Friday 9/6/2019 Over the last several months I have been working on a restatement of the fundamental characteristics of the capitalist system. In doing this I have been thinking afresh about the current crisis of —>> read more –>>
The earth is burdened by the tsunami of plastic refuse that will never degrade. Government needs to protect us from capitalist enterprises delight in externalizing costs to our detriment and their short-term benefit. —>> read more –>>
Trump – Republican Positions and Crimes (some just attempted) against the poor, working and middle class. The current Trump Republicans effort to cram their bill to pay back their corporate and rich supporters with giant tax breaks has me frothing a bit. I wrote down this list, partial though it may be. Add to it! —>> read more –>>
The National Geographic has a running list of the Trump regime’s efforts to save the environment for capitalism. A Running List of How Trump Is Changing the Environment – “The Trump administration has promised vast changes to U.S. science and environmental policy—and we’re tracking them here as they happen.” —>> read more –>>
Capitalism is driven by a single internal logic that requires the transformation of people and nature into commodities to produce profits. This logic is amoral and the system, excepting for external controls by government and social institutions, just churns on. —>> read more –>>
Companies must externalize as many costs as possible in free-market capitalism. Without adequate government protections you will end up with this kind of environment. from the New York Times: Nearly 14,000 Companies in China Violate —>> read more –>>
Every company seeks to get someone else to pay for as many of its costs of doing business as possible. The laws of capitalism require this. If all of Stickles’ competitors are similarly avoiding the costs of disposing of their waste concrete they must do likewise. Otherwise their cost of doing business would be higher. In the short term their profits will be lower. In the longer term they will be forced out of business because they will have to charge higher prices. This is so regardless of the moral values or sense of community of the owners of F.H.Stickles. This how capitalism works. —>> read more –>>
This 2015 movie by Chinese director Liang Zhao is filled with great cinematography and sounds. It trades back and forth between scenes of enormous horizon gulping coal mines, under ground mines, iron making, and ends —>> read more –>>
©Mark Orton 2019