[p2p-research] Prospect Magazine: After Capitalism

[Ryan Lanham]

Hi Athina:

I'm personally not so worried about fascism right now because I think it is
difficult to get media control.  Fascism requires a sort of collective mind
that the Internet seems to work against.

I do worry about agency capture of governments by groups of oligarchs--Wall
Street, groups of of moguls in Russia, etc.  But agency capture is difficult
because we have many traditions of implementing reform processes when things
go really bad.

The state-sponsored capitalism I envision taking hold is a coordinated
localism run amok.  Think of local development agencies "partnering" with
local firms and local governments to get a region to be "more competitive."
Now expand that model and mix in some petty graft and a bit of supportive
media spin from regional media powers--local TV, for instance.  Then you get
these sorts of micro-state corporations--like a medieval city state or
something.

What do you think?

Ryan Lanham



On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 4:01 PM, Athina Karatzogianni <athina.k at gmail.com>wrote:

> hi ryan
>
> last time state sponsored capitalism came about after the 1930s depression
> totalitarian and fascist regimes followed as well, do you have any thoughts
> on that? perhaps in certain cases we are already witnessing a tendency
> towards neototalitarianism
> cheers
>
> atrhina
>
>   On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 4:00 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>   Prospect Magazine out of the UK has an interesting current article
>> discussing the financial system demise and its implications.  The article is
>> by *Geoff Mulgan.*
>>
>> http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10680
>>
>> I've long wondered how organizations can develop and maintain the
>> sustainable cashflows necessary to support a LT debt-based economy.  It
>> seems a lot of people are starting to think this way or to give voice to
>> doubts long held.  I understand creative destruction and all that, but
>> velocity is such that creative destruction happens now in months not
>> decades.  Can the system support the investment and capital necessary to
>> cycle at such accelerated rates?  Globalization feeds the acceleration
>> because it isn't a company down the street alone one faces but one in
>> Shanghai, one in Singapore, one in Ankara, and two in Finland as well as one
>> in Eugene, Oregon and one in Pittsburgh.
>>
>> State-sponsored capitalism a la China (or even Finland) seems to be the
>> emerging model for coping.  Isn't that what Geithner is running?  State
>> sponsored capitalism in the financial sector?  Ironically, it is the alleged
>> socialist countries in Europe that seem to be willing to let manufacturing
>> institutions die--like the auto industry.
>>
>> I remember hearing Carly Fiorina give a talk once in Chicago where she
>> emphasized HP's incredible rate of product development cycling.  Is that the
>> whole world now?  If so, do we just accept the backblast of lots of failures
>> or is some sort of global regulation of velocity inevitable?  Who would opt
>> out voluntarily?  That would be national suicide...and yet unbridled
>> acceleration seems to be collective suicide, or as a short stop, state
>> capitalism.
>>
>> Ryan Lanham
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> Dr Athina Karatzogianni
> Lecturer in Media, Culture and Society
> The Dean's Representative (Chinese Partnerships)
> Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
> The University of Hull
> United Kingdom
> HU6 7RX
> T: ++44 (0) 1482 46 5790
> F: ++44 (0) 1482 466107
> http://www.hull.ac.uk/humanities/media_studies/staff/athina_karatzogianni/
>
>
>
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