Douglas Rushkoff: We do not live in an economy, we live in a Ponzi scheme

[gasull]

Replace asset inflation/bubble for Ponzi scheme and this sounds to me very similar to what EJ says. LET IT DIE: Rushkoff on the economy.

The thing that is dying—the corporatized model of commerce—has not, nor has it ever been, supportive of the real economy. It wasn’t meant to be.

[...]

Using future tax dollars to give banks more money to lend out at interest is robbing from the poor to pay the rich to rob from the poor.

[...]

The current financial crisis is the best opportunity we have had in a very long time for a bloodless revolution against the faceless fascism under which we have been living, unaware, for much too long. Let us seize the day.

The last paragraph is optimistic. That's why I like it.

[Rajiv]

Re: Douglas Rushkoff: We do not live in an economy, we live in a Ponzi scheme

A follow up on that - HACK MONEY, HACK BANKING: Rushkoff on the economy

I’ve received a ton of great email and response from this week’s piece on letting the banks die and letting the market go down another 70 percent. My commentary also generated some confusion, though, so I’d like to clarify and expand on a few points. (I’ll do this again on WFMU on Monday evening, when I’ll have the opportunity to take some calls and actually converse.)

First off, and I can’t stress this enough: Commerce is good. Commerce is not the problem. Monopolies are.

Except in a few rare cases, corporate charters and centralized currency were never intended to promote commerce. They were intended to prevent locals and non-chartered entities from creating and exchanging value. They are not extensions of the free market, but efforts at extracting value from the free market. Corporate monopoly charters were extended to a king’s favorite companies in return for shares. Then, no one else was allowed to do business in that industry. Centralized currency forced businesses to run their revenue through the king’s coffers. Likewise, in its current form, centralized currency is more akin to a ponzi scheme of interest rates, each borrower paying up to the banker above him.

Both of these innovations—corporate charters and centralized currency—tend towards resource exploitation rather than innovation. They are extractive in nature, not productive. And, more importantly, these particular innovations cause wealth to end up being generated through speculation rather than creation. They cause scarcity, not abundance. Over time, it becomes easier to make money by having money than by doing anything. And this was the pure, stated intent of centralized currency and banking in the early Renaissance: to keep the wealthy wealthy, in the face of a rising merchant class.
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[blazespinnaker]

Re: Douglas Rushkoff: We do not live in an economy, we live in a Ponzi scheme

The fact that the speculative economy for cash and commodities accounts for over 95% of economic transactions, while people actually using money and consuming commodities constitute less than 5% tells us something important. Real supply and demand have almost nothing to do with prices. We do not live in an economy, we live in a Ponzi scheme.

Interesting stuff.

[blazespinnaker]

Re: Douglas Rushkoff: We do not live in an economy, we live in a Ponzi scheme

dave says:
03/21/2009 at 09:10:15 PM
All true. But before we bag corporations altogether, they made the computer Mr. R and I use, extract and deliver the natural gas that heats my house, probably got ahold of the wood for the house, got my running shoes designed, made, shipped and sold, and came out with that antibiotic the doc prescribed and the anti psychotic that keeps my brother out of jail or an institution … you get the idea. Hey, my neighbors are all great folks, but can he do all that? I’d love to sign up, again, with a local CSA, but here in upstate New York I’d be a little tired of stored turnips by this time of year. And I like turnips. So before we go and flush away the present economic system, how’s about we get a real replacement that works first? Or prepare to go back to the late Middle Ages, if that’s what we want. I’m on the fence.

Heh heh.

I agree.. I think the original author makes some valid points, but I think he's merely trying to fit those valid points to help justify his rather ... unique .. perspective of how things should be.

[Master Shake]

Re: Douglas Rushkoff: We do not live in an economy, we live in a Ponzi scheme

Replace asset inflation/bubble for Ponzi scheme and this sounds to me very similar to what EJ says. LET IT DIE: Rushkoff on the economy. The last paragraph is optimistic. That's why I like it.

I read the article and saw lots of crazy stuff in there. For example,

"If you had spent the last decade, as I have, reviewing the way a centralized economic plan ravaged the real world over the past 500 years,"

Ravaged? Maybe it's just me, but I think the world has gotten a lot better over the past 500 years. Modern dentistry and antibiotics alone are proof of that.

"Back in the good ol’ days—I mean as far back as the late middle ages..."

Anyone who believes the "good ol' days" were the Middle Ages has a screw loose.

"Late Middle Ages workers were paid more for less work time than at any point in history. Women were taller in England in that era than they are today—an indication of their relative health.'

I like to see some documentation of these assertions. I'm 99.9% certain the latter, women being taller, is bullsh!t. Men certainly weren't (Why cite women and not men?)

"Which is pretty much how things have worked over the past 500 years to today. So what went wrong? Nothing. The system worked exactly as it was supposed to."

What a dysfunctional system! It only worked for half a millenium! :rolleyes: