...Capitalism: A Love Story, which opened in 962 theaters earlier this month, is Michael Moore’s most ambitious work yet – taking aim at the root cause behind the injustices he’s exposed in his other films over the last 20 years. This time capitalism itself is the culprit to be maligned in Moore’s trademark docu-tragi-comic style. And by using the platform of a major motion picture to make a direct assault at the root of the problem, Moore has created space in the political mainstream for a radical conversation (radical meaning “going to the root”). It’s a conversation that is desperately needed as the economic crisis continues to devastate low- and middle-income Americans in spite of President Obama’s and Congress’ efforts to stop the bleeding by throwing trillions of dollars at the banks. Yesterday, Democracy Now! reported that while the Dow Jones topped 10,000 for the first time in a year, foreclosures have reached a record level of 940,000 in the third quarter. But with this film airing in major chain cinemas across the nation, the normally taboo topics of how wealth is divided, who owns Congress, and how vital economic decisions are made are now open for discussion in a way they haven’t been in the U.S. for decades. In Capitalism, Michael Moore features the reality of the economic crisis for America’s usually-invisible poor and working class. The movie begins with a family filming their eviction from their own home. In a terrifying scene, we watch from inside their living...
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...published as a newspaper serial in 1905. Few works of literature have changed history in the United States so much as The Jungle did when it was published. Does Sinclair Lewis make a compelling argument for socialism in his book, The Jungle? I think that the answer to this question is going to be dependent on what you end up believing about socialism. A die hard socialist is probably going to point to Sinclair's ending with zeal and passion because it proves that Jurgis could only find a home when renouncing capitalism and its perverse interpretation of the American Dream. I think that Sinclair believed in the socialist ending of his novel. Yet, I want to pivot the question a bit. While the socialist claim might not be persuasive, like Marx himself, Sinclair is probably more eloquent on suggesting that the current capitalist system, the one being written about at the turn of the century, is in desperate need of repair. His persuasion might lie in his critique of capitalism more than his embrace of socialism. “The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, exposed the nauseating conditions of Chicago’s meat packing industry.” (Goldfield, David R. The American Journey: A History of the United States.) He couldn't have been very happy that the book gained fame for a different reason, but nonetheless it did gain a significant amount of fame and get that message of socialism is better than communism out to the public widely. There are a lot of different characters in The Jungle, and they all...
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...Capitalism: A Love Story includes all the above. Even those who count themselves hostile to Moore (and they are legion) would admit he has the courage to tackle big subjects. After railing against America’s gun laws, its healthcare system and the Iraq war, Moore now zeroes in on the capitalist system itself. It’s an unwieldy subject and, predictably, it’s a mixed bag: on the one hand, Moore effectively tells small-scale stories illustrating how the rich and powerful screw the little people, while also indulging in windy, sentimental generalising. Thus he offers poignant scenes of decent people having their homes re-possessed by banks (shockingly, we learn there’s a foreclosure on an American home every seven and a half seconds). He reveals the appalling details of the squalid “dead peasants” insurance scheme, under which large corporations receive sizeable insurance payouts whenever one of their employees dies. And he talks to airline pilots so badly paid that they qualify for food stamps. Yet Moore stumbles in analysing the big picture. He dutifully points his finger at his bad guys: Reagan, Dubya, Alan Greenspan, and, of course, Goldman Sachs and Wall Street. Yet it’s unclear what his remedy would be. He toys with the word “socialism” without quite endorsing it, settling instead for a more woolly option: “democracy”. He seems to forget that, like it or not (and many of us did not), it was a democratic process that saw Bush the younger re-elected as president in 2004...
