A New Brand of Capitalism

Born-Again Capitalism (Part 2)

“This is not the capitalism I signed up for!” The shriek of Rebecca Henderson’s attack on corporate globalization and her emphatic appeal to change the system are an attention grabber. It is not just the quiver in her voice that invites my curiosity , it is also the fact that she is a Harvard economics professor berating the status quo of corporate America during her TED Talks video (which is more of an advertisement for her book, Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire than a real TED Talk). I quickly rewind the video to make sure I heard her correctly. Yes, she really said that.  All I can think is, “Well, Rebecca, you may not have signed up for this brand of capitalism, but for someone who has a net worth of over 30 million, you have benefitted from it handsomely.”

There is a an mounting multitude of top five-percenters who are just like Henderson in that they want to reimagine, rename or at least rebrand capitalism. This “new capitalism” has already arrived and it is a kinder, gentler, friendlier, greener capitalism that vows to preserve and protect our natural resources. (That is important because as it turns out, ruining the environment is actually bad for business. Plus, there is money to be made from natural resources!)

The Old Brand of Capitalism
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages.” Adam Smith, The Wealth Of Nations, Book IV, Chapter II, p. 456, para. 9.

Henderson is not alone in her claim that a new brand of capitalism is a solution (perhaps “the solution”) to the environmental woes and social injustices that the “old brand” of capitalism has heap upon us. Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida refers to a new capitalism in his policy proposals to move away from the recent era of Abenomics. In doing so he criticizes the old capitalism’s neo-liberal policies initiated by Yasuhiro Nakasone in the 1980s that continued during the reform era with the support of Junichiro Koizimi.

In the US, Barrack Obama (net worth: $70 million or so) and John Kerry (net worth: $250 million) have been preaching the good word about how spending more money will save the planet as we transition to green energy. And, every global investment company is touting socially responsible investing – a.k.a, Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG). Many investment firms and analysts now provide special ESG ratings of companies so that investors can decide if a company is green enough for investment dollars. A high ESG rating for a stock or exchange traded fund (ETF) can help investors feel their investment choices are righteous and that they are now part of the fight against climate change, environmental degradation and social injustice.

The idea of reinventing capitalism is enticing, but is it possible? Would capitalism even be capitalism if people were using their savings and investment dollars in a socially responsible manner that would be good for the environment as well as promote social justice? Would this new brand of capitalism mean that everyone would actually have savings and be able to use money to invest in ESG corporations with high ratings from financial brokers?

These questions highlight the conundrum of Rebecca Henderson’s book. In short, her thesis claims that if corporate CEOs, in unison with politicians and governments, make decisions based on social responsibility rather than short-term profits, the corporate world can create a utopia for the whole world. Sounds a bit like the meaningless tautology, “A hamburger is a hamburger.” A utopia is a utopia. If capitalism were to exist in a world in which everyone put social responsibility first, it would not be creating the utopia, it would be existing in a utopia. Communism or socialism or any other form of economic policy bonded to community government would have the same utopian outcome provided all members of a community made decisions absent of selfish greed and that they, in a community spirit, made decisions dedicated to a proposition of altruism and social responsibility. Even an autocracy would be a utopia if the autocrat were benevolent, selfless and altruistic in governing.

Note: The word “utopia” entered the English language via Sir Thomas Moore’s Latin book in 1516. The Greek word translates into “no place” and was the name of the island community as the setting for Moore’s book. However, the current nuance of the word may differ much from Moore’s Utopia, a place where slavery was a feature of life.

It is easy to agree with Henderson’s claim that unchecked capitalism destabilizes the environment and harms human health. However, her rationale for a new brand of capitalism grows murky as she reasons, “Business is screwed if we don’t fix climate change.” All I am hearing is, “Oh no, we screwed up the environment so bad, it is going to hurt business, Now, we need to fix the environment because that will be good for business. Oh, and we can make it a marketing campaign to sell more goods and do more business.” This is what I call “born-again capitalism”.

