Looking at the chat forum there doesn't seem to be a tradition of hanging a discussion off the chat transcripts so I thought I's start a thread here.

This is really more about looking forward in the context of Howard's thinking and of some of the discussions I have had already at booktalk.

I didn't stay in the chat session for very long, but I have since looked over the transcript, and there are two aspects of it which I would like to touch upon here.

The first connects with my own main misgivings about "The Lucifer Principle", that it is negatively one-sided.
It seemed to me from what Howard said that he pretty much agreed with that and is now intent on redressing the balance.
(all this stuff about positive creativity).
I would like to know a bit more about what he is trying to do there (re-reading the transcript more carefully might help!).

In my own introduction thread there was a brief conversation with Tim (I think) about something I had written in my Factasia web site about "post-capitalism".
That didn't go very far because Tim came across to me as a well entrenched Marxist, and didn't seem to think that any kind of free-market economy could fail to be exploitative (so I didn't really know where to go to from there).

I see in the transcript that Howard was waxing lyrical about how wonderful capitalism could and should be, and that Tim was in there not being wholly dismissive.

So I'm interested to know, whether Howard's views swayed Tim on the possibility of a benign capitalism, and what others think about what is desirable and what is possible in the future of free-market/capitalist economic systems.

There is a little terminologal conflict here because in my writing I take the term "capitalism" as connoting an exclusive ethic of individualistic wealth accumulation (which I deprecate in favour of a pluralistic ethic and an instrumentalist attitude toward wealth), and that's why I advocate "post-capitalist" free-market economics.
I don't think most people think of it that way, and it sounds like Howard retains the word "capitalism" for something which has a somewhat different ethic.

I hope this isn't all too far off beam for the Global Brain forum.

Is this your web site? It's not in your profile - if so, it merits further study...

www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/logic/

Good topic, but as you indicate capitalism is difficult to discuss without defining terms. I take it by "exclusive ethic of individualistic wealth accumulation" that you refer to Libertarian purists like Ayn Rand who believed that capitalism has never been tried because it has always been fettered by some sort of regulation. By "a pluralistic ethic and an instrumentalist attitude toward wealth" I take it you mean something like the current regulated system in the U.S. That's a huge controversy because many Americans think we have a Socialist economy due to all the restrictions, but just as many think we need to maintain or increase regulation due to corporate corruption. I have no idea what you mean by a "post capitalist free market" system.

For my own part, I agree that a pure free market cannot work and would be heavily manipulated as shown even in our regulated markets. Libertarians like to claim that no Government program has ever worked and all are counter-productive, but that is because they forget about scientific and medical research that has been publicly funded. On the other hand, history shows that Government managed economies also do not work.So how are you defining capitalism?

I think Howard Bloom was revising the emphasis of capitalism rather than changing the ethic. The traditional description is that entrepreneurs take huge risks in starting businesses in order to obtain large rewards. Critics might say they abuse or take advantage of customers in order to get rich. I suspect Bloom is describing the same situation from a different perspective - at some level, in order to become extremely successful, businesses have to "delight the customer" or they wouldn't have many of them. Bloom is pointing out that focusing on that positive attitude of the capitalist system rather than "increasing shareholder value" or "exploitation" is an excellent way of marketing the concept to countries that are used to managed or monarchical economies.

My web site is rbjones.com, the URL you posted is the main "logic" page.
As far as capitalism is concerned I have written almost nothing, but what there is should be at www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/econ

Am I talking about radical libertarianism?
No, I'm talking about mainstream capitalism and trying to distinguish between the meaning of "free-market" and that of "capitalism".

According to my dictionary "capitalism" is:

Quote:

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an economic system in which the production and distribution of goods depend upon private capital and profit-making

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whereas a "free-market" is:

Quote:

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a market in which prices are determined by unrestricted competition

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So according to my dictionary these do not mean the same thing, though people often speak as if they do.

