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101 comments

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September 22, 2009 at 9:19 am

Stephan Tychon

Not just oil, but cheap oil is the lifeblood of capitalism and the main drag for new ideas, responsible development, meaningful participation, sustainable conduct and operation, real innovation and technology, an entrepreneural spirit, the rule of law and a just democratic process, all causing the structural and pandemic parliamentary deficit.

Stephan Tychon
chief officer of change
World Stability Council

October 8, 2009 at 2:58 am

Alex,

I would be interested to hear why you believe that the Government should be responsible for “just providing basic necessities like housing, employment, food and health care for those that can’t meet these needs themselves in their communities”.

The United States of America was not founded on these principles of having the Government distribute handouts. I will say that their are Gov’t programs that are important and very helpful (Unemployment…etc..) but the problem is when people attach themselves to the systems and suck them for all they can.

If I fail to provide adequate housing for my family, or fail to get a job, or fail to put food on my table, or fail to provide my family with Health Care….do you know who’s fault that is? It’s mine. It’s all my fault.

If the United States of America became this utopia that you envision…why should anyone have the drive to be successful if there is a ceiling to their success?

I am sorry that you don’t appreciate the United States of America. We are free in America….100% completely free? No. Completely freedom means having no rules, no laws, no accountability. Yes, I agree that our freedoms are deteriorating however, if what you are proposing is to come true…isn’t that reducing our freedoms even more?

I know you didn’t post about this but i am also having a hard time understanding what “Institute a “one child” policy to reduce population growth with exceptions for if a patient has twins or more born at the same moment in time.” has to do with this discussion.
—–Institutionalized children limits?? That certainly doesn’t sound like freedom.

May 28, 2010 at 8:25 pm

Noble Brwn

Society, not necessarily government, should guarantee its members life. Its a very basic concept and fundamental concept that while the individual has a responsibility to be a productive member of society that society as a whole has a responsibility to provide fundamental guarantees to life. The culture of capitalism has instituted an acute individualism. One that no longer recognizes and is even hostile to social egalitarianism. If I fail to provide a roof for my family for what ever reason am I the lonely person who suffers? Absolutely not. My children, who have no choice in who their parents are, are assed out. And when they start robbing people, most likely, it will be the neighbor who thinks this is not his problem. This isn’t to say that they are doomed to poverty. A few children are capable of overcoming their hardships and do break the cycle of poverty, but these are extraordinary people with extraordinary fortitude. Why do some children have to be extraordinary to achieve success while those born to richer families get an easier ride? Aren’t all children, a priori, to be offered the same starting point? We shouldn’t single out just needy families for government funding, but all should be afforded the very basic rights to life; food, housing, healthcare, education and in today’s world, transportation. Some of these should just be provided in basic form like food and housing. You must still work for the steak and extra bathrooms, but healthcare and education should be provided to all at the same, the best, quality.
Obviously the current economic system cannot, under any conditions, provide for such a program. In our individualistic economic system those that have hate to be taxed. This is understandable. But capitalism is in no way providing social justice. The idea that the harder you work the more you make is acceptable to me as far as providing for social justice. Most people think that this describes capitalism, but it doesn’t. That misconception comes from a couple hundred years of elitist propaganda. If you sit and think honestly about it you will find many instances where this has failed to be true. Capitalism is not social justice.
Life as social beings with an individual ego creates a social dynamic that we must rediscover. It’s not all my fault and it’s not all societies fault. Humanity will never be healthy until we as a whole restore the balance that has been lost. It’s not a utopian dream either. There will certainly will arise new problems, but we will never get to those new problems if we don’t start owning up to our failings and mistakes in the here and now. Let’s take responsibility a realize that just looking out for number one is not moral nor is it just. This isn’t just a problem for the poor people or nations, it directly affects all of us and this is the fundamental truth of society. This is why you should care and help affect change.

May 28, 2010 at 8:35 pm

Noble Brwn

I must add a point to my argument that I neglected at the beginning. Capitalism does not guarantee life. There is no right to life under capitalism. Things that are necessities for life are commodities and therefore must be paid for hence not guaranteed.

July 5, 2010 at 5:52 pm

alex

thanks for the smart comments Noble!

October 9, 2009 at 10:11 pm

alex

hey sean,

thanks for following up with me. your curiosity and conviction are admirable.

i’ve never heard of any healthy family or community in the world that actively denies basic necessities to its members, like food, shelter, education… why should we allow this treatment from our government and our economic system?

i think it’s an absolute disgrace that the richest 1% of Americans control trillions of dollars and drive around in HUMMER limousines, while billions of poverty-stricken individuals die of easily preventable disease, hunger, and war. i don’t believe this is morally justifiable, and all the major religions agree with me. what was it that Jesus said? that “we will be judged by how we treat the least among us”? if people are starving, homeless, in need of basic medical care, why would you deny them these things? of course you wouldn’t, but our government does. and it’s no accident, it’s neglect by design.

i know that the theories you’re echoing are taught to us in Econ 101 and most every other class growing up, as well as promoted by the corporate media and politicians… but that doesn’t make them right. to me, blaming poor people for being poor is like blaming women for being raped. it’s vicious and irresponsible.

at this very moment the US capitalist economy is throwing 200,000 people out of work every month. do you honestly believe that these masses of people are all just lazy? is it THEIR fault? or can it be that the ruling elite who own the companies and the stocks, buy the airwaves, and control the politicians, are in some small way responsible for this mess? especially since they’re the ones who invented credit default swaps and gutted the financial regulations to begin with?

i realize it’s difficult to swallow these truths, especially when you’re hearing them from some random stranger on a blog comment. to investigate further into the justice/injustice of our current economic system, i would highly recommend Michael Moore’s new film Capitalism: A Love Story. and since books always have more information than films, you should also check out “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich.

best of luck,
alex

October 14, 2009 at 9:01 pm

James

Alex,

200,000 people may be losing their jobs in “this capitalist system”, but isn’t it the same system that gave them the jobs in the first place. The same system that allows them communicate with people all of the world, enjoy products from all over the world, go sleep at night with a roof over their head knowing there will be food on the table tomorrow, among many other things.

