Underground Knowledge — A discussion group discussion

Excerpt from INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$: The Global Banking Elite Exposed and the Case for Restructuring Capitalism:

Clearly, many of the issues in this book are related to capitalism. With its profits-over-people agenda, capitalism has unfortunately spawned a monster that’s now out of control.

The free enterprise concept inherent in the economic model of capitalism should mean common people, or lower and middle class wage-earners, have greater potential to rise up and gain financial independence. In reality, however, free enterprise all too often leads to an almost total lack of government regulation that in turn allows the global elite to run amuck in Gordon Gecko-style financial coups.

Even if capitalism is the best economic system in theory – which it probably is – the type of corporatocracy it leads to in the real world usually means the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. And though much good has come from capitalism – America’s phenomenal success in the 20th Century was arguably due to the free market economics its Founding Fathers' encouraged – the system’s immense flaws have also become evident in recent years.

It’s almost as if capitalism is a robot that was originally programmed with a single instruction: Make profits by all means necessary.

Initially the profits surged in, putting food on the table for untold families, building communities and lifting living standards in numerous countries. However, the robot could not be stopped or reprogrammed, and without governments being able, or willing, to set boundaries the same system that once gave to the people now began to take from them. It began to lower living standards by widening the gap between rich and poor and by destroying the same communities it once built.

Unregulated capitalism began to abuse working class citizens – the very people it was designed to assist; it allowed leaders of corporations to play God while employees became workhorses for their owners. Perhaps a better description would be worker bees sacrificing their own welfare for the benefit of the royal queen bees.

Unfortunately, the advanced civilization and technological utopia that capitalism helped create is also one where most humans are treated like dogs in a dog-eat-dog world.

“Economic fundamentalists do not care what happens to society or western civilisation or the world at large, or even their own work-mates, or their own shareholders, just so long as they get, as payout, enough to live on in prosperous comfort for the rest of their lives.” –Bob Ellis, The Capitalism Delusion

None of this means we are socialists or communists. Nor are we anti-progress. And no, we are not about to suddenly reveal that this whole book has been a thinly veiled disguise for our political beliefs.

For those who have read this book in its entirety, and indeed the rest of The Underground Knowledge Series, it should be abundantly clear we are staunchly apolitical and believe that no political system can ever provide a total solution.

Most of the issues we’ve raised in this book are actually social concerns rather than economic or political ones.

Also, as filmmakers and authors, we are fully aware that we have benefited, and continue to benefit, from a capitalistic system. There is surely much good in capitalism. For example, the American Dream – the same dream that people of most other nations desire – says anyone who has ambition and a good work ethic can succeed no matter their race, gender or social class.

Living up to those ideals is likely possible only in a free, democratic and capitalistic society.

Therefore, we would support a revised form of capitalism, rather than doing away with it completely. This restructured economic system would, hopefully, be one with more heart and social awareness while still allowing for self-made entrepreneurs to rise up and be rewarded for their efforts. Rewarding achievers is crucial as history has proven that whenever socialism or communism is implemented there’s little incentive to succeed because success is not duly rewarded.

It’s obvious something has to change in our capitalistic society as there’s far too much unnecessary suffering on the planet right now.

This is precisely the government economic system I have thought should be created. Capitalism, AFTER the people have been cared for. Food, shelter, Medical should be provided first. After that folks can muster their ambition to achieve something a bit more beautiful.
Well said! Let's do it!

Mikhayla wrote: "This is precisely the government economic system I have thought should be created. Capitalism, AFTER the people have been cared for. Food, shelter, Medical should be provided first. After that folk..."

Capitalism, AFTER the people have been cared for.
That's perfect, Mikhayla - well said!

Would love to hear others thoughts on the pros and cons of restructuring capitalism...
Restructuring it not with socialism or communism but with government controls to prevent any more Gordon Gecko-style financial coups.

Well said Mikhayla- Capitalism AFTER the people are cared for. Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. It's time for us to get our priorities right.

Taking a bow: Thank you, thank you, thank you! Now how do we do this? I'm a thinker, but changes come with the doers. Doers needed.

There aren't many DOERS around. They're the ones with the money.

