I wish these “socal critics” went out and actually created wealth and jobs. These guys are a throw back to the 1960’s type of “do nothing” crowd.

First comment is an example of the unfortunate anti-intellectual strain long extant in American culture. Seen when Giuliani (a law school graduate) makes a fool of himself decrying Obama a “Havhard” Ivy League elitist at the RNC and voters proud of the fact that they have fantasies of downing beers with common-Joe, I-hate-books Bush.

No. We need thinkers, social critics, intellectuals. They don’t “do nothing.” You can thank idea-people for having created the modern world you enjoy and for being the one’s that will get us out of this mess greedy bastards put us in when they went out with one narrow goal of lining their pockets with quick money.

Well stated Exp. Con.,
Most of those big Corproations that “generate wealth” do it only for themselves and their constituencies. And contrary to their “bootstrap” fairy tales, they always keep their wealth but pass their losses onto us “do nothing” taxpayers.

The second comment is another guy that just not “get it”. I lived in Asia for most of my adult life and seldom did I see so many “intellectual strain” types. What I did see were people that wanted to create wealth, jobs etc…they loved the idea of owning their own business, hiring people, creating wealth. Looking at the path that the USA has been on the last 40 years we need less “intellectual types” and more Henry Fords, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs..etc..etc..etc..

It’s the Jefferson vs. Hamilton dillemma, is it not?
And Hamilton won.

P.S. One thing is for sure, Jefferson was not part of the ‘ do nothing ‘ crowd.

Suffice to say, as the Hamiltonian corporate vision took root towards the end of the nineteenth century, our non-activist all white male supreme court decided to give the corp. 14th amendment rights.

Adam Smith is so misunderstood. The supply siders distort what he taught, and a great teacher he was.

I totally agree with your guest about how we have created a world where the life has become a corporation and we have been reduced to being consumers. Here is my pet peeve on the subject. By breaking up our families in the name of independence and freedom, we create many consumers who when they live under one household will require much less in terms of gadgets but will receive much in terms of support and happiness. My own household where two young daughters being away from home means between three household we have three refrigerators, three microwaves, three internet lines, and on the other hand, me and my husband wind up employing people for small jobs such as lawn mowing and yard work that our daughters would have been able to help if they were also staying at home.

The whole system seems to be geared towards creating more consumers and taking away the basic support network of people around you.

Surely our politics has been hijacked and incorporate. Just ask Ralph Nader, Pat Buchannon, Jack Bogle.

Just today, reports that in fact the majority of donations came from big money (corporate) bundled donors made majority of the Obama campaign war chest, and contradictory to the highly touted ‘ small donors ‘.

david –

Asians are not intellectual?

Ford, Gates, Jobs are not idea people? Did not rely on idea people?

So, what we need is for all the professors and writers in America to do is quit their job and obtain a loan from the bank and start up a corner mom-and-pop shop … and all will be solved.

This world you separate into “intellectual” and “wealth-generating” is more interconnected than you think.

(1) It could not be good for the planet if “more iron out of the ground” (from more individually owned barbecues, etc.) is the measure of progress. GDP seems to be a tax on the planet without ecological controls. IS there a GDP of safe growth, not things?
(2) So many alliances among kindred spirits start out with demands on “time or money,” whichever you have. It is frustrating to have neither. The alliances based on doing needed things disappear.

Douglas thanks for telling the truth
we need more people that understand
what you see.

Hi,
While I agree that corporate capitalism has taken over our lives, and our government, I’m very tired of this and every other social commentator picking on suburban and small town live. Just because you missed Queens doesn’t mean that we aren’t invested in each other out her..Yesterday I was at a T-ball practice thinking how important my neighbors are to me how I care about what happens to their kids, and their jobs and their marriges. And how proud I am of my lovely town and it’s old stone walls and not just my own yard. We are out here volunteering in our schools, looking out for each others kids, checking in on our neighbors after ice storms, going to road races and fire works displays.
The city is full of people you will never know and don’t want to know you. And they keep up with Jones too.

We’re called consumers instead of citizens. Free trade trumped California’s environmental laws when trying to restrict import of pollution sources. The dollar has ruled over the welfare of the community, the corporate over the individual.

We are obscured in the mud of Dr. Seuss’ “Once-lers”. Oh how they ruled the day! They ruled the day because they could not imagine tomorrow and most did not care. We need entrepreneurs and business but not without hardy imaginations. Do not confuse the deviousness of the current business culture for the innovation of real entrepreneurial spirit. The names previously mentioned on this blog represent two industries; one that squandered the greatest opportunity in industrial history in the American automobile. When you look at government contracting, retail, firearms, and many more industries that should be uniquely dominated by American ingenuity; they are being dominated by the shortsightedness of the Once-lers ironically born as the American experiment approached is greatest hour. Our current challenges are our own to overcome. We shall not succeed without the intellectual and emotional maturity that has too often been sidelined for daily profit.

Oh, so the reason I incorporated my start up was to stifle competition. That because I was given this “charter” I’m protected?

Now he’s going off on “currency”

This is nothing but latte-fueled angst being passed off innovative thinking.

I would like to hear the author discuss his theory relative to the current healthcare system.

It seems that medicine went from a covenant between patient and care-giver (doctor, nurse practitioner or physician assistant) to a ‘medical insurance industrial complex’ of corporations who make medical decisions based on corporate profit instead of what the patient needs and wants.

Great show ..
ITS TIME TO TAKE OUR LIVES AND OUR MINDS BACK FROM THE CORPORATIONS !

Before i came to live in America I believed that Americans were very INDEPENDENT MINDED people .. this concept attracted me to the US…

Now I believe that we need to FIGHT FOR OUR MINDS AND OUR COMMUNITIES …

thanks .

I am so glad someone thought of and wrote about this. There is value and truth to this…

we have a lot of signs/examples:
- the economy crashing,
- the organic food movement,
- the environmental/green awareness,
- the local movement.

All these prove this and moving us back towards a different turn we could have taken… it’s actually quite hopeful and capitalistic too if anyone’s concerned.!

I really don’t think our retirement funds should be invested for maximum profit. The managers of these funds should invest for a future, a promising future for all. Bottom line should have better measures.

In this week’s New Yorker there is an article by Dr. Atul Gawande about the cost of healthcare in McAllen, Texas, where a hospital is physician-owned. McAllen has the lowest per capita income in the nation, yet the highest – except for Miami – per capita expenditure on health care ($3,000 more than the per capita income)! This does not translate into the best care or the best outcomes.

The fact that we are no longer able to colonize other countries was just mentioned. What seems to be happening is that corporations are now able to colonize our brains.When will we push back?

Now the conversation is veering into absolutes. What if, as a society, we’re just sick of the present system, and long for more community oriented social structures? When railroads and cathedrals need to be built, I think people create orgs. to do that. When people need social togetherness, we will create ways to do that (facebook?) I agree that the present econ. system is not helping many of us, and for this time, with the global problems we face, growing an alternative economic system is rational.

