Yes. Carnegie was very much a capitalist of his time. He didn't just believe what he proclaimed, he acted accordingly.
After him came benefactors like Ford with the most dreadful downsides.
More recently, we have seen major philanthropists like Bill Gates and seriously motivated men of immense talent like Steve Jobs.
The case of Konosuke Matsushita in Japan goes, perhaps, even deeper, being very much here and now, yet rooted in an older, more seasoned culture, one that accords greater importance to balance and harmony in all things. I'm sure he and other leading figures of his generation will have learned much from the catastrophes brought upon his country and Asia by the hubris and excesses of Japan's prewar military regime.
But generally speaking what we have been seeing in the past half-century is the rise of insatiable, unchecked greed, vanity, meanness and stupidity in scale with the number of zeros that represent billionaires' fortunes, alongside a bigger and bigger tonnage of the outsize bath toys these unfortunates call "yachts".
These poor so-and-sos are toppling society with their thieving from the foundations to build their top-heavy sybaritic paradise...
I forgot to mention the very special case of George Soros, who has an extraordinary, perhaps unique record, an heroic one, in that not one of his good deeds has been forgiven by the Great and Good or by the Great and Bad.
The perfect scapegoat for all the world's extremists, oppressors and anti-Semites, always of the Right, sometimes of the Left, hated, demonized and blamed by Orban, by Putin, by Trump, by Netanyahu... for anything and everything wrong with the world, everything from bad weather to financial crashes...
Look at this item on a film biopic made by the son of Bob Dylan!
If only, if only USians could get it through our collective head that democracy and capitalism are not identical, or even inextricable. In fact, they run in separate lanes. They *can* support and strengthen each other, but they can also be at odds -- and when they're at odds, as in the U.S. since the beginning of the Reagan administration, capitalism tends to hollow out democracy. (Thank you, Citizens United.)
I and a friend once wrote a letter to the Editor of the Economist who believed that capitalism must inevitably be accompanied by democracy in China, whereas we did not.
He did not publish our letter but did us the honor of answering it.
After watching what happened after the Soviet Union disintegrated and, later, the utter stupidity of promoting "regime change" in Iraq, I'm amazed that anyone continues to *really* believe it. OTOH, it's become clear that a significant chunk of the capitalist crowd isn't all that wild about democracy either.
I wonder if he fully believed, or if this was a way to justify his rapacious behavior. The idea that there's something special about those who accumulated mounds of money and power, is so like all the white privileged men who can't see how much they were helped by an unfair system. There is no such thing as making it on your own merit.
Not to their extent, no. The only idea I can come up with for thinking you alone have made all your wealth, without considering ALL those who worked to make it happen, is greed. Plain and simple.
My favorite Justice Thomas who used the Affirmative Action program has or wants to end it. Nothing like climbing the ladder and then pull it up after you.
However, I believe I understand his dilemma. While I agree with Affirmative Action to try to right the wrongs of discrimination, it can put the individual person receiving the help in a uncomfortable position. If you are perceived as benefitting from Affirmative Action, are you also seen as someone who isn't really capable of doing the work to get there? This is one way that racism is so insidious. Either you can't do the work because you belong to an "inferior" race, or you got to get there because of the boost you got from a government program and not your own efforts. The reality is that we all benefit from the system in some way, and nobody ever is a success only because of their own individual efforts. The system just makes it easier for some of us than the rest.
The belief that people who amass wealth are somehow blessed by a higher power and those who are poor are being punished for something is older than any religion. In fact it was, before empire was allowed to remove him from Christianity, one of the things Jesus spoke out against the most.
Peter B: It's true that Bill Gates has given a lot of money to philanthropic causes, but there has also been extensive criticism of him (and other gazillionaire philanthropists) because much of their philanthropy is directed to causes of their own preference rather than of general well being. One that comes to mind is Gates's support of "education reform" based on ever more infiltration of technology into the education process. Guess who benefits most from that, whereas whether such innovations benefit students is still in question.
I think it's also useful to remember the scope of our civilization. I recall that in Gate's annual letter from a couple of years ago he responded to the suggestion that he eliminate our nation's homelessness problem with his vast fortune. He pointed out that the entire Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would only be able to operate the L.A. County school system for 2-3 months. Private philanthropy doesn't begin to satisfy the needs that government struggles with every single day.
