I've been trying to think of an all-encompassing metaphor for what supposedly ails capitalism - the superhuman greed, the recklessness, the immense volatility, and the lack of ethics - and for what supposedly are capitalism's strengths - the courage, the focus, the absence of passivity. The metaphor that seems to come the closest is that of the video-game.Most capitalists are not crooks or thieves. They are more akin to video gamers, taking big bets with bravado and no fear of consequences (and no fears of consequence, either, if you know what I mean). If you get killed, you just re-start that level and try again!
In a way, this is by design. Many decades ago, Schumpeter trumpeted the virtues of the "creative destruction" inherent in capitalism.
But such creative destruction adds little value to human progress when the "creation" is not speculation in a genuine innovation (such as an entrepreneur pursuing a new technology) but simply speculation (as during the Tulip Mania in the 1600s for example). And there can be a large human cost, as livelihoods are lost and lives are ruined.
For sure, it is difficult to separate "good" creative destruction from "bad" creative destruction in practice. The first pet store in a town may be an example of an innovation, but the tenth such store might not be particularly innovative and yet its bankruptcy may have a high human cost (even if the pets did not mind). We all know how bad central planning is at mandating which ventures are worthwhile and which are not - in India, we probably lost decades of growth as the government tried to figure out just how many licenses should be issued to produce motor cars, television sets and light bulbs.
Still, is "video-game capitalism" going too far? Perhaps playing pure finance by the numbers is a bit like persecuting a video-game war such as the Operation Desert Storm in Iraq, where CNN carried almost-live green-tinged infrared footage of Paveway bombs floating towards and then striking their targets. The ripping of bodies, burning of skin and spilling of bloody guts was all sanitized.
How do we tame "video-game capitalism" without snuffing out the very essence of capitalism?
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3 comments:
respected sir,
this blog showed the way how you can get restart your journey after the defeat just like in video games when you are out, you can again play it from the starting.
with warm regards,
saurabh bansal
fall 09
Thousands of years ago, Indian saints and rishis saw the truth of the universe. That got enshrined in the vedic texts. The same truth was rediscovered by other civilisations much later, and the pursuit of taming that truth was unique to the Western way of living. Indians never attempted to tame the natural world quite as much as the West tried. What we see today are the unintended but unavoidable consequences of the continuous effort to tame the external world, for the material pursuits of man. More and better shampoos, snazzier automobiles, higher skyscrapers, glitzier mobile handsets, more and more exotic holiday destinations, cooler clothing, freer lifestyles, zingier soft-drinks.. everything has been tamed, but at a very big cost. Somewhere down the road, we just forgot that "balance" is important, and that man's intelligence is outpacing his body, his spirit, his natural world and the resulting consequences will be dramatic.
The solution? IMHO a return to the modest lifestyles of yesteryears. The planet just can't afford anything else with 7 billion humans.
Sir,
This blog is really great. Now sir I want to forward a link and I hope you will like this. this video is about a brand new technology invented by an MIT student Pranav Mistry.And he did his engineering from IIT-Powai and he is basically from a small town called Palanpur in Gujarat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blBohrmyo-I
Regards,
Abhishek Soni
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