This guy really knows what he’s talking about. He understands the value of a strong business, but fairly criticizes the motivations of a capitalist corporation. The strive for short-term profits hinders the people far more than it helps us.

ps:
http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/TransitionInitiative

Efficient housing, vehicles, education, health care — all have to pay the piper, the profit-making institutions.

BRILLIANT, +1 copy sold.

I think Mr. Rushkoff may be underestimating the benefits of the status quo. I like not having to grow my own food. I like being able to specialize in a field that depends on far-off markets. If I didn’t, I’d have to make something that people near me need, and that is a far more limited set of life options.

I look forward to reading Mr. Rushkoff’s book.
It occurs to me that one reason for the push for a more nuclear family-centric society is to avoid the appearance of being a communist society. Given the timiing of this push, it seems plausible to me…

The whole economy has been running on greedy Americans buying oversize things they don’t really need, and can’t afford, with credit promoted by our goverment as a sustainable lifestyle. Sustainable it is not!
For generations, Americans have been herded by their leaders, marketers, and creditors to buy now and pay later. It has always amazed me how people just automatically assume life should have a monthly payment attached to it, trading their freedom for indentured servitude, so as to have it now. As a person who doesn’t believe in being in debt to anyone at anytime, the thought that someone could, or would, buy a house, car, vacation, toys, etc. with no equity on their behalf seems obscene. It’s the hard route to pay cash, not only do you have to wait for your biscuit, but you must deal with people in debt up to their eyeballs looking down on you, judging you by what you don’t own. I waited for years, watching home prices being bid out of my reach with artificial prices bolstered by creditors “free money” to nothing down customers, before I was able to buy a modest home. That’s ok, I take great comfort knowing I’m my own master. I believe the credit industry refers to cash payers of my kind as deadbeats. Who are the deadbeats now?, it sure isn’t the person with cash in hand.

The way people live life these days buried in insurmountable debt, appearing to have nice things in life, but instead, two paychecks away from loosing it all, has been a feast for the market players, They need these people wearing the yoke of debt to feed their free market, non productive lifestyle. Meanwhile, the average productive person lives a life full of fear and stress always peering around the corner, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The productive American worker base has been shrinking while wealthy and privileged have been growing in numbers so they have had to take their exploitation to where our jobs have been going – overseas. This is the way of unrestricted free market capitalists, exploit people and resources, take the money and run, until it all goes bad, and then they want to tap the very people whose backs they are standing on in the first place!.

There needs to be a complete reorganization of the way Americans think about work, consumption, energy, environment, and debt. In order for this to materialize people have to fully experience the extreme downside of our current economic model that’s based on the gross exploitation of people and the earths natural resources. I just hope that when it does happen, and the economic carnage is over, people will stop and wonder if their lifestyle of consumption, artificial props, and self deception has been the correct path. From the ashes perhaps a new system of relative wealth parity and respect will emerge. I emphasize respect because when was the last time you felt your contribution at work was truly appreciated?, benefited society?, helped your planet?. Unrestrained capitalism doesn’t care. Period. I can’t support the bailout even though a lot of good people will suffer. The system must change.

It is not the taxpayers responsibility to step in at the eleventh hour and throw themselves in front of this horrid train wreck. The people who foisted these policies upon us need to fully own them and be held accountable, not aided by a congressional patch that allows them to fade away in the background while other people are being put out on the street. We need to let the effects of unregulated capitalism run its course; let those who worship the market without producing any real tangible product live by their free market creed and reap its consequences.

I like the optimism of the last post. Todd has the idea of the phoenix rising from the flames. Or better, the butterfly emerging from a caterpillar.
I am thinking of implicationg of Rushkoff’s thoughts on the way the money-centered world has spun off so many redistribution networks. I am thinking of the nonprofits, from the United Nations and its agencies to the local food pantry. I have a feeling people are spinning their wheels, that reorganization is called for, and a lot of fundraisers are sort of kowtowing to the corporate world’s sort of guilt for getting away with a lot (as this program detailed).
So I think there is a lot of communal effort to redistribute that is relatively ineffective (in terms of time and effort). Except for the socializing advantages to a fund drive, people could be doing more productive things. People have specialized skills nowadays. And if redistribution of resources is a good idea, why can’t the movers and shakers arrange that on their own? I am thinking of Texaco’s sponsorship of the Metropolitan Opera Saturday broadcasts (maybe not any longer).
Anyway, I think nonprofits are the shadow side of the “profits.”

Arg!

Blather!

I agree with the author’s observations; I can’t say that they sound novel.

If there was one significant positive action suggested during the hour I missed it.

We’re not slaves to the past. Could it have happened another way? Of course, but it didn’t.

What form of government?

I think if the regulating principle of Plunder if Necessary; Plunder as if tomorrow you die — that principle is not part of government, and that principle can be replaced without having a full-blown scheme in mind. No revolution necessary. People will effect the change by themselves if the necessity becomes apparent.
I agree that that Rushkoff doesn’t have the answers. But he has a lot of the questions. There are lots of good links to his book in the intro up top that were helpful to have read the night before.

David — Time to pick up Jack Bogle’s book (he was the founder and CEO of Vanguard, remember?) A “good capitalist” and a wise man, he writes about having “Enough.”

All of us need to stop seeing the world in terms of either/or. Capitalism on a leash is a plus to our lives. The leash, though, is really important, not only around capitalism’s neck but around consumers’ necks. We’ve been falling all too willingly into the consumerist (and “financial services”) trap.

Think of all the bad stuff we could put an end to if we stopped supporting corporations so eagerly with our credit cards, or simply did so much more selectively. Think of the pleasure of deflating lobbyists and their corrupt legislative targets by buying much less or none of what their employers want to sell us.

>>>>There needs to be a complete reorganization of the way Americans think about work, consumption, energy, environment, and debt.

Moments of reorganization are also moments of peril, the formation of the Soviet Union being a case in point. I think that what makes a happy society is a complex combination of factors, more like a healthy ecosystem than a work of landscape architecture, and we should beware of thinking that approaches something as complex as an ecosystem with the artist or designer’s controlling eye. Tinkering and adjusting tends to work better than grand ideas that are intellectually seductive.

Mr. Rushkoff, You say what I’ve been TRYING to say since 1967!!! AND, you say it backing up your points with historical research that I SO appreciate hearing about!!! From all that I know, not from economic history, but from ART history, what you presented about the Middle Ages and Renaissance makes PERFECT sense — in fact, it explains things that didn’t quite make sense with previous explanations!

I contend that the Walmart economy has only made the inner cities of America even POORER. When local businesses couldn’t compete with subsidized (at least in terms of tax deals) big businesses, they went out of business, leaving their communities with no local jobs for parents, for teenagers, etc. Sadly, I contend, the illegal drug economy swooped in to replace the former rich economy and life-services of inner city businesses. I wonder if you agree?