Indeed. A part of every dollar that swells the use of technology in the public school system goes to Micro$oft and then back into Bill's pocketbook. This isn't the WORST thing that could happen (putting dollars into Elon Musk's pocketbook would vastly outrank that at least IMHO LOL). I personally believe that technology does help most students to some level, but I am not at all sure the cost-benefit equation is totally positive. This should be studied further in order to figure out the proper way it should be handled in the future. One major concern is that when money is granted to purchase computers, there is rarely an equivalent grant to fund both maintenance and an endowment to support future upgrades. Computers obsolesce quite rapidly as it turns out and many schools end up stuck with very old computers after 3-5 years with no funds to buy new ones. There should be a requirement that any grant for purchase of new equipment be paired with an endowment grant to help support upgrades in the future.
I didn't go into this, but thanks for clarifying an important point. I didn't want to associate Gates with the pernicious ideological nonsenses from another age propagated by Henry Ford and still, alas, with us. But it is quite true that the man's no doubt excellent intentions are vitiated by built-in techie prejudices and blind spots. A certain scientistic absolutism. He does what he can, but this basically good work may sometimes have reinforced corporate power and the abuses that arise therefrom.
Peter Burnett, I don't see how Gates or Jobs are evil and selfish. Matsoshita I know only a little about, and his philosophy seems to he a derivative of Japanese culture, and I can see how that could be distorted to create a toxic workaholic culture, but I don't know if he was evil. I ask this because your comment leads me to think you feel that all ultra wealthy people must be greedy and evil, which sound either religious or Marxist.
I suspect you're not at all a zealot, so I'm wondering how you've come to this opinion. If I'm wrong in my interpretation, just tell me I'm full of shit. I won't take offense, and still buy you a beer or a soda just to have a serious conversation.
Thank you, TC. Paying their responsible share of taxes will still leave them with plenty to spread around according to their interests and interpretation of what society needs. Their contributions are welcome but the first responsibility is to contribute fully to the public good via taxation. Of course, there are fair criticisms of government spending, but it is the surest way to lift everyone, not just those on the radar of the non elected super wealthy. (Not to mention that not all the super wealthy consider themselves trustees of funds for societal welfare ala Carnegie …. Hence the even greater need for fair taxes.)
If there were a 100% tax on everything above a certain amount, the rich would have to find different ways to compete with each other rather than increasing their takings.
Not sure about 100% tax, but we have (I think) mostly forgotten that only a "short" time ago (1950s) the top tax rate was 95% (I believe after $5,000,000 earned per year). People extol the expansion of the middle class in the 50s which indeed happened, partially because of the post-WWII boom but also because of the top marginal tax rate which discouraged significant capital hoarding as it didn't make all that much sense. Once this was dropped over the next 30 years, first to 90%, then 75% then 50% and finally into the 30s in the 1990s, the benefits to hoarding capital became much greater. And thus the number of billionaires (which was very low until then) started to grow astronomically. With the concurrent reduction in inheritance taxes, large amounts of capital became centered in a very small number of hands, compared to the 1950s.
Even a return to a top tax rate of 75% would dramatically reduce the amount of accumulated capital the richest part of society would be able to keep, and a much larger part of those earnings would make their way into (wait for it!) the federal and state budgets! The rich would actually pay more while the poor would be able to pay less.
No, Jerry, you have totally, but totally, misread me, and I wonder how or where I can have been so unclear that this should have been possible.
Ah... now I understand... I mentioned Gates and Jobs immediately after Henry Ford who, as I said, had serious downsides including anti-Semitism that got him involved with Hitler. At the same time as remembering the company in which Ford's political and social beliefs, including eugenism -- beliefs all too common in men of his time -- landed him up, I am very aware of the man's great positive contributions to America and to the world...
I'll correct the layout now to eliminate that misunderstanding.
[Edited for greater clarity]
Yes. Carnegie was very much a capitalist of his time. He didn't just believe what he proclaimed, he acted accordingly.
After him came benefactors like Ford with the most dreadful downsides.
More recently, we have seen major philanthropists like Bill Gates and seriously motivated men of immense talent like Steve Jobs.
