We talk about a lot of interesting things on this site. Recently a Book came out Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Pickety. I strongly believe this book is as revolutionary and will be as influential as when Karl Marx wrote Daas Kapital. Before the Soviet Union, this guy Marx wrote a book describing the society that was riding the crest of the Industrial Revolution. More wealth was being produced by less people than ever before. Fortunes were being made. It did more to erradicate the old Aristocratic Feudal regimes left over than the French Revolution and Napoleon combined. In the 20th Century his philosophy and economic analysis of the world of the 1880s lead to the Cold War which lasted nearly 70 years. People forget that all Marsx actually did was right a book of economics that described the wealth distribution adn the ownership of the new industrial means of production of Europe (Mostly Germany and Britain). People ran with his book and next thing you know a guy called Lenin takes power in Russia and history changed. Well this new book by Picketty is stirring the pot already and it hasnt even been a year since it came out. The Wall Street people of course where the first to read it, then government types and economists, it is now slowly trickling down to intellectuals and college professors (this of course is when it starts to get hotter as professors share its findings with students). Point is since this book was written we have seen a slew of new statistics on income inequality who pays taxes, who uses social services, how much is owed in credit cards blah blah. Well guys all this matters because everything is related to economics, including the environment (global warming) philosophy (how we view human existence and the what if???s) what is in style, what we eat, what we drive the shoes we wear, everything is in some way influence d by economic factors. That is all that this guy Picketty did, he does not propose a solution, he just describes the problem. Marx too described the problem but he tried to give it a solution. Remember he is the father of sociology as he invented the nurture shapes the man concept: One of his most famous quotes: It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. That was his Biggy revelation. Nobody thought of that before. The Protestant ethic (Father of Capitalism) stated that if your poor its because you are not in full grace with God, and you are not one of the selected. In other words; Your fault! Not mine so it is not my problem to help you. Marx after writing a book that described capitalism so well and predicted the horrors of World War that actually came to be (for the captive markets of Africa, India, and Asia) which as he correctly predicted were carved up by France and England leaving Germany out. That was trouble. So to make his ideas relevant rather than descriptive he started to try to find a solution to the problems associated with capitalism (extreme poverty, child labor, landless peasants thrown off the farms invading the cities). He took the concepts of the utopian socialists and tried to make socialism scientific. He tried to use math, and philosophy to explain everything based on economics. While he was right on the money (pardon pun) in describing the problem in Das Kapital, his solution of the proletariat (workers) taking over the means of production (factories) and for a temporary period use the state to impose socialism (Police and military) on society, that a New Man raised with socialist values would emerge within a generation and we could then get rid of the police and the military cuz this new guy was going to think collectively and not be greedy or self serving. Well that didnt work. So here now I feel, with this book we have the opportunity to look at the world once again analyzing it on economic terms. In other words it seems to give economic reasons behind all major political, philosophical or just trendy new age thinking. It doesnt do this directly but one gets it by inference or implication. He has, with an army of university graduate students, other professors and egg heads from Europe Canada and the UNITED STATES, meticulously examined every conceivable measure of income and wealth for over a hundred years. How much money gets inherited, how much is new money, how much gets invested, how much is taxed, how much disappears, where does it go, what does it do? A million questions are answered. His conclusion is we are in deep shit and headed for a major worldwide paradigm shift. But he doesnt tell us what it will be. He admits the big unknown is the growing wealth and power of Asia and China. So we have to figure it out ourselves. Please anyone who can actually take the time to read this book, should download it and then share it if you can (legally I mean) by telling other people what you read and lending them your i-pad. Get it. Comments welcome. This is fantastic and a lot of the substance of the article attached herein is a product of the research craze engendered by this book. A lot of conspiracy theorists may find some proof in this guys stats. Just FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 04:47:09 +0000
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