Hello, fellow Kossacks! While I've been an occasional commenter and (very) rarely a diarist here at Daily Kos, what I have mostly been is an avid reader and consumer of this blog - aka a "lurker" - since 2005. As a community of extraordinarily committed and gifted people who share many of the same interests and values I do, I want to express my thanks for your collective contributions to my life. Especially, I want to thank those adventurous souls who do all the oppo research. Since I am one of those people who can't watch Fake News without a dangerous rise in my blood pressure, I appreciate your sacrifice to keep the rest of us informed about the latest right wing lunacy du jour. That being said - on with the rest of the show...
As you probably deduced from the title, this diary, while autobiographical, is really about an idea that has been evolving for me over a number of years as a consequence of my doing everything the "hard way" - work, education, and relationships, just to name a few. What do I mean by that? Well, while in the real world there is no one "right way" to live one's life, there is a social stereotype for the progression of events that constitute a "successful" life. It looks something like this - you do your time in K-12, don't get in too much trouble in school (read as don't give the authorities problems), go to college, work during summers and around your college schedule, don't get in too much trouble in college (read as don't give the authorities problems and/or go to jail), graduate, start a career and move up the ladder (read as don't give your boss problems), get married, start a family... need I say more?
Obviously, this was not my path. Actually, my path was more like C.W. McCall's Black Bear Road - a bunch of Z's and W's all strung together. In the course of my life I've been a paper boy (back when kids could actually deliver papers - did my own collections, too!), a janitor, a martial arts instructor and school manager, a retail auto parts store and service center manager, a home center department manager, a real estate salesperson and broker, a security guard, an account manager for a temporary staffing firm, a taxi driver, a SAP business analyst and, most recently, an income tax preparer. I've been an employee, an employer, an independent contractor, and a self-employed business person. Since I didn't go back to school until I was 45, suffice it to say my education has mostly been in the School of Hard Knocks TM. As I look back at my track record, I am aware of several hard but important truths - that in many ways I have been my own worse enemy, that there are very real structural barriers to starting and growing a small business in this country, and that, in the past, I was ill-prepared for that reality. Despite these hurdles, I was successful enough in my business endeavors that the IRS and I are buddies to this day. This situation also motivated me to go back to school and really learn accounting!
I recently turned 50 and after nearly two years of trying to break into fields for which I have the education (BS in accounting and information systems) but not the "experience," I have (reluctantly) come to the conclusion I am no longer "employable" in the traditional sense. As a reasonably well-educated, white, middle-aged, American male, this is a hard pill to swallow - I understand why my conservative counterparts are angry and scared. We progressives have a pretty good idea where the rubber meets the road on this issue and it isn't with illegal [insert color here] people... it's with an entrenched privileged class bound and determined to suck the marrow from our bones in the tradition of every aristocracy since the beginning of time! Unfortunately, this doesn't solve the problem we are all struggling with... how to earn a decent living in a system so immoral and unethical that it treats human beings as disposable and seems hellbent on insuring there is a permanent underclass of unemployed.
So if you have made it this far, fellow Kossack, you have to be wondering... what's this guy's deal? Is there a point in here somewhere?
Here's my point... all my experience, education, and thinking over the years leads me to conclude the current iteration of capitalism - corporate capitalism - is intrinsically unsustainable and unstable. Many people here would agree and go even so far as to say capitalism itself is defunct as a sustainable solution to humanity's problems. In this I disagree - I believe capitalism, like any system, requires proper monitoring and regulation, but offers the opportunity for the equitable distribution of power among all the actors within the economic system. Notice I said "power," not money. While money is used to measure economic success, money and power are not synonymous. Money follows the flow of power within an economic system. Wealth is a lagging indicator of power. It is the distribution and balance of power within the economic system that matters - money as a measure of power reflects the underlying power structure. I think the real problem with our current system lies not with the capitalism part of "corporate capitalism," but with the corporate part. Again, this is not news for many of you, but it is worth looking at why our economic system is so far out of balance. Simply put, it has to do with the power relationships between the three major actors within a corporate entity - the shareholders, executive management, and the general workforce (labor). The key questions to ask are who has control (power) of the organization and who can be held accountable and by whom. The easiest way to determine this is to follow the money. Ask yourself "on a per-capita basis, who makes the most money and can they be held accountable for their actions financially." This will nearly always tell you who has the power in a corporate organization. There is one other actor in the corporate control scenario and that is the government. Since our government may be our last real hope to check corporate overreach, I think I'll address the governmental role in another diary.
Using the above practice, we can determine the current power structure of the typical public corporation and most other business organizations - executive management has the power. Shareholder ownership is too diffuse in most cases to be an adequate check on management and since most members of a corporate board of directors are executives themselves, they have a strong economic incentive to keep power in the hands of the executive class. In fact, although an executive can be fired, they often financially benefit handsomely as a result. This fact alone is evidence there is no real accountability among among the truly powerful. As an aside, the SEC is currently being sued on the issue of requiring notifying shareholders about other potential shareholder representatives (nominees) other than management. If I understand the issue correctly, management sees this as a threat to their control even though they actually argue the regulation would be too "burdensome" to implement. The second threat to management control is the workforce, specifically organized labor as represented by unions, thus the systematic and unrelenting attacks on unions and any regulatory structure that supports their existence. In fact, the historical roots of the labor movement has its antecedents in the peasant revolts of Europe and the Roman slave revolts. It is when the inequalities of power become extreme that social disruption follows. Thus, it is no accident the most powerless actor in the typical corporate power structure is the workforce, yet it is the most feared by those in power. I would suggest that a "new" form of capitalism holds the key to our future prosperity as a nation - democratic corporatism.
Next up: The Nuts and Bolts of the Democratic Corporation
This excellent diary is a sobering reality check on where we are headed if we can't check our current system of corporate capitalism - excellent diary, Mark!