The case of Konosuke Matsushita in Japan goes, perhaps, even deeper, being very much here and now, yet rooted in an older, more seasoned culture, one that accords greater importance to balance and harmony in all things. I'm sure he and other leading figures of his generation will have learned much from the catastrophes brought upon his country and Asia by the hubris and excesses of Japan's prewar military regime.
But generally speaking what we have been seeing in the past half-century is the rise of insatiable, unchecked greed, vanity, meanness and stupidity in scale with the number of zeros that represent billionaires' fortunes, alongside a bigger and bigger tonnage of the outsize bath toys these unfortunates call "yachts".
These poor so-and-sos are toppling society with their thieving from the foundations to build their top-heavy sybaritic paradise...
I forgot to mention the very special case of George Soros, who has an extraordinary, perhaps unique record, an heroic one, in that not one of his good deeds has been forgiven by the Great and Good or by the Great and Bad.
The perfect scapegoat for all the world's extremists, oppressors and anti-Semites, always of the Right, sometimes of the Left, hated, demonized and blamed by Orban, by Putin, by Trump, by Netanyahu... for anything and everything wrong with the world, everything from bad weather to financial crashes...
Look at this item on a film biopic made by the son of Bob Dylan!
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2021-06-16/ty-article-magazine/why-do-so-many-hate-george-soros/0000017f-f00c-d8a1-a5ff-f08e13830000
Wait wait! Don't Tell Me! You mean George Soros is NOT responsible for all of the bad weather we are having?
I am stunned!
If only, if only USians could get it through our collective head that democracy and capitalism are not identical, or even inextricable. In fact, they run in separate lanes. They *can* support and strengthen each other, but they can also be at odds -- and when they're at odds, as in the U.S. since the beginning of the Reagan administration, capitalism tends to hollow out democracy. (Thank you, Citizens United.)
I and a friend once wrote a letter to the Editor of the Economist who believed that capitalism must inevitably be accompanied by democracy in China, whereas we did not.
He did not publish our letter but did us the honor of answering it.
Within a year, his view switched to ours.
After watching what happened after the Soviet Union disintegrated and, later, the utter stupidity of promoting "regime change" in Iraq, I'm amazed that anyone continues to *really* believe it. OTOH, it's become clear that a significant chunk of the capitalist crowd isn't all that wild about democracy either.
No, Susanna, they've opted for H2SO4 Conc. version of capitalism. Organized crime.
I wonder if he fully believed, or if this was a way to justify his rapacious behavior. The idea that there's something special about those who accumulated mounds of money and power, is so like all the white privileged men who can't see how much they were helped by an unfair system. There is no such thing as making it on your own merit.
Not to their extent, no. The only idea I can come up with for thinking you alone have made all your wealth, without considering ALL those who worked to make it happen, is greed. Plain and simple.
Exactly.
My favorite Justice Thomas who used the Affirmative Action program has or wants to end it. Nothing like climbing the ladder and then pull it up after you.
I am assuming, Karen, that "My favorite Justice Thomas" is dripping with sarcasm. I certainly HOPE so LOL!
However, I believe I understand his dilemma. While I agree with Affirmative Action to try to right the wrongs of discrimination, it can put the individual person receiving the help in a uncomfortable position. If you are perceived as benefitting from Affirmative Action, are you also seen as someone who isn't really capable of doing the work to get there? This is one way that racism is so insidious. Either you can't do the work because you belong to an "inferior" race, or you got to get there because of the boost you got from a government program and not your own efforts. The reality is that we all benefit from the system in some way, and nobody ever is a success only because of their own individual efforts. The system just makes it easier for some of us than the rest.
The belief that people who amass wealth are somehow blessed by a higher power and those who are poor are being punished for something is older than any religion. In fact it was, before empire was allowed to remove him from Christianity, one of the things Jesus spoke out against the most.
Peter, you are on a roll this am. Thank you.
Peter B: It's true that Bill Gates has given a lot of money to philanthropic causes, but there has also been extensive criticism of him (and other gazillionaire philanthropists) because much of their philanthropy is directed to causes of their own preference rather than of general well being. One that comes to mind is Gates's support of "education reform" based on ever more infiltration of technology into the education process. Guess who benefits most from that, whereas whether such innovations benefit students is still in question.