I agree that much more should be done for the poor, but we are a long way of being able to do so. The best solutions being thrown on the table are crap at best.

The world is a much better place because of capitalism. The faults of capitalism are numerous but it is naive to ignore the benefits because you benefit everyday from it.

James

October 14, 2009 at 11:58 pm

alex

hi james,

thanks for posting. i’m sorry we seem to have a disagreement about the nature of capitalism. you mention how you’ve been lucky enough to have food, shelter, a variety of consumer products, and the opportunity to communicate with people all over the world. i’m glad for you. i’ve had those advantages too. but capitalism didn’t provide any of it. my family did, and i did through my hard work. and i think everyone should have these basic needs met, and have the security to not worry about them being gone tomorrow. you don’t need capitalism to provide these, you just need an economy that responds to people’s needs.

but capitalism is causing poverty throughout the world and forcing people into positions of INsecurity, having to search desperately for jobs and wages whereas they could previously provide for themselves through their families and communities, and land. look at Haiti, with a 70% unemployment rate, and people eating MUD in order to not feel their starvation. so you see that for everyone made wealthy and affluent, more are made poor and hungry somewhere else.

on a more personal note, because capitalism has enriched the coffers of enormous insurance companies who profit from people being sick, i can’t afford health insurance. now these same corporate crooks are lobbying our government with millions of our dollars in order to prevent a public health care option which would drive down costs and provide basic coverage for poor and working Americans, including myself.

here again what i see is a system that rewards greed and cruelty, at the expense of basic human need. i see a system that profits from taking away people’s security.

keep reading and thinking and loving.

alex

p.s. for more about the nature of capitalism see my post “What is Capitalism?” http://endofcapitalism.com/about/2-what-is-capitalism/

May 28, 2010 at 9:09 pm

Noble Brwn

Capitalism was indeed a successful project. Let’s keep in mind though exactly what that project was. The industrialization of the top economies. No other economic system would likely have provided this end. The profit motive was an excellent motivator for economic investment. I believe we owe a lot to the legacy of capitalism from a strictly utilitarian point of view. However, industrialization is over. The market is over saturated in most areas with no place for the investment capital to go except into capital risk ventures. Capital can no longer be reinvested into production as it was historically. This is of course a generalization but nevertheless the overwhelming truth. The point is that capitalism has served it’s necessary function. All this is about people not wanting to let go of what worked in the past and move on. The economy has provided for us technologically through the capitalistic system. Now we must move to the next phase of social need and that is currently social justice. Just like feudalism was replaced by capitalism in response to societies needs so must capitalism now move over in response to societies needs. Historically the current system never gave up peacefully and that’s a social phenomenon where the people as a whole are reluctant to change what they see as very foundation of their world. But the uncomfortable truth is we must think progressively in order to progress.

June 7, 2010 at 10:25 pm

alan

I think that, fundamentally ,capitalism does not want employees. Employees cost money.

October 20, 2009 at 5:21 pm

James

hey alex,

The hard work of your family and others was done in a system where the aggregate efforts create positive growth for us all through security, goods, services, etc. That is what capitalism is. You don’t have to have capitalism to provide for people’s needs, but capitalism is the best system that we have at this point.

To your second point, elaborate on “causing poverty if you can.” Capitalism has been the driving force of the West who now lives in prosperity. It was the driving force of the “Asian Tigers” who through the green revolution brought a billion plus people out of poverty. There is still a billion plus in poverty, but they have always been in poverty. The 70% unemployment you stated includes underemployment which is different but widespread all throughout Latin America. Haiti is an island, so with population growth the old ways of doing things are not always going to work. This is actually exactly how the capitalistic society came to be in Britain. Land constraints caused people to move to cities and through innovation became an industrial class.

Health care is an issue with a myriad of things going on. An aging demographic, our legal structure, our advanced technological capabilities, and our terrible health habits as a population all are contributing to increasing health costs. You cannot lower health care costs by having a public option. A public option just changes who pays for the services, which introduces another laundry list of problems. Health care reform should happen but having a public option creates more problems and doesn’t necessarily solve much.

thanks for your thoughts,
James

October 20, 2009 at 11:49 pm

alex

hi james,

thanks for posting again.

let’s start with concrete reality and then see if our theories match up with it.

on health care, keep in mind that i (we?) live in the wealthiest and most prosperous nation in the history of the entire world. yet, we have 50,000,000 (million) people who do not have even basic medical care. i am one of them, meaning if i get sick or have an accident, i cant go to a doctor. that’s a situation that is morally unjustifiable. if creating a public health care option gives me an opportunity to maybe get coverage i can afford, do you think i’m going to be against that? it’s common sense, which is why a poll released yesterday showed 57% of Americans support the public option. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/19/AR2009101902451.html

if i lived in ANY other industrialized nation, we wouldn’t even be having this problem at all, because health care is provided by a single payer system in every country from Australia to Japan to the UK to Germany, etc. you get sick, you see a doctor, period. we need to get rid of the parasitic health care industry which profits from people getting sick, and create a Medicare for All type system here, to keep up with the rest of the world.

here are brave citizens taking action, sitting in health insurance offices, to demand this basic humanitarian reform: http://mobilizeforhealthcare.org/

next, i don’t think it’s fair to just look at the wealthiest countries and say “capitalism works.” you also have to look at the negative. i pointed out the poverty of a place like Haiti, which is just as much a part of the capitalist system. your error seems to be assuming that these people somehow were magically poor before capitalism ever threw them off their land and into the global workforce. in fact, it’s responsible for their poverty.

