A New Name for Greed

I am not fond of 'labels', particularly political labels, they tend to be far to generalized and invariably lump a wide range of views under one label that is often cannot clearly define all the views encompassed by the generality. After all does 'Liberal' define all liberals or 'Conservative' cover all the various shades of grey surrounding that 'label'? One label that has seen a massive (doubled in the last year according to google) increase is ' neoliberalism', a simpler description would seem to me to be 'greed' or more specifically Corporate Greed with its closely associated Greed for Power.
Graeme Decarie in The Decarie Report put it all in perspective for me this week in that he says this is nothing new but simply a new label for an old affliction.


Recently, they (the corporate aristocracy) have introduced a new term to justify their vileness. It's called neo-liberalism. It's a belief that the wealthy need to be free from any government regulation or restraint, that humans are by nature competitive, and that by giving complete freedom to that competitiveness we will all become rich.
That is pure nonsense. There's nothing new about neo-liberalism. It was neo-liberalism that was used by the old aristocracy to plunder the world. Neo-liberalism made possible the slaughter of native peoples in the U.S. and Latin America - and in Canada. The only people it ever made rich were the neo-liberals. Even now, as neoliberalism gathers speed in the west, the very wealthy are getting richer while the rest of us get poorer. It can end only in a general crash. But our new aristocrats are too stupid with greed to think that far ahead.
As if that weren't a big enough crisis, we have an added one. Those who tried to deal with the great depression of the 1930s used the theories of Keynes who advised government spending when private spending slowed down.
But that may not work this time. It may not work because we're already making demands on our resources - like oil, mines, food - that cannot be sustained. Somehow, we need less growth, not more - but we still have to meet human needs.
But, with the present power of the corporation world there is no chance of concentrating on human needs. The starvation of millions means nothing to them. The evidence of climate change means nothing to them. Like the old aristocrats, these believe themselves to be born superior beings to the rest of us. And, like the old aristocrats, they are self-absorbed - and not very bright.


That last bit highlighted says it all for me, just like the pyramid schemes designed to make the instigator rich at the expense of those being sucked in later such things must by their very definition collapse under their own weight and lack of new building material (suckers). The whole idea that our economy can only survive if it is ever expanding is no less a scheme that must eventually run out of support from the bottom be it 'investors' or raw materials or simply those who would (or could) purchase the goods and services that keep the guys at the top happy in their corporate towers.


Call it neoliberalism if you like, I just call it greed and unfortunately it is not limited to the corporate world, for those of us the bottom of the heap many of the 'middle class' particularly the unionized worker be it white or blue collar, but particularly the public service crowd appear to be equally greedy. Everybody wants more, more, more and in a world of finite resources seem to forget that if they get more someone somewhere must pay for it and will have less. less, less. Until we all decide we can do without all the latest gadget, car, tool or toy (and the money to pay for them) and are satisfied to just live with what we have then we are ALL part of the problem IMHO.

Now, how much did YOU spend on non essentials over the last 30 days supporting that ivory tower?


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