{"id":1645,"date":"2010-12-15T17:04:41","date_gmt":"2010-12-15T22:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=1645"},"modified":"2011-04-07T13:24:49","modified_gmt":"2011-04-07T18:24:49","slug":"capitalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/12\/15\/capitalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Quick thought after listening to Tom Ashbrook’s “On Point”<\/a> today about the estate tax:
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Any system, as a coordinated set of actants and relations, will disproportionately favor those of its members who know how to work <\/em>it for their own benefit. A pragmatic egalitarianism<\/em> will attempt to minimize the opportunities for such disproportionate favoritism, without creating worse problems in the process.<\/p>\n

As a system oriented toward the monetization (commodification) of things, i.e.,the conversion of things into capital, and the accumulation of such capital through the means made available for that, capitalism disproportionately favors those who know how to squeeze money out of things. Progressive taxation, estate taxes, and other such means of regulatory management work to reduce such systemic favoritism so as to better support socially valued goals (such as social cohesion, equal opportunity, fairness, etc.).<\/p>\n

The question is whether we want to live in a capitalist society characterized by vast discrepancies in wealth and power, or a democracy in which capitalist and\/or market relations have a place but do not dominate all relations. In 1900, 1% of Americans controlled 50% of the wealth in the country. By 1970, as a result of progressive social and economic policies brought in by the presidential administrations of Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and others, that percentage had declined to 20% and a large middle-class had emerged. Today the percentage controlled by the wealthiest 1% is back up to 33%, and climbing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quick thought after listening to Tom Ashbrook’s “On Point” today about the estate tax: Any system, as a coordinated set of actants and relations, will disproportionately favor those of its members who know how to work it for their own benefit. A pragmatic egalitarianism will attempt to minimize the opportunities for such disproportionate favoritism, without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[691215],"tags":[348],"class_list":["post-1645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics_postpolitics","tag-capitalism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-qx","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10876,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2020\/06\/29\/we-are-surveillance-capital-stock\/","url_meta":{"origin":1645,"position":0},"title":"We are surveillance capital stock","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 29, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019m reading Shoshana Zuboff's widely lauded The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, which some have placed alongside Thomas Piketty\u2019s Capital in the Twenty-First Century as essential reading for understanding today's global economy. The big conceptual idea I find most useful in it is its insistence that we are in the midst\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Media ecology"","block_context":{"text":"Media ecology","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/media_ecology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/06\/zuboff.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/06\/zuboff.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/06\/zuboff.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/06\/zuboff.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8930,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2016\/08\/25\/mckibben-the-frontlines-of-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":1645,"position":1},"title":"McKibben & the frontlines of war","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"August 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently found myself in a part of Mississauga, Ontario (a bedroom community of Toronto),\u00a0in which more than 90% of the visible landscape (excepting the sky) appeared to consist of concrete, in the form of pavement, asphalt, buildings, and such. The remaining 5-10% -- rows of evenly spaced short trees,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"park-picture","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2016\/07\/park-picture-275x190.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1080,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/05\/31\/socialism-or-not-lessig-responds-to-kelly\/","url_meta":{"origin":1645,"position":2},"title":"socialism or not: Lessig responds to Kelly","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 31, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"\"When I use a word,\" Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, \"it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.\" \"The question is,\" said Alice, \"whether you can make words mean so many different things.\" \"The question is,\" said Humpty Dumpty, \"which is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Media ecology"","block_context":{"text":"Media ecology","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/media_ecology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"humpty%20dumpty.bmp","src":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2009\/06\/humpty-dumpty.bmp","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1284,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/06\/03\/mutant-capitalism-v-homeland-security\/","url_meta":{"origin":1645,"position":3},"title":"mutant capitalism v. homeland security","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=n7Fzm1hEiDQ&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1 As told by John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and Hoodwinked. Thanks to Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters for the tip.","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/politics_postpolitics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/n7Fzm1hEiDQ\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8302,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/06\/23\/cinema-ecology-the-death-of-carbon-capitalism\/","url_meta":{"origin":1645,"position":4},"title":"Cinema, ecology, & the death of carbon capitalism","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 23, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Rice University's\u00a0Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences\u00a0(CENHS) has made my Cultures of Energy talk available on their YouTube channel. It's a longer version of the material I presented\u00a0at the SCMS \"Post-Cinema\" panel. Here's the abstract: This paper thinks through the intersections of three developments: (1) the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cinema"","block_context":{"text":"Cinema","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cinema_zone\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/25_cwFE2vKI\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8848,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2016\/06\/29\/toward-telling-an-adequate-story\/","url_meta":{"origin":1645,"position":5},"title":"Toward telling an adequate story","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 29, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This post builds\u00a0on the previous\u00a0one on the state of the eco-humanities.\u00a0Here I focus on the substantive elements for narratives adequate to the Anthropocene. One of the challenges of our time is to learn to\u00a0tell an adequate story of\u00a0humanity's current predicament. Next spring's Stories for the Anthropocene Festival\u00a0in Stockholm aims to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"ss9-1-300x300","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2016\/06\/ss9-1-300x300-275x275.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1645"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3372,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645\/revisions\/3372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}