since you brought up early-capitalist England, let’s look at it for real. you say, “Land constraints caused people to move to cities and through innovation became an industrial class.” but this completely leaves out the violence that was necessary to drive people off their land and into the urban factory slums. this violence was perpetuated by the State under the banner of the “Enclosures,” whereby small farmers, herders, and public land, were eliminated through repression and war to make way for large private holdings. in short, the poor got expelled to make way for the rich. the only place to go then, was the urban slum, where people had to sell their lives away for pathetic wages. their only other options were to become vagabonds who wandered the countryside, or to starve. people settled for the least-bad option – toiling in horrible polluted factories and barely scraping by. it was only after the spoils from colonizing the New World (through slavery and genocide) started to be shared with the home population in the 19th century, as a result of the industrial union movement, that working conditions improved. that’s a short summary of what happened. that history should really be taught in school instead of hiding it.

i highly recommend the excellent book ‘Caliban and the Witch’ by Silvia Federici for much more detail about the development of capitalism in Europe, and how it related not only to forcibly removing “peasants” from their lands, but also to heightened State control of everyday life, and the increased oppression of women through the Great Witch Hunts.

now let’s return to theory. can we actually say that this system provides “security” for all? or is it only for the rich?

keep reading and thinking and loving.
alex

October 25, 2009 at 1:00 pm

chris

Why not stop talking the people have a right to all our resources without having to beg borrow and fucking steel when are we all going to wake the fuck up and see that any government is going to have greed as long as its run by human beings we are descusting greedy creatures and as long as we put a select few on top who are only interested in self preservation things will never change .We are stuck ,stuck working for the rich as their modern day slaves we kill ourselves for so little then we are forced to give most of our so little to the ppl who have it all i say fuck them and fuck everyone who jus sits there complaining when will we fucking wake up and see that everything already belongs to everyone we the ppl will need to stand together and put an end to what we have let them do we need to tear down the walls of our social prisons to bring about equality love peace WAKE THE FUCK UP

October 25, 2009 at 3:12 pm

alex

thanks for posting chris. i share your frustrations, but remember that its the system we live in that makes people disgusting and greedy! when we do away with it, we can support the “equality love peace” that we need.

March 1, 2010 at 5:36 pm

John

Alex,

“but remember that its the system we live in that makes people disgusting and greedy!”

I’m not completely sure I’m with you on this one. I think the reason capitalism as worked so “well” is because it found a way to harness greed.

I do agree with you on almost all other points though. I do however have to agree with Chris…and it scares me to think this way. I simply don’t see change without a massive civil war. The rich will never just walk away and the government will never support the poor. I’m honestly worried that in my lifetime (I’m 36) we are going to be faced with a situation were the people of the USA have to rise up and fight for real freedom again…one problem. about 50% of the people in this country will fight for a greed based system. They don’t care if people are starving in Africa as long as they have food. They don’t care if China comes to a skreetching halt because they can’t afford oil as long as the key still starts their hummer.

I’ve tried and tried to take a positive outlook about this all, but I’m simply convinced that we are running right off the edge of the cliff. Peak oil is here. The worlds financial markets are catering. War is imminent amongst the rich nations as we fight for resources. The USA has already positioned all it’s pawn in the middle east.

Sadly I think the rich would rather destroy the planet than share….and yes they do have the ability to completely and utterly destroy this planet so you don’t get your fancy health care.

BTW by world statistics I’m considered rich making just under 100K a year. I’d gladly trade my job/title/wealth for a better world. I assure you I’m in the vast minority of “rich” people….and no obviously I’m not one of the elite rich…nor could I ever be.

March 2, 2010 at 5:40 pm

alex

hey john,

thanks for posting!

i think your concerns are legitimate and commonly held. there is every reason to be skeptical of the ruling class. they have demonstrated time and again that they are not interested in the welfare of humanity or of the planet. and as Naomi Klein’s brilliant book “The Shock Doctrine” explained, they often use crises to push through unpopular and destructive austerity measures.

however, i take inspiration from the millions of people who fight everyday for a better world, and those who have been doing so for as long as oppression has existed in this world. (about 10,000 years in my reading of history)

every time the rich and powerful have acted out of greed and sadism, there have been those who have opposed them by relying on solidarity, cooperation and empathy.

for a historical example of people fighting for justice and making great strides in creating a new kind of society, check out Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, 1936. George Orwell wrote a great firsthand account called “Homage to Catalonia”. the fascists did win in the end, but this was by no means an inevitable outcome.

more contemporary examples are all around us, as people work together for a better future than what we can expect handed down to us from above. i often refer to this huge mass of people, however decentralized and disorganized, as “the movement.” i do believe social movements are our only hope, but they are a REAL hope, that i aim to make more visible through my writing.

right now i’ve been inspired by the students in the University of California system, who have protested, marched and occupied their buildings to prevent an absurd 32% rise in tuition. this Thursday, March 4, will be a National Day of Action to Defend Education from further budget cuts: http://www.defendeducation.org/

another inspiration comes from TAKE BACK THE LAND, which is moving foreclosed families back into their homes. they were featured in Michael Moore’s movie Capitalism: A Love Story. see their mission statement – http://takebacktheland.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47&Itemid=54

as someone with an above-average income, it’s up to you to decide how you will support the development of justice in this country. one way might be to donate money to groups who are doing good work, like the ones i listed. but ultimately i think your own liberation as an individual will only come through active participation and working side-by-side with people who are committed to making this world a better place.

i know that was the case for me. i used to be a depressed, unhappy engineering student. now i am living my life for social change, and life has never been better for me. :)

peace
alex

October 26, 2009 at 12:04 am

James

Alex,

The 50 million you stated who do not have health care includes illegal immigrants (which is a different subject) and the real total of people without health care is around 30 million. Many people support the public option but 80% of people like the plans they currently have, so why change it… A public option directly affects you, so you should be for it. My view comes from the good of the whole country. Over 2 billion people in the world don’t have minimal health care so the claim that not having a public option is morally unjustifiable is weak. Many things provided by government run health care is not provided. We all have heard of people coming to the United States to receive the best health care available, because we have it! And medical migration is not just for the rich. Like I said before, nearly ever great medical advance comes from the United States, and a public option greatly hinders that.

