The AmerAchilles Heel

The face of American capitalism is etched with myriad personal trials and yet fiercely triumphal as though sculpted with a daring and confident hand. And considering, given its relatively youthful place in world affairs, that it has secured its place as premier superpower, the United States has executed an astonishing feat. Especially given the fact that the country has been populated by one kind of immigrant mixing with another since its inception, this singular charge to preeminence is staggering for the varied dimensions of its accomplishment.

The corner store market operated by people of Asian or East Indian background are still quite common and stand to this day as testaments of the American freedom of commerce. On a micro-scale they represent the fundamentals of capitalism: fair price being set by whomever from whatever culture but in keeping with the faceless market demand.

But fundamentals are changing in a subtle way and have been for some time now since the advent of the computer, and its ability to trace trends and establish new values, sometimes falsely supported values.

To wit, huge corporations have recently been found guilty of making unsupportable reports as to the value of their futures (and Canadian investment institutions have not been exempt in similar skullduggery of late - insider trading and such).

A “new world order” was promised by George Bush Sr. some years back and it seemed to include exporting the American culture aggressively, and some of the corporate goop which accompanies that culture. The other worlds (oft referred to as third world countries) have taken considerable exception to this mass exportation of American corporate values… and from a philosophical perspective may be well placed to question the American rules of economic engagement.

The private markets of yesteryear which became massive hits (MacDonalds, A&W, Wal-Mart etc.) have gone public, which is to say they are now traded on the public stock markets of the world in an ever-increasingly unstable world environment. This form of trading then may not necessarily reflect the true value of the business itself, hence the book-cooking by beancounting minions and accountants to cover everybody’s butt, especially the guy’s butt who’s signing their grossly inflated paycheques.

Trading on the public markets has become complex and electronically accessible in such a way that if one man sneezes at the CEO level the stock of that company can plunge, not necessarily reflecting its value. Or the company can make blatantly false claims, invest your money in wild schemes in one of those third world countries and rape that country’s resources. This has become so serious in recent years that new organizations boasting “ethical fund” investments are attempting to appeal to the more righteous investors.

Something is seriously amiss here. When, for example, very recently North Korea popped off a cheap little test missile of minor military consequence, the American markets trembled, staggering down a few points right across the board, representing billions of dollars of gambling. What happened to some semblance of ‘stay the course, America is strong?’ Is the American economy suffering from a lack of patriotism? Is it vulnerable to electronic panic?

When the little madman, Osama-bin-Whomever targeted the Twin Trade Towers might he have fingered this weakness in the American psyche? Consequent of this massive assault on innocent civilians, one thing did become clear: the airlines have suffered immensely and the American economy was laid out as weak on that flank. The bizarre little madman made a fascinating point: Americans are likely to give up their base of principles in favour of covering their asses or in the case of the electronic markets, stashing their wallets.

This is the AmerAchilles Heel. Good old greed. The Great American Way which led to the influx of millions of immigrants seeking to enrich their lives not only with reasonable wealth but goodness and family life has become a shadowy world of sneaky investors, and merging corporate parent companies which would sell out Mom’s Apple Pie in a flash. Just ask Martha Stewart, who, interestingly has been wholeheartedly embraced again by scads of shareholders happily blithe about her indecent morals in the boardroom.

The rot at the top is palpable and the so-called trickle down effect of wealth to the poor can now be spied as a hoax. What is trickling down is the entire society, as it collapses under its own massive avarice. We are witnessing, methinks, the fall of America. The messages of its media playing upon judgement, grief and death may comprise a macabre self-fulfilling prophecy as the easily frightened stakeholders undermine the whole economy by pulling their stakes out of the game first. And with America, goes any country stupid enough to have gotten into bed with a blind behemoth. In our present global climate, there’s a troubling queue of willing bedfellows waiting to bask in their moment.

If Americans don’t wake up fast, they can kiss their grotesquely self-precious lifestyles good-bye. And that gloriously sculpted face of Yankee capitalism will end up in the mud, peering uselessly in the direction of China.