Wall Street Pummels Marx …
May 2nd, 2008 by WILLIAM KERN
What makes capitalism work and more importantly, who is capable of fixing it when it flies off the rails? Writer and pollster Klaus Kocks writes for Germany’s Frankfurter Rundschau that it isn’t people on the left and it certainly isn’t members of the Green Party - its capitalists themselves.
In highlighting the ongoing legal prosecutions at Siemens - the German mega-giant now mired in what some have called the greatest bribery scandal of all time, Klocks writes:
“What German courts were unable to achieve and even the Pope would have failed to accomplish, has now been done by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. … The capitalists themselves insist that the train of greed remain on the tracks - its tracks.”
Kocks then goes on to describe how the Pietists created the first capital markets - which leads him to what created the business powerhouse known as the United States of America:
“They believed in divine justice in the here and now. [That you were born as one of the ‘elect’ or one of the ‘damned’ - and there was nothing you could do to change it ]. The rich already enjoyed God’s blessing on earth. The expenditure of capital was regarded as a fruit of their labor, and as such, as the Lord’s special grace. This is capitalism’s deepest secret: it could only blossom when the Pietists declared capital markets to be the hub of economic activity. And the worst of these hard-working Pietists emigrated to America, where the most sanctimonious of them all - the born again Christians - have been entrusted with the running of the country. ”
By Klaus Kocks
Translated By Ulf Behncke
May 1, 2008
Germany - Frankfurter Rundschau - Original Article (German)
The mess at Siemens will soon be cleaned up [The ‘mess’ at Siemens is being called perhaps history’s biggest bribery scandal ]. Hopes for a third way have always been there. Between capitalism’s turbo-charged devastation of all against all, and the kind of state-socialism that shattered the dream of East Germany, there must be another way. Where, the visionaries have asked, does the rosy future between black and red lie? [In Germany, black is right-wing and red is left-wing]. How do we introduce morality and decency into the market economy?
Jürgen Rüttgers is the last surviving black [right-winger] who wants to give capitalism a social face. Within the Christian Democratic Union , he is admittedly a minority of one. Meanwhile, the socialists are battling with the rest of the left about what the guiding principles should be of a truly social market economy. But red plus red creates as few blooming flowers as black plus green [conservatives and environmentalists]. This is just a masquerade by the old political class. Change only happens when capitalists take matters into their own hands. It’s a topsy-turvy world.
Is the economy getting straightened out because Wall Street wants it that way? If that’s the case, what did I bother reading three volumes of Karl Marx’ Das Kapital [Capital ]? Can this be for real? What German courts were unable to achieve and even the Pope would have failed to accomplish, has now been done by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC].
Corruption as a business principle is faltering. Even the giants of capitalism like the Siemens of the world are staggering: all of a sudden enterprises here and abroad are operating according to the rules.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the ongoing global economic crisis.
This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 7:05 am and is filed under Angela Merkel, Left-Wing, Cartoons, Newspapers, Capitalism, Philosophy, Revolutions, Communism, Protestants, Christianity, Religion, Roman Catholics, Ideologies, Columnists, Germany, Europe. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