Haiti was victim of a mercantilist and feudal society where value was only thought to be in commodities. That society failed miserably and Haiti has had to suffer from it. When Haiti revolted from the French they severed their ties with Europe and years of dictatorship followed. Today there is much evidence of a capitalistic society but it lacks the entire supportive infrastructure that capitalism in the modern world has. Saying Haiti is solely a victim of capitalism is a misguided surface level argument. Much of Latin America is a similar story. The Spanish were incredibly inept colonizers because their ideology (which was not capitalistic) caused them to pillage for commodities because commodities were the only thing that they thought held value. These feudal structures are still very much intact and contribute greatly to the worst inequality in the world. Capitalism in this setting will never yield the results it has in the West.
Let’s not forget that Haiti is a country of 6 million in a world of 6 billion. The economic development in East Asia has brought hundreds of millions out of poverty because capitalism has been able to take root in an environment that is suited to handle it.

You bring up that conditions in early-capitalist England were terrible. I agree. In fact I believe they were far worse than the conditions we see today, and this was not just in England. Nearly every has gone through periods where conditions were extremely difficult. Conditions were horrific in England in early-capitlist times, but how is England now? The United States? Europe? East Asia is far better now even conditions are still very tough. Latin America with all the issues there, is still better off now than before capitalism.

Prosperity does not come easy, and there is no reason for us to think that it should. Cities all around the world are exploding in population because only in the cities is there hope for progress. People don’t end up in cities by chance. They move to cities through rational decision making. I spent a summer working with small businesses in Lima, Peru. Almost no one (among the poor) were born in Lima, but everyone moved because they know of the hardships of rural life. Urban life is miserable, but the point is that it is better than rural life. If it wasn’t people wouldn’t be moving to cities in masses.

Sorry for the ramble but my main point is that nothing has brought masses of people to prosperity like capitalism has. I believe our direction should be to understand the reasons why capitalism has not taken root is certain places and to figure out how we can build the proper infrastructure to allow virtuous cycles of capitalism to take hold.

-James

November 6, 2009 at 8:37 pm

alex

Hi again James,

I can sense that you are well-meaning and actually think poverty is a problem that should be addressed, which is great!

Unfortunately we seem to have a basic disagreement about the nature of capitalism and how it actually creates poverty, rather than solving it. I just wrote a review of a book that reveals much about the origins of capitalism in Europe. Silvia Federici writes about how the Witch Hunt was a necessary component in breaking the enormous medieval poor people’s movements to make way for capitalism. In the process, at least 100,000 women were burnt alive as “witches.” I would suggest you read the article and get back to me on the subject. It’s here: http://endofcapitalism.com/2009/11/05/who-were-the-witches-patriarchal-terror-and-the-creation-of-capitalism/

This is the real history of our capitalist system. And it is MY history as someone descended from Europeans. The trouble is that we in the US have all been the victims of a massive dis-information campaign, by those in power, that has hidden this information from us. The most important thing the elites have hidden, in fact, is themselves. I may have told you this before, but the richest 1% of Americans has the same wealth as the bottom 95%. Think about that. It’s this same 1% who own the banks, the media, and the politicians. They’re the reason we can’t get decent health care, or any kind of meaningful action on climate change, or an end to futile and destructive wars in the Middle East.

There is a whole system of myth propagated by those who control our society, which says that capitalism creates wealth, and that businesses when left to themselves will lead to the benefit of all, through the ‘invisible hand.’ But we need to begin to understand the reality of wealth, that it is not only having “lots of stuff”, but having strong communities, a healthy planet, while meeting people’s basic economic needs. The next book I am going to review deals a lot with this question of what is real wealth, the book is “The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community” by David Korten. Look out for my review! also check out Yes! Magazine, http://yesmagazine.org which Korten edits, it’s one of the best newsmagazines around!

never surrender your mind
alex

November 9, 2009 at 1:12 pm

James

Alex,

It sounds like much of our disagreement about poverty stems from how the world was before capitalism. From the article on witches and other things you have sited start with oppression beginning and worsening as capitalism starts. I would highly disagree that the world before capitalism was any better but there the beginning of most literature on the subject begins around the time of capitalism because invention and creation of wealth.

If you want to debate the quality of life hundreds of years ago that is fine, but where I adamantly disagree with you is the freedom and expression that people have now as a result of capitalism. Today, we can express our opinion in public or private without fear of repression, we can pursue education, we have rule of law, our property is secure, freedom of religion, health care (even though may not be universal) is far better than it was before capitalism.

I do not know about the quality of life before capitalism because I was not there, but I do know that the freedoms we experience today, at least degree we experience them today.

The richest 1% of Americans have the same wealth at the bottom 95%. But if the poor are getting richer, does it matter how rich the rich are? Income inequality clearly exists, but the US is far less unequal than most countries. Spend some time in Latin America where the wealthy live like Americans but the poor are freezing and starving at night. And the poor in these countries (living on less than $2 a day) is often upwards of 30%.

James

October 29, 2009 at 12:45 pm

Aleksandr Sarovic

Hi Alex,

I started to work on what is coming after capitalism before you were born. I found that a good and sane society we are all looking for requires complete change of everything we are used today and that is not easy to accomplish. Here is what is going to replace capitalism: http://www.sarovic.com/end_of_capitalism.htm . This is most likely the future of humankind.

