The Market System: Between the Bridle We Wear and Calculated Deception

-        27-11-2018

-        John Kenneth Galbraith wrote the book "The Economics of Innocent Fraud" in 2004 when he was 95 years old and died in 2006. He was one of the most prominent economics professors at Harvard University in the United States of America. I read the book and found that it speaks about a world dominated by the management of transcontinental corporations that know no borders and no restraints. It is the world of the "market system" in the new globalization. It is the old capitalism with its oppressive history under a new name called "the market system."

-        (New Terminology) And when I write about this subject in our Arab countries, some may think it has nothing to do with us and is only about them in America while we are in the Middle East. I tell them that we live economically in our societies and markets to the rhythm of their moves, steps, tweets and pricing and the preface of their pens! A flick of a pen or a word from someone there is decisive.!!. If the intended action occurs, the world here in our region or any region on this globe trembles... our currencies become weak!!, without our control, by an active agent and without noise or even firing a bullet....!!. Just as they fix any malfunction in their spacecraft thousands of miles away in space using a small code!! or a ready application!!.. they command the distant craft to dock — and it docks..!!. Glory be to God...!! Here we do not re-dock as human beings here and there...for brotherhood....and unity of fate...and to restore the bond between us, even though we are facing one another...yet we are distant..and it seems to us that we are near.!.. and we see what is happening: fighting and wars among brother-enemies... and we refuse to use our own code "Palestine" or the code "the Arab League"!!..

-        Dr. Galbraith reviewed in the ten chapters of his book the history of capitalism and its problems in the past and how its name was changed to new names to avoid the bad reputation that historically surrounded capitalism. Among the new names was "neoliberalism" and then "the market system" in the new globalization world..!!. Dr. Galbraith showed the dubious role played by the (management) of major multinational corporations in manipulating markets, shareholders, investors, consumers and economic life, indeed political life as a whole in the world..!!

-        There was here capitalist—commercial capitalism—since the invention of money in the eighth century BC..... and there was industrial capitalism... then financial capitalism... where the application of traditional capitalist concepts of various kinds was accompanied by crises, oppression, monopoly and class wars..... Sovereignty in the market belonged to consumers... then it shifted to the dominant role of joint-stock companies in modern economic society, resulting from the transfer of power in that entity from its owners — the shareholders or investors — to the top executive management of those companies!!...

-        The daily diagnosis of the economic system was affected when the historically referential capitalism ceased to be acceptable; the system was renamed. The new term was pleasant but meaningless... it did not carry the negatives that historically surrounded the concept of traditional capitalism. This new concept implies that market relations are merely relations between individuals and do not contain notions of control, power and monopoly. Here Galbraith considers that new name a genius method in the operations of (innocent fraud) on the public..... deceiving the public through financial institutions, brokers and financial advisors who claim they possess the truth and the ability to predict the future of financial markets and the behavior of financial instruments, but they were proven false in the storm that hit the Wall Street Journal in 2008 when the falsity of this claim was exposed!!..

-        Economic cycles where the transition from boom...to depression... accompanied ten subsequent years since 1929, the year of the Great Depression.... Calls to develop or abolish capitalism because of the losses and calamities that afflicted it... and the experience of the Depression was an indicator that it did not work according to the hopes pinned on it... capitalism was compelled to remove itself linguistically from the market... and the term "neoliberalism" was used in addition to the fact that sovereignty in the traditional concepts of capitalism belonged to the consumer!.! And this entrenchment extended in the new concept of the market system..!! by asserting conclusively the sovereignty of the consumer in the market system.. In this system the ultimate authority is held by those who buy!!.. and even by those who refrain from buying!!.. In today's outcome... the ultimate authority remains in the hands of the consumer.! The consumer's choice determines the shape of the demand curve.!!..

-        For example, the state may impose high tax rates on the rich, claiming that this is for the poor, but it becomes clear in practice that these rich people, by one means or another, have been able to pass these tax burdens on to others, until they reach the poor who ultimately bear them!!.. The accountant who estimates the tax that the rich should pay does not do that; accounting is the science of conformity with the law, whereas economics seeks the truth.!! It is suggestive fraud..!!

