As far as creating a country goes, there is a lesson to take. In the last 50 or 100 years, as far as creating a country goes, and as far as any country that exists today ...everyone who created a country----Syria or wherever---embraced certain capitalistic methods. They must have used these kinds of methods, because, if they created something, they certainly did not ignore the capitalist process or method. All successful nation-building processes, seen from the vantage point of today, from today's observation point, have the shared experience of having accepted certain processes or procedures proper to capitalism. The successes they experience always include their association with the techniques or methods of the capitalist process, and no other methods would have worked.
Here's a link to look at. Just read the first paragraph: http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveodland/2012/01/17/capitalism-under-fire/ Forbes. Exciting stuff, huh?
What the genius Steve Odland, who must come from an odd land, says is that "capitalism" created something. But here, Odland himself is not a capitalist, he is a writer. Here he functions within the marketing department, or pep squad, like a cheerleader, working on the social propaganda team, and writing for Forbes, a laughable magazine to aspire to. Before he entered into this writer or propaganda stuff, which is to say as a drug distributor for pep drugs aimed at the squad, he was corporate. Here he is revealing it all: I was Chairman & CEO of Office Depot, Inc., and AutoZone, Inc. I worked in consumer products at Quaker Oats and Sara Lee for the first half of my career. Now his online info indicates a career in academica. He writes and teaches, then. He wrote the polemic here under consideration. The piece is about what "capitalism" did. But it does not quite make sense, because first we would have to know whether or not "capitalism" is a conscious agent that can "do" things. It is social propaganda, but where it falls short is that, while we are exhorted to admire "capitalism," he treats "capitalism" like it is a conscious agent "doing" things. What we really need to know is what "capitalism" is and how it does things. But this is a very low-level kind of Forbes magazine pep team for business nonsense, and not a serious discussion of ideas.
I would also like to not that there is something like an undercurrent of anger, or the potential for anger and violence, at those who would have the temerity to disagree with Odland's supposedly brilliant words---the very idea that some kind of mean people who are not civilized would have the nerve to disagree or dissent! And that is frightening.
It is Odland's particular task to assert, "capitalism is good," whatever that actually means. These kinds of statements about what "capitalism" is are facile. But this is what Forbes magazine seems to be all about. (Remember that this element of anger directed at possible disagreement with what is rubbish writing in the first place, was, at one time, directed at "subversives," which is to say back when there were any. There aren't any anymore, but what we can say is that this does not in any way stanch the anger. You feel it still there. As I mentioned, this anger and potential violence is frightening. The element of so-called apparent "outrage" is still there. It must be a permanent attitude. Judging from the picture they used on the webpage he certainly does look it because he looks like he needs to take a shit on the page I linked to above. As a person who likes to blame, he would probably say that his appearance is due to those horrible little anti-capitalists.
What are they doing to the poor fellow? Well, they are supposedly ruining his life, trying to stop him from publishing his brilliant articles in a gutter level business magazine for others like himself to slobber over. And he will say that all he did was make an effort to use simple common sense, and clarity, to support something called "capitalism" which we still have not defined. Full scale neurotic paranoia. And these are some of the wealthier people in the United States of America. And again: He says he likes "capitalism." But what is "capitalism"?
What I said above about creating a country is a little similar to some of what Odland said. OK, but also different. I am saying that persons - or people -- and there seems to be this ambiguity in contemporary English about the two words, as either seems to work equally well here -- create countries, which they arguably do. And, following that brilliant idea, then I say they need to use capitalism in doing it. Of course when they create countries they do it in various ways, maybe they do it by many means, not just in one standard way. They may use whatever methods and techniques work or fit.
But it seems to me like they always allow for the capitalistic kind of process to have some place in their nation-creation. How would one could create a modern country any other way? I do not think it is possible. You need to use capitalist tools.
(Now that should make "Forbes" happy, they should forgive me everything I said, as it is the magazine's slogan: "capitalist tool." Definitely there is something very wrong with these persons. And they are very wealthy. To think that this guy was CEO of both AutoZone and OfficeDepot! He must be a very wealthy capitalist!)
So I am saying that our only option is capitalism.
But this certainly is not the capitalism of "Forbes" magazine or of Steve ("I need to take a shit") Odland.
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