The Psychopaths of Capitalism
The present aim of capitalism is quite simply to socialise the costs while being allowed to maximise and privatise the profits.
In a nutshell, its capitalism without moral or social responsibility.
In another article I called the players psychopaths. I used that pejorative term factually, not as a knee jerk reaction, but in the considered view of neuroscience and its application to the criminal traits of serial killers and their like.
The majority of psychopaths know the law, are often astute in its application and are aware of the moral values deemed as normal benchmarks by society.
Where their flaw becomes apparent is their indifference to the values placed by both the law and normal society on such dispirit issues as the minor offence of littering or the gravest offence of killing. They treat both with the same casual, if any, remorse.
The same attitude has been adopted by all the players in this game, including those who are supposedly in the business of representing us and looking after our interests.
Both, however, hide behind the façades of institutions; institutions which by design and practice have removed conscience from their covenants because applying it would increase costs at the expense of profits. They don't see such an attitude as corrupt they just see it as the normal game of global business - the world of dog eat dog and eat what you kill.
This explains their hubris and lack of remorse and appreciation of being saved from the stupidity of their own making; and their utter lack of conscience. To the extent they not only deem they had a right to be saved, they want to exploit the recovery by tilting the ballpark and reducing the rules all in their favour.
They even have the audacity to threaten if they don't get what they want they'll take the huff and their ball and find a better pitch. Which would be laughable, if we had a competent government with a backbone who said - Go, but before you do, it’s our ball, our pitch, our rules and our clothes you’re wearing. So strip off and piss off as far as that big van that's waiting for you by the touchline.
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a government (apart from possibly Iceland) any where in the world that has this biological necessity of backbone that, supposedly, separates man from mollusc.
However, whatever the cost, - and I suspect to the normal citizen, if done fairly and in a forensic manner, they would be less than the approach presently adopted - their failures and the surreal fantasy of their values have been exposed, and we have had an expensive education in the worthless alchemy of their beliefs and the vacuous lexicon of their inner temples.
So, in the immortal words (except for Bush): Fool us once; shame on you - Fool us twice; shame on us.
But this is exactly what they are presently doing, with the connivance of governments.
Why is our government conniving with them? Well it may be panic which has undermined their competence and confidence. That may be regrettable but excusable.
But, with twenty two millionaires in the cabinet and a party bankrolled by big business that confidence has to be allied with trick – a confidence trick designed to protect the value of their investments and portfolios and those of their backers by passing the bucks to the bewildered herd under the guise of austerity.
Austerity doesn’t feature in the concerns of the rich; it needs to be seismic, in the realms of catastrophe, before they feel the pinch. Meanwhile they hope the collateral damage inflicted by the shock and awe of their austerity measures will subdue the herd into stupefied subjection of stress, anguish and the chilling vice of penury.
The price paid by millions to support the avarice of a few psychopaths.
Think I’m being too harsh on them? Look for the remorse.
contributed by John Souter
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