-        And the truth is that convincing the consumer to spend in the market is the result of a broad alliance between news and entertainment programs to win the buyer's support. Arts, advertising and all means of media marketing are employed to encircle consumers, tame them and control them, whether by suggestion or guidance leading to spending and abandoning the consumer's own priority lists. They manage our consumer behavior...!!. They put the bridle on our heads.!.. without our will and even so we appear natural!.. as if we are being steered by them... in our markets... we are forced to spend our savings... or our money...in the path they promote.!... So we move demand... towards their goods and services... which they have adorned for us by means of a noisy and costly marketing campaign but which ultimately has profitable rationale!. Where control over the consumer's choice there in the market and in managing this campaign to manage consumer behavior, the marketing and persuasive capacity in this campaign is accompanied by touches of fraud... some minimal and some exceeding... organized deception...!! They put the bridle on us at the time they wish.... and in the place they desire..!! Therefore.. there is no sovereignty of consumers in reality..!!

-        The classification that still exists in the economy is the public sector and the private sector.. However the private sector has come to dominate the public sector by many means such as privatization, an allegedly reformist tax system... restructuring and settlements.., there remained no corners known to belong to the public sector except that they were invaded under the pretext that the private sector system operates according to standards of responsibility and the interest of the people more than the public sector.. until it extended to sectors known strategically to belong to the public sector such as the army, education and health, so we see armed private companies protecting the country and its officials!! and they enter under multiple contracts for execution, as public sector tenders are referred to them. Thus there exists only a private sector and a private sector wearing the cloak of the public sector and dominating its decisions, within an administrative-economic behavior of fraud!!

-        The small merchant in the market does not feel secure; the retailer faces Walmart, and for the family farm there is the big project for wheat and fruits and meat products... and poultry... For everyone there are pressures available from price and cost to loss... and therefore economic and social domination by the large project is acceptable.. and the continual political and social celebration of the small project and family farming is a softening form of fraud; they celebrate traditions by the presence of small traders alongside large traders.. .. regardless of reality..!!

-        In our world, the large poultry project is established by big companies that shake the ruins of family projects and small poultry farms... disappearance is continuous in the class of small projects..!! That is how one understands the messages of big companies..!! Talent and creativity without varied organizational administrative skills are not sufficient! in the field of information technology... with age and retirement and the imposed reality, authority transfers to a larger entity to management.. to an organization.. to Microsoft!! Or there is failure and forgetfulness.. in the names of the founders!! However the authority they once had in their time transfers to top management in the companies!!.

-        No one should harbor any doubt that the shareholders – the owners and the members of the board of directors...the so-called – in any large enterprise are completely subject to management, not only in America alone, but also in companies of the developing world!! And although the impression that the owner still has some authority remains in circulation...this authority does not exist...in reality ...and this is an accepted fraud... There are times when the need for an economic and political concept requires an explicit opposing comment: saying that the compensation granted to a company’s executive management "is decided by the shareholders..or the members of their board of directors" is a false dogma... And to prove this account, the shareholders are invited every year to an annual meeting that in fact resembles one of the religious rituals—here the deceptive expression prevails...and with exceptions, which seem rare...there is no negative reaction..the management’s position is approved routinely and the shareholders who have previously submitted proposals regarding social policy or environmental matters must present their proposals in print..!! Along with them a supporting argument..these are rejected by management...in a coordinated manner..!!

-        In World War I a doctrine emerged that the source of the conflict and the genocide inherent in the war was the ambiguity surrounding the military-industrial complexes; behind the massacres lie those who make the rifles in order to profit!!..They still exist..in our current era...they deceive nations by adopting the principle of human rights...or democracy...but they manufacture the weapons and manufacture death in the Third World..so that their world may live and profit. It is the large transnational corporations that create the economic and security crises. Immediately groups of experts mobilize to present solutions in return for exorbitant fees paid by those states; they create a plague, and monopolize the production of its cure...!...We don the mind manufactured by their management...the studied fraudulent one...!!

-        If we were to collect the income arising from corruption, and the income generated by fraud, their proportion of GDP might be staggering in developing countries...!!