#capitalism (11 links)
Humanity spent two centuries fitting those systems with partial controls. In the case of corporations, those controls include independent boards of directors, shareholder votes, courts, disclosure rules and regulators, not to mention public disapproval and consequent activism. Each was a feedback loop, a way to correct the system when its objectives drove it somewhere monstrous. Mr Musk is removing those loops one at a time.
- How McKinsey Destroyed the Middle Class theatlantic.com
Technocratic management, no matter how brilliant, cannot unwind structural inequalities.
The idea that the market will solve such things as environmental concerns, as our racial divides, as our class distinctions, our problems with educating and incorporating one generation of workers into the economy after the other when that economy is changing; the idea that the market is going to heed all of the human concerns and still maximise profit is juvenile. It's a juvenile notion and it's still being argued in my country passionately and we're going down the tubes. And it terrifies me because I'm astonished at how comfortable we are in absolving ourselves of what is basically a moral choice. Are we all in this together or are we all not?
- Republicans: we don't need no regulation guardian.co.uk
Taking this tack has allowed the renaissance right to do a very remarkable thing: to pretend to be an enemy of big business, on the grounds that big business is insufficiently capitalist.
At a time when the limits of the more traditional capitalist model of shareholder ownership stand cruelly exposed, John Lewis's ongoing success is increasingly prompting all three main political parties to point to it as a possible template – for other companies, for schools, hospitals, even local councils.
Via markrocky.
- The dark side of Dubai - Johann Hari, Commentators - The Independent independent.co.uk
Once the manic burst of building has stopped and the whirlwind has slowed, the secrets of Dubai are slowly seeping out. This is a city built from nothing in just a few wild decades on credit and ecocide, suppression and slavery. Dubai is a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing – at last – into history.
Via tomtaylor.