November 8, 2009 at 4:26 am

alex

hi aleksandr,

thanks for posting and for thinking about what should replace capitalism!

i found your ideas enjoyable and thought-provoking. my concern is that the reforms you suggest cannot occur unless we also grapple with the reality of power in our capitalist society. namely that there are powerful, elite forces which seek to preserve their disproportionate influence and wealth.

it seems to me the only way to overcome those obstacles is through a large, bottom-up movement for change. it’s in formation but needs more support. theory is one way to support, but action is also needed!

alex

November 11, 2009 at 12:18 am

alex

hi james,

thanks for responding again. i agree with a lot of what you value. freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, free education, free health care, etc. are the building blocks of a good society.

but there are many nations which provide these things far better than the US does, and it’s usually because they restrain capitalism from interfering with them! for example Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, and many more do a better job of providing health care and education.

let’s look at some numbers:

- the US is ranked 18th in the world for education, despite spending more per student than almost any nation http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/11/19/US-slipping-in-education-rankings/UPI-90221227104776/

- the US is ranked 42nd in the world for life expectancy, despite spending the most money on health care. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7511426.stm

- the US has the most children living in poverty of all developed nations (above link)

- the US is 37th in health care quality, despite spending about twice as much per patient http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

- the US is 95th!!! in income equality, 94 countries have less disparity between rich and poor! (according to the CIA) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

- the US has more people in prison (more than 2 million), both as a percentage and numerically, than any other nation in the history of the world! http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html

- US is ranked near the WORST in the world in terms of privacy. we are categorized an “endemic-surveillance” society. http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd347=x-347-559597

as for freedom of expression, the repression Americans face for trying to express our freedom is actually quite severe. and if you haven’t been to a protest where you’ve experienced the tear gas, pepper spray, batons, rubber bullets, sonic cannons, etc. that are used to stifle dissent, then i don’t think you’ve really tested the “freedom of expression” theory. my friend recently got tackled, beaten, and charged with felonies just for walking in Pittsburgh during the G20 protests. hadn’t done anything. and he wasn’t alone, hundreds were arrested for simply being in the area. see this video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etv8YEqaWgA&feature=player_embedded

another thing i wanted to respond to was your statement about how rough it is in Latin America and the Global South. i completely agree, it’s an absolute humanitarian disaster. but we must understand WHY these people are being made poor – there is a system at work, which is exploiting their resources and labor for the profit of multinational corporations and wealthy nations.

this plays out through “Structural Adjustment” policies which drive poor nations into debt, then demand that they privatize and de-regulate their economies. the debt usually never gets paid off though, and it turns into an enormous funnel of wealth OUT of the poor nations and into the hands of the global elite.

a story of Democracy Now! this morning talked about this exact topic while previewing the upcoming film The End of Poverty.

Susan George talked about debt repayment: “Sub-Saharan Africa, which is the poorest part of the world, is paying $25,000 every minute to Northern creditors. Well, you could build a lot of schools, a lot of hospitals, a lot of job—you could make a lot of job creation, if you were using $25,000 a minute differently from debt repayment. So there’s this drain.

And I think people don’t understand that it is actually the South that is financing the North. If you look at the flows of money from North to South and then from South to North, what you find is that the South is financing the North to the tune of about $200 billion every year.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/10/filmmaker_philippe_diaz_on_the_end

this is why it’s necessary to explore the history of our current system. because without understanding how this situation developed, we’re not going to be able to adequately solve the problems we face. my research indicates that capitalism as a system requires the growing inequality between rich and poor. so if we want to stop poverty, we HAVE to stop capitalism.

keep thinking and loving
alex

November 11, 2009 at 2:30 pm

James

Alex,

According to your statistics the United States must be a terrible place to live in but most Americans would strongly disagree. I don’t believe those statistics are wrong, but I do believe that you cannot simply explain differences through single rankings on very complex issues. Basic logic supports this argument because the United States is a great place to live in, although some do disagree with that.

The biggest problem I have with your statements is that you attribute nothing to capitalism. It is fine with me to talk about the faults of capitalism but you must be able to understand its merits to realize what is going on. All those countries with “better” health care, education, income equity, etc. have all built their economies on capitalistic principles. This foundation has allowed them to support universal health care and other such initiatives.

I don’t know whether you have spent anytime in third world countries or not, but I urge you to do so. I have worked with micro businesses in the informal economy and it is a much different picture than you are describing. The majority of the poor are far out of reach from multinational corporations and their main economic struggle is that they do not have supportive market institutions to allow their individual efforts to produce collective goods.

Structural adjustment policies have created debtor nations but these policies have been put in place after countries bankrupted themselves through their own mismanagement and pursuit of non-capitalistic policies. Peru’s nationalization of the banks and Bolivia’s price control on gas are two to note which sent these countries into freefall until they restructured their economies and are now growing at a strong rate.

To your point about the South financing the North. The North has given huge sums of money through the World Bank and IMF in the past. These are loans that need to be paid back (usually much lower than market rates). The constant flows of money from the South the to North are payments from loans the North has given them. Feel free to attack the IMF and World Bank for their practices. I personally think a lot of what they have done is crap since they are run by politicians with their own personal interests, but the point is that the South is not financing the North. If you limit your scope to focus only on what you want then yes the South is financing the North, but that is simply being naive which now can’t be the case.

James

November 16, 2009 at 10:09 pm

alex

hey james,

one thing you point out which is important is the difference between image and reality. Americans have been taught to believe our nation is the best at everything (image), which has the effect of hiding very important flaws and problems (reality). all i’m doing is bringing those flaws to light so we can address them. i’m doing the same thing with capitalism, which has been surrounded by an enormous amount of propaganda and theoretical jargon, clouding the reality of how the system actually functions.

I have lived in the Global South and I am familiar with the poverty there. to enhance your understanding of where it comes from, i think a very important book for you to read would be “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins. here’s a link: http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/1576753018

Perkins was a high-ranking American official engaged in restructuring Global South economies by giving countries enormous loans they could never repay. he describes how these loans never benefited the countries because they were used to pay US corporations to build enormous “development” projects which were often unnecessary or highly destructive, such as massive dams.

he also talks about how if the leaders of those nations refused to take the loans, or refused to make the drastic changes that were demanded of them once they could not repay (such as cutting health care and education spending, or dropping environmental regulations), more persuasive measures such as bribes, threats, or actual CIA assassinations were employed to acquire a “change of leadership.” it’s a very important book.

you can watch John Perkins talk about his “Confessions” on Democracy Now! here: http://www.democracynow.org/2004/11/9/confessions_of_an_economic_hit_man

the point i keep making is that there are some extremely wealthy and powerful forces which will do whatever they can to hold on to their wealth, and constantly increase it, at everyone else’s expense. thankfully there are people like John Perkins who tell the truth and give us an opportunity to take the power back.

keep learning loving and fighting,
alex

November 19, 2009 at 7:40 pm

James

Alex,

I am familiar with Perkin’s book, and it is a very interesting read. The problem with using it in this discussion is that it highlights corruption and political incentives for government officials which is a different issue. The rich have tried to secure their wealth and gain more in every part of human history, and to do so they create barriers that channel resources in their direction which is exactly against what capitalism tells us to do. People is power squander enormous amounts of resources but the this is true of any economic and political system. If you claim that there is more corruption in capitalistic societies I would disagree, but capitalism is prone to corruption since we are human and by definition, are fallible.

