Bill Deresiewicz, author of the NYT oped “Capitalists and Other Psychopaths,” emailed me shortly after I wrote a response to his piece here on GMP called “The Disease of More.”
“I agree with everything you say Tom, except for the notion that the two diagnoses are mutually exclusive. The attitude that says that more is better, money is everything, and other people’s problems are not my responsibility is not a corruption of capitalism; it is the essence of capitalism. The system is inherently acquisitive, tends to monetize all values, and believes that social needs are automatically addressed by the market. I’m not calling for socialism, I’m calling for what everyone after the Depression recognized as simple common sense: capitalism needs to be tempered and governed by other values and forces. The recent eruption of greed is simply an effect of the deliberate weakening of those values and forces.”
William Deresiewicz was an associate professor of English at Yale University until 2008 and is a widely published book critic. His reviews and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Nation, Bookforum, and The American Scholar. He was nominated for National Magazine awards in 2008 and 2009 and the National Book Critics Circle’s Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing in 2010.
The problem lies within -unregulated- capitalism. Perhaps my analysis is wrong, but the way I see it is that unregulated capitalism is like taking out the rules in football, because they were preventing teams from scoring as much as they could. So you take out the rules, and players still score the same, but there isn’t any limit to how many players you have on the field, or how you get the ball to the end zone. So a bigger, more wealthy team can certainly outbuy their opponents and put as many men on the field as they want. Sometimes,… Read more »
Collin, you have hit on one of the real issues. You have argued that the corporation is a sociopath. I agree in terms of the impact that arises from what we call corporations, but my argument is that the corporation is an absolute myth. It does not exist. Some filings and registrations exist, which when in place normally cause the actual people in our world to agree that a corporation exists, but clearly they do not. If a virus killed every living person what would the corporations do? Clearly the answer is nothing because they only exist as an agreement… Read more »
I thought both your blog response and Bill Deresiewicz’s Op-Ed piece in the Times complemented each other. I went to business school, too, at the University of New Hampshire probably in the TOP 1,000 of U.S. Business Schools/ I thought the most useful class was corporate governance. The professor was able to demonstrate the changes in capitalism in the U.S. by showing three movies viewed in this order. Tucker, a man and his Machine, Executive Suite, and Barbarians at the Gate. You can watch the evolution or perhaps the devolution of American Capitalism over the course of four decades. I’ve… Read more »
Well said Andy and agree.
Ladies and Gents, to quote from my original response: “Our problem isn’t capitalism or the supposed psychopaths on Wall Street, it’s our collective disease of more. It’s our unwillingness to see poverty and education and imprisonment as a collective problem. It’s our focus on the next thing we want to buy rather than the person we want to help. Sure tax and regulatory policy are important. But none of it will mean shit unless we all wake up from this belief that more is better.” I am not a proponent of big government or big corporations as a solution to… Read more »
Well, the reality is that we are not all equally responsible. I’d say Lee Raymond is infinitely more responsible for global warming and the lack of action on addressing the issue than I am. I’d say that Jamie Dimon is infinitely more responsible for the housing crisis than I am. Etc. I don’t think it is fair to let the bad actors get off with the false statement that everyone is equally responsible. Does everyone bear some responsibility? Probably. Does everyone bear equal responsibility? Not even close.
Who is talking about not punishing bad actors? I wrote my response to a piece in the NYT which equated capitalists, such as myself, to psychopaths. I think capitalism can be a force for good not just evil. I also think the issue isn’t purely economical but about our collective ability, or inability, to show empathy for those in prison, in poverty, and who aren’t getting a decent education. Pointing figures at rich guys doesn’t solve those problems.