Now there are certain ethical doctrines which seem to me to be associated with capitalism but which are not a part of the conception of a free-market, and some of these I think unsatisfactory.
For example, the idea that the "invisible hand" of the market will sort everything out and market participants should simply compete economically and give no heed to the consequences of their actions on the welfare of others.
This is arguably part of the ethic of capitalism but it is possible to conceive of a free-market economy in which the market participants are concerned moral agents.
This is a somewhat incomplete account of my views on this topic but it will do for a starter.

My impression from the transcript is that Howard takes a positive view of capitalism, without wishing to make the distinction I am making and without any need to distinguish "free=market" and "capitalist" economics.
I would say he is advocating "enlightened capitalism".
He accepts that it is the primary function of corporations to make profits but argues that the best way to make profits is to satisfy your customers.
There is an acceptance that the agents in the marketplace have as their primary objective maximising profits for shareholders.
I don't think this is enough personally, I would like to see an expansion of the non-profit sector in which corporations have primary objectives which are not about making profits for shareholders, and for whom financial solvency is a means rather than an end.
Howard accepts the status quo in which doing something worthwhile is a means toward the end of making money, and I think this is a perverted value system which will fail to deliver on many important problems.

Edited by: xilog at: 1/5/03 9:05:50 am

Looks like we agree that Bloom doesn't appear to be proposing radical change, more an attitude change from "increasing shareholder value" to "delighting the customer". That has been going on for a while and works for many companies, but is not sufficient to prevent abuse. We may be headed for increased regulation as a result of corporate corruption and info on how energy companies colluded to rape the State of California on electricity prices. This will still be capitalism, but less of a free market. That's not a problem for me - business is begging for increased regulation by engaging in flagrant corruption.

OK, looking at your web site looks like you mean by "post capitalist free markets" that customers will force moral concerns on business other than the profit motive. There is some of this going on now, but I don't see how it will become a major force. Most people still think the profit motive is sufficient itself and understand that profit is needed in order to grow.

The future I'm interested in is a post-Government capitalism. This is where global free market forces become stronger than any Government forces. If a Gov't engaged in behavior that the market didn't like such as destablizing the Middle East by invading Iraq, it's currency, interest rates, stock & bond markets, etc. would suffer dramatically as a result. Gov'ts would be forced look at global market effects before taking any significant action. Not advocating this, just think it's an interesting possiblity if the global economy grows beyond U.S. dominance.

Please don't mothball Factasia yet!

Edited by: LanDroid at: 1/5/03 10:57:37 am

Just a couple of quick follow=ups.

I don't want to major on ethics or morality.
My main concern is not that customers force moral concerns on companies, but rather that they are able to use their spending power to persuade companies to do whatever it takes to realise the kind of world we want to live in.
This means that we care about how companies make things not just about how efficiently they make them.

Secondly I don't have a problem with companies making money, not even obscene amounts of money.
I have a problem with money being an end rather than a means.
If you need to grow fast and make obscene amounts of money to eliminate global pollution then that's OK, a clean world is a good idea.
If you pretend to be interested in reducing pollution but I can see that in fact your primary objective is to make money to distribute to your shareholders then that's treating something which I see as an end in itself as the means of achieving an end which I think should just be a means (making money).
And its reasonable for me to suspect you of insincerity and to believe that as soon as reducing pollution fails to be the st
rategy which returns best return on your assets you will dump the idea.

As to "post-government capitalism", we are not so far apart.
It is already the case (perhaps always has been) that economic forces are more powerful than any government.
It seems to me that most of the problems which need fixing cannot be fixed by governments (though I think we have to have them), and really the whole point of my conception of a post-capitalist economy is for people to use their spending power (and any other levers they have) to effect those desirable changes on a global scale which governments will never be able to realise.
This means that people have to think about how their spending affects issues like war, poverty, the environment, whatever, and take that into account (which needs they need better information on these things) and companies then will have to take into account the impact of the way they do things on the issues which customers care about.
Ultimately I think the purpose of a company is an essential factor which should influence whether we purchase from them, and wealth accumulation is not a laudable purpose.
Of course corporations do have non financial purposes, but if they are for-profit corporations these are always subsidiary to the profit goals.

I must go back and remove that bit about mothballing factasia since I more inclined right now to get it moving again.