I vote for doers all the time. I'm quite pleased with some of the doers who have my vote. Kristen Gillibrand brought attention to the rape atrocities being committed in the military and being shoved under the rug. She has my vote. As a voter, I'm a doer. It doesn't require money to be a doer, just ambition and to be an asshole, as in, being willing to do what it takes even if you don't have everyone's vote. Lincoln had it all figured out, "You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time." Just do what you know needs to be done, and is most in line with what the people (generally) want, or at least what is in their best interest. I can tell you there are some crazy nuts in the populous who's ideas I would not want to see put into law. It would be ideal if I could convince them that there is a better way, but I don't know that it would be realistic to wait around until their therapy and medication settle in.

I do hope my Brit sense of humour isn't misunderstood! :)

Harry wrote: "I do hope my Brit sense of humour isn't misunderstood! :)"

Brit humour hard to beat...Remember Fawlty Towers anyone?

Yeah, I have one line in my book Route Number 11 (set in Argentina) that I wonder if many don't get its double meaning:

"(He's) English. Don't mention the war."

Harry wrote: "Yeah, I have one line in my book Route Number 11 (set in Argentina) that I wonder if many don't get its double meaning:

"(He's) English. Don't mention the war.""

At least you don't say he's from Barcelona!

There's a group poll currently running on this issue.
It asks:
Do you believe Capitalism should be restructured, replaced by another economic system or left exactly as is? -- Have your say if you haven't already voted/commented: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

Capitalism has its advantages, motivation to better oneself being an important one. I'm not convinced however, that we cannot have compassion and ambition in the same form of government. Compassion in the form of basic needs being met first. Everyone get's a piece of the pie, after that, go ahead and fight for a bigger piece of the pie, if of what is left after the basics are met.

Mikhayla wrote: "Capitalism has its advantages, motivation to better oneself being an important one. I'm not convinced however, that we cannot have compassion and ambition in the same form of government. Compassion..."

As someone said earlier in this thread "Capitalism AFTER the people are cared for."

It doesn't take much to take care of the least privileged in our society. And it's interesting that the politicians who say our Western nations cannot afford extensive social welfare are the same ones voting in favor of spending trillions of (tax-payer) dollars on untold wars in foreign lands and multi-trillion dollar bailouts of PRIVATE financial institutions.

There is more than enough money for everyone to at least get adequate food, shelter, healthcare and education. Anyone who tells you differently is either lying or ignorant.

Investing in the welfare of the people is also just that: an investment that will pay off economically.

#wakeup #getreal

You have my vote. Now I guess it is about voting for someone who thinks like James. Bernie?

I've been wondering if a universal income would work. Looks like Utrecht is trying it. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wor...

Jim wrote: "I've been wondering if a universal income would work. Looks like Utrecht is trying it. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wor......"

Interesting social experiment.
On the one hand, I'm for it as it protects everybody from extreme poverty.
On the other hand, I'd be worried it's too socialistic and some could lose their ambitiousness or entrepreneurial spirit.
Then again, I guess it's not enough of a basic wage for most people to become lazy - it just sounds like the equivalent of a base salary or "retainer" to keep people from going hungry or becoming homeless etc.

I like the idea of a minimum income just for being human. Enough to cover minimum expenses, food and shelter. If you want the newer car, enough to cover dinner and a movie once a week... then work a little harder. There should be no way to spend the basics, nor remove them for any reason. Food stamps can be used for nothing but food. A residential fund for minimum housing could at least keep everyone with the minimum. After that remove the judgment. If all one is capable of is sitting in a studio apartment heating soup for dinner, the expect no more. Perhaps they need someone to care to accomplish anything more. Provide that much more, or just go to your dinner and movie and keep your nose in the air.

The group poll that asked 'Do you believe Capitalism should be restructured, replaced by another economic system or left exactly as is?' is now complete.

Here are the results:

52.9% voted Restricted/reformed
26.5% voted Replaced by another economic system
10.3% voted Left exactly as is
10.3% voted Unsure

If interested, check out the comments section beneath the poll and feel free to add more comments: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

Along similar lines to the universal income idea that Jim brought up earlier in this thread, I came across this quote by American architect, systems theorist, author, designer & inventor R. Buckminster Fuller 1895-1983:

“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”

James Morcan wrote: "Along similar lines to the universal income idea that Jim brought up earlier in this thread, I came across this quote by American architect, systems theorist, author, designer & inventor [author:R...."

Great quote!

Lance Morcan wrote: "The group poll that asked 'Do you believe Capitalism should be restructured, replaced by another economic system or left exactly as is?' is now complete.

Here are the results:

52.9% voted Restric..."
Thank you Lance,
It is encouraging to know that a positive change is well supported, whatever that change may be.

