Subject: Re: APT Section 706 Petition
Vigdor Schreibman - FINS (fins@access.digex.net)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 09:22:39 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 09:22:39 -0400 (EDT) From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net> To: Multiple recipients of list <roundtable@cni.org> Subject: Re: APT Section 706 Petition In-Reply-To: <199806182048.QAA15244@raptor.cqi.com> Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.96.980619064931.10899A-100000@access5.digex.net>
There is an attempt being made in this discussion to
remedy a capitalist economic system on its own terms
while the remedy must obviously be one that is
drawn from the democratic political system. As capitalism
has no viable basis that any profession has discovered,
which I have described elsewhere [Fins-TKO-01], and we
yet have not tried a real democracy, what is occurring
is a deadly stalemate. Face it!
The failure of "competition" brought about by competition
was disclosed by the first Robber Baron era of the late
19th-century. Mary Gardner Jones is correct to assume in
the face of overwhelming current experience that we cannot
depend upon the same dead idea to discipline an industry,
which is essentially ungovernable. For the same reasons,
"incentive regulation" has no serious role to play in an
attempt to force industry to do what is right, while the
dominant value guiding industry conduct is one of profit
maximization. It is obviously not the insufficiency of
profit incentive, which motivates the existing situation,
but rather, the corrupt preoccupation with profit over
sustainability.
What these discussions need to consider is the essential
truth that capitalism as we know it, disregards social
equity and ecological integrity, which gives it life.
This is a hopelessly self-destructive condition!
In this situation the larger role of the People in a
real democratic political system, should be considered.
The People whose lives are directly affected by the
decisions of government and big business must exercise
responsible control over the increasingly corrupt
ideas and practices of government and big business.
Joint control, not regulation, is the way out of failed
contemporary conditions. The structures of a democratic
civic society, including all corporate charters, must be
radically amended to assure that decisions bearing upon
free enterprise are guided by the wisdom that economic
prosperity, social equity, and ecological integrity are
interdependent, mutually reinforcing goals
The structures that we should be discussing are those
which construct a real democracy, which can transform
our failed capitalist economic system into a force
for genuine human progress. We should not be fearful
of such radical changes. That is not a part of our
true American heritage.
Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
[Browse the new Fins Information Age Library,
now located at URL: http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2a16 : Tue Mar 23 1999 - 03:33:26 EST