Writing Clips Some of My Columns for The Republic CAPITALISM: WHAT IT CAN AND CAN’T DO Originally published August 14, 2005 I have a funny relationship with capitalism. Let me say at the outset that I love it. No other economic system provides the fairness and the opportunity for individuals to see to their well-being that capitalism does. Paradoxically, though, that’s the thing that leads to bothersome results, in my estimation. The unregulated market is so frustratingly neutral. It holds up a mirror to society showing us what we value, and that’s not always pretty. Capitalism is brutally unsentimental, giving only a cursory, perhaps even cynical, nod to heritage. Efficient allocation of resources dictates that longstanding bonds between people and within and among communities are of secondary importance. If it’s time to merge firms, close a facility, or drop a logo, we do it without hesitation. Joseph Schumpeter called this concept “creative destruction.” It’s the notion that out of the rubble of old institutions come new ones with more relevant benefits. I understand its function, but I find it a little sad nonetheless. Capitalism seems to attract rapacious personality types, for whom everything has a price. I want to be careful here not to give the impression that I’m railing against “powerful corporate interests,” to trot out a hackneyed phrase. In fact, the type I’m concerned with here is more inclined to operate as an individual. We all know examples of the brash and cocky empire-builder who really prefers cutting deals to providing a fine product. Unfettered capitalism has been known to wreak havoc on aesthetic standards, notions of artistic merit, and moral uplift. Slipknot, Fear Factor and Fahrenheit 911 all befouled our culture because they generated profits. Demand will be addressed in our society. It looks like a sorry record for something I started out saying that I love. What’s to be done with this problematic apple of my eye? Censorship and regulation can be taken off the table right away. To even consider either or both is to kill the very thing we’re discussing. Censorship would get us into the whole realm of morality-code specifics, which would divide us, when our commonly held values have much to contribute to our look at this situation. The great majority of us understands that the first amendment is a national treasure, but, at the same time, knows what real garbage is when it’s presented to us. We can live with the differences we have within the spectrum ranging from Sleeping Beauty to Desperate Housewives. Regulation invites overzealous legislators to foreclose discussion of still-being-researched matters. That’s how you come such to junctures as junk science dictating the course of environmental debate. Plus, government ought not to be able to tell us what to do under most circumstances. Still, capitalism in and of itself is no panacea for the deepest challenges facing humankind. For a really eloquent and cogent assertion of this, I would refer the reader to Whittaker Chambers’s review of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged in a 1957 issue of National Review. Chambers, who had made one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable ideological climbs upward from the muck of Marxism, vehemently took issue with Rand’s worship of economic achievement. Interestingly, the beginnings of an answer to this conundrum lie in spheres outside the economic realm. Public arenas such as schools and private environments - porches, kitchen tables, fishing boats - must become forums for relaxed dialogue about the big matters, such as virtue, nobility and loveliness. Churches, synagogues, mosques and temples certainly have a role to play here. When we enter the marketplace, it must be with some kind of grounding in what a richly human life is all about. What is worth consuming and producing? Why do we want to buy and sell the stuff with which we surround ourselves? Collectivism is undoubtedly the antithesis of economic liberty, but there are many realms of life beyond the economic, and in those we must take a fresh look at what binds us together. Otherwise, we will keep making our culture more predatory, less meaningful, more cold and brittle. Capitalism can’t make us good. It’s a marvelous indicator of what we find desirable, but how we come to our desires is a matter to be dealt with away from the din of commerce. Invite your neighbor to a quiet place and see where the conversation takes you. Maybe you’ll go back out into the world with a clearer idea of what’s important and glorious, and how to formulate your economic goals. Originally published November 27, 2005 Friends and dear ones wishing to extend Christmas greetings to me of a wrapped and under-the-tree nature know they can never go wrong with books. Christmas is an especially