To be fair, there are many capitalists that ARE sociopaths. Also, I think the bigger problem is not that most directors are sociopaths, but corporations themselves ARE sociopaths. The problem is that corporations face no punishment. A corporation does not fear the repercussions of its actions. Because of the limited liability nature of corporations and the refusal by government to prosecute directors for criminal conduct taken under their watch, we have a situation where corporations operate, essentially, as complete sociopaths. I think the biggest problem is limited liability and a refusal to prosecute. The entire C-suite at BP should be… Read more »
To be fair…”I’ve had enough exposure to tenured faculty members, surgeons, high level musicians, psychologists, CIA agents, and librarians to know that each of these groups has a far higher propensity towards acute mental illness–even psychopathology–than successful capitalists. Hell, my college economics professor–a guy named Mr. Kilby–used to climb out the window mid-lecture to go feed his dog Bert. Thank goodness it was a first floor window.” I am with you that bad actors should go away and for a long time. Some have. More should. I also agree that the way capitalism is being practiced, with notable exceptions, is… Read more »
We seem to be in general agreement here. I agree completely that there is a way to do good and make money at the same time. In fact, it is the only way that I am willing to make money. It is, unfortunately, the hard way to make money. Practicing ethical capitalism puts you at a massive disadvantage. I would be a very wealthy man already had I taken opportunities when younger to pursue money above all else. The only way I am willing to make money is by doing something that is a net benefit for society as a… Read more »
I agree with the “capitalism in moderation” sentiment expressed here so far. I notice, however, that “greed” is a moving target, always something someone else suffers from, as is the horrible thing called “always wanting more.” When other people pursue economic interests that we don’t have sympathy for, that is generally “greed” showing its ugly face. When they pursue economic interests that we also share, then that is simply “seeking financial security” or “being prepared for the future” or “saving for a rainy day.” Technically, any time you invest with the hope that it will be worth more in the… Read more »
Greed is the pursuit of money with a complete disregard for other factors. Pursuing money is fine, I am someone who is pursuing great wealth. My greatest goal in life is to be the wealthiest individual to have ever graced the face of the Earth. I don’t view myself as greedy, however, because I am not willing to forsake everything else for the sake of money. Someone who is greedy doesn’t care what they do to others to make the money as long as they’re making it. I know people who would beat someone else over the head until they… Read more »
I see your point. There is some distinction between accumulation for its own sake and accumulation for some sort of higher purpose. But, I think there are lots of areas in which this distinction breaks down, or at least areas where there is profound disagreement over whether what I’m doing is greedy or not. (Generally “greed” is what people do who are not like me. It’s like how in America it’s always the other person who has an agenda or an accent, but people who talk and act like me don’t have those things.) I find that much of the… Read more »
Bill Deresiewicz seems to be making a very fundamental error. He is assuming that if option A is bad, then option B must automatically be better. This is far from the truth. Sure, there are dozens of needs that capitalism doesn’t meet, but the assumption that government intervention will fix that directly contradicts hundreds of years of governments trying to intervene in the marketplace and failing with different levels of spectacularity, from Solyndra to the “Full Employment Act” of 1978 (which, I will give you a hint; did not create full employment). The relevant question is not “Should this be… Read more »
The problem here, Mike, is you are simply incorrect. There are many problems that government intervention can correct or severely curtail. Your kind operates under the assumption that big corporations: Good. Government: Bad. Your worldview is far too simplistic. Government intervention in the marketplace has proven to be quite successful in many many MANY instances. Far more than it has failed. Let’s start with your right-wing talking point on Solyndra. First, this was a government loan guarantee to a private corporation. The government made an investment and took a risk on a fledgling company. As any investor will tell you,… Read more »
Agreed Collin. Such a mistake when corporations were given “personhood.”
