next »

[mischt]

The following headline just caught my attention on the Chronicle Daily Report:
"In France and Germany, young students are being taught that capitalism and free markets are savage, unhealthy, and immoral "

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4095&page=0

I found the pro-globalization, pro-capital bias in this article shocking and its "critique" of European schooling as compared with American high school policy equally disturbing.

Since I happen to be in Germany and completely agree that young people should be learning to ask critical questions about the functioning of the world economy, I wonder what you in the States think of this article and of the Chronicle highlighting it here?

Best,
Mischt

[monsterx]

Very interesting article.

Interesting that this should be considered problematic:

"Even a cursory look at the country’s textbooks shows that many are written from the perspective of a future employee with a union contract."

This probably describes the exact position most young Germans will be in on graduation.  What perspective should it be written from?   The independently wealthy? The socially marginally?  Not to deny that these would be valid perspectives, but it seems that picking the most conventional perspective hardly requires justification.

So Theil thinks Europe's economies will be "left behind". Left behind whom exactly?  The US economy is in a death spiral, Japan is in chronic recession.  China, maybe, eventually, but I think if one is looking to disprove his thesis of a connection between anti-capitalist ideology and economic outcomes, one could hardly pick a better case than China...

[csguy]

Very interesting article.

Interesting that this should be considered problematic:

"Even a cursory look at the country’s textbooks shows that many are written from the perspective of a future employee with a union contract."

This probably describes the exact position most young Germans will be in on graduation.  What perspective should it be written from?   The independently wealthy? The socially marginally?  Not to deny that these would be valid perspectives, but it seems that picking the most conventional perspective hardly requires justification.

As opposed to the US where the typical student will be future employee without a union contract.

[oldfullprof]

The article does such a nice job of portraying the other side, I'm not worried.  Business people lie and cheat in business and politics because it's in their interests.  The Bush administration panders to such liars and cheaters.  So did the Clinton administration.  There have been stable periods (like the 1950s) where there may have been a little less lying and cheating due to the oligopolistic protection of business leading to relatively ethical surface behavior-- maybe not though with all the red scares-- but any period characterized by insecurity and potential superprofits leads to massive lying and cheating.   

[pyshnov]

This is the subject of utmost importance. The article in foreignpolicy.com is completely misleading: it is painting American economy as free-enterprise and the globalisation - as capitalist free market. In reality, as I said many times on this forum, corporations are not capitalist enterprise, they are socialist institutions. And who actually started the "global" propaganda? It was the Lenin's slogan for world revolution, literally translated, it was: "Think globally, act locally"! Who started chanting in "groups" the song Global Village, if not communists? What a fraud was the free trade agreement between US and Canada! At the time, it was predicted that in 3-5 years you will be able to bring US goods freely into Canada. In reality, to bring a second pound of tobacco to Canada (one pound is free on certain conditions of travel) today cost you over $100!

Now, what kind of free enterprise are the corporations?
1) They make no profit (max. is 1% on capital, usually a small fraction of it, and for years they are losing money). Who exactly needs that "business"?
2) They are "managed" by board of directors, the individuals who are prohibited to have a financial stake in the "business"; that would be a conflict of interest for them! What the hell is their true, legitimate interest? What is the true interest of their CEO who is prohibited to use information about his "business" to make money? They are all not capitalists, not owners, not entrepreneurs. They are socialist/communist functionaries, who are hired to run something that does not belong to them!
3) How and why corporations survive? The answer is clear: they run the "business" on the taxpayers' money, they are tax-exempt, they can fly to the Moon on your money, they, indeed, are buying the world on your money. What they do is this: they re-distribute national wealth and the taxpayers' money without being elected to do so, without having any mandate to do so, but operating solely on the present socialistic structure of "economy" and, in particular, on the socialistic laws of taxation proposed by the Canadian/American communist, Galbright.
4) They are buying the remainder of the truly private business in their countries; the result is disappearance of small farms. Little capitalists also disappear - they are mostly the appendices of the corporations, the sources for the "outsourcing". Most of the little capitalists are in service industry, they are not making a product. In foreign countries, corporations are establishing infrastructure free of national religion, tradition, culture. The goal is to kill the ability of the people to produce independently.
5) What is the final goal of the corporatisation and globalisation? The goal is killing the free enterprise. The social goal (and their social goal is more important than the financial goal) is to turn the free world, the free people into the employees. One World, One Nation - The Nation of Employees. That is the ultimate goal of Communism.

So, when in France or in Germany some think that national farmers, their product, their independence should remain intact, I applaud. It's not clear for me what the leaders of this movement are up to. Probably, as commies, they have a hidden goal which is directly opposite to their demagogy, probably, they are teaching students Marxism and, planning, when the crowd wins, to take away private property, but meanwhile, a good grain can grow in these universities.

[spork]

You've reminded me of the book When Corporations Rule the World.