I desperately miss the days of my childhood when neighbors walked down the street to visit, just walking in the unlocked door and announcing their presence, literally with “yoo hoo”! But, many of our “liveable cities”, smaller in scale or with “neighborhood” housing, are NOT as liveable now because of many of the factors you speak about. Most particularly, people have grown so insulated into themselves that large numbers of people are unable to see how their noise, made extremely loud thru modern technology, infiltrates OTHER people’s lives in ways not experienced decades ago. The aggression of the noise (from music & motors & exhaust pipes) is the OPPOSITE of sharing, in part because it is NOT about sharing, it is about the narcissism of the individual — a stance learned thru the underlayment of the economic system we live under AS YOU SO BRILLIANTLY DISCUSS!!!

You held your own against a caller’s deeper belief in the benevolence of Capitalism (how often is it considered “benevolent” just because it prevailed? I personally prefer the “mixed” economies of the Scandinavian countries, if we limit choices to today’s world). Studying African-American and Native-American history, I can attest that the Capitalism and the Colonialism that propelled this history were NOT benevolent. I can follow historically how our family’s Capitalist owners, with grants from King Charles II of England, prospered, while millions of MY ancestors’ ancestors, African and indigenous American, died in these twin processes. I wonder, do Americans from different races hear your arguments differently?? THANKS SO VERY MUCH! I can’t wait to buy the book FROM MY LOCAL, INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLER!!!

I like the general direction proposed by Rushkoff and would commend everyone to look at initiatives in the Global South that experiment at the pain of extinction with alternatives to corporate capitalism. Think about cities like Curitiba or Porto Alegre, Brasil. Or even the horribly maligned Bolivarian experiments in Venezuela. Interestingly, however, Tom Ashbrook never ever engages the most fully developed critique of corporate capitalism… i.e. that provided by the Marxian tradition. Whatever its limits, it avoids some of the anti-modernism inherent in Rushkoff’s approach. One conversation to follow that engage liberal, feminist and Marxian analyses is the upcoming conversation with Venezuela’s UN ambassador: http://encuentro5.org/home/node/96

If people wanted to live the way Rushkoff yearns for they would. But, in general, they don’t. It’s a result of liberty.

For all you here who want to live more communally nothing is stopping you, just do it. My guess is that freedom isn’t enough for you, you really want to force the rest of us into your collectivist utopian phantasy.

And we didn’t need this derivative book in the first place, this topic was covered in Bowling Alone a few years ago. Really a waste of radio time.

Was the Gippers favorite quotee, Jon Winthrop’s “shining city on the hill ” one of these “collectivist utopian fantasies “?

great show but alittle hard to wish to follow him and his idea when he said him and his wife hired a latate specialish to help them.

but the rest was good, maybe that story he can leave out next time he talks since it kinds of show him to be a hypocrite.

“For all you here who want to live more communally nothing is stopping you, just do it. My guess is that freedom isn’t enough for you, you really want to force the rest of us into your collectivist utopian phantasy.” from Bellcurve, above, 11:59 a.m.

Dear Bellcurve, On a daily basis, I TRY to reach out “communally”. Try as I might, articulate as I may be about my motives to join up with people in various activities, the over-arching economic/social system prevails. Altho I may have an “aesthetic preference” for a less corporate world, I really ACT out of my own needs, based on being a single individual living with a disabling and deadly disease. Having SEEN what things were like for my grandparents, when things were just that much LESS “corporate”, I can tell you: they did not have to try so hard to so little avail!!! How isolated I am as an ill individual is SHAMEFUL; and the shame is NOT on me — I try every single day to improve my circumstances, but I am NOT large enough in this over-scaled country! This author is correct about the social consequences of our underlying economic system!

One more point from Chris, June 2, 12:35 p.m., Re: Bellcurve’s comment:

AND, I do NOT believe that Mr. Rushkoff if asking us to live “communally”. To say so is putting his argument into an either/or vice-grip!

One more point from Chris, June 2, 12:35 p.m., Re: Bellcurve’s comment:

AND, I do NOT believe that Mr. Rushkoff if asking us to live “communally”. To say so is putting his argument into an either/or vice-grip!

Posted by Chris

He just wants us to be limited to poorer neighborhoods all sharing one BBQ at the end of the street. Becuase if we’re not limited, we all move out, just like his parents did.

I am remembering a heated disillusionment with The System during the Vietnam era, which came up with the “communal” idea, and indeed many communes, sort of kibbutzim, if that is the word, sort of self-regulated and self-sustaining groups. They were not communist, not especially religious, sometimes purportedly given over to marijuana growing and smoking rather much, and rebellious to the extent of not paying taxes if at all possible. Into this semi-vacuum came a need for authority, and figures like the Dalai Lama shone. Namaste, peace. Live off the land. The Whole Earth Catalog told you how.
In this instance the brokenness of the system is more at issue. You don’t stand outside; you try to hold up the tent. To that end, I did just contribute to my public radio station, by the way, though I am frustrated at the lack of even-handedness we get when nonprofits like NPR broker so much of what we need — and corporations “broker” so much that they want us to THINK we need.
Chris, as one with multiple chemical sensitivities and heavy metal toxicity, with allergies to foods at all sweet or sour or nonfresh, as one not disabled but not “able” in the normal sense — my immune system is weird — I probably have some of your perspective. The system is designed to try to “remainder” people who don’t exactly fit what the advertisers (corporate America) wants — wants us to want. People are supposed to go in predictable herds, I think, per the statisticians.
A few generations has brought huge change: flush toilets, phones… Now, in a nation needing to “move” together, we find ourselves fragmented in some ways, as this show points out. Even people thoroughly over-programmed, going from meeting to meeting, can apparently feel isolated. “Don’t you?” People can be pretty manipulative in making you think you have to be with them to be “good,” and that leaving you alone is some sort of punishment. Solitude (in the right social matrix) is powerful, I say.

Take a look at Niall Ferguson “Ascent of Money”. Modern American neoliberal Protestant Adam Smithian capitalism is as much a social construct as constitutional democracy. It wasn’t found on Mount Sinai under a burning bush. Like all sharp tools, when the kiddies get a hold of it they can drive it off a cliff (to mix a metaphor).

Thanks for your thoughts, Ellen D.! I think you hit the nail on the head….that feeling of being “remaindered”!!! It is VERY real! A depressing condition to point out, but THANK YOU for the OBSERVATION because CLEAR perceptiveness of a shared situation DOES help! I used to enjoy my Solitude, but an excess of it can become Isolation and includes being isolated from being able to be the one who HELPS! (My volunteer work does not remedy this because it comes cloaked in privacy issues!)

By the way, you MAY be allergic to some of the INACTIVE ingredients in any medicines you might take. I am very worried about the governmental AND corporate emphasis on generics in medications; there are several generics I cannot take because the INactive ingredients either cause me allergies and/or interact with other medications. Sometimes there is sorbitol and/or aspartame involved. Because of one of the active ingredients in one of my medicines, I cannot go near balsamic vinegar (only balsamic!). You mentioned sweet & sour, perhaps these suggestions will help!!! Best wishes to you!

