But not enough yet to substitute public relations for substance:
Yesterday’s Conference on Inclusive Capitalism co-hosted by the City of London Corporation and EL Rothschild investment firm, brought together the people who control a third of the world’s liquid assets – the most powerful financial and business elites – to discuss the need for a moresocially responsible form of capitalism that benefits everyone, not just a wealthy minority.
Leading financiers referred to statistics on rising global inequalities and the role of banks and corporations in marginalising the majority while accelerating systemic financial risk – vindicating the need for change.
While the self-reflective recognition by global capitalism’s leaders that business-as-usual cannot continue is welcome, sadly the event represented less a meaningful shift of direction than a barely transparent effort to rehabilitate a parasitical economic system on the brink of facing a global uprising.
Central to the proceedings was an undercurrent of elite fear that the increasing disenfranchisement of the vast majority of the planetary population under decades of capitalist business-as-usual could well be its own undoing.
The Conference on Inclusive Capitalism is the brainchild of the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), a little-known but influential British think tank with distinctly neoconservative and xenophobic leanings. In May 2012, HJS executive director Alan Mendoza explained the thinking behind the project:
“… we felt that such was public disgust with the system, there was a very real danger that politicians could seek to remedy the situation by legislating capitalism out of business.”
Well, we can’t have that, can we?
The Initiative for Inclusive Capitalism’s recommendations for reform seem well-meaning at first glance, but in reality barely skim the surface of capitalism’s growing crisis tendencies: giant corporations should invest in more job training, should encourage positive relationships and partnerships with small- and medium-sized businesses, and – while not jettisoning quarterly turnovers – should also account for ways of sustaining long-term value for shareholders.
The impetus for this, however, lies in the growing recognition that if such reforms are not pursued, global capitalists will be overthrown by the very populations currently overwhelmingly marginalised by their self-serving activity. As co-chair of the HJS Inclusive Capitalism taskforce, McKinsey managing director Dominic Barton, explained from his meetings with over 400 business and government leaders worldwide that:
“… there is growing concern that if the fundamental issues revealed in the crisis remain unaddressed and the system fails again, the social contract between the capitalist system and the citizenry may truly rupture, with unpredictable but severely damaging results.”
There’s more, go read it.
Oooo, we need to make the guillotine the logo for an economic justice organization. I want the t-shirt already.
It’s already too late for these clowns. Enough of the world’s population has already been politicized to the point of using direct action to keep the 1% (oligarchy) on the run. Including in the United States. The number doesn’t have to be big, it only has to be big enough. Let’s take Egypt as an example. Five days ago Egypt held a general election. Only 37% (surely the military padded that vote) of the eligible voters showed up to vote. Keep in mind that you get fined if you don’t vote in Egypt. They also kept the polls open for an extra day and in the last election 52% of the voters went to the polls and elected Morsi. The absence of voters delegitimizes the process and renders the newly elected president impotent. Sometimes not voting sends a more powerful message than does voting. Our system is in free fall.