I think it's also useful to remember the scope of our civilization. I recall that in Gate's annual letter from a couple of years ago he responded to the suggestion that he eliminate our nation's homelessness problem with his vast fortune. He pointed out that the entire Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would only be able to operate the L.A. County school system for 2-3 months. Private philanthropy doesn't begin to satisfy the needs that government struggles with every single day.
Indeed. A part of every dollar that swells the use of technology in the public school system goes to Micro$oft and then back into Bill's pocketbook. This isn't the WORST thing that could happen (putting dollars into Elon Musk's pocketbook would vastly outrank that at least IMHO LOL). I personally believe that technology does help most students to some level, but I am not at all sure the cost-benefit equation is totally positive. This should be studied further in order to figure out the proper way it should be handled in the future. One major concern is that when money is granted to purchase computers, there is rarely an equivalent grant to fund both maintenance and an endowment to support future upgrades. Computers obsolesce quite rapidly as it turns out and many schools end up stuck with very old computers after 3-5 years with no funds to buy new ones. There should be a requirement that any grant for purchase of new equipment be paired with an endowment grant to help support upgrades in the future.
I didn't go into this, but thanks for clarifying an important point. I didn't want to associate Gates with the pernicious ideological nonsenses from another age propagated by Henry Ford and still, alas, with us. But it is quite true that the man's no doubt excellent intentions are vitiated by built-in techie prejudices and blind spots. A certain scientistic absolutism. He does what he can, but this basically good work may sometimes have reinforced corporate power and the abuses that arise therefrom.
Peter Burnett, I don't see how Gates or Jobs are evil and selfish. Matsoshita I know only a little about, and his philosophy seems to he a derivative of Japanese culture, and I can see how that could be distorted to create a toxic workaholic culture, but I don't know if he was evil. I ask this because your comment leads me to think you feel that all ultra wealthy people must be greedy and evil, which sound either religious or Marxist.
I suspect you're not at all a zealot, so I'm wondering how you've come to this opinion. If I'm wrong in my interpretation, just tell me I'm full of shit. I won't take offense, and still buy you a beer or a soda just to have a serious conversation.
Eat the rich. Lightly sauteed with a nice Chianti.
Proper taxation may make them "less rich," but they'll still be rich.
Thank you, TC. Paying their responsible share of taxes will still leave them with plenty to spread around according to their interests and interpretation of what society needs. Their contributions are welcome but the first responsibility is to contribute fully to the public good via taxation. Of course, there are fair criticisms of government spending, but it is the surest way to lift everyone, not just those on the radar of the non elected super wealthy. (Not to mention that not all the super wealthy consider themselves trustees of funds for societal welfare ala Carnegie …. Hence the even greater need for fair taxes.)
Absolutely!
If there were a 100% tax on everything above a certain amount, the rich would have to find different ways to compete with each other rather than increasing their takings.
Not sure about 100% tax, but we have (I think) mostly forgotten that only a "short" time ago (1950s) the top tax rate was 95% (I believe after $5,000,000 earned per year). People extol the expansion of the middle class in the 50s which indeed happened, partially because of the post-WWII boom but also because of the top marginal tax rate which discouraged significant capital hoarding as it didn't make all that much sense. Once this was dropped over the next 30 years, first to 90%, then 75% then 50% and finally into the 30s in the 1990s, the benefits to hoarding capital became much greater. And thus the number of billionaires (which was very low until then) started to grow astronomically. With the concurrent reduction in inheritance taxes, large amounts of capital became centered in a very small number of hands, compared to the 1950s.
Even a return to a top tax rate of 75% would dramatically reduce the amount of accumulated capital the richest part of society would be able to keep, and a much larger part of those earnings would make their way into (wait for it!) the federal and state budgets! The rich would actually pay more while the poor would be able to pay less.
What a concept!
Sad that 1950s history isn’t better known. Sad, too, that many people see their taxes as “theft” rather than payment for services they use.
No, Jerry, you have totally, but totally, misread me, and I wonder how or where I can have been so unclear that this should have been possible.
Ah... now I understand... I mentioned Gates and Jobs immediately after Henry Ford who, as I said, had serious downsides including anti-Semitism that got him involved with Hitler. At the same time as remembering the company in which Ford's political and social beliefs, including eugenism -- beliefs all too common in men of his time -- landed him up, I am very aware of the man's great positive contributions to America and to the world...
I'll correct the layout now to eliminate that misunderstanding.