Capitalism (Good & Bad) – Page 38 – Public Intelligence Blog

2002/12/132009/12/04

Review: The Politics of Fortune–A New Agenda For Business Leaders

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Public), Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Outstanding! Could Save the Business of America….,

December 13, 2002

Jeffrey E. Garten

The author, dean of the Yale business school, has rendered a most valuable service to the business leaders of America, and in the process opened the possibility that new forms of business education, new forms of business practice, and new forms of moral global governance might yet emerge in America.Originally inspired by the “double-whammy” of 9-11 and Enron on business–(the one costing America, by Fortune's estimate for businesses alone, $150B in additional security measures, or close to 1.5% of the Gross Domestic Product; while others suggest 9-11 has reduced profits by 5-6%), the author provides an easy to read, well-documented overview of why CEOs have to engage in rebuilding the integrity of business, protecting the homeland, preserving global economic security and free trade, taking on global poverty, and influencing foreign policy.

The author excells at pointing out, in the most gracious way possible, how all of the preconceptions of the current administration, and in particular its penchant for unilateralist military bullying, have proven both unworkable in achieving their intended results, while also unsuitable in being translated to economic gains. Military power does not translate into economic power or added prosperity.

This book is *loaded* with common sense and specific ideas for getting business leadership back into the global stabilization dialog. The author focused on two ideas that I consider to be especially important: the need to reexamine how the taxpayer dollar is being spent on national security, with a view to redirecting funds (I add: from military heavy metal to what Joe Nye calls soft power: diplomacy, assistance, intelligence); and on the urgency of restoring the independence and expanding the mandate of the U.S. Information Agency so as to overcome the acute misperceptions of the US fostered by Saudi-funded schools for youths being taught to hate, and little else.

The non-governmental organizations come in for special scrutiny, and the author has many good ideas, not only for promoting better business-NGO partnerships, but for auditing the NGOs and not ceding to them the moral high ground. As he points out, many organizations that oppose globalization or specific business practices do not have any standards or transparency with respect to who funds them, how decisions are made, and so on.

Finally, the author concludes with a focus on business education. While citing many improvements made by many schools, he notes that a comprehensive study and reengineering overall has not occurred since the late 1950's and early 1960's, and that the time is long past when graduate business education must be completely revamped. He is exceptionally astute and credible throughout the book as he explores the many things that CEOs need to know but do not receive training on, to include understanding and dealing with government, NGOs, citizen advocates, and the real world. As he notes, Master's in Business Administration tend to train students for the first years in the corporation, not the long-haul. He places some emphasis on the need to consider continuing education as an extension of the original program, and I immediately thought of an MBA as a limited-term license that must be renewed by recurring personal investments in education.

As someone whose opening lecture line to citizens and businessmen is “if the State fails, you fail,” I found this book extraordinarily valuable and urgent. We get the government we deserve. If citizens do not vote, if businessmen do not think of the larger social goods and social contexts within which they operate, then the government will prove incapable and at some point the party will be over.

Yale has always had an extra helping of morality and humanity; in this book the dean of the business school ably makes the case that business leadership and engagement in national security and global stabilization is the sine qua non for continued prosperity. He's got my vote–if I were a mature student looking for a place to learn, he's put Yale right at the top of my list.

2002/10/102009/12/04

Review: Airframe (Fiction)

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Catastrophe, Corruption, Culture, Research

Absorbing–Deep Insights Into Airline Safety,

October 10, 2002

Michael Crichton

If you are a frequent flyer, or afraid of flying, this is a riveting book that will easily cause several hours to pass and will have the added benefit of making you feel much safer as you fly.The author has done a really outstanding job of first understanding and then explaining to a lay person the enormous complexity and rigorous attention to detail that go into building and testing commercial aircraft, and investigating mishaps when they occur.

The minor plot elements aside (the usual cast of media mediocrities, intra-office back-stabbers, etc.), this book makes aircraft safety *exciting.* I was completely absorbed in what this author has put together, and highly recommend this book as an intelligent thriller with a practical foundation.

