Only sky

Only sky is what's in this picture (and a little sea). I took it at Westport. Look west from Westport and the sky stretches to Newfoundland.

Only Sky is also the title of a very beautiful record by David Torn; one man, electric guitar and oud, an effects rack and a deep musical sensibility. It's always good to look up.

Books

I've been reading books. Always dangerous.

In The Corporation by Joel Bakan I found ideas like this:

As a psychopathic creature, the corporation can neither recognize nor act upon moral reasons to refrain from harming others. Nothing in its legal makeup limits what it can do to others in pursuit of its selfish ends, and it is compelled to cause harm when the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs.

Joel Bakan is a Professor of Law at University of British Columbia, no ranting hippy. This view is substantiated in detail via a historical review of the emergence of the corporation, an analysis of the legislative framework defining the corporation, and detailed accounts of particular legal cases. Reviews said things like, "...a surprisingly rational and coherent attack on capitalism's most important institution."

Before picking up The Corporation (and alongside books on quite different topics, and again quite different topics) I had been looking at Neoliberalism: A very brief introduction by Manfred B Steger and Ravi K Roy. For the last few decades much of the world has been run in a certain way associated with the names Thatcher and Reagan, Blair and Clinton. The word, "Neoliberalism" denotes an attempt to define the key features of this project. Again, a quotation:

Neoliberal modes of governance encourage the transformation of bureaucratic mentalities into entrepreneurial identities where government workers see themselves no longer as public servants and guardians of a qualitatively defined 'public good' but as self-interested actors responsible to the market and contributing to the monetary success of slimmed-down state enterprises.

So, we convert the instruments of state - health, social services, education, regulatory bodies - into the same sorts of "psychopathic creatures" that dominate the marketplace. They will operate in a landscape defined partly by income and expenditure, exactly like companies; but also partly by "targets" and "Key Performance Indicators", instruments of management put in place with the intention of ensuring they continue to meet their societal purposes (here's a pretty grim account, not at all reassuring of this process in UK higher education). We are apparently confident we can do this in a way that will offset any psychopathic tendencies they might start to display. Good idea?