To Chris — my bane is the mold Candida, which is in sweet/sour foods, allergy to which supposedly is very hard to cure in people with heavy metals.
I figured out for myself last June that the detox foot patches used in China (and sold here) when put on my shoulder (I had gotten frozen shoulder/very bad neck), are an awesome panacea for me. I have used them since then every day, and they are supposed to take out toxins, not cure muscle spasms, but I’ll take it. It’s better than massive codeine that still doesn’t help, and as time goes on now, I am little by little figuring things out. Doctors only know so much, mostly about costly cures that the best insurance won’t cover.
But I worry a lot that the world is getting more toxic for everyone. Aspartame can indeed trigger (for me) spasms, and the red color in antihistamine — mostly I have lived with a sort of flighty dizzy feeling at the best of times.
I think overheated electronics (wood chippers are the worst) were my last straw when I worked over several years in bad ventilation.
I think I am getting healthy (square one, the foot patches — tourmaline) at very long last.
I too found volunteering — with children — very rewarding until my work-work gobbled up my time.
Best wishes.

Ellen D., Have you checked with a physical therapist (especially one really knowledgeable about the spine! – they are not all as equally well-versed on this important part of the body, but some have extra degrees in manual work on the spine!) for your neck? Your frozen shoulder MAY have caused your muscles to spasm on whichever side of your body was affected, and then the spasms may have pulled the vertebra(e) in that area ever-so-slightly out of alignment??? This can cause really subtle pain and exhaustion that is NOT detected as coming from that area of the body!!! And, perhaps you know about this, I don’t, but a friend said that there is a form of therapy for heavy metals called “chelation”. Perhaps this is what you referred to when you spoke of expensive treatments not covered by insurance (hope not!). I wonder if you’ve seen a PT for the frozen shoulder, too. They know a lot more about it now than even 15 years ago! Best!

What struck me most while listening to the Rushkoff segment was not the author’s commentary nor his conclusions although both were thought provoking.

Instead it was how rarely any serious examination of our prevailing capitalist/corporate model occurs in any public forum.

Given the many and profound influence that that structure exerts upon our daily lives one would think that “getting it right” would be our constant shared concern.

Instead, while peripheral issues and side effects of corporate capitalism may elicit regular discussion the correctness of the underlying model itself is almost never brought into question.

It would be refreshing to really start questioning what is is we truly want from life and how best to attain it, rather than subjugating our expectations to some structure that is ultimately of our own creation.

Great and smart comments here.

I definitely understand how people might think I’m calling for the end to all corporate activity and the erection of an alternative. When actually all I’m asking us to consider is the development of a few alternatives to outsourcing our commerce, exchange, and value creation entirely to corporations.

Yes, we are “free” to do this – but it’s currently more expensive to purchase goods from local merchants, to grow food beyond Big Agra, and to do a lot of what we might want to accomplish otherwise. And I’d argue this is not because the larger corporations have exploited efficiencies of industrialization, but laws and financial institutions that are tilted towards their interests.

I’m not against people forming their own corporations – not at all. Or developing commerce. I’m all for it. Especially when they are creating value and transacting it with others.

Problem is, most larger corporations that have gone public are no longer in the game of creating value – they are servicing debt structures, and required to grow at rates that are utterly disconnected from the demand for their products. Sustainability is not an option – only growth is. And this mandate for growth is part of what leads them down paths that extract value at all costs.

I’m asking people to consider their dependency on these institutions, and to look at when their individual and collective interests are actually being served, and when they are not.

Indeed, we live in a free country, relatively speaking. And this means we have the ability to consider and enact some alternatives. If we feel our lives would be more enriched as a result.

But this may actually work against the DowJones Industrial Average and the GNP – the chief metrics we currently use as measures of economic health.

Ask-Y, I think McCarthyism and the abhorrence of all things Communist still put a kind of vise, a tourniquet, on productive debate on capitalism.

Chris, I went to all the physical therapists etc. for a decade, only getting worse. All of that was time consuming, costly for Blue Cross, and discouraging for me. Chelation, you’re exactly right, is the proposed medical solution, and Blue Cross won’t cover the tests for heavy metals in the body, nor the chelation to get it out. I could be spending afternoons doing that for years, costly something like $140,000. And then removing all my silver amalgams — many thousands more. The tourmaline is supposed to boost circulation. It is related to acupuncture meridians in some way. I think the fact the shoulder trigger points continued so many years means my body needs almost nonstop retraining, and the tourmaline does it nonstop. The best PT can’t do that. If the tourmaline is also sort of chelating me, for a dollar a day, hey, I’ll run my doctors out of business. I am pretty sure they are trying to learn Chinese and Japanese the better to understand how this works for me. (Tongue in cheek comment.)
Apologies to the capitalist conversation for the diversion.

Thanks for posting Rush. Will the book be in audio form?

This guest put much into words that I have been trying to express, as did David Simon on Bill Moyer’s Journal last week. If this program reached you, then take the time to listen to a very powerful POV about our society, how we got there, and why.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04172009/profile.html

I “ditto” the apologies for the diversion, and “ditto” the thanks to Mr. Rushkoff for his comment!

When Mr.Rushkoff mentioned that they hired a lactate specialist to help his wife with breast feeding I almost lost it. What a load of crap. I listened to the program but I have no respect for this man. What kind of people hire such a person? For the love of God if a woman can’t figure out how to breast feed her child then something is wrong. My wife did it without any troubles, after the baby was born while she was still in hospital the nurses helped with this. Mind you this was in Scotland which has a national health service so we had excellent care in the first two months. Weekly visits from the midwife and all that.

His take on the Middle Ages was a bit much considering that he was generalizing. He forgot to mention that the average height for a Viking was about 4′5″. He also failed to mention that in some areas, such as northern climes growing food was not a very lucrative way of making a living. I was skeptical of his historical knowledge of this period.

I do however agree with his thesis that our capitalist and economic system is failing. I personally think that the corporate world is at war with the American population, it’s all about the bottom line and how productive people are. In some of the more advanced European countries such a France and Germany people have paid vacations of up to a month a year. Maternity leave and so on. Our country on the other hand looks at this as a waste. Which I think is a huge mistake. People need vacations to refuel. They need leisure time a lives outside of work. Our model is brutal and spit people out like so many cow pats.

Thank you Mr.Rushkoff for responding on the forum its very rare that a guest does this, your a good egg!

I agree with this statement, and this lines up with how I think we now have adversarial conditions in this country between the corporate and the populous.

Problem is, most larger corporations that have gone public are no longer in the game of creating value – they are servicing debt structures, and required to grow at rates that are utterly disconnected from the demand for their products. Sustainability is not an option – only growth is. And this mandate for growth is part of what leads them down paths that extract value at all costs.

Yes, we are “free” to do this – but it’s currently more expensive to purchase goods from local merchants, to grow food beyond Big Agra, and to do a lot of what we might want to accomplish otherwise. And I’d argue this is not because the larger corporations have exploited efficiencies of industrialization, but laws and financial institutions that are tilted towards their interests.

I also agree with the above statement as well. A very good example is how we raise livestock in this country. We are the only country as far as I know who use the feed lot model. If you buy lamb from New Zealand it spent most if it’s life eating grass. Same with most cattle in most countries.

