I doubt that theories and ideologies play such a great part in it. Alfred Chandler has proposed a much simpler explanation for the shift in the 80s in his thick book about the big industrial giants of the time, Scale and scope, 1990.
Simply, in the early 70s these big corporations had become so efficient that they could produce much more than there was effective demand for in the world. They faced an overproduction crisis. Up to then, they had been able to provide themselves with finance out from earned profits. But now they couldn't. They had to ask the financial markets for help.
And the financial markets – otherwise called "the rentiers" – did, on conditions. They weren't interested in production. They just wanted quick returns for their money. CEOs that still wanted to invest and build were kicked out, and a new speculative breed was called in.
Since the ideas of the ruling class is the ideas of society (Karl Marx) the ideas of the rentiers got hold of society. And these ideas were exactly those you have listed, Oskar. They have always been. But they were not in control until about 1980.
Even if they hadn't been, I believe we would have had a hard time to get society right, and get rid of unnecessary or harmful work. Even the industrial capitalists who ruled up to about 1975 were interested in profit first, last and in the middle. The difference was that they wanted it to invest in new production. If that production laid the earth bare it was none of their concern.
Environmental destruction has grown in three big steps: the first states, the colonial empires, and the big industrial corporations. Each time the capacity to make big decisions without having to meet the unwanted consequences of the decisions has grown with a factor of ten. The climate changes are the fruit of the industrial corporations of the early 20th century, not of the speculators of today.
Not that these are innocent, of course. They have created a political athmosphere where it is almost impossible to decide of anything, and a political establishment unable to understand what should be decided, for that matter. This is a typical sign of a society in decay. Sometimes a competing actor may turn it right (e.g. the French revolution, the revolutions of 1848, the labour and anti-colonial movements), but it is terribly hard to see any today.
It is relatively easy to see what one should do, but organize something with the power to do it is much harder. As Boris Kagarlitsky, the incarcerated Russian social critic, says: there is much ideology about utopias out there, but very little about strategic guidance. I think we should – not stop, perhaps, but downgrade our thinking about what we want to have and focus more on how we should get it.
Maybe the 1970s should have been the time when society should have chosen a different path. I just wanted to show that the neoliberal path to mutual destruction and total collapse is not the only route. Economics and technology are sciences of imagination, so why don’t we start fantasising outside of the box?
Rather than believing in the power of the few dissenters I believe in organizing. There were a terrible lot of dissenters in the Arab Spring, but it all ended up in something worse than what they opposed to.
And the same is true of every revolt in the whole world during the 10s, according to Vincent Bevins, see http://www.folkrorelser.org/inenglish/protests-fail.html. According to him, because of non-existing organizing before the protests. That is, the protesters agreed about what they didn't want, but had no idea about what should replace it and how.
And according to Asef Bayat, see the same link, they weren't even recognized as an actor so they couldn't suggest anything even if they had had something to suggest. They made a hole in the authority structure but they couldn't fill the hole so somebody else did.
I don't argue you are wrong, Oskar, just that there are huge swathes of issues that we have not even thought of. "How" is one of them, perhaps the most important.
yes the issue is how to change the track. But there are signs. Biden administrtion, rather Sanders. even FED, surprise surprise, IMF and WB. And even insurance companies, see the articele in NYT ref on my site. But they are all scared how to do. In fact EUtries to direct investments to tackle climate change, but reports are just released tellin how poorly the funding in the past exercises have functioned. Above all the idea of taxing the rich. Only Magdalena does not dare to say she understands also, for fear that the hysterics on the international financial market who have toooo much money in their hands, react with their guts, profits.
Oskar, yes, what you have described has happened. You have managed to capture the phases of a paradigm shift. The money or the life? Behind everything is the question who is man and what forms a good society? Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson are awarded the Sveriges Riksbank's prize in economic science in memory of Alfred Nobel in 2024. The cause of third world poverty was the Western world's colonialism and , plundering of natural resources and the lack of institutions and organization for agriculture, business, health school the concern for fair distribution and with a democratic legal life. The spiritual development of man and also coexistence Society is thus a human unity for and with each other. A life principle that exists in nature like the beehive's togetherness. The earth itself is a house for humanity. A household for the human family So society is a household. One could say that the economic process is similar to our blood circulation for distribution or the water cycle for the nature of the earth.
Oskar, yes, what you have described has happened. You have managed to capture the phases of a paradigm shift. The money or the life? Behind everything is the question who is man and what forms a good society? Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson are awarded the Sveriges Riksbank's prize in economic science in memory of Alfred Nobel in 2024. The cause of third world poverty was the Western world's colonialism and , plundering of natural resources and the lack of institutions and organization for agriculture, business, health school the concern for fair distribution and with a democratic legal life. The spiritual development of man and also coexistence Society is thus a human unity for and with each other. A life principle that exists in nature like the beehive's togetherness. The earth itself is a house for humanity. A household for the human family So society is a household. One could say that the economic process is similar to our blood circulation for distribution or the water cycle for the nature of the earth.
I doubt that theories and ideologies play such a great part in it. Alfred Chandler has proposed a much simpler explanation for the shift in the 80s in his thick book about the big industrial giants of the time, Scale and scope, 1990.
Simply, in the early 70s these big corporations had become so efficient that they could produce much more than there was effective demand for in the world. They faced an overproduction crisis. Up to then, they had been able to provide themselves with finance out from earned profits. But now they couldn't. They had to ask the financial markets for help.
