John Kenneth Galbraith
The alonovo.com People Before Profit Film Series
[Note: Promoted by mole333]
In order to help educate the public and build community around the theme of "People Before Profit", we need your help. Beginning February 10 with "The Corporation" we are planning a series of nationwide house parties, each of which will be followed by a 30 minute conference call with the filmmakers, authors and/or subject matter experts.
We are honored that Professor Joel Bakan, author of "The Corporation" and others will be joining us for the event.
Over the next several months, the alonovo.com house party film series mission is to help people understand how ExxonMobil, Wal*Mart, Halliburton, Enron, General Motors, Union Carbide Kimberly-Clark and others that put the pursuit of profit above all else, harm society, the environment and our resources. We will be presenting films from Hello Cool World, Brave New Films, MoneyTalks, Ashoka and others that offer compelling independent media that is either edgy or inspirational, and all related to corporate behavior.
As egregious corporate behavior is a theme that impacts all of us, I would be personally grateful if you could help us with visibility for the event. If you could help promote the series to your community it would be of great value to your constituents. If you are able to help us we would be happy to list your organization as an event co-sponsor or major co-sponsor and provide a link back to your site, or an educational campaign you may have developed which is aligned with the film or film series.
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Who benefits from the the whitewashing of class?
Over at Feministe's No racism here, no sir!, Jill Filipovic is continuing a discussion about race, welfare and class at Jane Galt's blog that was based on another of Jill's posts : A Conservative Trifecta: Fat-shaming, welfare-state-hating, and victim-blaming.
I haven't asked Jill, but it seems she is doing some really interesting work at NYU Law that has led her to write now some really interesting posts about race and class. The conservative trifecta post is brilliant because it really deconstructs all the conservative bull around discussions of welfare; in particular the "work for food" rhetorical scam around welfare.
Yet ... and yet. I am always disatisfied with discussion like these.
As Jill rightly points out, poverty is almost always falsely equated with race. Yet, I feel the next step is to ask why is it necessary to propagate the myth that social class is somehow only the product of biology? Why is it important to have an Polish-American kid from Far Rockaway believe that doors will open to him just because his skin is "white" and his hair is maybe two shades away from a dirty blonde?
Hence, the discussions offered by naysayers end up being about why they should not blamed with having been borh with white skin. For example, one of her commenters, Henry, wrote some of the following :
I have no problem with welfare per se (although I’d prefer it be done at the state level as opposed to the federal level). My issue is with the idea that it’s my responsibility to provide for the poor, as opposed to an act of voluntary virtue, and that somehow I’m a selfish prick because I feel that I should have as much control over the money I earn as possible. I’m all for private charity, and the more, the better. The idea that I owe anyone anything is ridiculous. I didn’t cause poverty, I haven’t exploited anyone, and no one gave me or my family anything. My father worked 10-12 hour days turning a wrench for everything we had, and I’ve worked my whole life. Yet somehow, those of you who support using the power of the state to steal from some people to give it to others are more virtuous than people who give money privately. Which is nice, as it allows everyone to feel morally superior without affecting their wallet directly.
Lovely isn't. That's compassionate conservatism for you. This guy represents the common apolgists for economic apartheid. To him, whiteness is part of a Darwinian natural selection that he has not control over. It would never occur to this guy to go back through history and see how whiteness has been constructed in his country as a socio-economic tool of opression.
Here's what I have to say about that:
Charity | Class | Economics | history | Politics | Race | Welfare | John Kenneth Galbraith
Free Market Fraud
Let's begin with capitalism, a word that has gone largely out of fashion. The approved reference now is to the market system. This shift minimizes --indeed, deletes-- the role of wealth in the economic and social system. And it sheds the adverse connotation going back to Marx. Instead of the owners of capital or their attendants in control, we have the admirably impersonal role of market forces. It would be hard to think of a change in terminology more in the interest of those to whom money accords power. They have now a functional anonymity.
But most of the people who use the new designation --economists, in particular-- are innocent as to the effect. They see nothing wrong with their bland, descriptive terminology. They pay no attention to the important question: Whether money "wealth" accords a special power. (It does.) Thus the term innocent fraud.
Economics | Markets | World Economy | John Kenneth Galbraith
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Public Squalor vs. Private affluence
There's no question that in my lifetime, the contrast between what I called private affluence and public squalor has become very much greater. What do we worry about? We worry about our schools. We worry about our public recreational facilities. We worry about our law enforcement and our public housing. All of the things that bear upon our standard of living are in the public sector. We don't worry about the supply of automobiles. We don't even worry about the supply of foods. Things that come from the private sector are in abundant supply; things that depend on the public sector are widely a problem. We're a world, as I said in The Affluent Society, of filthy streets and clean houses, poor schools and expensive television. I consider that contrast to be one of my most successful arguments.
Economics | John Kenneth Galbraith
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On countervaling powers
Q: Could we review some of the concepts that you've introduced into economics and see if you think they still have relevance? For example, the concept of "countervailing power."
Galbraith: Over the years--over the century just passed--one of the important counters to monopoly power in the corporate world was the development of countervailing power, certainly by trade unions, certainly by farmer cooperatives, certainly by other corporations. Power begets power, and I still hold very strongly to that view, which I first published, believe it or not, some fifty years ago.
Economics | John Kenneth Galbraith
