PHA-Exchange> Food for a faceless ...PREDATORS (3)

[claudio at hcmc.netnam.vn]

from Garance Upham <g_upham at club-internet.fr> -----
  

Kent provides interesting thoughts.. Yet the situation is far less benign, it 
is more or less nasty; aren't "markets" 'predatory? - I found the contribution 
in Mother Jones of James 
Galbraith quite telling. And if this comes from a maintream and not a 
radical person, what can be said? Perhaps the situation is worse than 
Galbraith says, and military adventures in Iran and elsewhere are just 
part of this predatory economics needing to increase military 
expenditures ...see below
Nance

The Predator State

By James K. Galbraith   (excerpts)

04/29/06 "Mother Jones"  -- -- WHAT IS THE REAL NATURE of American 
capitalism today? Is it a grand national adventure, as politicians and 
textbooks aver, in which markets provide the framework for benign 
competition, from which emerges the greatest good for the greatest 
number? Or is it the domain of class struggle, even a “global class 
war,” as the title of Jeff Faux’s new book would have it, in which the 
“party of Davos” outmaneuvers the remnants of the organized working class?


The idea of class struggle goes back a long way; perhaps it really is 
“the history of all hitherto existing society,” as Marx and Engels 
famously declared. But if the world is ruled by a monied elite, then to 
what extent do middle-class working Americans compose part of the global 
proletariat? The honest answer can only be: not much. The political 
decline of the left surely flows in part from rhetoric that no longer 
matches experience; for the most part, American voters do not live on 
the Malthusian margin. Dollars command the world’s goods, rupees do not; 
membership in the dollar economy makes every working American, to some 
degree, complicit in the capitalist class.

Today, the signature of modern American capitalism is neither benign 
competition, nor class struggle, nor an inclusive middle-class utopia. 
Instead, predation has become the dominant feature—a system wherein the 
rich have come to feast on decaying systems built for the middle class. 
The predatory class is not the whole of the wealthy; it may be opposed 
by many others of similar wealth. But it is the defining feature, the 
leading force. And its agents are in full control of the government 
under which we live.

For in a predatory regime, nothing is done for public reasons. Indeed, 
the men in charge do not recognize that “public purposes” exist. They 
have friends, and enemies, and as for the rest—we’re the prey. 

The predator-prey model explains some things that other models cannot: 
in particular, cycles of prosperity and depression. Growth among the 
prey stimulates predation. The two populations grow together at first, 
but when the balance of power shifts toward the predators (through 
rising interest rates, utility rates, oil prices, or embezzlement), both 
can crash abruptly. When they do, it takes a long time for either to 
recover.

In a predatory economy, the rules imagined by the law and economics 
crowd don’t apply. There’s no market discipline. Predators compete not 
by following the rules but by breaking them. They take the 
business-school view of law: Rules are not designed to guide behavior 
but laid down to define the limits of unpunished conduct. Once one gets 
close to the line, stepping over it is easy. A predatory economy is 
criminogenic: It fosters and rewards criminal behavior.

So, how can the political system reform itself? How can we reestablish 
checks, balances, countervailing power, and a sense of public purpose? 
How can we get modern economic predation back under control, restoring 
the possibilities not only for progressive social action but also—just 
as important—for honest private economic activity? Until we can answer 
those questions, the predators will run wild.

James K. Galbraith   teaches economics at the Lyndon B. Johnson School 
of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. He previously 
served in several positions on the staff of the U.S. Congress, including 
executive director of the Joint Economic Committee.

---



------------------------------------------------------------------
This mail sent through Netnam-HCMC ISP: http://www.hcmc.netnam.vn/