What is Born-Again Capitalism?

Born-again capitalism is the green-washing of neo-liberal economic policies that encourage globalization to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor. Born-again capitalism is the belief in and practice of using marketing campaigns that claim products and companies are environmentally friendly and socially responsible in order to sell products and attract investors.

Slave Owners on US Money

The above featured image for this post shows John Trumbull’s 1818 oil painting “Declaration of Independence”. The red dots are courtesy of film maker, Arlen Parsa. The red dots cover the faces of the slave owners who were supposed to be present at the original signing of the the Declaration of Independence. Accordingly, 34 of the 47 founding fathers shown in the painting were slaveholders.

Money can build a community and money can divide a nation. Money has played and is playing a major role in the disarticulation of America. There is an echoing irony in the continuation of honoring slave owners on a nation’s currency. Even South Africa replaced the images of the apartheid leaders—and that was thirty years ago. Why is the US so slow in developing a 21st century mindset? The change should have come 60 years ago during the MLK period of the Civil Rights Movement. Is there any other nation in the world that honors slave owners and human rights violators on their currency?

Would it not promote a better impression of the United States if images of wildlife and scenic destinations decorated US currency instead of controversial dead politicians? It is time for a currency makeover!

George Washington owned slaves before, during, and after his presidency. He held over 600 enslaved individuals throughout his lifetime. His widow freed the remaining 123 within a year of his death.

Jefferson not only enslaved over 600 African Americans, he fathered multiple children with an enslaved woman he kept as a concubine. Jefferson would seem to be the epitome of hypocrisy as he he was a a lifelong slave owner,but condemned the institution of slavery and advocated emancipation.

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president, never owned slaves, was morally opposed to slavery and issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. However, his wife’s family did keep a small number of enslaved individuals.

Although Alexander Hamilton opposed slavery, he profited from buying and selling enslaved people. Despite any moral objections he held, his social and political ambitions motivated him to use slavery to advance his fortunes—both indirectly and through compromises he chose to make. (BTW, he was never a president. He was a “founding father” and Secretary of the Treasury.)

Andrew Jackson, the country’s 7th president, kept as many as 200 enslaved individuals during his lifetime. He earned a large portion of his private wealth from the slave trade. As president, he introduced legislation that protected slave owners and slavery in the southern states. He did not free his slaves in his will. Not a hypocrite, just a human rights violator.

 Ulysses S. Grant inherited one enslave individual in 1854 who he freed 2 years later. His wife Julia had possession of four enslaved people during the American Civil War. They had been given to her by her father.

Benjamin Franklin was never a president. He was an abolitionist. Still, he owned 2 slaves during his life. Both assumed positions as household servants, yet were legally enslaved individuals.

History is exactly that – history! We can learn from it. We should never forget it or erase it. However, we should not continue to honor historical individuals that profited from human rights violations. We should not ignore their hypocrisies. To do so only teaches our children to recapitulate world views that perpetuate social injustice and manufacture divisions of communities.

The Passenger

This is an excerpt from Tides Ebb as Islands Dream. Obviously inspired by the Iggy Pop song of the same name.

The Passenger
By the time we hit the runway for Mactan the next day, the skies had cleared and the pilot had sobered from our night of drinking Tanduay rum and Coke-a-cola. It was just a short hop over the Bohol Straight. We caught a view of “my site” on the way over. I got to admit, a chill ran through me as we passed over the group of small islands that will forever remain in my mind as “my site”. More embarrassingly to admit; there was actually a flash in my mind that these islands could be one of those Sports Illustrated kind of swimsuit photo-shoot settings with tropical beauties sitting around drinking tropical cocktails. From the plane it looked like a perfect paradise. Parts of the reef were clearly visible from the plane. Then I saw obvious grayish areas that were tell-tale signs of damage to the reef; huge areas of white dead coral and coral rubble. As the plane turned toward Mactan to land, it was still mid morning. Gow and I would have the rest of the day to ready for the following long day of overland travel.

