Re: Consumer Conscience

["schulte-baeuminghaus" <cresscourt@xxxxxxxxx>]

Harry,


In so far as this makes any sense at all, it appears to be a total
distortion of Keynesian policies.
The policies applied in Keynesian-type economies between 1945 and 1969
gave us full or nearly full employment, high levels of real investment
with relatively little speculative froth, rising productivity and
growing production which satisfied the needs of the consumers as the
consumers themselves identified them.
It was also a period in which primary, secondary and tertiary
education made enormous progress, not only in the more advanced
economies/societies but also in those more disadvantaged.
In the area of health, the advances were dramatic. The scourge of
tuberculosis was wiped out in many countries. (Sadly, it has returned
with the failure to adapt and sustain Keynesian policies.) Polio and
other diseases were controlled within health programs that brought
great benefit to everyone, the rich as well as the poor - and added to
both length and quality of life.
It is hard to think of anything that did not benefit the majority
within most societies. The only ones who clearly did not benefit were
those
who lived on instability, speculation and, it must be added, those
motivated by greed, a desire to exploit and a stubborn refusal to
renounce the selfish enjoyment of class or caste, whether based on
income, wealth or birth.
Let me emphasise that most of the relatively rich in terms of income
or wealth also benefitted, provided they made some contribution as
active participants in the economy.
Keynesianism was/is not a system aimed at abolishing capitalism but at
preserving it.
The instability and turmoil since 1969 - including unstable and
chronic unemployment, lower standards of living for many at the lower
income levels and the dramatically growing gap between rich and poor -
are not features that promise to safeguard capitalism.
On the contrary, they are features that put capitalism at great risk
and threaten the emergence of radical systems of the kind that were
stimulated by, but not limited to, for example, the Great Depression
of the 1930s.
We might be on the very edge, right now, of discovering just how
enormous a catastrophe it was, for the world community as a whole, to
allow the economic, social and political advantages that Keynesian
policies brought us, to slip from our grasp.


James Cumes


----------
>From: "Harry Veeder" <eo200@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Consumer Conscience
>Date: Thu, Mar 22, 2001, 12:56 am
>

> CONSUMER CONSCIENCE.
>
> There is too much social emphasis on being productive,
> and too little on being constructive. This is because
> modern society tends to asses all growth in terms of raw
> production.
>
> Good consumption is a *constructive* activity
> in its own right, and without a balance of constructive
> and productive activity, economic growth becomes
> destructive.
>
> In the Keynesian-Welfare State the consumer is servile to
> the paid worker. The good consumer spends sooner rather than later
> to provide jobs immediately for the worker.
> The good consumer does not waste time at school or using his time
> or purchases to enrich his own life, the life of his family or the
> life of his community. An unemployed consumer is only entitled
> to receive "welfare". This clarifies and affirms the consumers
> subservience to the worker.
>
> When we arrive at the poor unemployed consumer we have come to
> the bottom of the economic hierarchy. They have no one to kick
> below them, so they kick themselves.
>
> Harry Veeder
>