The reputation of Capitalism has taken a severe drubbing lately. Given subprime mortgage crises, bailouts, massive and widescale fraud, environmental destruction... you get my point. There's a common theme in all of these problems, a common theme that encompasses more than simple misbehavior by a "few bad apples", and a common theme that crosses over to the essence of government policy over the past 30 years. It's a problem of perspective, a problem of planning, and a problem of impatience. It's the problem of Toddler Capitalism.
It's pretty simple, the demeanor of the business community, especially in matters of influencing government policy, is a problem of extreme short-sightedness. It wants everything "Now, Now, NOW!". Education policy is a great example of this in BC. In 2001, the BC Liberal Party took power with a pro-business agenda. They sold the philosophy to the province a program basis of providing jobs, lowering tax burdens, and spreading prosperity. A large part of those cuts came from deregulating tuition fees. These cuts and fee increases shifted the burden of paying for public services to the middle and working classes resulting in a literal doubling of the cost of education.
Tax cuts are short-term, instant gratification measures. They're business candy. Education funding provides innovation, skilled workers, and well-heeled consumers with strong careers, but have the unpleasant taste of taxes attached to them, they're the vegetables. The BC Liberals have taken the character of essentially a negligent parent, indulging this unruly child with its constant demands for candy, leaving the vegetable crisper empty. Business here in BC doesn't have much of a future without a strong consumer economy, and a strong consumer economy takes an educated populace with good jobs and low debt. Forcing young people to take on a massive amount of debt as they enter the workforce is inherently counterproductive, as is discouraging people from attaining education with prohibitive tuition fees.
Toddler Capitalism doesn't care, of course. Long-term planning is something completely alien to this particular brand of imputent child-business. This comes into play in the incredibly destructive Tar Sands, a massive investment based upon a gamble of high oil prices, a project with an incredibly short lifespan.
Toddler Capitalism is businesses all over the country participating in an exodus of outsourcing, destroying the country's consumer base for their own products in the name of short-term savings in a quarterly report on wages.
Toddler Capitalism is opening a WalMart in a small town, annihilating its entire economy, and sneaking away like a thief in the night with every penny the community had to its name. Toddler Capitalism is allowing this to happen on the part of city officials as well.
Toddler Capitalism is found in the subprime mortgage scandal, as firms struggled to shift around bad paper as quickly as they could before the entire house of cards built from garbage mortgages came crashing down, which it did spectacularly.
Toddler Capitalism is found in the horrible mismanagement and corruption found in the planning of the 2010 Winter Olympics, where a few land developers and construction contractors bankrupted a province for a 17 day party. It was an easy sell to the public, a spectacle of an event, and a coup for national pride, but the people of the province lost 4 dollars for every dollar that was spent by visitors. Let's call that Toddler Capitalism's birthday party.
Toddler Capitalism is worrying about the next quarterly report, while ignoring what's going to happen next year, next decade. Toddler Capitalism is foolishness and naked greed, the work of hucksters, con artists and self-styled aristocrats.
The business community of British Columbia has become a spoiled child, dictating policy based on its immediate needs, based on immediate profit, with an inherently destructive effect for the future. Voters and officials in this province, this country, this world need to throw away the "parenting handbook" of supply side economics before all of us end up suffering from the inevitable tantrum when their own whims result in disaster.
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Comments
Toddler Capitalism.
Son, you seem forget that this toddler has been pitching fits for a very long time, over thirty years.It takes time to hire SuperNanny to rein in " our little darlings" hissy fits, and apply a sane and workable behavior correction.Still, since we voters are becoming aware of our economic children's shenanigans, I think it is incumbant upon the Public to act like a kind but firm parent, stop our behaviors that are contributing to the unholy mess. That means living within our means, voting and supporting legislation that will prevent or limit furthur finacial chaos, taking down those politicians that refuse to do anything to change their spending ways, supporting education and Green Intiatives.We can't do much to correct the past, but we can do a hell of a lot to build a better, and more eqitable future.
Let's take responsibility for our crap and start cleaning up OUR corner of the block , then deal with those who refuse to clean up theirs.
Peace, Mom