Collin, Issue 1, I’m not a Republican, but thanks for playing. You repeated characterizations such as “right wing talking points” are all incorrect. Issue 2, I never said ALL regulation is ALWAYS inefficient, but thank you for creating a straw man. If you actually read my post you would note that I said: “The relevant question is not “Should this be regulated?” the question is “Will regulation produce a better outcome?” ” Obviously, in any case where the answer to the second question is “yes” then there is a case for regulation. Please actually read the things I write before… Read more »
Yes, you are a right winger. Just because you’re a “libertarian” doesn’t mean you’re not a right winger with essentially zero understanding of how the world works. Those people are not the ones who caused the financial crisis. You’re blaming the wrong people. There is such a thing as predatory lending. Additionally, only a small portion of the overall collapse was caused by loans themselves. The vast majority of the problem came from the fact that these loans were bet on over and over and over taking a few hundred billion dollar problem and turning it into a 10 trillion… Read more »
Collin, I have never used any insults, yet you continue to use terms like “ignorance” when referring to me. This is not civil. East Coast gas prices depend on the North Sea, this is my source: http://articles.cnn.com/2012-02-12/travel/travel_gas-prices_1_lundberg-survey-price-of-regular-gasoline-regular-gas-cost?_s=PM:TRAVEL Note that during this time period other crude prices were flat: it was just the North Sea oil that led to a gas price spike. There are additional problems with pipeline infrastructure, and crude prices account for only 80% of gas prices, source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/22/MN261O78QA.DTL&ao=2 Solyndra never had a credible cost-per-watt plan: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/09/17/solyndra-yes-it-was-possible-to-see-this-failure-coming/ We’ll have to agree to disagree on “predatory lending.” Personally I… Read more »
I’m sorry if you find the truth insulting, but I simply state the truth. The only thing that would be obligating east coast refineries to purchase more expensive north sea brent would be long term contracts between producers and refiners. I could go into great depth about the oil market, the differences in the different types of oil (oil is made up of thousands of different compounds and is different depending on where it is extracted) and the like, but the fact remains that we’re talking about a commodity that is truly global. I also find it entertaining that the… Read more »
Collin,
If you do nothing else today, this week, or ever, please, I am begging you, rethink this statement:
“People AREN’T able to make the best choice for themselves. Most people are stupid.”
I can assure you, your life will improve dramatically, and in every area, once you realize that this is a terrible outlook to have.
This is about more than politics, this is literally about being a Good Man. A Good Man does not believe that “most people are stupid.”
The problem is that I operate based on the world that exists, not on the world that I wish exists. The simple fact is that most people are stupid. Most people shouldn’t be allowed to drive motor vehicles or vote. Most people shouldn’t be allowed to own weapons. Most people can barely function on an intellectual level. I know all too acutely how stupid the vast majority of human beings are. As someone with an IQ in the 170’s, I am forced to suffer the collective ignorance of humanity. I am perpetually shocked at how stupid most people are. I… Read more »
Insisting someone is a “right winger” as if you know more about the person than they do themselves is ridiculous, it’s an ad-hominem attack and it is a glaring weakness in your argument. I understand how galling human stupidity is, I concede that point, but your comment about “a right winger with essentially zero understanding of how the world works” is ludicrously presumptious. It comes off as arrogant, condescending and begs the question regarding the existence of left wingers who have zero understanding of how the world works, believe me they exist, it’s not a trait exclusive to conservatives. Hopefully… Read more »
If it quacks like a duck…
As I always say, “it isn’t arrogance; it is the truth.”
” the question is “Will regulation produce a better outcome?” Time and again, the answer to the second question is a definitive no.”
Yes, Because the highly regulated capitalism of Northern Europe and Australia have been such a spectacular failure, only producing the nations with the best standards of living consistently for the last 30 years.
The US doesn’t even rank in the top 10.
Ah yes, the old “but look at…” Show me another country with a comparable population size and a greater standard of living, and I’ll be happy to listen. The great parlor trick of the areas you speak of is exporting their poverty elsewhere. Northern Europe’s economies are extremely integrated with Russia and Eastern Europe, but conveniently the borders prevent the low living standards of places like Romania from being included. A similar case can be made for the relationship between Australia and South East Asia. If the US had the luxury of claiming that places like Mississippi and Alabama were… Read more »
The US has by FAR a greater GDI than all of the EU, yet yes, if you looked at the entire EU compared to the US, Europe still has a much higher living standard. But please show me evidence that population and economic equality are correlative. They’re not. And, uh, as I pointed out, the Northern European nations have had better standards of living since LONG before the Cold War ended. As for economic integration with Russia (which is part of Eastern Europe– and BTW, Romania is CENTRAL Europe), Northern Europe is certainly not getting RICH off those much poorer… Read more »
It’s a fair point. Like any other force or system, capitalism is okay in moderation. The unregulated, uncontrolled, speculation-happy version we’ve been building up since the Reagan years is emphatically NOT working. That doesn’t mean capitalism is worthless; just that it needs to be implemented sensibly, with oversight and safeguards to rein it in where needed to serve the public interest.