Here we feed them corn which causes a lot of problems for a whole host of social and economic issues. From the agricultural stand point cows don’t eat corn, it’s bad for their digestive system and as a result our beef producers feed these animals massive amounts of antibiotics. This is an unsustainable model for raising cattle and in the end will most likely collapse.

Personally I think we need to get back to local farms if that is at all possible. I also think the idea of a lot of community run gardens is also a good idea. The more we grow our own food the better. If you have lawn rip it up and plant flowers and vegetables.

I have been a small manufacturer for 23 years now and during this period I have seen EVERY SORT OF INDEPENDENT dealer of Toys to Books to Shoes to Hardware go out of business because the banks ONLY LEND MONEY TO THE MAJORS. The banks never support an independent any longer. As a result, there are exactly 1/10th the number of independent dealers left and droves of Mall chains and Big Block stores that sell nothing different than the one across the boulevard.

What this does is limit creativity. New ideas DO NOT start out at Walmart or Target, they start out at the smaller, more creative and personal, independently owned shops. EVEN IF ONE OF THE MAJORS placed an order with you, you would not ba able to afford to produce it or survive with their terms of payment. Seen any new toys lately? Any new gadgets? Any really creative and new books that are not repeating some success already out there?

30 years ago, when a comic book was published in the USA, tens of thousands were printed. This was because there were corner stores, magazine stands, and lots of small dealers who sold them. Today, 30 thousand is an excellent run because you can only buy them at a “Comic Book Store” and there are less than one thousand left – plus the few that Borders/B&N sells. On the other hand, when a comic is published in the Middle East to Indonesia, 600-900 thousand are printed because they still have the corner shops and small neighborhood shops where people see it. If you don’t see it, you don’t buy it.

I miss the intimacy of small owner – independently owned shops where the conversation and advise you received was as important as the purchase you were making.

We have sold out the common man – that’t you and me.

Nick

“The thing we call the free market is a landscape created for corporations….”

Douglas Rushkoff is stating the very same case, in detail, that I have been sermonizing about for the past twenty years.

I have witnessed the evaporation of community and family, in America, over some four plus decades of observation as a journalist concentrating on the Arts and their function as catalysts for diverse groups coming together in participation, collaboratively.

“Lactation consultants”. This one really got to me.
The most natural thing in the world must be bought, with money, in order to “flow”.

We can do so much better. WE. Not just you, alone, or the almighty “I” operating in competitive self interest.

Thanks again,Tom. Great guest, excellent interview!

I would also like to rephrase the “no respect” comment.
I still am dumbfounded by this kind of urban upper middle class response to what should be a natural thing, breast feeding. As I reread my hastily written comment I reflected on the issue. The fact that the Rushkoff’s hired a lactate specialist really speaks more to a type of disconnection we can experience in our modern world.

It’s the same disconnection that we have with our food.
The other day I read an article about small butchers in some areas of New York City were they have live animals that you can pick out for food. Goats and chickens are the staple here and they are catering for the Muslim and West Indian costumer. I like this myself, nothing better then looking your diner in the eye.

I just listened to Rushkoff’s interview, and he made a startlingly inaccurate historical claim.

Rushkoff claims that companies like the EIC and VOC grew out of a bargain between aristocrats and merchants – that the merchants were granted monopolies backed up by armed force, and that people could no longer use non-corporation goods.

There are a number of historical inaccuracies here.
1. The joint stock company was created to reduce the element of *huge* risk involved in overseas trade in the 1600s, not for strictly monopolistic purposes.
2. They were created in a period when monarchical power was already being aggrandized and entrenched, not when aristocrats were grasping to retain power.
3. Families served as production units way into the 19th century (that is, they produced quite a bit of the goods they consumed). They would most certainly have been able to make and use or barter the ropes they needed, for instance.
4. Monarchs, even around the 16th centuries, simply would not have had the military or naval power to protect overseas trade. The EIC basically ran itself and provided its own arms until 1857. The English and Dutch, the pre-eminent overseas trading and imperial powers, relied on privateers to do much of their naval enforcement.

“I have witnessed the evaporation of community and family, in America, over some four plus decades of observation as a journalist concentrating on the Arts and their function as catalysts for diverse groups coming together in participation, collaboratively”

This reminds of when in the summers, I would head to UPS late each day with my daughter and on the way home stop and get an ice cream or go swimming or whatever. After that, we would drive through the new mega-mansion developments to see all the new houses – all with 2/3 kids. We would drive through and not see one kid out playing or even cutting the lawn. It was like the entire neighborhoods were vacant – no one outside or talking to one or other.

Nick

Putney,

I shop at a small mom and pop Halal grocery store in my own neighborhood. I ride my bicycle to get to and from there.
Not a Muslim, myself, but I find the quality of the food to be excellent. Black and green Olives at 3.99 a pound? Perfectly ripe Avocados,.50 cents each? Chicken, beef (if you’re into meat) perfectly cut? At half the price of a Stop and Shop.
The service of the staff cannot be compared to that of a mega store. We know each other, by eye to eye contact, and actually enjoy the whole experience, together.
Check out your local Halal grocery. Promise, you will get an excellent deal if you are looking for good food and good neighbors at the same time.

I would love to hear Rushkoff’s opinion on Binary Economics. I will be ordering his book and hope that he touches alternitive capatilist systems such as Binary Economics in his book.

Mr. Rushkoff mentioned values but the book has to be read to see to what degree he refers.
The big reason for failures of any system of today is the lack of personal values. A dictatorship can be O.K. with a compassionate dictator. Our system emphasizes education for purpose of economic success but never refers to the most important job of all: PARENTHOOD
Sister Mary Rose McGready of Covenant House states: “I passionately believe the breakdown of the family unit is the single deepest ethical and moral challenge of our generation.”
By attending to this problem we should be successful in correcting a lot of societal ills regardless of the nature of the structure.

I have thought for a long time along the lines of Mr. Rushkoff’s analysis. How empty it is to have money and constant success the only goals of life. Once you have enough (which is really not that much by today’s American standards), there are so many more satisfying ways to savor life. Things can end up owning the owner, and I refuse to be enslaved. Life is good in the slow lane. There’s a lot of love and joy there. Thank you for your book and this show.

What an incredibly interesting guest.
But, Tom, please stop interjecting mmhmmm’s with your guests. It was so distracting today that I couldn’t stop counting them — I reached 31 before realizing the obsessive compulsive effect it was having on me.

Speaking of corporate law under the king (CLUK), Early into practice in the 1980s I had patient contemplating surgery informing me that their insurance told them that if the doctor would do the surgery in office they would reimburse @ 90% vs the usual 80. Result? Doctors expanded their overhead to capture market share. After doctors expanded, insurance walked in with managed care and authorizing only one doctor in five to be on the list to get paid… so who will take contract at 50%.

So my question? Do economics programs in high end ivy league schools teach it differently than the run of the mill state colleges that the children of the working middle class attend such that concepts as mentioned in Rushkoff’s interview are never touched upon significantl?