James

November 17, 2009 at 10:25 am

Aleksandar

Capitalism like any other isms will be replaced with one special ism that is more effective, productive, and rational than capitalism. So far no one has offered better system than capitalism and that is reason capitalism won. The only chance to win capitalism is to give every public work post to the best available worker and making him very responsible for what he is doing. This is actually the market of work posts which capitalism cannot afford. Such an idea will make the best production possible and therefore will force capitalism to go down to history. But there is a catch. This is not easy to do and that is the reason capitalism is still here. Capitalism needed a lot of time to replace feudalism which needed who knows how long time to replace slavery. The next system must be better for capitalists and for workers in order to be accepted and be able to replace capitalism. Then it will come naturally without matter of what kind of bottom up movement for change is established. I have invented such a system.

March 8, 2010 at 4:10 pm

Joel Rosenblum

You have invented such a system? Do tell!

March 8, 2010 at 5:31 pm

Joel Rosenblum

Ah, ok you already posted the link above. I read it… so basically you are saying we should have a system like the USSR had, where computers determine how to most efficiently run the economy etc… except that unlike the USSR, this new society would be free of corruption (and the computers would work better). I’m not exactly sure how to create this utopia you’ve dreamed up, but I am sure you aren’t the first to describe it.

January 24, 2010 at 7:33 pm

Ivan

endofcapitalism, what system are you aiming for if capitalism falls?

February 1, 2010 at 3:10 am

alex

hi Ivan,

thanks for asking. please read my synopsis for a fuller explanation of my views on how to replace capitalism with something better: http://endofcapitalism.com/about/1-is-this-the-end-of-capitalism/

in short, i urge us to revitalize and deepen our common values of democracy, freedom, justice, sustainability and love. if we do so, we can create a generous economy that cares for the needs of all, including the planet – not just the interests of the wealthy and powerful.

these values are mutually supportive – so if we increase democracy, we’ll almost certainly increase sustainability as well. for example, why would we vote to pollute our air and water? of course we wouldn’t! but under capitalism, this is precisely what happens, because the power is held by the corporations and banks, who want to make money and don’t care about the public or the planet. it’s really that simple.

i can’t offer a complete systematic illustration of how the economy would work if it was guided by these common values. for that you might want to check out something like Participatory Economics, as envisioned by Michael Albert.

keep thinking and fighting!
alex

February 24, 2010 at 1:35 pm

Yan Fortin

Hi there,

These are very inspiring articles! I invite everyone to take a look at an interesting view of our current world as we know it:

http://www.delaservitudemoderne.org/english1.html

I put the link for English version.

Enjoy!

March 8, 2010 at 3:09 am

Joel Rosenblum

This is quote is not sourced to Mussolini: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”

March 8, 2010 at 5:37 pm

Joel Rosenblum

So Alex, I’ve never met you but I would like to. You should come hang out with me and my friends at the J&H caf sometime, like around 4:30pm on weekdays (dinner time so as not to waste time). We are a diverse group of libertarians, socialists, anarchists, etc. who argue with each other.

At one point in my life, when I was younger (I’m 25 now, already feeling old), I felt that a new world really was possible. I’m less optimistic about that now, having met so many people who don’t come to the conclusions you’ve come to… altruism and intelligence is rarer than you think, i think. But don’t let me discourage you, because obviously we are doomed if everyone becomes as pessimistic as I am…

p.s. like you, i’ve also lived in the “global south” (mexico to be precise). have also visited DR & Cuba.

March 11, 2010 at 2:30 pm

alex

hey joel, thanks for all your comments!

i am asserting that a new world is not only possible, it is necessary, and inevitable!

whether that new world is one shaped by our common values of freedom, democracy, etc., or one shaped by fear and exploitation – that is up in the air.

however i hold great hope that although things may get darker in the short term as fascism creeps into power, in the long run the only sustainable way of living on this planet is going to be a much more democratic and decentralized way of life. we can keep delaying that further and further into the future to maintain short-term privileges, or we can embrace it now and spare ourselves the unnecessary destruction and grief.

regardless, human economy will eventually be forced to co-exist with the planet, and all systems of oppression which try to prevent this co-existence will fall and break into a million pieces. as we lose the imperatives to act like robots in a grand machine, our natural human tendencies to care for one another, care for the planet, and enjoy life will reassert themselves.

i think our goal should be to inspire and organize people to make this happen sooner, rather than later. i’d rather not have to live through fascism just to get to something decent. besides, working for a better world is so much more fun than not!

thanks again
alex

March 11, 2010 at 6:55 pm

Joel Rosenblum

ok alex so i was telling an anarchist friend about your idea that capitalism must end soon and something will take its place. he was skeptical. true, cheap oil resources are running out on this planet, but we still have nuclear, and battery tech is leaping forward at such a rate that electric vehicles (etc) will soon be much more practical. in terms of other minerals, we could expend the effort to build a program to mine asteroids or the moon, it is technically feasible with our current science if investment is made in engineering.

a libertarian friend of mine says it is pointless for us to worry about global warming, since even if we haven’t gone past the point of no return, we as a species are supremely vulnerable to any number of events on this planet, either cosmic in nature of planetary (like a super volcano eruption which would kill basically all life worth talking about, and which we’re due for sometime soon in geological time)… so in his mind the best use of our resources right now is colonizing other planets or the moon, and that is something capitalism could really use in its growth model.