And the financial markets – otherwise called "the rentiers" – did, on conditions. They weren't interested in production. They just wanted quick returns for their money. CEOs that still wanted to invest and build were kicked out, and a new speculative breed was called in.
Since the ideas of the ruling class is the ideas of society (Karl Marx) the ideas of the rentiers got hold of society. And these ideas were exactly those you have listed, Oskar. They have always been. But they were not in control until about 1980.
Even if they hadn't been, I believe we would have had a hard time to get society right, and get rid of unnecessary or harmful work. Even the industrial capitalists who ruled up to about 1975 were interested in profit first, last and in the middle. The difference was that they wanted it to invest in new production. If that production laid the earth bare it was none of their concern.
Environmental destruction has grown in three big steps: the first states, the colonial empires, and the big industrial corporations. Each time the capacity to make big decisions without having to meet the unwanted consequences of the decisions has grown with a factor of ten. The climate changes are the fruit of the industrial corporations of the early 20th century, not of the speculators of today.
Not that these are innocent, of course. They have created a political athmosphere where it is almost impossible to decide of anything, and a political establishment unable to understand what should be decided, for that matter. This is a typical sign of a society in decay. Sometimes a competing actor may turn it right (e.g. the French revolution, the revolutions of 1848, the labour and anti-colonial movements), but it is terribly hard to see any today.
It is relatively easy to see what one should do, but organize something with the power to do it is much harder. As Boris Kagarlitsky, the incarcerated Russian social critic, says: there is much ideology about utopias out there, but very little about strategic guidance. I think we should – not stop, perhaps, but downgrade our thinking about what we want to have and focus more on how we should get it.
Maybe the 1970s should have been the time when society should have chosen a different path. I just wanted to show that the neoliberal path to mutual destruction and total collapse is not the only route. Economics and technology are sciences of imagination, so why don’t we start fantasising outside of the box?
Yes, really! But much more of it should consider how one gets there. A trifle less of ideology and much more of strategy.
If we get more people knowing and talking about how the neoliberal way is not our unavoidable deadend street, then this knowledge will provide the grounds for a revolution. https://www.oskarbrandt.com/2023/08/06/de-fa-avvikarnas-makt/
Rather than believing in the power of the few dissenters I believe in organizing. There were a terrible lot of dissenters in the Arab Spring, but it all ended up in something worse than what they opposed to.
And the same is true of every revolt in the whole world during the 10s, according to Vincent Bevins, see http://www.folkrorelser.org/inenglish/protests-fail.html. According to him, because of non-existing organizing before the protests. That is, the protesters agreed about what they didn't want, but had no idea about what should replace it and how.
And according to Asef Bayat, see the same link, they weren't even recognized as an actor so they couldn't suggest anything even if they had had something to suggest. They made a hole in the authority structure but they couldn't fill the hole so somebody else did.
I don't argue you are wrong, Oskar, just that there are huge swathes of issues that we have not even thought of. "How" is one of them, perhaps the most important.
yes the issue is how to change the track. But there are signs. Biden administrtion, rather Sanders. even FED, surprise surprise, IMF and WB. And even insurance companies, see the articele in NYT ref on my site. But they are all scared how to do. In fact EUtries to direct investments to tackle climate change, but reports are just released tellin how poorly the funding in the past exercises have functioned. Above all the idea of taxing the rich. Only Magdalena does not dare to say she understands also, for fear that the hysterics on the international financial market who have toooo much money in their hands, react with their guts, profits.
I just meant that spreading info can create enough dissenters that can in their turn organize. I write about organizing here.
https://open.substack.com/pub/oskarbrandt/p/chomskys-supports-grassroot-activism?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
If so, there would have been a lot of organizing going on by now, but there isn't. Perhaps one should shift focus somewhat?
Don't think I don't agree with you, Oskar, I just wanted to point at one underdeveloped issue.
Oskar, yes, what you have described has happened. You have managed to capture the phases of a paradigm shift. The money or the life? Behind everything is the question who is man and what forms a good society? Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson are awarded the Sveriges Riksbank's prize in economic science in memory of Alfred Nobel in 2024. The cause of third world poverty was the Western world's colonialism and , plundering of natural resources and the lack of institutions and organization for agriculture, business, health school the concern for fair distribution and with a democratic legal life. The spiritual development of man and also coexistence Society is thus a human unity for and with each other. A life principle that exists in nature like the beehive's togetherness. The earth itself is a house for humanity. A household for the human family So society is a household. One could say that the economic process is similar to our blood circulation for distribution or the water cycle for the nature of the earth.
Oskar, yes, what you have described has happened. You have managed to capture the phases of a paradigm shift. The money or the life? Behind everything is the question who is man and what forms a good society? Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson are awarded the Sveriges Riksbank's prize in economic science in memory of Alfred Nobel in 2024. The cause of third world poverty was the Western world's colonialism and , plundering of natural resources and the lack of institutions and organization for agriculture, business, health school the concern for fair distribution and with a democratic legal life. The spiritual development of man and also coexistence Society is thus a human unity for and with each other. A life principle that exists in nature like the beehive's togetherness. The earth itself is a house for humanity. A household for the human family So society is a household. One could say that the economic process is similar to our blood circulation for distribution or the water cycle for the nature of the earth.