Letter to Paul Krugman

Dear Paul:

So, “The F.B.I. and the Justice Department are investigating whether officials for the St. Louis Cardinals hacked into the internal networks of the Houston Astros to steal closely guarded information about player personnel.” NYT 7/17

Good heavens, corruption! In baseball!! the American “pass-time”. Actually, “sports” along with banking and the stock market, have been among the most corrupt from the get go. I would be surprised if this is all there is to corruption in baseball, or in any other aspect of our competitive society.

The point here is that corruption is an intrinsic, a natural aspect of competition. Regardless of all the blather about “sportsmanship” and personal honor, What matters is winning.

Corruption is an unavoidable aspect of any competitive system. We will just skip Global International Relations which are competitive in all respects and likewise corrupt in all respects. But, can you name one of our economic (in any field), political, judicial, religious, law enforcement (on any level), or social systems that is not full of lying, stealing, cheating, the occasional murder? Even the “hard sciences” are corrupt with paid for “proof” for whatever you want to sell, like “climate change is a myth”.

The foundations of the system come with built in corruption. Good hearted and honest individuals such as yourself have not, for eons, and are not now going to be able to “fix” this system with reasonable and logical arguments. Already Thomas Piketty’s work is receding into the mists generated by the Winner’s media systems.

The system cannot be fixed. It needs a totally new foundation.

Capitalism is not the problem. There is nothing wrong with capitalism. Capital is initiatory power. It is an always present aspect of Life. The problem is the private ownership of capital and the god of competition that fosters and protects it.

Cooperation now, cooperation is the basic foundation of the system that runs the Cosmos. It will take some time, but not as much as one might think, to eliminate the ignorant and decadent concepts of competition and the absurdity of the private ownership of capital and to establish new foundations. I would encourage you to think more along these lines and suggest economic paths that would lead toward cooperation. Your voice would help as lot.

BTW., Pope Francis’s Encyclical, released today is an excellent example of the kind of courageous commentary of which we are deeply in need. The “winners” are characterizing it as an attack on capitalism. But then they would so characterize any expression of the truth.

lots of love

-tom