A) Has anyone come across the recent ploy whereby one of the HUGE health insurance companies has given over the administration of their clients’ prescriptions to a company that requires that rx purchases, to be the cheapest, must be bought at ONE particular HUGE corporate pharmacy, thus CUTTING OUT LOCAL, INDEPENDENTLY-OWNED PHARMACIES. How is this NOT cornering the market, or monopolistic, or anti-trust??? That would be as if my electric company (health insurance companies are somewhat like utilities, or perhaps they should be viewed as such) required I purchase a dishwasher ONLY from corporation X, or the price would sky-rocket!

B) Also, in my New England state, our governor is desperately hoping to lure BIG businesses by offering them HUGE tax breaks, as well as by offering their top salary earners income tax rates that mimic those of lower-income earners. He has been trying to do this for years, with no takers. His idea is STUCK, STUCK, STUCK!!! INSTEAD, I believe, he should ask our state legislature to enable towns to: 1) give real estate tax breaks to LOCALLY-owned SMALL businesses (which could be defined as such); 2) eliminate the inventory tax for locally-owned small businesses. With his plan, businesses come in, set up, get the benefits, then take the whole operation someplace even cheaper, having killed off the local competition: dead in the dust of ill-targeted tax breaks! Also, stimulating local, small businesses thru tax incentives, rather than doing the same for HUGE, non-local corporations, encourages business development throughout the entire geography of the state. Otherwise, only the workers who can live nearby or conveniently commute to the introduced corporation benefit, even tho every tax-payer in the state has to help with the subsidy.

Also, often better-educated people from outside the state are the ones who get hired by these new corps.. They come INTO the state, filling the vacancies, while the state residents who are the very ones footing the bill — for the tax breaks, the road construction, the eminent domain issues — don’t get hired, because, when a state is hurting, often the educational system is not at all sufficient. With the out-of-state workers come their kids, thus jolting demands upon the local school system. Guess who has to help pay for a new high school? The local, POSSIBLY less educated people whose local businesses went belly up because it wasn’t THEIR businesses or highest earners who got the tax breaks!!! The local former-business owners are now working as night-time supervisors at Burger King. Their family cannot afford the car or car insurance for their teenager to DRIVE to a job at the big corporation (IF the child could get hired), and since there is no longer a local downtown business district with lots of small businesses for kids to work at after school and in summers by just WALKING there, the kids realize they can “do their part” by dealing some “light” drugs on the side…mom and dad will never know! Also, that way the local kid can have as much status as the kids whose parents are the high-income earners at the new corporation, who, thanks to the state-given income tax break, have tons of extra money to buy THEIR kids a new LEXUS. It’s such a safe car!

I MEAN it. THIS is what’s happening!!!

Great show, Tom. I have to wonder what the author read to come to his conclusions about the late dark ages being a golden age for the free market. That’s fascinating and such a different story than what we know today.
I live in a small community in western Washington State (near Spokane). The story Douglas told of his Minnesotan friend from the PTA; well maybe this is the sign of a positive trend. I do feel compelled to shop locally, and that’s largely ingrained in me by my co-workers. I work at a community newspaper where there’s plenty of ’shop local’ discussion.

I caught most of this on the radio tonight. I was listening with fascination to Douglass Rushkoff tell me interesting and surprising things about the economy and that black hole of Western European history that we skim over in school and popular knowledge. But I didn’t get as much as I’d hoped to hear because Tom Ashbrook interrupted him mid utterance, bullied him to support incorrectly interpreted beliefs (incorrect partly because he didn’t listen to a complete sentence before starting his judgement). On the whole, it was one of the more appalling, bullying interviews I’ve heard outside Fox media.

Clue for TomL Having a guest doesn’t mean you have to agree with and stand behind everything your guest says. Giving them two, maybe even three whole sentences to flesh out a really novel concept that few, if any, people I know of have any real knowledge of isn’t dead air or a waste of time or complicit agreement. Let the guy get a word in edgewise.

Of course, this just means I need to go get the book, so at least one mission is accomplished. But could it have been any more painful to listen to? Yikes. Next time, let your guest make a point before you try to interpret and refute and refuse it. I might not be as tempted to turn you off in such a case.

Achk. TomL = Tom:

Now that I’ve read the other comments… I’ve long been concerned that corporations must “grow” to be seen as successful and “sustaining” is failure. It’s nuts. One can sustain in a way that keeps up with the times without having to grow. Growing for the sake of growth and not value is wasteful and Rushkoff is literally the first person I’ve heard say anything like it, ever, in mainstream media. His points about local economies growing when they added value make sense of a lot of things I never understood.

As to the people who can’t spell “lactation consultant” but seem to greatly disparage it? A lactation consultant can save a new mother months of trauma. S/he is a resource almost without price. I can tell you horror stories from my friends who attempted to breastfeed – roughly a third of them failed and more than half had severe complications at some point. It made me seriously wonder how humans live if so many babies and moms could fail to figure out eating for long enough to threaten their development. Without their expertise many more women would give up breastfeeding no matter how much they wanted to do it. They aren’t deserving of mockery or scorn. In a society where we’ve given up extended families and most close knit communities for independent nuclear families – whose members tend to then spread far away from home, we don’t have that built in support structure and knowledge base. It’s only sensible to find an expert and pay her when you don’t have access otherwise. For the record, my workaholic friend who double majored at one of the top engineering schools in the country and went back for an MBA while breastfeeding says that by far, breastfeeding is the hardest, most demanding thing she’s ever done. Being natural doesn’t make it easy.

Ok I’ve been riled by someone who’s wrong on the internet… Time to lay off the caffeine.

Do we need fewer professors and writers? Yes..when I was in college the average time a professor taught was less than 20 hours a week…the grad students did all the teaching..writers? too many producing books that nobody reads…always broke group of people looking for a handout…

Douglas Rushkoff was a boring guest. He talks in circles and in generalities rather than specifics. It was an uninteresting conversation. Mr. Rushkoff is too wordy and it takes him too long to cut to the chase.

CrankyOtter, I disagree and the idea that someone has to hire a “lactation consultant” is absurd. Breast feeding while it is not easy is a good idea. Instead of supporting such an absurd thing, why not look at the real issues that are being presented. The lack of good community health care. The fear of talking to your neighbors.

However if we had a decent health care system then this would not be a problem. My ex and I had our child in Scotland and we had a nurse/midwife who helped with this. She came to the apartment twice a week for the first two weeks and then once a week for a few more weeks so that she could make sure that we, as a young couple were doing alright. This person was an older woman in her late 50’s who had a wealth of knowledge from years of doing this one thing. We don’t have these people here. To my knowledge. This is good community health care. It’s good for everyone and most of all the baby.

The other issue is good maternity leave for both parents, not at the same time mind you. It seems in this country having a child is seen as an excuse to fire people. That families are a problem. Like I said the corporate entities are at war with us.

Putney Swope, If you had a nurse/midwife coming to your home, I believe you had a “lactation consultant”!!! IF the breastfeeding is NOT going well, the baby risks dehydration and starvation — these are QUICKLY matters of life & death — in a matter of days!! I DO agree with you about our health care system and often distant relationships with our neighbors.

