(Written and
posted 26 November 2012)
Larry Hagman died last week,
and with him, his most iconic character, J.R. Ewing. (Fans of “Dallas” know that J.R. was actually John Ross Jr., but
was called J.R. to distinguish him from his father, John Ross, Sr., who was
called “Jock”. Yes, I was an avid
“Dallas” fan.) If you read the
biographies of Hagman, the character of J.R. is described as America’s
most-beloved villain, but I don’t think that is an accurate description of the
character. After all, who loves a
villain? They are villains, after
all. I don’t hear Stalin being
described as “beloved”. Nor Genghis
Khan. Nor Tamerlane. I think a better description of J.R. is a
hero. Surely I jest, right? J.R. was ruthless and conniving and selfish
in his quest for himself. How is that
heroic? A hero is someone we strive to
emulate; a role model. Like it or not,
most Americans wanted to be J.R., the epitome of a capitalist.
J.R. was respected, and one
could argue, feared. With a single
phone call, he could ruin his rivals.
He was a kingmaker, without ever having to be a king. He was Carnegie or Rockefeller or Boss
Tweed. Everyone wanted to be his friend
because no one wanted to be his enemy.
And we all loved him and wanted to be him.
Whether we want to admit it
or not, we are all greedy and selfish deep down inside. There are those who will tell you that we
are inherently good; in fact, they have based an entire economic theory on it. Back in the days of J.R. came Reaganomics
and the trickle down theory. In a
nutshell, the trickle down theory says that if you give more money to the
wealthy, the money with trickle down through investments and job creation to
the poor, and in the end, we will all be better off. Of course, this theory has been tried and tested numerous times
throughout the history of mankind with the exact same result- complete failure,
with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Why?
J.R. Ewing. People want to be
J.R. Ewing, and will keep the money to themselves at the expense of others if
given the opportunity, just like J.R.
You will hear some argue
very loudly about the virtues of unadulterated capitalism, and that if you do
not agree with their viewpoint, you are a communist traitor who is in favor of
five-year plans and collectivization.
This is nothing more than pure rhetoric designed to stir up the
patriotic fervor of the uneducated masses.
In reality, pure capitalism has been tried numerous times throughout
history and has failed miserably each and every time. Why? Greed and
selfishness, and lack of equal opportunity to succeed. Remember feudalism, that grand economic
system of the Dark Ages? You know, the
economic system where the landed aristocracy controlled all the wealth while
the masses toiled away in abject poverty for the lords of the manor, who could
have cared less about the welfare of the poor?
You know, those glorious times of chivalry where men were men, women
were women, and people died by the millions of starvation, pestilence, and
disease? There was no Obamacare, no
welfare, no Medicaid or Medicare, no Social Security. You either worked or starved.
Unless you were rich, and then you didn’t have to work at all and could
eat until you vomited. Or, if you were
poor, you literally worked yourself to death and never improved your lot in
life. But hey, isn’t unbridled
capitalism grand?
Or how about the Gilded Age,
where the Rockefellers and the Carnegies amassed great wealth at the expense of
their workers, who they treated as disposable and not really human. So what if a worker loses an arm due to
hazardous work conditions? They are
replaceable. Black lung? Who cares – they are just “miners”, after
all, they are not really people, just tools, parts of the machinery of
production that are easily replaced when they become damaged or broken. Wages?
They should be happy they have a job and not out on the street.
What about the antebellum
South? Capitalism at its finest. The harder the plantation owners worked,
they more crops they grew and harvested and the wealthier they got. That is what capitalism is about,
right? Rewarding the hard workers. So what if the labor is being performed by
slaves; the masters still had to purchase, clothe, and feed them, right? After all, it is expensive to maintain
slaves, so why shouldn’t the master’s reap the reward for the slaves’
work? Without the masters, the slaves
would be dangerous vagabonds, raping and pillaging like the Germanic tribes at
the end of the Roman empire.
Now you must be thinking I
am some un-American communist, and that since I don’t like capitalism I should
go live in some socialist country like North Korea or Cuba and see how I like
it. I am by no means a socialist; pure
socialism is just as inequitable as pure capitalism. Why? Because not only are
people greedy, they are selfish and lazy, too.
Throughout history, pure socialist utopia always fail. Why?
