Capitalism, from Christening to Funeral: Michael Perelman & Steven Brant

[Tony Gosling]

Michael Perelman - Primitive Accumulation: From Adam Smith to Angela Merkel
<http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=23187&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=>Michael 
Perelman: The Invention of Capitalism, Secret History
The originators of classical political economy - 
Adam Smith, David Ricardo, James Steuart, and 
others - created a discourse that explained the 
logic, the origin, and, in many respects, the 
essential rightness of capitalism. But, in the 
great texts of that discourse, these writers 
downplayed a crucial requirement for capitalism's 
creation: for it to succeed, peasants would have 
to abandon their self-sufficient lifestyle and go 
to work for wages in a factory. Why would they 
willingly do this? Clearly, they did not go 
willingly. As Michael Perelman shows, they were 
forced into the factories with the active support 
of the same economists who were making 
theoretical claims for capitalism as a 
self-correcting mechanism that thrived without 
needing government intervention.Directly 
contradicting the laissez-faire principles they 
claimed to espouse, these men advocated 
government policies that deprived the peasantry 
of the means for self-provision in order to 
coerce these small farmers into wage labour. To 
show how Adam Smith and the other classical 
economists appear to have deliberately obscured 
the nature of the control of labour and how 
policies attacking the economic independence of 
the rural peasantry were essentially conceived to 
foster primitive accumulation, Perelman examines 
diaries, letters, and the more practical writings 
of the classical economists.He argues that these 
private and practical writings reveal the real 
intentions and goals of classical political 
economy - to separate a rural peasantry from 
their access to land. This rereading of the 
history of classical political economy sheds 
important light on the rise of capitalism to its 
present state of world dominance. Historians of 
political economy and Marxist thought will find 
that this book broadens their understanding of 
how capitalism took hold in the industrial age.
<https://www.amazon.co.uk/Invention-Capitalism-Classical-Political-Accumulation/dp/0822324911>https://www.amazon.co.uk/Invention-Capitalism-Classical-Political-Accumulation/dp/0822324911 

The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political 
Economy and the Secret History of Primitive 
Accumulation Paperback – 3 May 2000 by Michael Perelman (Author)
http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=172638#172638


Capitalism Is Dead. Now What Do We Do?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-g-brant/capitalism-is-dead-now-wh_b_127016.html
17 Oct 2008 
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-g-brant>Steven 
G. Brant - Social systems scientist/World Peace advocate
Capitalism is dead.
And I’m not surprised.
I’ll explain why in a minute, but first here’s 
Capitalism’s obituary. It’s 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/business/17insure.html>the 
New York Times’ 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/business/17insure.html>lead 
story on the bailout of A.I.G....

WASHINGTON ­ Fearing a financial crisis 
worldwide, the Federal Reserve reversed course on 
Tuesday and agreed to an $85 billion bailout that 
would give the government control of the troubled 
insurance giant American International Group.
The decision, only two weeks after the Treasury 
took over the federally chartered mortgage 
finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is 
the most radical intervention in private business 
in the central bank’s history.
With time running out after A.I.G. failed to get 
a bank loan to avoid bankruptcy, Treasury 
Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and the Fed 
chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, convened a meeting 
with House and Senate leaders on Capitol Hill 
about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday to explain the rescue 
plan. They emerged just after 7:30 p.m. with Mr. 
Paulson and Mr. Bernanke looking grim, but with 
top lawmakers initially expressing support for 
the plan. But the bailout is likely to prove 
controversial, because it effectively puts 
taxpayer money at risk while protecting bad 
investments made by A.I.G. and other institutions it does business with.

Hmm... “...the bailout is likely to prove 
controversial, because it effectively puts 
taxpayer money at risk while protecting bad 
investments made by A.I.G. and other institutions it does business with.”
Controversial? No. Not to me. Confirmational. That’s what it is.
It confirms that our nation is not willing to let 
Capitalism be Capitalism, except for us little 
guys of course. But here’s the thing. If 
Capitalism isn’t Capitalism for the Big Guys, 
then it isn’t Capitalism for the little guys either.
Just like there’s no such thing as being a little 
bit pregnant, there’s no such thing as having a 
little Capitalism over here and a little 
Socialism over there. You can’t have two economic 
systems operating in one country at the same 
time, at least not if “all men are created equal” 
is written in that country’s founding documents.
Sorry, my friends. You either have Capitalism or you don’t.
And here in the USA, we no longer have it. It’s dead.
Think about this. Our government has just decided 
­ without asking any of us, including our 
Congressional representatives ­ that $85 billion 
more of our money should be used to cover the 
actions of (and pardon the unsophisticated 
language here) stupid, greedy, criminal people. 
Stupid, because they didn’t have a clue that what 
they were doing would have such negative 
consequences. Greedy, because all they could see 
were short term dollar signs in front of their 
eyes.Criminal, because they just robbed you and 
me of $85 billion dollars by holding a “we’re too 
big to fail” gun to the head of the US government.
They should have let A.I.G. fail, because ­ if 
that had brought about the collapse of the global 
economic system ­ that would have just sped up 
our journey to a point of systemic collapse we 
are destined to reach anyway................
http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=172638#172638
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