I’ve never read that 10th through 13th centuries were terribly prosperous – the way I’ve heard it is that wages were going down until the plague made labor scarce.

And it’s just plain non-sensible to say that the lords and kings of this era had no way to raise revenue before currency. Ever hear of a “land lord”? These guys owned the land and took a portion of its output, by “sword and shield” if necessary. It was only after the plague reduced population by a third that farm labor gained mobility and could hunt for the best deal.

Here’s the most recent, but by no means the first, place I’ve read that description of the era:

http://www.amazon.com/British-Food-Extraordinary-Traditions-Perspectives/dp/0231131100

Well we also had formula, any parent who tries to breast feed without backup is a fool. Come on lets use some common sense here. Getting hysterical is a typical American response.

Bottom line is we have the worse record in the industrial world for child mortality.
American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan, and newborn mortality is 2.5 times higher in the United States than in Finland, Iceland or Norway, Save the Children researchers found.

Only Latvia, with six deaths per 1,000 live births, has a higher death rate for newborns than the United States, which is tied near the bottom of industrialized nations with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with five deaths per 1,000 births.

I did not hire the nurse/midwife, she was part of the NH system in Scotland. She came because she was mandated to. She was not a consultant and your statement tells me your so use to the “American” way of doing things that the very idea that a midwife would come to my home is put into the same realm of a “lactation consultant” who might be a nurse or might not be.

For one thing the she was not there only for breast feeding. She weighed the baby, made check ups and so on. I forgot to mention that my wife also stayed in the maternity ward for a week. They did not let you leave the hospital until it was clear that the baby was in good health. A week was the norm, sometimes more.

By contrast, we had some friends who had a child in the New York City around the same time. It cost thousands and the mother and baby were out of the hospital in a day.

About 1980, new mothers here would go to Lamaze classes, which taught natural childbirth, but created networks of women who then would pool themselves, so childcare groups could be held at a different home each day. My impression was those women supported each other on breastfeeding too, sharing what had come down to them.
In fact, to the extent “belonging” in a community takes place, mothering/parenting is so obvious a starting point that others are at a disadvantage. With these Lamaze mothers, they got a jump start by collaborating many months in advance.
If Douglas Rushkoff was not in a community with that, or an extended family that could help, I’m glad consultants can be had.
As to spelling, some are dyslexic, or plain challenged at it. We do not complain when someone on crutches goes crooked and slow so long as they get there. On this forum there is at least one whose spelling is a feat to behold but what he says is absolutely worth paying attention to. He isn’t stopped by — well, if you had to look up every word, not really having any idea of the first letter even, would you bother? I’ll take what we can get.

Putney Swope you are talking about something you don’t know anything about! If someone needs a lactation consultant then they need one! The baby needs one. The mother needs one. You yourself wrote that your family had frequent visits from a midwife. Why not say that hiring a midwife is ridiculous, that birthing is a natural process and a woman should do it all alone?

Mr. Rushkoff’s point was that in a more connected society we could have our friends and family over to help the new mother figure the nursing thing out. The problem is that nursing was pretty much stamped out in the 1950’s by corporate interest in selling cows milk and formula.

As to Mr. Ashbrook and his interruptions and bullying…all of this is part of keeping his guests “on point”…rather than offering them the opportunity to make a New Point, or perhaps something beyond a point(which after all is an imaginary, non-dimensional concept)…a Spiral, or a Circle, or Wave Formation…the whole “on point” direction is about herding into a pre-chosen direction. At least he has good guests, even if we have to listen between the lines to get to the multi-dimensionality some of them are capable of expressing.

Another note on the lactation consultant issue and what support is available after birth here. I had a baby 4.5 years ago in a major hospital in the northeast. We had about 48 hours in the hospital after he was born. (And this was an improvement over what the insurance companies want. 15 years ago when my niece was born, she and her mom got less than 24 hours in hospital before being sent home.) While the nurses did help me get started, our nursing issues did not become apparent until he was a little over a week old. We had no one coming to our house to check on us or the give advice. The advice I did get was from our Ped. at a 1 week check and he advised a consultant, who watched me nurse and saw that my baby was suckling with an ineffective tongue position. She also helped me find a nursing mother’s group where I got more help and support.

A few generations ago when nursing was routine, no doubt one would have gotten such advice from older relatives or neighbors. In the US, however, we are still recovering from a lengthy period when mothers were actively discouraged from nursing, and that lead to a dearth of practical knowledge in the general populace. None of my several neighbors nor my older female relatives nursed their babies. So we have to pay someone to help, and look outside our existing circle of friends for ongoing support. Which is the point??

With all due respect chas I had a child with my wife. I was there when the baby was born. I helped raise the child and would have days when it was my turn to look after the baby. I did not breast feed, the baby had formula and pumped breast milk. It’s common sense to have this on hand.

My point is that a lactation consultant is a sign of how absurd our American culture has become. We use to have midwives here. Doctors use to make house calls. To say I don’t know what I’m talking about shows me your more into hurling insults then reading the context to what I’m saying. It’s the system idiot.

Is a lactation consultant licensed? Are they trained?
What is a lactation consultant? Most likely this was a savvy midwife how used this kind of marketing gimmick to get upper class people to buy here services.

Sorry typo; Most likely this was a savvy midwife who used this kind of marketing gimmick to get upper class people to buy here services.

So a Scottish view is that Americans tend to be hysterical (unnuanced overreaction, I guess) — with example number one, on-line mode of hurling insults. It does spice things up, engage the gears, this American bravado. No snooze here.

This is a very large and interesting topic in an area where there is a *lot* to think about. Having quickly scouted the comments down to here, I’ve a bad feeling too many people don’t see such ideas as *starting points for more reading and thinking*. For my part, it’s too big an idea for me to say much about it here, but at a quick glance, I think it goes far to outline how today’s quite ugly world comes to be so. *Thanks* Douglas Rushkoff. — Martha Adams

A lactation consultant is most definitely not absurd.

Specialization is not absurd.

Overcoming nipple aversion takes a lot of time, work, knowledge, and patience; and none of our friends or their parents had the tools to help.

We found a great lactation consultant through our religious community.

Yeah the Americans on this forum are sure overreacting.
I’m not Scottish, I was living in Scotland at the time of my daughters birth. Case in point Ellen, your response is a good example of blind support for a guy who hurled insults without reading my statement. We had a child, I went through this, what part if this do you all not understand?

The bottom line is the health care system if you want to call it that, is in free fall and it’s not working at all.

This is the problem, the mere fact that one needs to hire a lactation consultant shows me that something is dreadfully wrong with how people have children and the care that new parents are given.

The hospital did provide a lactation consultant and other help during our stay.

Our child wouldn’t eat and we needed more help; thankfully there was someone available who could help us at our home.

“lactation consultant”

i agree with Putney Swope fully.

It is only logical to have some other form to feed your baby, people make it sound as if it is the only way.

just cause your a speacialist does not mean your services is not say silly, useless, or coud be done for free by someone else.