A taxi took Gow and I from the airport to the Mayflower Pension in Cebu. It seemed like an incredibly long ride through an endless urban jungle, stanking of sewage and waste. I couldn’t smell it because the cab was air conditioned, but I could feel the stank in the rippling heat waves rising from the burning ash fault streets and the septic, trash clogged sewers that paralleled the tenements we passed. The cabby’s radio muffled out a Beatles song. Young kids at every intersection trying to sell sunglasses, fruit, jasmine flower necklaces, and whatever else. The cabby actually described his sister to me and said she was looking for an American husband. Did he expect I might really say, “Sure I’ll marry her!” Gow was on his cell phone so he missed the exchange. I said nothing and just kept fumbling with my sunglasses and trying to cope with a morning-after-rum buzz. The Beatles song ended and Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger” came on the radio.

“I am the passenger

I stay under glass

I look through my window so bright…”

Traffic had us at a stand-still. A group of children raced from car to car begging for money to buy food. I watched them as if I had been watching a movie. Not feeling any real emotion at first. Just watching as if everything outside the taxi were happening on a silver screen behind a cloud of desert dust. One child approached my car door window and peered through the tinted glass gesturing that he wanted food. When he caught my eye, my movie abruptly stopped. His deep brown eyes were penetrating real and his hair gray with road dirt. The lights in my imaginary theatre flashed me back to reality and the imaginary movie projector clicked off. I turned away trying to ignore the boy. A dozen reasons why not to give him money crossed my mind. Two more scraggily kids showed up with even more penetrating stares. I reached in my pocket for some coins and realized I only had bills. Stealthily pealing one bill away from the rest without taking my hand out of my pocket, I quickly cracked open the window and slide out the bill. The first boy ran off and the other two chased him. Just as two more boys approached, traffic started moving.

The driver shot me a strange look after I closed the window. He had noticed the bill I had given the boy was a 100 peso note. Really only equal to a couple of bucks on the exchange table, but enough to buy a few meals in Cebu. He commented that I shouldn’t give money to children beggars because they are lazy and don’t go to school. He added they worked for local gangsters who take a large percentage of what they make begging. He went on about how giving people money makes them lazy, but I became disinterested and faded back into the Iggy song.

“I see the bright and hollow sky

Over the city’s ripped backside

And everything looks good tonight

Singing lala lala…”

Things made sense for a second. It is so easy to be the passenger, safe behind the glass, watching reality like watching a movie. I reflected back on my hitchhiking days and asked myself why I love to travel. Freedom came to mind, and that day I felt very free and far away from any thoughts or problems I had left back in Ohio. Feeling free in that moment had its irony. First because a passenger is never really free. A passenger is stuck in someone else’s car while another person is doing the driving. Sometimes life is like that. The other reason my momentary elation, or possibly illusion, of freedom was ironic is because that day was not just another road trip to escape the humdrum life back in Cleveland. That day was not supposed to be a vacation. I had made a two-year commitment. And commitment is not freedom. Commitment is the lose of freedom. Apprehension and excitement peaked inside me momentarily when I realized the next day I would begin living with the community to which I had made that commitment.

The cab finally reached the Mayflower. The driver gave me a slight scowl because I only tipped him 50 pesos. It was actually a good tip since the fair was only 300, but I am sure he expected more after seeing me give the money to the begging children.

Gow sorted out our rooms at the check-in desk while I stood near the air conditioner trying hard not to sweat so much. I felt a bit at Gow’s mercy since he was my “community contact” and therefore responsible for making sure I made it to site and was comfortable with any living arrangements. Gow was in the driver’s seat and making the decisions about what we doing and where we were going. I was his passenger. More accurately, Gow was my babysitter and I was like a spoiled child that might need special attention. Although I resented that feeling, I knew Gow was doing his best to make me feel comfortable. After all, I was the fish out of the fishbowl; though I felt as if I were the fish in the fishbowl, behind the glass with everyone looking in at me. I guess sometimes, perception and reality don’t match.