fine time to receive books, as long, chilly evenings and Sunday afternoons are imminent for a few months, well-passed with a blanket, a warming snifter of comfort and something literary. For those on your list who similarly appreciate a stack of freshly bound tomes, I offer a few possibilities. These are the things that I took delight in during 2005. For those whose thoughts often arrive at that nexus of history and metaphysics, I recommend Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion by Alan F. Segal (Doubleday, 731 pp.). Segal, a religion professor at Columbia University, starts with the Isis-Osiris mythology of the ancient Egyptians, takes us through the formation of Mesopotamian cosmology, First Temple Hebrew thought (which really didn’t address the afterlife directly), Second Temple views, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Greek mythology, Platonism and Islam. Along the way, we’re invited to ponder such things as what the dreams in the book of Daniel tell us about states of human consciousness, and how these various traditions started homing in on the notion of a unified human being (after usually starting out regarding a person as a repository of disparate levels of existence). He points out the differences in Paul’s take on the impact of Jesus and that of the Gospel writers. (Let us remember that Paul wrote his letters prior to the writing of the Gospels.) The cultural-observation types among your gift recipients will be glad to get The Artificial White Man: Essays on Authenticity by Stanley Crouch (Basic Books, 228 pp.). Crouch is a syndicated columnist who, some years ago helped Wynton Marsalis found the jazz program at Lincoln Center. The essays in this book include a look at the career of the novelist Jorge Luis Borges, an examination of the films of Quentin Tarrantino, a review of the book Jazz Modernism by Alfred Appel, Jr., a review of Ravelstein, Saul Bellow’s last novel, and reflections on Michael Jackson’s charge of racism against Epic/Sony Records. Those are only the central subjects of each of those essays, though. While pursuing them, he looks at such things as parallels between Borges, Duke Ellington and Hemmingway, how various colloquialisms can evolve from their ethnic origins to assume novel linguistic functions in our culture, and how hip-hop is just as degrading to African-Americans as was minstrelsy in the nineteenth century. I’ve only scratched the surface of what’s in this eye-opening collection. If someone in your circle could use a dose of straight-up reality, consider Treachery: How America’s Friends and Foes Are Secretly Arming Our Enemies by Bill Gertz (Crown Forum, 273 pp.) Gertz, a Washington Times reporter, has made a career of telling us the meticulously documented, spine-chilling truth about the world situation. I sometimes wonder how the guy gets a decent night’s sleep. In this book, he devotes entire chapters to Germany, France and Russia and their governments’ willingness to let firms in those countries sell all manner of apocalyptic technology to China, Iran, and Saddam-era Iraq. Other chapters look closely at such states as North Korea and Syria. The chapter on the United Nations and the Oil-for-Food program may change your definitions of “inept” and “sinister.” He concludes with his take on the way forward, which is like that of most serious observers today: none of our options are easy. The music fans in your life will dig The Record Men: The Chess Brothers and the Birth of Rock & Roll by Rich Cohen (Atlas Books, 205 pp.). I will confess, Cohen can be stylistically annoying, with his interjections of attitude-laden dialogue that he assumes historical figures to have uttered. He’s a little sloppy about dates, too. At one point, he has the Chess brothers opening their Macomba Lounge in 1949 and then places it several years earlier later on in his narrative. These shortcomings aside, this is the most detailed and evocative account I’ve ever seen of how Phil and Leonard Chess came through Ellis Island from Poland in 1928, made their way to Chicago, learned English, and fell in love with black music. We get a gritty look at the state of the music business in the late 1940s, a look at the great Chess artists like Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry, and get some insights into why these Jewish immigrants and sons thereof - not only the Chess brothers, but Syd Nathan of the King label and Jerry Wexler of Atlantic - felt an affinity for the African-American subculture. Hopefully, there’s something in this stack that helps you with your Yuletide shopping. Merry Christmas. A Link to a List of My Articles on R&B History for Suite 101.com Click here for some major cultural edification A Link to Yet Another Archive of Magazine Pieces Arts journalism, cultural observation and some travel writing |