The Face of Capitalism (Part Three)

(This is the concluding segment in a three part series. The first segment traced the economic system of capitalism to its birth during the administration of President George Washington and through the winding course of US history. The second segment discussed how the face of capitalism goes about the business of amassing wealth in present day America.)

What ever happened to Henry Ford’s simple but then radical idea to double the wages of his assembly line workers? After all, Ford reasoned correctly, it was the workers who would be buying the cars coming off the assembly line. They couldn’t buy the cars without money. Henry Ford seemed to know instinctively that his own success would be fleeting without the participation of the middle class...

Instead, today we have outsourcing. Outsourcing is but an example where human labor is viewed merely as a line item expense on an income statement. It seems to be all about the maximization of profit, nothing more. Everything is viewed as a commodity, including human beings. Why is the manufacturing base vital to the health and vitality of society? The main economic component, as well as the glue that binds our society together, is a job.

But when a business outsources, it unwittingly constructs a dependency which destroys individual initiative and self worth. Consider this as an unintended consequence. Think of the American Indians both before and after the arrival of the white man. We remove the buffalo herds. We remove their livelihood. We make it impossible to sustain themselves. We set up government agencies. The net result is lines of people waiting for basic subsistence. They wait for food, cooking materials and alcohol.

Ordinary citizens are essentially “kept” at a subsistence level, yet dependent on the power structures that would mean their destruction. Today, some call it a “Wal-Mart economy.” At about 30 hours per week, Wal-Mart wages place their workers below the poverty line. Together with an employment application, a would-be Wal-Mart worker is also provided an application for food stamps. The net result is the government subsidizing the Walton family fortune.

Others see outsourcing plainly as a “frightening window into the primacy of (monetary) profit over human dignity and human life.” And that’s just American human life. It does not address the particular horrors to human life on distant shores. Workers swelter through sweatshop conditions, the kind we had here during the Industrial Revolution, until Theodore Roosevelt weighed in on the side of the worker. T.R.’s example reminds us that human welfare comes before profit. But is that what drives the face of capitalism in America today?

Typically, the “exploitation of human beings is always accompanied by the exploitation of natural resources, without any thought given to sustainability.” In this model global warming is and will forever be a fiction, a liberal plot to thwart the legitimate aims of business. Will it remain this way until it is too late and the effects of global warming have become irreversible?

By definition and in practice, American capitalists idolize individual initiative as the holy grail. What they seem to miss is the vision of the founding fathers: the idea of individualism within the larger context of the commitment to a collective social identity, that we are all in this together. When individualism becomes extreme or indiscriminate, the net result is praise for leading citizens like Mr. Romney, the head capitalist. The face of capitalism is the hero among the hoarders of gold.

An “I built that without help” mentality. Even though very few build anything without a lot of help. Some may be able to borrow money from their parents, as the face of capitalism suggests if there are no better alternatives. But most ordinary citizens do not have that luxury. Selfish, proud of it and greedy. When a successful person says “Nobody helped me,” what they're really saying is “Don't expect me to do anything for anyone else.”

Presently we are a nation which needs many things. Among our national priorities, many would include the return of jobs to American shores to re-build the middle class and our manufacturing base. Many more would include paying down our federal debt through a balanced, sensible approach, combining tax increases and spending reductions.

This would necessarily include the reformation of our tax code to restructure and simplify rates and close loopholes so that all, including the wealthiest individuals and corporations, pay their fair share. Consider it a reformulation of the old Jesse James rule. When asked why he robbed banks, James said that’s where the money was.

But the larger question is: Who will lead us forward? Can we place our trust in the face of capitalism whose fortune derived through benefit from things that need fixing now?

-Michael D’Angelo

(Note: Portions of the second and third segments were written in reliance upon the following source material:

1. Drucker, Jesse, “Romney ‘I Dig It’ Trust Gives Heirs Triple Benefit,” Bloomberg.com, September 27, 2012;

2. Ford, Henry, “When Capitalists Cared,” New York Times opinion section, September 3, 2012;

3. Moyers, Bill, “Capitalism’s Sacrifice Zones,” interview with Chris Hedges, July 24, 2012).