.

I look forward to you giving the examples Chomsky has that would replace capitalism.

Bnw,

Please describe how, exactly, capitalism and capitalism alone is the cause of thriving universities.

Now, if you’re talking about money making money, you’ll also have to talk about how much this costs others. Money doesn’t multiply when this happens. It’s shifted from one place to another and this is always zero sum. If one person or one company makes a killing, their profits, their “winnings,” must come from someplace else. Money can’t exist in two places at once, and it’s a finite thing.

Usually, workers bear the cost of someone making a killing in stocks. Money that should have gone to them goes to “investors” instead. And companies also make decisions that are detrimental to workers if they benefit investors. This means screwing them on wages, benefits, workplace conditions and the like. The stock market is notoriously averse to labor gaining ground, getting raises, etc. etc. Stocks often tank when there is good news for the vast majority regarding their jobs and so on.

And those big returns you’re talking about for X universities? They never last. The stock market crashes, inevitably. And who bails out those capitalists, over and over and over again? We the people. Since 1970, we’ve bailed out capitalism worldwide more than 100 times, to the tune of many, many trillions.

You see, that capitalism you cheer for has never been able to make it on its own. It has always needed massive support from governments across the globe — directly, indirectly, in the form of wars, coups, regime changes, infrastructure, trade deals, currency supports, police and fire protection and flat out trillions in bailouts. It would have died more than a century ago if not for the massive off-loading of business costs to the public. It survives solely because we and so many other nations “socialize the risk and privatize the profits.” It’s easily one of the biggest con games in the history of the world, and anyone who tries to peddle its supposed wonders has either forgotten all of that, or knows it but doesn’t care.

There is nothing in the world being done today that couldn’t be done much better without capitalism in place.

bnw wrote:

Sure universities were around but not with $13.5 billion endowments earning 13.2% interest. That is due to capitalism. List the societies! 13.2%! At that rate these days I call complete and total BS on your assertion in your first sentence. List those “societies”. 13.2%. Wow.

What about me would make you think that I defend “conformity”? Especially here. Really? Other than an occasional poster chiming in I’m the only regular poster that essentially stands alone in regards to support for capitalism, Trump, defense of marriage, secure borders and against the religion of man made global warming. Plus I can’t stand StanK.

I look forward to you giving the examples Chomsky has that would replace capitalism.

Yes universities always had endowments. Endowments are private donations. They’re not profit. And societies in the present that are highly socialistic also have universities with endowments. And the societies surrounding those universities always include people that say don’t criticize the system, you are there because of the system, just go along with the system. It’s one of the things you can count on some people saying in both the USA and North Korea. Meanwhile, although it isn’t uniformly effective, the whole point of a university is to generate and sustain different ways of looking at the truth.

I wasn’t talking about “examples that would replace capitalism” btw…I was talking about specific policies. I also wasn’t talking about capitalism. As with all things, there’s more than one kind of capitalism too. Notice what I said instead was the mega-corporate oligarchic version of capitalism.

But either way capitalism will be replaced. Cause all systems are. Otherwise we would all still be living in the first system (at the level of a civilization, which is beyond tribes and clans, that probably means ancient “monarch as diety” style kingships).

And btw every single system that has ever existed claims it is natural, inevitable, the only real possibility, the only thing that works, etc. It’s a rule of human history–invent a socio-economic system and immediately people start going see, this is the way it was meant to be, nothing can change this, this is reality, nothing else exists or counts. That’s just the way most people in a particular civilization always talk about it. And…yet, all systems have always changed.

…

bnw,

Of course endowments are private donations. Donations derived via CAPITALISM. 13.2% interest earned via CAPITALISM.

Indeed change is inevitable. Human nature is not. Capitalism has lasted as long and permeated the world because of it.

How long do you think capitalism has been around? Please be specific. And please describe what you think it actually is. Because in America, it wasn’t dominant until after the Civil War. More than 80% of American workers were self-employed, and not capitalists up until the late 1870s. We had thriving universities, with endowments, and “private donations” before it took control. Capitalism has never, ever been required for people to make those donations. People gave to the arts, to universities, to medical research, etc. etc. centuries upon centuries before its advent.

It is also the case that even under the capitalist system, the public sector has been responsible for the vast majority of all innovations we use on a day to day basis. Not capitalism. The Internet, touch screen technology, satellite tech, GPS, the computer — to name a few — all came from public sector research and development. The vast majority of new medical breakthroughs also come from the public sector, primarily NIH. We could easily do without the private sector and still fund all of our universities, research triangles and so on. The public sector could do everything done currently by the private sector, and better, and for far less costs to citizens. The private sector also routinely impedes progress, chiefly because it won’t move on innovations if they don’t produce immediate profits — and most great innovations don’t.

Read David Graeber’s excellent Of Flying cars and the declining rate of profit for a good break down of the above.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by Billy_T.

Billy_T wrote:

bnw,

Of course endowments are private donations. Donations derived via CAPITALISM. 13.2% interest earned via CAPITALISM.

Indeed change is inevitable. Human nature is not. Capitalism has lasted as long and permeated the world because of it.

How long do you think capitalism has been around? Please be specific. And please describe what you think it actually is. Because in America, it wasn’t dominant until after the Civil War. More than 80% of American workers were self-employed, and not capitalists up until the late 1870s. We had thriving universities, with endowments, and “private donations” before it took control. Capitalism has never, ever been required for people to make those donations. People gave to the arts, to universities, to medical research, etc. etc. centuries upon centuries before its advent.

It is also the case that even under the capitalist system, the public sector has been responsible for the vast majority of all innovations we use on a day to day basis. Not capitalism. The Internet, touch screen technology, satellite tech, GPS, the computer — to name a few — all came from public sector research and development. The vast majority of new medical breakthroughs also come from the public sector, primarily NIH. We could easily do without the private sector and still fund all of our universities, research triangles and so on. The public sector could do everything done currently by the private sector, and better, and for far less costs to citizens. The private sector also routinely impedes progress, chiefly because it won’t move on innovations if they don’t produce immediate profits — and most great innovations don’t.

Read David Graeber’s excellent Of Flying cars and the declining rate of profit for a good break down of the above.

I’d say capitalism came about as a result of the industrial revolution. Capitalism is the system in which anyone can achieve wealth.

Modern touch screen technology was invented in Oak Ridge, TN in 1977. I’ve been in that very room many times. It was funded by the private sector.

bnw,

Modern touch screen technology was invented in Oak Ridge, TN in 1977. I’ve been in that very room many times. It was funded by the private sector.

It’s a side issue, but, no. Touch screen tech wasn’t invented in 1977, or in Tennessee.

From touch displays to the Surface: A brief history of touchscreen technology

Historians generally consider the first finger-driven touchscreen to have been invented by E.A. Johnson in 1965 at the Royal Radar Establishment in Malvern, United Kingdom. Johnson originally described his work in an article entitled “Touch display—a novel input/output device for computers” published in Electronics Letters. The piece featured a diagram describing a type of touchscreen mechanism that many smartphones use today—what we now know as capacitive touch. Two years later, Johnson further expounded on the technology with photographs and diagrams in “Touch Displays: A Programmed Man-Machine Interface,” published in Ergonomics in 1967.

CERN, in the early 1970s, another public sector creation, did the vast majority of the rest of the research and development, before other groups jumped in. Private companies didn’t jump in — they never do — until after public sector institutions did the heavy lifting. Oh, and the vast majority of all telecom technology innovations are based on a foundation put down by great mathematicians, and that goes back centuries. They weren’t in the private sector. They were primarily teachers, professors, etc.