Home > Uncategorized	> Sympathy for the devil?
Every last copy of the christmas story about Tiny Tim must be found and burned. Children must be raised to ignore poor children scroogily given a lump of coal for christmas, after a twelve hour working day.
No mention of cruel rich people who sell a tiny plastic vial of 1950’s sulfa base ear drop medicine for $70 over what insurance covers will ever be compared to rich capitalists who destroy democracies while working at golden sacks.
You are both correct dear colleagues. The list of should be scrapped in the English-speaking world is endless. Examples include the original Sesame Street (now practically non-existent), Mind Your Language (actually banned many years ago for not being PC), and many more.
Luckily for Economists, the Simpsons, the Brittas Empire, Bread, have not yet been banned.
Equally importantly, The FIRST imported Governor of the BOE did eventually declare that he has made up his mind! The poor soul has decided to govern until further notice and beyond!
What can we except from the MASTERS of finance capital, rentier profits, and reactive currency markets? Globalisation did always mean just that, did it not? The Globe is connected. Let us teach our students what connects and what divides it. Could it possibly be the real issues that face us all globally? Issues such as destitution, famine, poverty, imminent further genocides or threats of further chemical attacks by a handful of powerful men (and women who act as the alpha male) making sure that all goes according to plan?
Perhaps we can add these or similar issues to our new curriculum as plausible questions to consider.
I would be the last person to condone the current state of finance capitalism as I have repeatedly called for a new financial, monetary and economic paradigm. However, the actual and necessary route toward paradigm change and the end of finance capitalism lies in the thorough integration of opposites in the descriptive ways I have posted here many times….not merely reaction to it.
My view is that everything is a trade-off. Most of us have been/still are profs, meaning work assuming job stability & lots of time to do what you love: teaching/administration/research. It normally is not a high stress/high effort (hourly sense) activity like management consulting. I was recently turned down for a few months with one of the largest consulting firms because they thought I would be unwilling or unable to work 80 hour weeks with commute time added. They were probably right. All of my younger tech/finance friends work under enormous pressure for enormous numbers of hours–they expect & receive very generous compensation. Magnify that by millions & you have our world, it seems to me.
Publish or perish is a high stress job. Teaching is only one aspects of the job, research and publication in my field (history) required long hours and achievement, or no career. The problem in academia came from managerialism, when the professors lost control over universities.
It is ultimately a question of lifestyle choice by the individual. Each and every one of us lives (or dies) with the consequences.
We do indeed. I do believe that the very last thing on our mind will be how much money we have. Money does not grow on trees. Even if it did (my reference here is some of the above) comments, you would not think of publish or perish scenarios. Those perished a long, long time ago. PERISH or PERISH is the mode. No disrespect to anyone is intended here. You are all right. It is just that right now millions of innocent lives are about to PERISH. This is in addition to others before them. All we leave behind (that is those of us not in danger of immediate disappearance) is our work, tenured or not when we were still breathing.
Please correct me if I am wrong. Such has been the case throughout human history.
Helen, I would add our students & others whom we have influenced–and who have influenced us. These we leave behind. Also, Einstein did his first seminal work when a clerk in a patent office. If people are not paramountly interested in ideas, then they are careerists–which of course is what most professors are when push comes to shove. When I walk German graves I sometimes see names like “Prof Dr, Dr, Dr (h.c.), habil. Schmidt” Two PhD’s, one Honorary PhD, a habilitation which means a published work worthy of giving professional standing (started about 1682). That’s a lot of preparation, and presumably the gentleman offered great insights–but because all certifications came from authorities at various moments in time, no guarantee that NEW ideas were offered, which is really what we seek, do we not?
How are NEW valid ideas to be recognised? I suggest this is a significant part of the problem!
Frank, you’ve hit the nail on the head. “Careerists” are not intentional change agents as there are presumably enormous risks to their careers. I’ve had many papers rejected by an editor saying, “We don’t print such (non-standard?) ideas,” or “I’d lose this editorship if I let those ideas into my journal”. Thus, we as readers are served pablum for the most part, I have noticed.
I thoroughly agree dear Professor.
There was never any sort of deal between businesses and government. And especially not between businesses and the American people. Beginning as the inception of the nation, local communities could and did control local businesses. Larger businesses are controlled at both national and state levels.
When American colonists declared independence from England in 1776, they also freed themselves from control by English corporations that stole their wealth and dominated trade. After fighting a revolution to end this exploitation, most Americans retained a healthy fear of corporate power and prudently limited corporations exclusively to a business role. Corporations were forbidden from attempting to influence elections, public policy, and other realms of civic society.
•	Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.
•	Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.
•	Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.
•	Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm.
•	Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.
•	Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.
For 100 years after the American Revolution, legislators maintained tight control of the corporate chartering process. Because of widespread public opposition, early legislators granted very few corporate charters, and only after much debate. Citizens governed corporations by detailing operating conditions not just in charters but also in state constitutions and state laws. Incorporated businesses were prohibited from taking any action that legislators did not specifically allow.
States also limited corporate charters to a preapproved number of years. Unless a legislature renewed an expiring charter, the corporation was dissolved, and its assets were divided among shareholders. Citizen authority clauses limited capitalization, debts, land holdings, and sometimes, even profits. They required a company’s accounting books to be turned over to a legislature upon request. The power of large shareholders was limited by scaled voting, so that large and small investors had equal voting rights. Interlocking directorates were outlawed. Shareholders had the right to remove directors at will.
But the people running corporations pressed on. Contests over charter were battles to control labor, resources, community rights, and political sovereignty. More and more frequently, corporations were abusing their charters to become conglomerates and trusts. They converted the nation’s resources and treasures into private fortunes, creating factory systems and company towns. Political power began flowing to absentee owners, rather than community-rooted enterprises.
The industrial age forced a nation of farmers to become wage earners, and they became fearful of unemployment–a new fear that corporations quickly learned to exploit. Company towns arose. and blacklists of labor organizers and workers who spoke up for their rights became common. When workers began to organize, industrialists and bankers hired private armies to keep them in line. They bought newspapers to paint businessmen as heroes and shape public opinion. Corporations bought state legislators, then announced legislators were corrupt and claimed they used too much of the public’s resources to scrutinize every charter application and corporate operation.
One of the most severe blows to citizen authority arose out of the 1886 Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. Though the court did not make a ruling on the question of “corporate personhood,” thanks to misleading notes of a clerk, the decision subsequently was used as precedent to hold that a corporation was a “natural person.” This story was detailed in “The Theft of Human Rights,” a chapter in Thom Hartmann’s book Unequal Protection.
From that point on, the 14th Amendment, enacted to protect rights of freed slaves, was used routinely to grant corporations constitutional “personhood” and protection. Justices have since struck down hundreds of local, state and federal laws enacted to protect people from corporate harm based on this illegitimate premise. Including the Citizens United v. FEC decision. Armed with these “rights,” corporations increased control over resources, jobs, commerce, politicians, even judges and the law.
A United States Congressional committee concluded in 1941, “The principal instrument of the concentration of economic power and wealth has been the corporate charter with unlimited power….” Many U.S.-based corporations are now transnational, but the corrupted charter remains the legal basis for their existence.