now in terms of the human resource limitation… Africans are still vastly under-utilized for capitalist labor, aren’t they? and the global population is increasing at a tremendous rate…

March 11, 2010 at 6:56 pm

Joel Rosenblum

i meant to say “cosmic or planetary” not “cosmic of planetary”

March 11, 2010 at 7:18 pm

alex

hey joel.

i’m not sure whether you’re presenting these ideas as your own, or as caricatures that you want me to tear apart.

either way, let me say that i think they’re quite unrealistic and seem to fall within the “science/technology will save us” camp.

i’ve already tackled the nuclear question in a recent article here: http://endofcapitalism.com/2010/02/25/earth-to-obama-5-reasons-nuclear-is-nowhere-near-sustainable/

as for the other technological fixes, the fundamental problem with all of them is the absolute lack of energy with which to realize them. i Richard Heinberg has done a better job laying out these energy limits than myself, so everyone should read his book “The Party’s Over”. failing that, see his recent article “Searching for a Miracle”: http://www.postcarbon.org/report/44377-searching-for-a-miracle

he concludes that there is no combination of energy sources or technologies which can make up for the loss of oil by 2100.

i’m not sure what to say to your global warming denier friend. the evidence is all around us, and science has been 100% clear on this. the climate is changing, and we are the cause.

finally, i think the idea that Africa is under-exploited is about the most brutal thing i’ve heard in a while. i think we need to expand our understanding of capitalism/imperialism and realize that just because you aren’t working in a factory doesn’t mean that your labor is not part of the capitalist system.

one huge piece that we need to pay attention to is how Africa has been and continues to be exploited for its minerals, and how Africans as people are being exploited to drive this mining. i am going to write a large section of my book about the resource wars and genocide that are going on in the Congo right now for coltan and other minerals necessary for cell phones, laptops, etc. in my view this is the most blaring example of contemporary “Enclosures”, or the violent displacement from land that was necessary to kick-start capitalism in Europe and that has never ended, only moved to more remote locations.

here’s a great article about what’s happening in the Congo. if we don’t look at how capitalism affects ALL of us, it’s easy to overlook the true horrors of the system: http://endofcapitalism.com/2009/12/27/conflict-minerals-and-civil-war-in-the-congo/

thanks again!

alex

March 11, 2010 at 10:01 pm

Joel Rosenblum

hey alex, thanks for schooling me on nuclear. it does seem much less promising than solar and other things. i still think the energy crisis isn’t as much of a crisis as many doomsayers believe, though i don’t have the data at hand (if such exists) to prove my optimism on this point.

you asked if i was asking the questions myself or something like that… obviously i am asking the questions and hoping to hear your responses, and others are helping me to think of these questions. i sense a bit of defensiveness in your reply but that could be inaccurate. i am not attacking you, merely your arguments. i think you are a wonderful person, worthy of more respect even than i have for myself, and i hope that by attacking your arguments i will be in some way helpful for your thinking process in writing the book or whatever you spend your energy on.

one thing is you didn’t read what i wrote about my libertarian friend. he doesn’t deny global warming, just that he isn’t sure we can still reverse it with conservation at this point (read Lovelock), and even if we could, there are many other ways we can be annihilated on this planet, no matter how well we treat the Earth and each other. i think he has valid points.

now as for my idea of exploiting Africans more, you started talking about how we are exploiting them via exploiting their resources. i understand, i think, what you are saying, but the fact remains that there is tremendous labor potential in Africa and other places with low labor connection to capitalist enterprise (China is beginning to capitalize on it). also as i said, the population of Earth is rapidly expanding, so I really don’t see labor shortage as a problem for capitalism.

anyway to sum up, I don’t think capitalism is in as big a crisis as you do, though I’m not sure it matters one way or the other… i mean, as you say, we have a choice between a good future and a bad one (whether continued capitalism or fascism). that has always been true. so the point is how can we most effectively convert people to our ideas of democracy etc. (as well as strengthening our own understandings of our ideas… for example I consider myself an anarchist-wannabe, though I wonder about things which i have not had time to fully think about, like what about traffic cops, and pollution cops, and what about intervention against genocide (etc) in far-off places etc… how would anarchist societies deal with these and other challenges?)

i feel pessimistic about this because a) i am around too many people who are ignorant or don’t care about politics at all, b) i am around too many people who do care about politics and have strong convictions based on things like religion or tradition or etc that i have trouble changing their minds about, and of course c) i’m just in general lonely and depressed

of course pessimism is no excuse for inaction. i understand that, at some level.

March 12, 2010 at 2:36 am

alex

hey joel,

im sorry if my previous comment came off as defensive or snippy, i wasn’t trying to be. internet communication has a way of becoming hostile, because it’s just alien text arguing with alien text, there’s no human connection, body language, emotional expression, etc. also as i am male-socialized i sometimes struggle with competitive knee-jerk reactions as patriarchy has trained me to. so thanks for calling me out on this attitude.

i’m sorry that you’re having trouble with pessimism and depression, but please don’t have more respect for anyone else than for yourself! self-love is the foundation for positive action. not selfishness or self-aggrandizement, but basic love for yourself. also, i appreciate your criticisms and you’re right, it does help me think about my topic in new ways. so thanks!

now then, sorry i misunderstood your friends concerns. i can’t say much about cosmic or planetary catastrophes which may possibly occur at some point in the future, other than that i dont think we can really worry about them as we have no control over them and dont know if they’re real threats (unless there’s compelling evidence of a real threat, which i would be skeptical of). global warming, on the other hand, we KNOW to be a real threat, and we also know that we can prevent the worst effects of it by switching to a more sustainable economic path. so it make sense to worry about it and do something about it.

let’s look closer at the labor issue. you say Africa has a “low labor connection to capitalist enterprise”. i fundamentally disagree. capitalism has expanded to a point where the entire globe is within its orbit. Africa in particular was first sucked into it over a hundred years ago through European colonialism, which destroyed the communal and pastoral lifeways of Africans and pushed most people into for-profit farming and wage labor, as well as slavery. please note: slavery has always been a part of capitalism even though the workers do not earn a wage. what matters is that the product of their labor is exploited for the global market.