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...Journal of Business Ethics (2007) 74:303–314 DOI 10.1007/s10551-007-9517-y Ó Springer 2007 Stakeholder Capitalism R. Edward Freeman Kirsten Martin Bidhan Parmar ABSTRACT. In this article, we will outline the principles of stakeholder capitalism and describe how this view rejects problematic assumptions in the current narratives of capitalism. Traditional narratives of capitalism rely upon the assumptions of competition, limited resources, and a winner-take-all mentality as fundamental to business and economic activity. These approaches leave little room for ethical analysis, have a simplistic view of human beings, and focus on value-capture rather than valuecreation. We argue these assumptions about capitalism are inadequate and leave four problems in their wake. We wish to reframe the narrative of capitalism around the reinforcing concepts of stakeholders coupled with value creation and trade. If we think about how a society can sustain a system of voluntary value creation and trade, then capitalism can once more become a useful concept. KEY WORDS: capitalism, stakeholder, ethics, economics, free market Introduction1 We live in the age of markets. While markets have been around for thousands of years, we are just beginning to understand their power for organizing society and creating value. In the last 200 years markets have unleashed a tremendous amount of innovation and progress in the West. The industrial revolution, the rise of consumerism, and the dawn...
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...Pages|OP-ED COLUMNIST Capitalism for the Masses FEB. 20, 2014 Continue reading the main story David Brooks Continue reading the main storyShare This Page * EMAIL * FACEBOOK * TWITTER * SAVE * MORE Continue reading the main story When Arthur Brooks was 24, he was playing the French horn in a chamber music concert in Dijon, France. He noticed a beautiful woman smiling at him from the front row, so, after the recital, he made a beeline for her and introduced himself. Within seven seconds he came to two realizations. First, he was going to marry this woman. Second, she didn’t speak a word of English, and he didn’t speak a word of Spanish or Catalan, which were her languages. When he got home, he realized that if he was going to have a chance with Ester he was going to have to show some commitment. So he quit his job in America, moved to Barcelona and went to work with the Barcelona orchestra. Over the next few years, he learned Spanish and Catalan and Ester learned English. They have been happily married for 22 years. “Sometimes you just have to be all in,” says Brooks (who is no relation). “You have to go beyond cold utilitarian analysis.” Brooks later became a social scientist and is now president of the American Enterprise Institute, probably the most important think tank on the American right. He has emerged as one of the most ardent defenders of the free enterprise system. But the humanist that he is, he has primarily defended capitalism on moral terms...
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...Capitalism: A Love Story Michael Moore documentary is about greed. It’s about what we are dealing with today, when it comes to Obamacare Giving wealth to executives without conditions amongst banks and insurance companies while leaving many people unemployed and without health insurance. It shows how employers exploit their employees by paying them the minimum wage and insuring them for large amounts of pay. When companies find out their employee illness they put an insurance policy on that person and name the company the beneficiary, showing that the employee is more valuable after their death. Most Americans believe that capitalism is a system of the production and distribution of preferred goods and services in return for what consumers are willing to pay for them, and that this system is the bedrock on which the United States is built and upon which the country should function. This system may have functioned well in the United States after World War II, when there was little global competition and which truly established the middle class. However capitalism as seen in the United States today, which has took hold in the Reaganomics, is more about the want of the wealthy to get wealthier at the expense of all others. America at that time started to be run more like a business than like a traditional government. To date there have been a manipulation by the power brokers on Wall Street of government for their benefit, often at the expense of the middle class and working...
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...Capitalism Is the Devil The United States was founded by numerous founders who wanted to build the best nation in the world. According to the Constitution, the right should be given to “We the People”. The government should build “a more perfect Union” and promote “the General Welfare”. It has always been a dream. It is a goal that we cannot reach. But somehow, capitalism has been disguised as the best system ever devised, making citizens believe that it is the only way we can reach our goal. And it leads us to an irreversible situation of plutocracy. It is Michael Moore who pulls back the curtain on capitalism to reveal the insidious role it has played in the destruction of our American dream. In his documentary film “Capitalism a love story”, Michael Moore demonstrates the failure of Capitalism as an economic system in America. The movie explores what capitalism is, who benefits and whom capitalism hurts. Moore shows us how capitalism has been hijacked by entrepreneurs and how it jeopardizes the middle class. The poorest, uneducated, and hardworking middle class are the most likely people to be taken advantage of by the unscrupulous corporations such as the home loan industry, health insurance industry and many others businesses. According to the film, some people are no longer able to live in their own house, which they live for decades, because they cannot pay their bills or the authorities have sold their land to corporations. Kids in Pennsylvania are sent to private...