James Morcan wrote: "Along similar lines to the universal income idea that Jim brought up earlier in this thread, I came across this quote by American architect, systems theorist, author, designer & inventor [author:R...."

Very nice quote James.

“The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.” –Prof. Caroll Quigley, Georgetown University, Tragedy and Hope (1966)

James Morcan wrote: "There is surely much good in capitalism. For example, the American Dream – the same dream that people of most other nations desire – says anyone who has ambition and a good work ethic can succeed no matter their race, gender or social class."

Tempting and awesome as it sounds, in my opinion it's mostly a propaganda slogan, similar to lottery ads, where chances of winning are sometimes one in a million. There are some good examples, when it really worked: Mark Zuckerberg, Jan Koum, etc, like there are examples of those who won the pot in lottery. However, there are way much more examples of those who have ambition and good work ethic and get nowhere. Having such a wonderful slogan, it's easy to justify any social injustice or inequality, for example: why do you need a minimal income, go realize your American dream, or why do you need a universal healthcare, go become a billionaire, what's stopping you?
The American dream implies equal opportunities, which simply don't exist. The traditional industries are long divided and opportunities for new players are very narrow almost non-existent. There are only so many car manufacturers, air-plane factories and so on and even there the concentration process continues all the time. New emerging industries are reaching the same level of concentration within a relatively short spell, i.e. those who made a breakthrough first, guard their positions and simply buy out those who endanger their leadership. Facebook buying Whatsapp, I think is a good show case. And most promising start-ups are being bought out by already established players, before they could pose any danger to market leaders.
There is another thing - the word 'ethic' rarely comes along well with 'big business', and you, guys, seem to cover this issue well.
After working for many years with businessmen of any caliber from aspiring to super rich, I say that those truly amazing people (and no sarcasm implied), who succeed, know how to fare well under any conditions, be it frequently corrupted ambience of Africa or Eastern Europe or Asian emerging markets or traditional stagnating economy. Realizing that, the state as an institution that is supposed to take care of all of its citizens, should provide its helping hand to those who have ethics, but succeed a little less or don't succeed at all and I don't think it's a sin. And coming back to those who succeed - these people are 'fighters', they don't know how self-regulate, to restrain. They usually don't want to pay taxes and it's natural, but as opposed to millions of laymen, they have available as many accountants, lawyers, politicians even, which help them to minimize those without jeopardizing their standing. Whoever says the different, these guys don't like competition and they would do a lot to prevail, derail, whatever. The traditional anti-monopoly authorities rarely succeed in preserving competitiveness. Here too some regulation is beneficial, in order to insure that the activity of these businessmen stays productive and constructive and not destructive, tax evading. etc... We have few examples, when those who reach the top, are willing to waive much of their fortune, but these are few out of many.
These are just some of my thoughts and observations for further discussion...

I personally think the American Dream was a lot better, traditionally, than lottery odds, Nik.
Go back to the 50s and 60s and there were many American families who comfortably lived off one salary in their own home - even if the wage earner and bread winner was doing unskilled labor or like working in a factory or being a retail shop assistant. Jobs were aplenty. It was certainly never a perfect system and of course not everyone who worked hard made it or was adequately rewarded, and of course there was more discrimination in the past, but tens or even hundreds of. Millions of Americans achieved a degree of prosperity under the US free market system.




However, if we are talking 2016, then everything you say about US Capitalism is correct.

James Morcan wrote: "I personally think the American Dream was a lot better, traditionally, than lottery odds, Nik.
Go back to the 50s and 60s and there were many American families who comfortably lived off one salary..."

Yeah, the degree of its success depends also on the periods. I guess during Great Depression times, it was also less successful. Regarding odds I was referring to an opportunity to achieve success and prosperity at noticeably big scale, but if to view American dream's realization in terms of living off salary and owning a home, then it probably works not bad and the US can still boast a remarkably high standard of living and an 'easier' life for those employed than almost any other country and that is certainly a big achievement. The situ does seem to deteriorate though and its 'upward mobility' may have become much more static than dynamic...

Nik wrote: " The situ does seem to deteriorate though and its 'upward mobility' may have become much more static than dynamic... ..."

Definitely getting a lot worse, I agree.
The US possibly made the fatal mistake of spending more on military expenditure than on its own people for several decades...
America's annual "defense" budget is more than the annual military expenditure of Russia, China, India, Germany, the UK, Israel, Brazil, France, Turkey, Canada, Australia and Japan COMBINED...
And yet, the US remains the only First World nation (at least in the West) to not have universal healthcare for its citizens...
Go figure!