I see and saw working in child care when i was in collage parents(not all) wish to pawn all if not most of their responsibilities on others.

seen this time and time again with k to 5.

Putney, I was thinking of “hurling insults” from another day, various hours, not anything specific. I could go back and see who you think I was supporting and who hadn’t read what, but I think I’ll just say sorry for whatever: I see where you’re coming from; I get it; I’m not disagreeing with you either.
My mother nursed seven children till they were I think 9 or 10 months old. I think it made her peaceful to do so. I’m pretty sure she had no guidance and certainly no models. It was unheard of to nurse at that time in our town. She was proud of herself, and I am proud of her.
Families will be proud of being tough one and all, and all that. We are supposed to be like fine suits, “all wool but the buttons,” i.e., never needing help.
“Lactation consultant! Oh, my piteous daughter-in-law.” It’s fine music, this music of confidence and competence, at least until the music of “what do I do about this?” inevitably comes tripping in, this time with a smirk of “Et tu.” You too.

Ellen your not getting it. Your last comments I think is meant to be obnoxious, they also show you have no idea what I was talking about. Of course you can allude to other comments from other threads. I don’t really care quite frankly.

A “Lactation consultant” is or should be a midwife/nurse. You should learn this in the hospital, or you should have the option of one coming to your home as we did. My point was that the idea of hiring a “Lactation consultant” is symptom of how messed up health care is in this country. I’m never said people should figure this out by themselves. I had the good fortune to have access to good national health care system that had great child birth services.

I hope I cleared this up.

[...] Douglass Rushkoff talking about his new book and the idea that our current culture has been far too heavily influenced by corporations [...]

“I wish these “socal critics” went out and actually created wealth and jobs. These guys are a throw back to the 1960’s type of “do nothing” crowd.”

What is wealth? The $681 trillion worth of derivative trades, with no intrinsic value or substance, most of which, even the financial engineers who participated in its creation (exotic securities), don’t understand, let alone the general public. This market is worth more than ten times the gross domestic product of all the countries in the world combined.

A healthy economy is supposed to serve life. It’s not supposed to suck real wealth from the very people it’s designed to support as they find and create a way to provide for themselves. Our economy, or rather, the Wall Street culture, which has become so intrinsic to our economy, that without it, our economy is doomed, leeches real wealth from the many to “feed” and supply the few with more than they could use in 100 lifetimes.

Currently, we, the taxpayers – as we bail out Wall Street – are paying the price for allowing ourselves to be brainwashed, and for choosing, as David Koren calls it, “phantom wealth” over real wealth. As they say, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

*****I do however agree with his thesis that our capitalist and economic system is failing. I personally think that the corporate world is at war with the American population, it’s all about the bottom line and how productive people are. In some of the more advanced European countries such a France and Germany people have paid vacations of up to a month a year. Maternity leave and so on. Our country on the other hand looks at this as a waste. Which I think is a huge mistake. People need vacations to refuel. They need leisure time a lives outside of work. Our model is brutal and spit people out like so many cow pats.*****

Human are not being treated as human anymore, we are being treated as numbers and machines. Modern industrial machines are designed for NON-STOP production, so we as human are just another machines being used to operate machines.

Having only 2 to 4 weeks of vacation out of a year is brutal to our mind and body. Everything here in America is emphasized in “speed”. Just look at how we walk and talk now, so much faster than before the industrialization. No wonder today’s society is full of mental disorder, depression, anxiety, and self worth problems. We are being measured by how productive we are, why constantly produce and consume? Can we slow down. I found one of a helpful way to cleanse my mind is to try not to verbally talk so much and acting reactive, instead I write down my thoughts and listen more. Talking too much, especially some wasteful social talks is a distraction of having a clear and wise mind. I figured if I can’t afford to leave my job and pack my bag to physically go away for a while, then I am going to try to do that mentally. I started to pull myself away from the murky environment around me, observe, listen and not being too reactive, I started to see myself and the things around me with a clearer mind.

I am not suggesting everything would be just fine and perfect, they may never be, but it is a process of having a more peaceful then a murky mind. We all have to change ourselves before we try changing others.

Just some thought, I apologize if I go off the tangent too much.

Very good Mr. Rushkoff. It is extraordinarily hard to criticize fundamental pieces of the status quo, pieces that we are so ingrained in that we assume it’s the only way to be, without sounding like one is whining. For instance in early union days it was often part of a union organizer’s task to educate workers that they should even expect to have any better of a deal. In the days when workers owed their soul to the coal-company store, to think that one should be a free agent, free to leave a job without indebtedness to the company, take a job with another company if it was available, buy your groceries at whatever store you wanted, was almost unimaginable. I’d bet some who complained about it got the “stop your whining” from their fellows. So too when criticizing some of our economic policies today, so too with the points you’re making. But keep up the good work. It’s needed.

As to the caller who said Adam Smith assumed a Christian principle in people in a free-market, that’s exactly right. He taught and wrote more on morals than he did on economy. And he made it clear repeatedly in Wealth of Nations that the system worked not just based on people acting in self-interest, but moral people acting with moral self-interest. The “greed is good” saying would have him rolling over in his grave.

Oh, and…

It’s very hard to criticize when you don’t have all the answers. The existing system is a functional system (with a current downturn everyone wants to believe will just work itself out). You just know there is something better but everyone thinks you want to destroy the current functional system. If you can’t give a complete, detailed, believable plan on the spot they just dismiss your criticism all together. But it’s the highest calling, to try to imagine, to promote, to move human society in a direction so that 100 years from now it’s a little better off than if everyone just put their heads down and plowed along with the status quo. But it’s a heck of a swim upstream, isn’t it? Most people won’t hear that you want to start a process, to consider how things could be better, to have some public discourse on how that could be brought about, to try and experiment and fail and learn and work out a way to make things better. Even if in many ways they are good, why stop there? But most people just hear that you want to break what is functional. So maybe it would be good to emphasize that aspect, that you’re just trying to start a process, a dialog. That you don’t have all the answers and are just trying to point out how things could be better, and see if some ways can be found to move toward that, and that you are making a start by giving your suggestions and your lessons from your study of history.

to Tom Cantlon —

You have said the things I have felt for a long time, very interesting and subtle.

Your kind of observation requires highly having luxury of time, sensible thinking and be able to articulate those subtle thoughts,

And when majority of people are busy at getting their daily chores done, not having too much luxury to step back and think through things, that results clashes with this kind of subtle, sensible observations. That’s why pointing out the negative side of current systems is not enough for most people, most of us are adapting to current system good or bad,and most people would tell us to adapt or suck it up, otherwise we can be being viewed a “whiners”.

This economy melt down is a wake up call for all modern financial system. How long will it last, it’s up to all of us.

[...] 6, 2009 in Books, Business, Reading | Tags: Books After listening to Everything Incorporated | WBUR and NPR – On Point with Tom Ashbrook, i really want to read “Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It [...]

Oh, thank God (or whomever you choose to believe or not believe in) that there are people out there listening to this program and discussing it with such passion. It gives me hope for the American society that people are still out there thinking instead of just buying!