Because the sloths among us realize that they don’t have to work to get
the same as those who work hard. Sloth
is highly contagious, and once others figure out that they can be lazy and
receive the same as the hard-working, then soon everyone becomes lazy and no
one works; after all, why work if you don’t have to?
Take a look at China, for
example. In just a few short decades,
China has evolved from a Maoist utopian socialist society to a capitalist
one. It can be argued that China, one
of the most repressive countries, is also the most capitalist. There is a misconception that capitalism and
personal freedom go hand and hand; they don’t.
Some of the most capitalistic nations in history have also been highly
autocratic and repressive. Czarist
Russia was where the socialist movement really got traction as a response to
what the Russian industrial workers saw as the excesses of capitalism. Lenin and Stalin and comrades got their
start organizing labor unions and ended up overthrowing the czar and
establishing a ruthless autocracy as bad, if not worse than, the one they
replaced!
We should study the Russian
Revolution, and it’s predecessor, the French Revolution, and heed their
lessons. If Marie Antoinette hadn’t
been so callous when told the peasants were starving (“Let them eat cake!”) perhaps
she and Louis, who wasn’t a bad king, wouldn’t have lost their heads and the
subsequent oscillation between radicalism and anarchy and reactionaryism and
autocracy that plagued Europe for the next two centuries would never have
occurred. If Nikolai II, the last Czar
of all the Russias, had been more attentive when labor unrest struck the first
time in 1905, and had not reversed course on his plan to devolve power from
himself to an elected legislature, then perhaps Lenin and his cohorts would not
have been able to infiltrate and dominate the fledging labor movement and
millions of lives that were subsequently lost at the hands of the Bolsheviks
wouldn’t have been.
As much as we don’t want to
because of our feelings of arrogance and superiority, we should look across the
pond at our European friends and foes as examples of the dangers of economic
extremism and how to balance the fine line between capitalism and
socialism. Having been through the
extremes of both the past two centuries, Europe is uniquely qualified to teach
us how to navigate the treacherous waters of extremism. As much as our right-wing politicians like
to insult the Europeans for being “socialists”, it has been over a half-century
since the last major European conflict, and for nations that were in a
perpetual state of war for centuries, that is a major accomplishment. Look at the nations of the European Union,
and their economies all have a similarity – a blend of capitalism and
socialism, with the capitalist elements negating the laziness and sloth
inherent in socialism and the socialism negating the greed and selfishness
inherent in capitalism. Are they
perfect systems? Not in the least; they
are works in progress.
What the Europeans are
showing us is that government, when used properly, can be a force for good for
all without stifling free enterprise.
You may hear the rhetoric about
how the Europeans are crippling their economies with high taxes on the wealthy,
about how they are business unfriendly; yet it has been the core “socialist”
and “business-unfriendly” countries of Germany, Britain, and France that have
weathered the recession the best, whereas low tax countries such as Iceland and
Ireland are now in dire economic straits.
Where a company locates is based on many more factors than tax rates,
despite what some will have you believe.
Oklahoma has never met a tax cut it didn’t like, but the Oklahoma
economy is stagnant, at best. There are
a host of other issues that are more important to companies – transportation,
infrastructure, public safety, the environment, education, public health- that
are provided most efficiently by the government. A government that is obsessed with cutting taxes and cutting
spending is sending a loud message – “We don’t care about what is really
important to you!”
I have done a lot a
traveling this past year, and what I have seen is a great stagnation and
depopulation occurring between the Mississippi River and the Rocky
Mountains. Why did the Big 10 just add
Maryland and Rutgers? Because the east
is growing, while the central part of the country is stagnating. What is interesting is that the states where
the stagnation is occurring are those where the fiscal tax-cutters who view
government as evil dominate the political landscape.
In the decade I have been in
Oklahoma, the state has gone from blue to red.
I have also seen many businesses and good-paying jobs leave. It is heartbreaking to see my wife’s home
state turn into a virtual economic wasteland, to see people accept
poverty. For those who tout the virtues
of pure, unbridled capitalism, come to your utopia, Oklahoma, and we may have a
minimum-wage job waiting for you. Or,
you could live on government assistance, like many of the Okies who hate the
meddling, evil government, do.