Well, such disproportionate spending may reflect another "American dream" - the preservation of dominance on global arena -:)
Universal healthcare and many more social benefits shouldn't be superfluous in any country...

If ever there was a case for restructuring capitalism it was brought home to us with this week’s announcement by Oxfam that a paltry 62 individuals are as wealthy as half the world’s population.

As The Guardian newspaper reports (Jan. 18) the announcement lays bare “the vast and growing gap between rich and poor”.

Oxfam’s report rightly calls for “urgent action to deal with a trend showing that 1% of people own more wealth than the other 99% combined” – a call echoed in Book #5 in our Underground Knowledge Series, INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$: The Global Banking Elite Exposed and the Case for Restructuring Capitalism.

We (the authors) are not remotely anti-capitalism (it is certainly a far superior financial model to communism), but we are against capitalism in its current obscene form. We are against any system that allows individuals to become obscenely (there’s that word again) wealthy whilst many millions of people starve.

As Oxfam GB chief executive Mark Goldring says, “It is simply unacceptable that the poorest half of the world population owns no more than a small group of the global super-rich – so few, you could fit them all on a single coach.”

Is he right or is he right?

Here’s a link to The Guardian article referred to above: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2...

This book Before the Collapse: The Philosophy of Capitalism, written by group member Cathal Haughian, seems like a balanced investigation into Capitalism.

Here's the synopsis:

A book about capitalism written by capitalists. The reader is invited to discard the limited mind shaped by national discourse and see the economy as an integrated whole that encompasses the entire World.
Traditional interpretations of the economy were coloured by the twin emotions of fear and envy.
The rhetorical coin that gave birth to Left and Right side Politics.
The capitalist fears his accumulated wealth shall be confiscated by the indebted masses while the lower ranks envy the power and privilege of the elite.
I would ask you to forgo such simplicity and see the global economy as shaped by a fierce and ceaseless struggle between world powers.
The global system is currently trapped in internal contradictions and by world powers in opposition.
All the while production becomes the province of Machine rather than Man.
Trade Wars mask Currency Wars
While Wars of Annihilation haunt the Middle East.
Workers strive to build a better caliber of Nuclear Weaponry
For it is only they that keep the Peace.
The future presents Mankind with three possibilities: World War, Revolution or an Educational Solution.
Herein, lies The Philosophy of Capitalism.

James Morcan wrote: "Excerpt from INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$: The Global Banking Elite Exposed and the Case for Restructuring Capitalism:

Clearly, many of the issues in this book are related to capitalism..."
About myself, I was one of the few guys that anticipated and profited from the GFC.

I wrote my book, alongside the readership of the Financial Times, to reveal the underlying nature of Capitalism. I needed 200 of the smartest capitalists' I know to write it. It's common to reduce the complexity of the system to as to make it explicable.

But I think I avoided that error. The system has had several phase changes that also need to be appreciated. The Black Death in the 14th century, the industrial revolution in 1709, and the introduction of Fiat Capitalism for WW1 unleashed historical forces that need to be appreciated.

In addition, you'll note my book has several chapters relating to the Natural and Imperial Systems. Religion is part of the Imperial system and also hinders or helps the Capitalist system. I use Islam and Christianity as examples.

The current Monetary system based on the FIAT Dollar interlocks Capitalism into the Imperial system.

The current system framework is in its final stage and we can now see vicious struggles between imperial powers: Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Germany, Nigeria etc. The great danger is a miscalculation that results in a third World War.

Enjoy the book and by all means write me for clarifications. I do accept submissions but please by aware that all contributors are experts in their field with decades of experience.

Cathal

Beyond Capitalism and Socialism

Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business

Is it time for a fairer form of capitalism?
http://www.theweek.co.uk/66990/is-it-...

Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few By Robert B. Reich is a good road map to salvaging the current economic system.

Sounds interesting, Jeff.
I think the other issue is that we don't really have a free market or capitalism but something more like cronyism.
So how can we protect against all those shady deals and special interest groups buying politicians and derailing the positive impact capitalism can have?

That's a very strong point, James. Reich's book goes into the many laws and policies that only exist because they have been lobbied for by the wealthy interests that benefit from them. Laws such as those pertaining to copyrights have been molded to benefit established corporations at the expense of the smaller business/individual. At the end of the day, awareness of this cronyism is the first step towards voting it out, whether at the ballot box or with our dollar as consumers.