2002/10/102009/12/04

Review: Nickel and Dimed–On (Not) Getting By in America

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Economics, Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Photography Books (Countries)

If You Can Afford to Eat Out, You Need This Book,

October 10, 2002

Barbara Ehrenreich

This is an extraordinary book that every American who can afford to eat out, or rent a video, or visit a doctor, should be required to read.I had no idea just how irrelevant the “poverty” line as a measure of true poverty–nor did I realize how constained people are, the 60% of America that earns less than $15 to $20 an hour, in seeking out other options.

The author does a really effective job of investigating and communicating the horrible realities of life where…managers and corporate regulations and plain meanness deprive hundreds of thousands of people of things many of us take for granted: the right to go to the bathroom, to pause for a few minutes, even to sit down quietly for a few minutes in a clean room.

Especially admirable is her focus on rent and the conditions that are imposed on the poor and lower working class (between minimum wage and $15 an hour)–not having enough money for a deposit, being forced to pay outrageous rents for decrepit motel rooms rented by the week, having to spend a precious working day finding a place to stay, etcetera.

This is a very valuable book, both from the perspective of someone who might benefit from a little humility and gratitude for their blessings and advantages; and from a policy point of view–our understanding of poverty and welfare and what it takes to allow decent hard-working people to have a *life* appears to be terribly, terribly flawed. As the author documents so ably, it is not enough to have a job in America, you need to have one that pays enough to cover rent, food, and medicine.

I was especially moved by the many details the author provided on how life at the lower levels brings on more and more hardships–not enough money for good shoes, bad shoes causing major spinal and related injuries and pain. The pain–the endless hours, the desperation for aspirin and other pain killers, cigarettes as the least expensive narcotic for the pain–this is very powerful stuff.

At a minimum, this book changes how I will evaluate politicians that speak in ignorance about welfare and poverty and safety nets–and it is going to substantially increase how much I tip and how I tip–from 15% to 25%, and in cash… This might be a good time to think of ourselves, and follow the Golden Rule–our welfare system should be what we would want it to be if we were the ones asking for welfare.

2002/07/312009/12/04

Review: Crashing the Party–Taking on the Corporate Government in an Age of Surrender

5 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Politics

“Must Read” Indictment of Both Major Parties,

July 31, 2002

Ralph Nader

I was among those who thought Ralph Nader was a “spoiler” and deprived Al Gore of the election. After reading this book, I now realize that Nader is correct-the major premise of his book is that both the Democratic and Republican parties have become so corrupt and so removed from citizen interests as to be identically disqualified from putting forward viable candidates for the future. He puts forth a vision for a new democracy in which the citizens take back the power and demand that third party candidates be allowed to join the Presidential debates and be heard by America.Some will accuse Nader of name-dropping and self-aggrandizing in this book, but that is an unfair charge. He has dedicated 40 years of his life to a quest for fairness in American life. As I went through the book and reflected on his very early efforts on everything from women's rights to product safety to the environment I could not help thinking that the breadth and substance of his accomplishments make the Democratic and Republican candidates look like Johnny-come-latelys who are also bluffing snake oil salesmen. This guy is “the real deal.”

I recommend that two books be read prior to reading this one: Halstead & Lind's “The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics” and Ray & Anderson's “The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People are Changing the World”. Two other books could add useful underpinnings to the points Nader makes that I summarize below: Lewis' “LOSERS: The Road to Everyplace but the White House” which immortalizes citizen-businessman Morry Taylor (the “Grizz”); and Williamson's “IMAGINE: What America Could be in the 21st Century.”

A few points about Nader's book that I hope will dispel all the negative reviews and demonstrate that this is required reading:

1) This is the only book that addresses the totality of the challenges and threats to America in a sensible balanced way, without platitudes and upon a foundation of fact.

2) This is the only book representing the new political paradigm in which the citizen-voters take back the power by wiping out the ability of corporations to buy politicians.

