This weekend in Manhattan, a small Scottish storm erupts. Anthony Baxter, a Scottish filmmaker and journalist brings his amazingly bold project: You've Been Trumped to New York. Baxter uses the powerful art of cinematography to expose the bully-capitalism of billionaire Trump to a small group of courageous and feisty Scottish farmers. The film captures the actions of New York's own self-promoting real-estate baron Donald Trump, as he trumps over the personal, civil, and economic rights of the Scottish locals. Trump, it seems, wanted to build yet another golf course.
His own America experiencing economic hardship, Trump turns his eyes to Scotland's Aberdeenshire coastline and 1,400 undeveloped acres on the North Sea. The coastline is a "legally protected ecosystem of dynamic dunes" which Trump plans to turn into a luxury resort. Confident that he can overturn local environmental protection laws, Trumps succeeds in convincing parliament member Alex Salmond to bypass ecological concerns for economic gain.
The story is as old as human history itself. Money over mammon, money over morals, money over human decency, money over well... everything. In the film, Trump calls the Aberdeenshire locals "pigs" and cuts off their water supply. When a farmer refuses to sell the land he has lived on for his whole life, Trump threatens to take it over by eminent domain.
Yet in 2012, Trump's old-school capitalism looks as primitive as it really is. To his credit, Trump doesn't pretend to be a "good guy." He doesn't feign concern for people or planet. He never resorts to the greenwashing or phony CSR hyberbole of other indifferent capitalists. In a testimony to Parliament, Trump claims that climate change is not real and that the proposed wind farm off the coast should be scrapped in favor of tourism.
A Theory of Moral Sentiments
Capitalism began its official birth in Scotland with the publication of Edinburgh native Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. The year was 1776. While a feisty colony of American revolutionaries fought off the powerful British Empire, the Scottish native son espoused the idea of a new freedom-loving pursuit of wealth. Scotland has been the birthplace of many independent bold thinkers dating back to 16th century John Knox who sowed the seeds of democracy.
The irony of Smith's book that has been lost through the centuries is that the philosopher's economic treatise challenged monarchical supremacy by suggesting that ordinary people could take control of their economic lives. Contrary to common misunderstanding, Smith did not espouse Trump-like capitalism where the pursuit of money supersedes all moral and ethical reason. In fact, quite the contrary was true. Smith was above all a very principled man. His basic belief was that man was inherently good. In his Theory of Moral Sentiments he makes the following assertion:
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrows of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous or the humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it.
Herein lays the real flaw in Smith's theory of human relations, his belief that compassion overpowers selfishness. The greatest ruffian Trump, who is accused by Scottish locals and filmmaker Baxter of being the most hardened violator of the basic laws of society, appears to be entirely without any sense of humanity or sensibility for his fellow man.
The real shame here is not The Donald's lack of sensitivity or bullying style of capitalism. The real crime is that the laws that are in effect to protect the rights of all citizens against this type of economic tyranny never does -- on either side of the Atlantic. An environmentally protected spectacular natural coastline can be transformed into spewing water fountains and fakely gilded Frederick's of Hollywood "luxury" with barely a ripple. The civil rights of the locals are trampled with complete impunity. Were it not for the courage of an innovative filmmaker, none of us would ever know about it. In truth, it is not Trump that trumped the Scottish people. It is their own legal guardians that make the laws and rip them away to make room for personal profit.
We can brand Trump "the bad guy" and by all accounts he is the villain to the Scottish locals. Yet this scenario is all too common to be attributed to just one ruthless businessman. There are millions of Trump vs. the Little People stories occurring everyday -- not just in autocratic "unjust" nations, but in our very own democratic backyards as well. The tale of the bold citizens in the tiny Scottish village of Balmedie versus the dehumanizing brutal machine of survival-of-the-fittest capitalism is the fight of all of us.
The film is a template for everything wrong with the predatory capitalism practiced by Trump and so many others from the 19th century to the present. In reality, "You've Been Trumped" is an indictment of the economic system of capitalism without conscience. Such blatant cruelty and human indifference looks truly savage and outdated to the 21st century mind. We should watch this film depicting the cartoon-like callousness of the unpopular Trump and see it for its place in the bigger picture.
The question the film really asks each of us is: how much human misery and suffering will it take before we finally come together as citizens and incorporate a higher moral ethic into the pursuit of profit once and for all?
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Isn't it really a question of a big government taking care of everybody, or small government where people are required to take care of themselves?
Most of the individuals in any future communist USA (or other nation) would want to work at something other than producing the basic food, shelter, clothing and other products required to sustain life.