Totally agree Jeff.
But also, I think our system desperately needs more aspects of socialism infused into it to make capitalism work properly.
That would have been very obscure thinking 10 or 20 years ago, but we are now seeing the likes of Facebook and Silicon Valley corporations urge our governments to implement a Universal Income measure (a socialist proposal if ever there was one). I would argue universal healthcare will also make capitalism work better too

I don't see capitalism and socialism are mutually exclusive or diametrically opposed.

This is an excerpt from a book I'm reading by scientists Josh Mitteldorf and Dorion Sagan, who make this brief analogy about economic systems in relation to neo-Darwininsm that I thought worth considering...

There is a natural analogy between population cycles in ecology and the economic cycles of boom and bust that appear in the brand of capitalism embraced by America and the West. In the wake of the 1929 economic collapse, the Roosevelt administration was able to pass a broad program of government oversight and regulation of business practices. There followed forty years of unprecedented growth and the rise of an American middle class, the first time in history that any economic system had supported a majority of its citizens in comfort and security.

But in 1980 began the Reagan backlash, deregulation, and the return of unbridled economic competition. Capitalism became predatory, the middle class began to shrink, business cycles deepened, and a growing rift now separates a wealthy elite from the struggling majority. There have been three major stock market crashes in the thirty years since deregulation, each followed by painful unemployment and economic stagnation. Without regulation, competition becomes destructive. The idea that stability and a broad prosperity can emerge from pure competition is thoroughly discredited in practice, but it is a useful myth for the 1 percent who profit mightily when there are no rules and no regulators. If they told the truth about their motives, the rapacious corporate giants could never sell deregulation to an enlightened democracy. So they promote the dogma of a “free market,”not because they believe in this or any ideology but because it supports the freedom of the largest and the strongest to pillage everyone else. Historically, an important part of the argument for the benignity of free markets comes from the analogy with evolution. (Just look at the marvels nature hath wrought using only the chisel of bare-knuckled competition!) This is social Darwinism, the doctrine that the rich and successful not only contribute more to society than you and I but that they have better genes to boot.

This is a perversion of Darwin’s ideas, but from the very beginning, his sound biological theory has been linked to an elitist social ideology. During the early years of the twentieth century, social Darwinism played a crucial role in shaping the version of evolutionary theory that emerged and predominates to this day. People are rich and powerful because their parents were rich and powerful—nothing remotely fair or just about it. But social Darwinism promotes the fiction that there is a natural order in the predominance of an elite hereditary class. Like the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith a century earlier, Darwin’s “struggle for existence” has been caricatured to support the myth that pure, unrestrained competition can be magically transmuted into a harmonious society. The truth is that “tooth and claw” competition doesn’t work in economics, and it doesn’t work in ecology. Competition is vital, but it must be regulated, or it poses a fatal risk of instability for the whole system.

Darwin himself was of the British aristocracy, and he had some trouble acknowledging the huge evolutionary significance of cooperation. Yet in his later work The Descent of Man, Darwin spoke explicitly of a group that could have an evolutionary advantage distinct from the sum of its individuals. By the mid-twentieth century, the existence of cooperation was denied utterly by the mainstream of evolutionary theory. We live now in an age of hyperindividualism, and it is no accident that, in our culture, the dominant version of Darwin’s theory is based on pure selfishness.

The simplest way to see how unrestrained capitalism leads to great inequality is to look at game theory. Think of a number of people starting out, all equal, and the resources (say land to make it simple) available to all are enough to earn a living, and have a specific excess. Now have a sequence of "rounds" where each player has the choice of spending (gratification now) or saving. Now, allocate a "quality" to each player so there are a spread of determined gratifiers, determined savers/investors, and various in-betweeners. If a player cans ave enough (say for four rounds) he can buy a resource, so he gets ahead. Now, when the number of land allocations get taken, the richer guy (because with more land he has more income and gets ahead faster) starts buying up the weaker person's land, because that gives more instant gratification, and the weaker person becomes a worker, with enough income to live, but not get ahead. You would be surprised how few rounds it takes before it becomes obvious that a very few are going to be so far ahead of everyone else it isn't funny. Now obviously life is a bit more complicated than that, but it shows how wealth makes the wealthy more so.

