Phil Rockstroh: Madness of Late-Stage Capitalism

[marmar]

from Consortium News:



Madness of Late-Stage Capitalism
June 11, 2012

Late-stage capitalism has similarities to an aging billionaire terrified of microscopic germs – imagine Howard Hughes at the end of his days – trying to extend life by frenetically worrying about invisible dangers, writes Phil Rockstroh in this reflection on his father’s death.

By Phil Rockstroh


My parents modest, single-level, brick home stands on property that was once part of a sprawling estate owned by the Candler family, Atlanta’s Coca-Cola patricians. Built during the post-World War II, 1950s building boom, the small house is situated in a deep ravine that once served as the grounds of the Candler’s private zoo. On the hilltop above, the point of highest elevation in the Atlanta metro area, the Candler family, in the tradition of the powerful and elite, laid claim to the highest ground.

In the 1960s, and apropos to the era, in an odd twist of historical circumstance, the grounds of the estate — earlier endowed to the state of Georgia by the heirs of the Candler fortune — were appropriated for development as a state mental health institution, a sprawling complex of modernist structures, housing those committed for treatment for issues related to psychological disorders.

Emblematic of the decade of the 1960s, the highest ground in the city became the site of a madhouse. Aptly, as opposed to emanating from its traditional source i.e., insular precincts of privilege and power, in the 1960s, spontaneous upwellings of cultural madness were more egalitarian in nature … seemingly, a development that the corporate and governmental elite found so troubling that they swore that they would never again abide similar types of cultural phenomenon — instigated by underling upstarts who (apparently) forgot their social station — to rise unfettered.

Consequently, the swift and brutal repression that the Occupy Wall Street movement has endured in its struggle against the present structures of calcified psychopathology known as the corporate state. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/06/11/madness-of-late-stage-capitalism/

[Brigid]

1. I am so happy I get to be the first . . .

To rec this wonderful piece. Other than that, words fail me.

[Shagman]

2. crazy like a fox? or just crazy?

I suppose this article is meant to describe those in charge in the US. You can speculate about who really makes the decisions, but the basic conceit is that somebody is making decisions, even if it's for selfish or ideological or pathological reasons. One inference I drew from this piece is that maybe there is nobody making the big decisions. It doesn't seem as if anyone's really thought about the consequences of, say, climate change. "If we ignore it, it will go away."

[yurbud]

3. if we ignore it, we can still profit from oil & coal, build a dome to protect ourselves and our kids

and maybe make a fortune building other domes and charge the peons whatever we want to get in and stay alive.

They could essentially privatize the right to live.

That's wealth and power beyond what we can imagine now.

[yurbud]

4. another option: those at the top can't and won't consider options that

define themselves and their right to unlimited profits and power as part of the problem.