The producers would strive to become members the a non-producing greedy government elite bureaucratic society, demanding and wanting the disgruntled producers to produce more and more so that privileged individuals of the government elite bureaucratic society class can keep themselves busy as musicians, poets, actors, social workers, philosophers, historians, politicians, bureaucrats, administrators, police, firemen, judges, military, school teachers, anthropologists, archeologists, and other endeavors that do not create any of the food, shelter and clothing necessary for maintaining the lives of the population.
Under the communist system, some citizens (the non-producing greedy elite family connected government bureaucrats) are "MORE EQUAL" than other citizens (the lower class citizens that make the things that the elite government bureaucrats (and the producers) consume!
US citizens would then have traded businessmen, industrialists and Wall Street financial wizards who now control the conditions and terms of their employment (or servitude) for an elite class of family connected (almost royal) government bureaucratic employees who will be controlling our employment (or our conditions of servitude), and they would then dole out our share of the necessities of life to each of us according to our needs, not according to the amount that we produced!
the core of the problem is a misunderstanding of the dynamics of bullying and the misattribution of success that goes along with it.
The truth is that most bullies are losers and will fail miserably in their lives or have already done so. Some of them make it and then they (and many others) think it was their ability. But it wasn't. Judged from the situation where you have a choice: to bully or not to bully, it is perfectly sound and rational to not bully, because the stakes are much too high.
The problem is we don't see this and let the bullies strut their stuff. Which is truly idiocy.
Private property is violence and theft.
Early civilizations probably did not tolerate those who did not produce useful things and products to pay those who produced the food, clothing and shelter.
They probably distributed these necessities according to a barter system, which was probably the forerunner of Capitalism.
If not Barter or Capitalism, how else did the cavemen decide who gets to eat the excess of the dead animals that I killed and brought to the clan, cave or village?
And you did not address private property.
I have not read much of "Das Capital", but I think that this is sort-of-what these people espouse.
The entire foundation of this economic system is violence. Now the violence is supposed to stop because the resources and land are in the hands of the 'right people'?
To my way of thinking, the resources and land won't be in the hands of the 'right people', until they are in the hands of 'the people'.
The greatest trick that Capitalists ever played was convincing the people that the Government, their goverment: of-the-people, for-the-people, by-the-people, is the enemy of freedom and the Capitalists and their profit motive are the salvation.
In reality we need our government to protect us against the unbridled greed of capitalists like Trump.
I cautiously suggest that one element of our natures, which we too easily seek to forget, is that Nature favors the Individual first, and the Collective second. Even when people find it advantageous or necessary to band together in communities, states, nations, corporations and so-on, they =always= seek individual advantage for themselves. You see it in their business dealings; you see it acted-out in their sports games, especially their extreme wrestling and cockfights.
You also see that actual human nature =rewards= such behavior, disproportionately. "The one percent," etcetera. You won the game because you owned the game. You won because you bought off the judges. You didn't let the losing parties just go free; you crushed them.
The concept was supposed to be that we would have popularly elected governments which would represent the populace and which would, much like a labor union, represent a combined force powerful enough to actually support the public interest. But human nature intercedes once again. Never mind Article 2, Section 4, Word 25: we have "Citizens United." And, just to be sure, never mind the laws that Montana enacted against the robber barons; we'll sweep those aside, too. Yes, even judges can be bought.
This is our own human natures, become "the enemy within." And a mighty danger it is.
They both want FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS that economically require US businesses to relocate their US jobs to foreign nations!!
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The ginie has been out of the bottle for centuries. Can we put it back in?
What you have described is really a modern form of colonialism.
Upto 20th century, govt through its military-industrial complex colonized another land and people.
In 21st century, govt through its imiltary-industrial complex is colonizing its own citizens present and those to come.
We have cooperatively and willingly transfered our govt debt burden to our grandchildren and their children - a far cry from "no taxation without representation."
Now we all know how the colonists changed things. Or have we forgotten?
Problem as I see it, all of us (whether we admit it ot not), "Want to have our cake and eat it too."
Well spoken explanation.
donald and mitt have no need for the happiness of others. on the contrary, they prefer scadenfreude.
The Stanford Prison Experiment shows what happens when people have power...
http://www.prisonexp.org/
The Stanford Prison Experiment: A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment
"Welcome to the Stanford Prison Experiment web site, which features an extensive slide show and information about this classic psychology experiment, including parallels with the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? These are some of the questions we posed in this dramatic simulation of prison life conducted in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University.
How we went about testing these questions and what we found may astound you. Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress. Please join me on a slide tour describing this experiment and uncovering what it tells us about the nature of human nature.
--Philip G. Zimbardo"