Actually, evolution is not "tooth and claw" either. Nature regulates itself. There are only so many lions to zebras, and the lions cull the weaker zebras. They need to do that otherwise they run out of zebras. More interestingly, go to the seaside and look in a rock pool. What you will see, assuming all is OK to grow algae, is that there will be several species growing there. One might predominate, but there will be several. (Sometimes, for various reasons, there are none, but the interesting thing is, it is very rare for there to be just one. Evolution is actually cooperative.)

I recall once seeing a TV series by J K Galbraith - he argued that the accumulation of wealth would end up with the world economy being run by a limited number of giant corporations. The game I mentioned above would favour that where resources are scarce, which is what inspired the economic system in some of my future novels. Of course I won't live long enough to see how wrong I was :-)

What is a free market? I always find that question never has a good answer. A question having a better answer, what is a free evolving market?

First, some background. There is a relatively new discovery on the subject of evolution adding additional insight to Darwin’s work, the evolution of markets; in other words, the evolution of everything. To best describe the dynamics in the research of evolution is the approach from two ends of a spectrum. On one end we have researchers in physics, discovering physical laws and the engineering application of them, led to the evolution of systems in the computer field, the aero industry, the automobile industry, etc. The other end of the spectrum we have researchers in living systems, social systems, economics, etc., doing reverse engineering, because the evolution of those systems came before the researcher. The common element and guidance for all researchers, is the evolution of philosophy dealing with evolution, and perhaps in the end, researchers may one day meet in the center.

In the meantime, there is a new discovery that crosses the entire spectrum known as the physical constructal law which states, “For a flow system to persist in time (to live), it must evolve freely such that it provides greater access to its currents.”

The “currents” for all markets is, wealth generation. Therefore, for a market to persist in time, it must evolve freely such that it provides access to wealth generation; otherwise, in time the market will cease to exist.

The mechanics of evolution is dependent on dynamic channels of resistance and freedom. To evolve, a market requires dynamic channels of resistance and freedom; a market cannot evolve without one or the other. For example, at the garage-sale level you have absolute freedom, but there is no evolution. At the other end of the spectrum in absolute tyranny, there is no evolution. The evolution of a market exist in-between those two extremes. The task becomes, between those two extremes, where does a market perform the best? Note, not all markets are the same nor are the dynamic channels of resistance and freedom the same for each market.

For example, the automobile market had the freedom to evolve relative to the Model-T days at the turn of the last century. This evolution could not have taken place without those dynamic channels of resistance (regulations, taxes, unions, competition, anti-trust, etc.) along with those dynamic channels of freedom (to incorporate, transportation infrastructure, location, growth, raw materials, design next generation, etc.). During the evolution of the automobile market, companies come and go relative to the natural selection process resulting in higher quality, cleaner emissions, improve technology, and perhaps, one day self-driving vehicles. Hence, the freedom of the automobile market to evolve thanks to those dynamic channels of resistance and freedom. The evolution of the automobile market lifted the standard of living throughout the world relative to transportation.

The Adam Smith concept of the free market was simple, but it depended on one assumption to make it work: players could enter or leave the market as they wished, and it did not significantly perturb the market. Thus if we think of potatoes, some growers could elect to enter or leave the market, and apart from price signals, nothing would change. If there was a glut one year, the price would drop, and some farmers would switch to something else. The price gave signals for future behaviour, but people do not always read them properly. (I recall in my youth there was an awful glut, and they were just being thrown over a cliff. My father took a trailer to the cliff bottom, loaded up, and started growing them for next year. He was right - so many got out of them that the price rose by one and a half orders of magnitude!)

The problem now, though, is that in many areas new players cannot get in because either the activity is locked up (most mining falls into this category) or the business area is locked up by the very large e.g. oil. Once the activity gets locked up, the majors can do much what they want. Detroit may be declining, but the citizens there cannot really try to recover by making cars, even if they know how to do it. Finally, the majors lobby politicians to stop newbies entering through having horrible regulations to meet. The majors themselves, however, do not seem to be affected - they can just raise the price. We don't have a free market; just because we don't have some sort of Communist central control does not mean prices are not manipulated or that anyone can enter.

I agree with the toxic financial instruments, although in my opinion these actually lie in the zone of fraud, so they are more criminal than capitalistic. Sheer greed, and the ability to doctor them up with complicated maths so nobody can unravel what they really are is the problem here.

The rise of 'surveillance capitalism' http://fortune.com/newsletter/cybersa...