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...Keynes, ‘love of money’ and the current crisis Paolo Paesani1 This version 1 October 2010 Preliminary version ABSTRACT Keynes saw ‘love of money’, love for the unlimited accumulation of liquidity as mark of personal success and shield against uncertainty, as a defining element of capitalism. This paper investigates connections between ‘love of money’ and the current crisis establishing two main linkages: bonus-based compensation mechanisms and hedge funds. Closer scrutiny and regulation both of bonuses and hedge funds can help prevent future crises. Permanent solutions to the problems posed by ‘love of money’ however will come only from new models of education and persuasion. Keywords: Causes of the financial crisis JEL: 1 University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, e-mail paolo.paesani@uniroma2.it. A previous significantly different version of this paper has been published in Italian in Il Ritorno dell’Economia Politica , G. Bonifati and A. Simonazzi (Eds.) Donzelli Editore, 2010, Roma. I would like to thank Annalisa Rosselli and Matteo Formenti for their helpful suggestions and comments. The usual disclaimer applies. “Whereas modern theory serves as a simulacrum of the economy – stylised and abstract to be sure – Keynes theory is a diagnostic instrument in the service of Doctor Keynes, consulting economic physician” (Hoover 2006, p. 78) “I also want to emphasise strongly the point about economics being a moral science. [A science that]…deals with introspection and with values...
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...circumstances and the psychological atmosphere generated by quantifiable achievement evokes his/her consciousness in the sense that he /she behaves, nurses, and govern their phenomenon according to their concrete prominence. The Bronte’s narrative explores the psychological state of beings launched by the commercial gain, where major characters Heathcliff, Catherine, Edgar, Hindly, and Isabella are steered by substantial belongings. Their individual psyche and its root in the family complex distract the relation to each other. The economic system structures, social, familial, and human behavior. It is a ground where every character plays the game of grade to examine their attainment in the society. At one point Marx underscores capitalism (economy) “every family wants to own its own home on its own land” [Tyson: 56]. In other words it promises to gain more and more. Everyone hungers to cultivate their effort in solid gain and prosperity. This really spring the war in the society. So is the case with the novel. Bronte pictures the picture of class struggle and their attention towards each other, where the upper classes have charitable and dominating impulses towards lower classes and lower classes have an ego of revenge to higher classes....
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...Works Of Literature In The Road Novel English Literature Essay Contemporary authors are influenced by those who preceded them in terms of both the form and content of their works. This is evident in Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road. McCarthy chooses not to imitate those greats that came before him such as Milton, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, or Tennyson in terms of form; in fact, he deliberately avoids almost all conventional choices in terms of form. However, he is obviously influenced by their ideas. He ties together Wordsworth’s concern at his society losing touch with nature and Tennyson’s exploration of what a society’s priorities should be. He creates a world in which civilization has dissolved and the ecosystem is in chaos. It is implied that the society has lost touch with nature and this has resulted in the death of global civilization. His goal seems to be to awaken the world to the impact that humans have had on the environment and how that can or perhaps will be the source of our downfall. This concern is comparable to the fears of many in the environmental movement that humanity is destroying the natural world and unless drastic changes are made now, this degradation will be permanent. Many prominent politicians in the United States, such as Al Gore, author of An Inconvenient Truth, include environmental responsibility as a core aspect of their political platform. Indeed, in Europe there are many parties whose only focus is environmentally responsible legislation. The...
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...In 1902, German economic historian Werner Sombart published ‘Der Moderne Kapitalismus.’ In his piece, he hypothesizes that there is such a thing as a “spirit of capitalism” a spirit which has worked as a guiding force in the evolution of modern capitalism (Green 1973). Werner does not offer any explanation as to what the nature of this spirit might be, or where it came from, but he does argue that this spirit is responsible for the development of capitalism in the modern world. After reading Werner’s work, German sociologist Max Weber, one of the founding creators of sociology, seized upon Werner’s idea and set out to explain the origins of this spirit of capitalism. Weber’s visit to America, the heart and soul of capitalism, in 1904 brought him his answer. While in America, Weber observes that matters of business are very closely related to religious affiliation. This attitude manifests itself in many ways, but one example he provides is the story of a man’s visit to the doctor: “the patient’s statement of his church membership was merely to say: ‘Don’t worry about the fees’ (Gerth & Mills 1946, 304).” This, of course, meant that this man was financially sound, because he belonged to a specific church community. Weber explains: “Admission to the congregation is recognized as an absolute guarantee of the moral qualities of a gentleman, especially of those qualities required in business matters (Gerth & Mills, 305).” Essentially, in order to become a part of a religious sect, a...