I love that you and I agree on so much, and also on so little. 🙂 It makes me laugh a little. I figure we’d have a lot to talk about.
I know, right! I’m always unsure if I’ll end up vehemently disagreeing with you, Copyleft, or nodding along to your comment. 😀
This time I agree.
I’d agree 100% with that.
It should stand to reason:
Human beings need regulations (laws) to prevent them from hurting each other.
Capitalism is run by human beings.
Capitalism needs to be regulated.
I agree so much with him. This? “The attitude that says that more is better, money is everything, and other people’s problems are not my responsibility is not a corruption of capitalism; it is the essence of capitalism. The system is inherently acquisitive, tends to monetize all values, and believes that social needs are automatically addressed by the market.” rings entirely true to me.
I absolutely do not. Capitalism is a tool. It can be for micro finance that helps starving women in Mexico or it can be a ponzi scheme hedge fund. Consumerism/disease of more is how we choose to interact with the world and bring a moral POV to things. I don’t believe that socialism or Marxism or planned economies are better that a system of capitalism. Far worse. But to point the finger at capitalism as the root of all evil is to miss the real point. Which is that we ourselves are to blame.
But capitalism is a system built without much empathy…without any empathy, really. Every system (in this case economic) has it’s potential problems…and with capitalism it’s a lack of concern for anything that can’t be monetized, and the drive to always make more money. More money is always better. So it does need to be tempered with other, more empathetic social systems.
Capitalism is a tool, yeah, but like all tools there are dangers inherent to using them. So we wear safety hats and leather gloves, etc when we use them.
To be honest, the problem is not capitalism inherently, but the existence of limited liability. By allowing corporations to shield the owners and directors from responsibility is the problem. If we could and did prosecute corporate directors for the criminal conduct of their companies, you better believe that capitalism would function infinitely better. When the only penalty that a company can face is monetary, decisions are made based on simple monetary analysis. If recalling a product costs more than paying out wrongful death lawsuits, then a recall won’t happen. Why? Because financially it doesn’t make sense. If, however, we held… Read more »
If capitalism lacks empathy it’s because humans (sometimes) lack empathy, and there is no system which has proven capable of changing humans.
But we can create systems that provide more space for empathy. Capitalism (in the most basic sense) doesn’t. Temper it with a bit of socialism (not scary Socialism omg Soviet spies, ah!), and we can create more empathetic systems. Humans lack empathy sometimes. Capitalism lacks empathy, full stop.
Tom, will you lay out how you see all of us to blame? I’m truly curious not snark. Because capitalism encourages the consurmerism. And many can choose not to buy into it, but then…we’ve got ads 24/7 media etc encouraging everyone to consume more and more and more and so forth. Some people are smart enough to not give in, or informed enough, most seem to be buying in by buying more. Which increased demand, which increases supply.
Can you lay out where you see the problems?
We live in a democracy…
We live in a representative democracy increasingly influenced by corporate control.
See Collin’s points.
Are you including his rant about how the vast majority of people are “stupid” in his opinion? Last I checked, you literally need to believe this (and Collin proved me correct) in order to believe that our democracy is subject to corporate control. If people are generally thoughtful individuals, perfectly capable of electing their own governments (as I believe), then we have nothing to fear from corporate speech: people will be able to see through it for what it really is. If, on the other hand, you believe that people are generally, to borrow Collin’s word, “chimps” then we should… Read more »
Except no one with any intelligence actually believes that people are generally thoughtful individuals perfectly capable of electing their own governments. That’s why political ads work. That’s why half of all republicans think Obama is a Muslim. That’s why 30% of republicans think he wasn’t born in the United States. I could go on about how little the vast majority of people know and how easily manipulated those simpletons are. Do you know how easy it is to manipulate people? It’s not even remotely difficult. It’s very depressing.
