SNIPPET from a May 27, 2008 (but every bit as applicable today, if not more so!) Review of the Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too, by James K. Galbraith. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Free Press, 2008.
Jamie provides a careful analysis of the frontline battles on many of the most important issues--Social Security, health care, inequality, immigration, security after 9-11, trade and outsourcing, and global warming—showing how “market solutions” are designed to enrich a favored oligarchy through a spoils system administered through the state’s structure.
The policy “mistakes” in Iraq or New Orleans or at Bear-Stearns do not result from incompetence—indeed they only appear to be failures because we apply inappropriate measures of success. There is no common good, no public purpose, no shareholder’s interest; we are the prey and governments as well as corporations are run by and for predators. The “failures” enrich the proper beneficiaries even as they “prove” government is no solution.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/05/the-predator-st.htmlNoni Mausa said... I have been writing about this topic in my own amateur way since at least 1992. I found it weird that when the idea was accepted at all, it was as a metaphor.
One thing to remember about predators is this: they are animals. By that, I mean they are driven by appetite and competition,
and foresight is not part of their repertoire. Perhaps what I mean is that if one is driven by appetite and competition, without foresight, this defines one as an animal despite whatever human potential may be present.
Expecting foresight from predators is to convert them into farmers or feedlot operators, efficient predators who look ahead in the management of their livestock. We really DON'T want to go there.
Noni
Tuesday, May 27, 2008 at 07:08 PM
Uncle Billy Cunctator said in reply to Noni Mausa... I think we're there.Monday, January 24, 2011 at 11:29 PM
SqueakyRat said in reply to Noni Mausa... Excellent insight about predators, Noni, though even the lions and tigers seem (implicitly, of course) to estimate whether a given hunt is worth the effort, given the probability of failure. Still, the short time-horizon of capitalist enterprises is pretty notable.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 11:48 AM
Agelbert NOTE: The profit over planet plutocrats and their sycophants fancy themselves to be predators like lions, tigers, giant grizzly bears and so on.
They relish the
"we make a daily KILLING " mindset. They use powerful wild animals as a Darwinian metaphor that places these conscience free, biosphere math challenged morons at the top of the Apex Predator, Alpha Male species pecking order.
This is an excellent example of arrogant, stupid, self serving wishful thinking, Bernays MINDF UCK.
WHY? Because wild animal predators ONLY attack prey when they are hungry. And the planning and hunting activity they engage in. like whales making bubble traps for fish schools, DOES NOT kill the fish they don't eat. EVERYTHING they do works to PROMOTE a viable biosphere, not DEGRADE it.
If these humans that fancy themselves as "predators" had a lick of sense, they would realize that, in Darwinian terms, they are an EVOLUTIONARY DEAD END! Sure, they technically ARE "predators". But they are predators that DEPLETE their FUTURE food supply based on THE WISHFUL THINKING that they'll "figure something out" when the "supply" is hurting their profits.
HELLO? Any biologist will tell you that when populations get below a certain level, they crash. If the predators are the main contributors to said crash, they go extinct along with their prey.
Animal predators do not have long cognitive time horizons. In that respect, they are similar to the Wall Street predators. However, they have biosphere preserving instincts that DEFINES THEM as SUCCESSFUL predators.
Wall Street Smaht guys, do NOT have that
sine qua non of a successful predator.
They aren't even Dinosaurs except as a cheap shot to the Dinosaurs! The dinosaurs did NOTHING to warrant their extinction; the fossil fuelers INSIST on industrially defecating where they EAT.
Their ridiculously short cognitive time horizon will,
if we survive them , earn them a place in history as a perfect example of a dysfunctional and self defeating
modus operandi. In the ENTIRE natural history of DERANGED and destructive outlier members of, not just our species, BUT ANY species on this planet, the fossil fuelers are number one!
(Bernays Narcissistic Wild Animal Metaphor stripped) "Predatory" Fossil Fueler profit over planet Energy Resource "Free" Market Solutions Wall Streeters in general
and fossil fuelers in particular are Evolutionary DEAD END "predators" because,
unlike us,
they poison their (and our) home! Tell them to put their Apex Predator metaphor where the sun don't shine!