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...These institutions are created and operated by their members and profits are shared amongst the owners.” In other words, as opposed to big banks, whose focus lies solemly on extracting profits, credit unions are more interested in customer service and the overall well-being of their clients. To better illustrate their different approach to banking, I will share some of the things I learned during a talk from a local credit union in my economic alternatives class. First, it was evident that the women who work at the credit union, were not only praising their workplace in a marketing effort, but instead, because they truly love the way in which they are treated as employees, and also, the opportunity they are being given to help community members with their financial needs. Their level of engagement and the way in which they spoke about finding ways (within the system) to help each client, were indicative of the remarkable client and employee treatment which credit unions are known for. Another benefit credit unions offer which is worth noting, is their commitment to serving their communities. Before jumping to the conclusion that big banks also work to serve their communities, Elizabeth Friedrich, speaker at an Occupy Wall Street lecture, best explained what is meant by the phrase “serve their communities” in the following excerpt: “Credit Unions serve their local...
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...“The Time Machine” is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells, published in 1895. This novel has revolutionized the concept of using a vehicle to time travel. It was written in a time where industrialization was booming, new technological advances were being discovered, people constantly debated about capitalism and communism, and the theory of “Social Darwinism” was being viciously applied. To summarize the novel, a Victorian scientist is determined to prove his theory that there is a fourth dimension, which is time. And like the other three dimensions (space), you can move forward and backward. To demonstrate this, he builds a time machine and travels to the future, where he encounters the Eloi, and describes them as pale and weak physically...
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...PREFACE Adam Jefferson, a divine manifest of Adam Smith's materialism and Thomas Jefferson's idealism, is our troubled modern day hero. He awoke in the middle of his life - broke and lost. A serial entrepreneur, his life was a never-ending quest for material success. At age 38, as Joseph Campbell forewarned humanity, Adam had "climbed the ladder of success, only to realize it was propped up against the wrong wall." Alone, with nothing else to lose, Adam Jefferson climbed down off of the ladder and searched for the wall of his future. This led him on a 100-day odyssey to start the ascent of his new life, an epic journey which called him across the world discussing today's challenges and opportunities with the great minds of our past - Carl Jung, Mary Parker-Follett, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohandas Gandhi, Albert Einstein, and many others. An act of their collective genius and magical combustion, a psychological and sociological theory for sustainability and success was formed. Like all heroic quests, Adam ended where he had begun. Prior to his expedition, Adam had an unforgettable encounter with one of the great minds of the 20th century. One freezing, early morning on January 17, 2009, Adam Jefferson met the famed Harvard psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They walked the beach in Winthrop for hours, discussing morality and the questions one ponders in the solitude of despair. They exchange woes - "You tell me yours, and I will tell you mine."...
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...The Jungle The story begins with the traditional Lithuanian wedding of Jurgis and his sixteen year old bride, Ona. The wedding is one that they can barely afford, and sets the backdrop for the changes that they are just beginning to encounter in their new country. Immigrants with peasant backgrounds had begun to arrive in the United States during the late 1890's from places such as Ireland, Poland, Italy, and Lithuania . These people were ill equipped to deal with the harsh realities of urban living in America at the time. In his book Sinclair shows how capitalism creates pressures that undermine the traditional family life, cultural ties, and moral values that these immigrants had brought with them. With "literally not a month's wages between them and starvation" workingmen are under pressure to abandon their families, woman must sometimes choose between starvation and prostitution. Children are forced to work rather then attend school, just to keep starvation away for one more day. The Socialist Party of America was founded in 1901, and for over a decade after that saw enormous growth, by 1912 they had over 1,200 elected public officials in the country, and during the election of that year had very good election results by their candidate Eugene Debs for President (Dickstein). The growth of the Socialist movement primarily took place in the vast heartland of the United States, as it was undergoing the strains of industrialization. The roots of this movement were based...
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