At the beginning of the fall semester, I published a column explaining the fear that America is actually in danger of becoming a socialist regime is completely baseless and idiotic. The U.S. government owns about 0.21% of corporate and business assets. If you studied math in school at all, it is abundantly clear we are a capitalist society. And we will remain a capitalist society. Americans understand the profit incentive provided by the free market has provided this country with the vast majority of the great things we enjoy every day.
But, I am starting to wonder when it became “American” to only do things for the sake of generating profit. We used to care about more than just money. Now we have become so brainwashed by capitalist rhetoric, we are on the verge of allowing it to consume our other values entirely.
I am not a socialist by any stretch of the imagination, but I believe there are certain things that are sacrosanct. Certain things have an importance that far surpasses whether they are lucrative or not. War, media and healthcare are a few areas in which it might be useful to consider whether or not profit incentive alone can really provide us with the society that we want to live in.
WAR
There was a time in this country when profiting off of the struggle and death of armed conflict was considered thoroughly immoral and entirely unthinkable for most.
Now, we’ve reached a point where “war-profiteer” is no longer an insult, but a compliment. But how do you generate profit from war?
Well, if you’re C&D Distributors in South Carolina then you do what every good business does and figure out how to exploit systematic loopholes. In their case, C&D figured out if it put a “priority” stamp on shipments that were destined for either U.S. military bases or combat zones, then the invoices were automatically paid. So, with every concern for the well-being of their shareholders, the company shipped two washers valued at 38 cents for $998,798.
You could also take the route of Earnest Robbins. He was contracted to build a police college in Baghdad. If you want to generate profit, first get yourself a “cost-plus” contract, where you get paid 3 percent of what you spend, regardless of what you spend. The more you spend, the more you make!
But if you really want to be business savvy, you can just throw a decrepit shed together and say you spent $72 million. When the House Oversight Committee asks you questions about the urine and feces that literally cover the crumbling walls just say “Hey, I have to turn a profit don’t I?”
MEDIA
Our lifetimes have seen the death of William S. Paley, and the rise of Rupert Murdoch. It was considered a given by Paley that the news division of CBS was going to lose money. He didn’t care. He made more than enough money elsewhere. He saw himself as fulfilling the civic duty of the fourth estate.
Fast forward to 2010. It is now considered a given that news divisions will make money, and Murdoch now owns somewhere between 35 and 50 percent of the English media. Where once the allegiance was to the people, now it is to advertising. The profit incentive has turned the news corporations from reporters of fact into advocates of policy (which Murdoch has admitted was his goal at the World Economic Forum).
Instead of questioning those in power, we speculate about rumors surrounding Tiger Woods’ marriage. At least someone is making a buck though.
HEALTH CARE
I think we can all agree there is something wrong with our current system. People intuitively understand the insurance company practice of “recision,” where they hire expert bureaucrats to find a way to screw people out of coverage based on things like typos, is wrong. It is wrong that the market has only provided us a health care system ranked 37th in the world, behind Costa Rica and just above Cuba. Americans deserve better, whether it is profitable or not.
It is not socialist to decry the presence of capitalism in everything. When elected politicians like “Der Fuehrer” Andre Bauer can advocate the starvation of poor people.
We have let our money fetish go far enough. We must rediscover the value of the world beyond the spreadsheet. We should ask ourselves if we want a society that sees war as profitable. We should ask ourselves if civic responsibility is more important to us than advertising revenue. We should ask ourselves if boundless capitalist idealism, is not a panacea, but perhaps the source of many grave problems.
Remember, just because we can’t see it, doesn’t mean the invisible hand isn’t giving us the finger.
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ston9794 2 years, 3 months ago
oh Ayn Rand, you're so crazy
Nice column!