3) This is the only book that thoughtfully and convincingly demonstrates that the Democrats have morphed into shadow Republicans, and both parties have completely lost their ethical and popular foundation.

4) This is the only book that bluntly confronts the fact that we get the government we deserve–democracy is hard work and demands citizen time and thought.

5) Among the useful details that should outrage and mobilize citizens, and all according to Nader:

a) the Commission on Presidential Debates is a fraud perpetrated upon the public–it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic and Republic parties created explicitly to displace the more honest League of Women Voters and to bar third party candidates from being visible to America in the crucial Presidential debates.

b) there is an incestuous relationship between the media, the polls (most funded by the media) and the Presidential debate and public policy process.

c) global threats are not well-understood by Americans, and a major effort spanning the next generation must be undertaken to restore global or foreign affairs and foreign trade understanding to the public.

d) public budgets are neither public nor honest. They are massively distorted with a “proliferating array of taxpayer subsidies, giveaways, and bailouts (known as corporate welfare) to corporations.” A recurring theme in Nader's book, based on factual legally-viable documentation, is the manner in which corporations are looting the commonwealth with the active connivance of our elected officials. The people need to wise up.

e) the Internet has *not* has the anticipated leveling effect of bringing out citizen-voters to take back the power and stop corporate socialism.

f) the non-profit organizations and popular organizations (e.g. the Sierra Club, the AFL-CIO) consistently misrepresent their members by choosing the “lesser of two evils” in the two traditionalist corporate candidates, not realizing that a) a lesser evil is still evil and b) their members are smart enough to consider third party alternatives and could–if enough such organizations banded together, cause a third party to be instantly visible as a mainstream alternative.

g) the public commonwealth (the airwaves, land, water, etc.) has been taken away from the people. It is time to get it back and demand, as one small example, that those using the airwaves granted by the public provide for free political time for all viable candidates, ending the advertising rip-off that also deprives the people of clear access to all competing views.

h) community building from the neighborhood up is the place to start. We need to focus on empowering and exciting the young people and building a cadre of volunteer civic activists that will sustain progressive public interests for the decades to come.

I would make one personal observation that was inspired by reading this book: I do not believe that any one President, from any party, is viable as a “one click” choice for leading America. In my view, the next President should not be elected without two fundamental changes in how we elect Presidents: 1) instant run-off voting must be enacted, allowing second choice votes to play a role if a third party candidate is not elected (while qualifying the third party for funding in future elections based on the first choice vote); and 2) Cabinets must be announced in advance of the election and be the focus of at least one Presidential debate including at least three but ideally four parties. It is time for a third party candidate to pull together a Cabinet that includes the best choice for key posts irrespective of parties, and specifically including the Pat Buchanan's, Sam Nunns, Colin Powells, and key others like Ross Perot, Morry Taylor, even Jello Biafra (as new Minister of Culture!).

This is really a superb book, in the tradition the Committees of Correspondence that helped bring about the American revolution, and I recommend it to all.

2002/05/292010/10/16

Review: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Electoral Reform USA, Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Greg Palast

Let Freedom Ring–Truths the Corporate Thieves Can't Hide

May 29, 2002

The most distressing aspect of this book, written by an American expatriate publishing largely through newspapers in the United Kingdom, is that all of this information should have been published in U.S. newspapers in time to make a difference–to inform the voting public–but was not. One can only speculate how corrupt our media have become–how beholden to their owners and advertisers–if we cannot get front page coverage of the Florida government's disenfranchisement of over 50,000 predominantly black and democratic voters, prior to the presidential election; or of the raw attacks on our best interests by the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and others linked in a “trigger” network where taking money from one demands all sorts of poverty-inducing and wealth theft conditions.

Even more timely are his stories about the current Administration continuing a practice of the former Administration, spiking, curtailing, forbidding intelligence investigations into Saudi Arabian government funding of bin Laden's terrorism as well as Pakistani production of the “Islamic” atomic bomb.

