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| Joined: | Mon Nov 21st, 2005 |
| Location: | California USA |
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Here again:
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“The construction of I.G. Auschwitz has assured I.G. a unique place in business history. By adopting the theory and practice of Nazi morality, it was able to depart from the conventional economics of slavery in which slaves are traditionally treated as capital equipment to be maintained and serviced for optimum use and depreciated over a normal life span. Instead, I.G. reduced slave labor to a consumable raw material, a human ore from which the mineral of life was systematically extracted. When no usable energy remained, the living dross was shipped to the gassing chambers and cremation furnaces of the extermination center at Birkenau, where the S.S. recycled it into the German war economy – gold teeth for the Reichsbank, hair for mattresses, and fat for soap. Even the moans of the doomed became a work incentive, exhorting the remaining inmates to greater effort.”
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Cutting costs and maximizing profits. The private company managed to exploit the market economically. Nothing personal, mind you, it is strictly “business as usual” and from that view, of efficient business economy, a moral view can be held in contrast:
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“Conditions were such that sickness was a pervasive fact of life among the inhabitants of Monowitz. The hospital wards built by I.G. were so inadequate that even the S.S. suggested additional wards be built. I.G. refused because of the cost.”
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The modern counter part is, possibly, Dick Cheney’s Halliburton (in place of I.G. Farben) and Blackwater in place of the S.S.
A private company brutally capitalizes upon and exploits a market to slash costs and maximize profits while the public agent questions the morality of the situation.
At this point it occurs to me, again, to point to the divergent natures of the three types of Free Market Competitions in play.
The first, and the one I grew up knowing, divorces itself from deception and violence as a means to an end. Deception and violence are so completely integrated as to be one and the same thing. At this time a word on that relationship begs to be repeated and the quote comes from the leading authority of the second competitors (what I labeled as “Nationalism”):
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
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We shall be told: what can literature possibly do against the ruthless onslaught of open violence? But let us not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Between them lies the most intimate, the deepest of natural bonds. Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his METHOD must inexorably choose falsehood as his PRINCIPLE. At its birth violence acts openly and even with pride. But no sooner does it become strong, firmly established, than it senses the rarefaction of the air around it and it cannot continue to exist without descending into a fog of lies, clothing them in sweet talk. It does not always, not necessarily, openly throttle the throat, more often it demands from its subjects only an oath of allegiance to falsehood, only complicity in falsehood.
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The second, and most dangerous, most destructive, most exploitive, and certainly the one that falls under the label “Nationalism” Free Market Competition is free from the constraints of accuracy where lies (only those that avoid detection) are rewarded, credited, encouraged, and otherwise admitted as legitimate, right, loved, embraced, and utilized economically.
The third example of competition does not pretend to be free and this example of competition operates without any restraint whatsoever. The third example of Free Market Competition is free from morality, free from truth, free from any restraint whatsoever under the sun. This third example of competition is nearly powerless compared to the other more sensible, rational, and organized or governed competitors. The third example is so completely powerless as to be rendered nearly superfluous with one exception. The third example serves the second example as a goal post or desired end. In other words; the third competitor shines in the eyes of the second competitors world view as a utopian dream, a place to strive to create, and an inspiration to drive toward.
I also consider the third competitor (the competition that is free from any restraint whatsoever) to be a god send to the liars. They have their Dooms Day Parade with this utopian dream and this dream state serves to scare the bejezzus out of those who populate the first competitor (the one where lies and violence are abhorred).
The second competition calls this third place by the name ANARCHY. The idea behind calling this third place by the name ANARCHY is to discredit the first competitor’s world.
So…the first example of Free Market Competition is governed by a principle that admits the wrong of lies and violence.
The Second example of Free Market Competition pretends to abhor violence, however the second example of Free Market Competition is not governed by accuracy (a principle that admits the wrong of lies) so the pretension of abhorring violence is a lie.
The third example of Free Market Competition is complete freedom to act in any manner imaginable under the sun at any time anywhere without any principles governing actions whatsoever.
When the S.S. or Blackwater can be viewed as being more moral, more right, more compassionate, more loving, more caring, and more good than I.G. Farben or Halliburton the situation may indicate a need to be slightly more accurate about the situation than what is being reported by the authorities.