Yes, Collin, I read your rant, and I am perfectly clear on your point of view. I disagree. Several years ago, I used to be like you. Sure, you may be more intelligent, my IQ is merely 143 (Wechsler scale) compared to your self-proclaimed 170s. Nonetheless, that puts me in the 99th percentile. When I first learned this it seemed to validate my old worldview that everyone else was foolish and I always knew better. And I was wrong. Collin, if people were actually that easy to manipulate, and if people like yourself always knew best, then there would literally… Read more »
Congratulations. You’re intelligent. You may doubt me, but I am not bothered by that. I took 2 IQ tests at the age of 7 because the first was limited in its ability to accurately measure ultra high IQs. There could be a world with very few problems IF we allowed the intelligent to rule. This is something we do not do, and most incredibly intelligent people try very hard to avoid being manipulative. One of the big problems with knowing better than others is the fact that people don’t like being told they don’t know what they’re talking about. It… Read more »
Look, I don’t know where you keep getting this from, but I’m trying to help you, not “bother” you. You need to take this statement apart and really look at the kind of worldview you have built for yourself: “I understand perfectly well that I do not have all the answers or know everthing; however, I also understand perfectly well that when I do know something, I am right. If someone disagrees with a factual statement I make, it isn’t because they have more information; they are wrong.” If you do not know everything, then inherently you may be wrong… Read more »
Perhaps not stupid, but most people are self-centered and short-sighted (pace Jasper Fforde), which amounts to the same thing.
Is it even possible to know everything about something?
Even if it were, I think that’s a bit of a straw man argument. It’s not necessarily a case of knowing “everything” about something, but rather a case of grasping the fundamentals, the basics.
In other words someone may not know every aspect of something but can still understand it’s essential nature as opposed to someone who is lost in the details and misses the point.
Western academic intellectuals are notorious for this kind of hair-splitting.
True, but that’s not an essential feature of capitalism, and more than murdering your citizens in death camps is a defining feature of command economies.
No, the US is a REPUBLIC, not a democracy.
In a democracy, the people would make the laws.
In a republic, representatives of the people make the laws.
In fact, true democracy doesn’t mean majority rule. It means functioning through consensus.
Democracy means “popular rule.” While different definitions may exist for the purposes of comparing other political systems in general use “democracy” refers to any government which derives it’s mandate from the people.
No, capitalism is just the economic arm of patriarchy; it’s how patriarchy maintains its hegemony via control of resources.
Exploitation is the foundation of capitalism: It cannot exist without exploitation of resources, labour and customers/consumers/markets.
Capitalism MUST continue to grow to be successful. The only thing in nature that continues to grow is cancer.
“No, capitalism is just the economic arm of patriarchy; it’s how patriarchy maintains its hegemony via control of resources.”
Really, so if a feminist commune does a fundraising drive or creates a system of tokens to represent work then they’re really partriarchs?
“Exploitation is the foundation of capitalism: It cannot exist without exploitation of resources, labour and customers/consumers/markets.”
Ok, that’s true, but only if your definition of “exploitating” is “doing work with.”
“Capitalism MUST continue to grow to be successful. The only thing in nature that continues to grow is cancer,” and just about every biological organism on earth.
Capitalism, like cancer, continues to grow until it destroys its host.
Nothing else in nature does this. Everything else in nature has a natural lifespan that includes death and regeneration.
Which I’m pretty sure is self-evident except to those who choose NOT to understand.
Ditto patriarchy, which the commenters who refer to that phrase clearly (and almost certainly wilfully) fail to understand.
Its understandable now that you are fully explaining it. Before you just said it continues to grow now you are adding in “until it destroys the host”.
No, capitalism is just the economic arm of patriarchy; it’s how patriarchy maintains its hegemony via control of resources. So when feminists perform efforts to raise money for certain causes does that mean they “using the master’s tools”? Capitalism MUST continue to grow to be successful. The only thing in nature that continues to grow is cancer. Most biological creatures grow. Now if you want to say that capitalism is like cancer in the sense that in order to grow it does so at the express expense of others (like a cancer grows at the expense of the person who… Read more »
“when feminists perform efforts to raise money for certain causes”
Neither capitalism nor patriarchy. A red herring, in fact.
How is that a red herring? I asked a simple question.