His exposes of corporate misdeeds, some criminal, some simply unethical, all costing the U.S. taxpayer dearly, are shocking, in part because of their sleaziness, in part because our own newspapers do not dare to fulfill their role as envisioned by the Founding Fathers, of informing and educating the people of this Nation upon which the government depends for both its revenue and its legitimacy.

Although I take this book with a grain of salt (wondering, for example, why he did not ensure that Gore's campaign had all that he could offer in time to challenge the vote disenfranchisement as part of the Supreme Court case), there is enough here, in very forthright and sensible terms, to give one hope that investigative journalism might yet play a role in protecting democracy and the future of the Republic.

AA Mind the Gap — Vote and/or Comment on Review

2002/03/282009/12/04

Review: George Soros on Globalization

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad)

Advanced Serious Thinking, But Still Elitist,

March 28, 2002

George Soros

This is an easy to read common sense book that absorbs and addresses some of the criticisms of the World Trade Organization, speaks to the weakness of the International Labor Organization, and proposes the equivalent of a global Marshall Plan, but as a multi-national initiative. It is essential reading at a time when too many politicians do not yet make the connection between terrorism and what George Soros has called “the other axis of evil: poverty, disease, & ignorance.”At a time when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is treating anti-globalization activists as just one step under terrorists (in one recent case denying a Canadian activist entry to the U.S. to honor an invitation to speak at a U.S. university), George Soros' is easily the most responsible and the wealthiest voice cautioning all of us that the combined forces of globalization (which reduces citizen sovereignty) and consumerism (which reduces citizen prosperity) could be the death knell of capitalism.

I am reminded of how the U.S. Secret Service ran amok against so-called “hackers” (the best of them trained at MIT and now multi-millionaires) because it did not understand that hackers are like astronauts, pushing the edge of the envelope, and it did not understand that it was the U.S. communications and computing industry that was criminally negligent in offering the consumer and the government a national information infrastructure that was incredibly fragile and full of security holes. It was industry that failed to exercise due-diligence, and it was hackers that exposes these flaws well in advance of the Y2K panic. The anti-globalization activists, Lori Wallach among them (and she has clearly influenced Soros in this book) are the 21st Century hackers for world peace and prosperity.

Globalization and consumerism threaten billions of Arabs, Chinese, Indians, Muslims, and Russians around the world–and thus they threaten us as well. Although many brilliant minds foresaw these challenges in the 1970's, among them those speaking to the limits to growth, sustainable growth, and the need for new forms of world governance, it is only after 9-11 that the world appears ready to listen to George Soros and others who understand that we cannot continue to emphasize short term corporate profit over long term citizen survival.

His proposals for Special Drawing Rights are helpful, and merit adoption. It is with a little concern, however, that I see his concession to “elite” management of these remedial resources. I lean toward the view that the people are now both informed and connected, and that we must empower down to the neighborhood level if we are to restore civil society around the world (this includes no longer supporting repressive governments for the convenience of our corporations), so there is still a gap between Soros and the natural leaders down in the ranks with the people.

Thomas Jefferson said that “A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry.” Justice Brandeis said that the greatest threat to a nation's liberty is “an inert citizenship.” George Soros may be said to be the first and foremost educator and leader on the critical matter of whether of whether or not this Nation might yet surmount great challenges of its own making.

2002/03/282009/12/04

Review: The WTO (Open Media Pamphlet Series)

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad)

People's Primer on Main Obstacle to Self-Governance,

March 28, 2002

Lori Wallach

Lori Wallach has got to be on her way to a Nobel Prize. She has hit an exposed nerve of the corporate system, and illuminated it in a manner that moves tens of thousands. This book, a very short version of a much longer study, is very cogent and well-documented. The bottom line is clear: the WTO operates in secrecy, for the convenience of corporations, and is systematically undermining and overturning higher standards of protections and sanctions related to the protection of children, public safety, and the environment.It merits comment that Wallach (and her lesser known co-author, Michelle Sforza) would never have reached as many people with their thinking in the absence of the Open Media Pamphlet Series. This series is addictive, brilliant, and consistently cuts to the heart of major issues.