if you haven’t yet, check out Adam Hochschild’s excellent book King Leopold’s Ghost, about the Belgian conquest of the Congo. it explains how the Belgians used genocide, slavery, and mass-amputations to create a low-wage/slave-based rubber economy that displaced the traditional economies of the Africans in those areas, as well as transforming the environment of the region by replacing the forests with rubber plantations. this is the face of capitalism.

so as i say, the exploitation of coltan, bauxite, diamonds, gold, ivory, oil, and other resources from Africa is all part of the capitalist system, even if the workers doing it are not being paid a wage, or working in a factory. plus consider that unemployed people who are living on the brink of starvation are ALSO part of the capitalist labor market because their unemployed presence drives down the wages of those who are employed. therefore the extreme poverty and anguish of Africa acts not only to allow the super-cheap extraction of highly-valuable minerals from the continent, but also as a weight dragging down the wages of workers in other continents, therefore sustaining higher profits for the system as a whole. this is why the AIDS pandemic, completely treatable malaria and other diseases, and preventable famines, are kept going by the powers-that-be. Africa’s suffering means billions for multinational corporations.

so i dont see the population issue the way you do. capitalism is responsible for this growth in population, and the vast vast majority of these people ARE part of the labor market already, even if they don’t have a waged job. the system wants nothing more than huge masses of people without access to land, clamoring for any job that will provide them a miniscule wage. it’s a wet dream for employers.

the questions you ask are good ones. and i don’t want to pretend that i have all the answers either. but through conversations like these, hopefully we are developing the understandings of the world that are necessary to move forward and create that better future!

alex

March 12, 2010 at 3:02 am

Joel Rosenblum

thanks for your reply alex. there is a lot of debate actually over whether we can do anything at all to stop global warming at this point (scientists agree there is a tipping point but disagree on whether or not we have already passed it).

as for Africa, i think we on the left tend to equate poverty with capitalist exploitation like it’s all proportional by definition. but capitalist exploitation is all about increasing worker productivity (while keeping them on a subsistence wage) in order to produce more profits. in Africa, worker productivity, especially in agriculture, is at rock bottom, which means the connection to capitalism is slight. capitalists in China understand this, and they are making investments in infrastructure in Africa so that the population will be more productive.

of course you are correct that capitalism requires a reserve pool of labor (the unemployed) to keep wages down, but i don’t think this is the reason that Africans are impoverished, since they are not in direct competition with the rest of the world in most cases, due to the low productivity factor. i mean, if they had similar levels of infrastructure to Latin America, say, then maybe the reserve labor pool would make sense. but if they can’t compete in global capitalism due to lack of infrastructure, they aren’t functioning as much of a reserve labor pool (unless the emigrate).

you say you don’t see the population explosion as helping capitalism to further its exploitation, because the vast majority of people are already part of the labor market… but my point is that the vast majority of people are only a fraction of the number of people we will have on this planet in the coming decades to exploit…

but anyway, like i said, and like you said, whether or not capitalism is at its end is not all that important. the fundamental problem is how to foster cooperation over competition.

March 14, 2010 at 3:31 pm

alex

hey joel,

glad to continue the conversation.

a few responses.

in terms of climate change, the “tipping points” argument should not be used as an excuse for inaction. of course there may be feedback loops that, once triggered, lead to more warming. but in no way can this be used to justify the policy decisions which are creating more greenhouse gas pollution right now, for example the $8 billion obama just offered to the nuclear industry, or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. these must be opposed, regardless of fear of tipping points. we simply cannot KNOW that the world is automatically doomed once we reach a certain level of CO2 in the atmosphere. it’s better to just reduce it back to a safe level.

on the Africa question, i have to say that i haven’t done enough research to say precisely how most Africans are employed, and can’t generate a list of all the ways multinational corporations are profiting from them. if Chinese companies are finding ways to exploit Africans, that’s something to be aware of. but i don’t think we need to compare Africa to Latin America or other Global South areas to understand that Africans are laboring WITHIN the capitalist system. one way we can see this is through the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) which the IMF and World Bank have imposed upon Africa to force them to pay back huge unpayable debts. the governments of Africa are being forced to generate billions of dollars to give to Western banks to pay for enormous “development” projects like dams, which were contracted out to Western companies to begin with. so there is a huge vacuum sucking money out of the continent in that way.

i also think the argument you make about worker productivity is formulaic and simplistic. just because African farmers don’t have tractors or other machines doesn’t mean their labor isn’t being exploited for the global market. the African slaves who were brought to America a few hundred years ago were toiling with their bare hands to pick cotton, nevertheless their labor made possible America’s industrial revolution through the huge profits generated. (don’t pay someone for their labor = superexploitation).

i see this situation as having been brought to Africa by European colonialism, and never having ended. the child laborers/slaves in the Congo who are extracting tiny quantities of coltan from the earth with bare hands without any tools at this very moment, are doing what you might call highly unproductive labor. but their labor allows the production of the world’s laptops and cell phones, so it is undeniably part of the capitalist system.

are you suggesting that it would only be capitalism if this mining was being done with the use of tools, machines, and earth-movers? perhaps we can imagine this as more efficient, because it would employ less people and they wouldn’t be child slaves. nevertheless it seems to me it would be impossibly more costly for the coltan warlords and therefore produce higher-priced coltan – which we can agree is the opposite of what the global market demands.

i think the definition of productivity needs to be investigated. are we just going by what an economics textbook would call “higher productivity”? in my mind it’s fundamentally about profits. if the profits from children working as slaves with bare hands are higher (which of course is the case with millions of starving children running around – a situation they created), capitalism will prefer this scenario every time. as long as it can continue to hide it from us so we can’t generate resistance to it, that is.

the population question gets cloudy real fast, and i think it’s mostly a distraction used by the Right. i posted a piece about that here: http://endofcapitalism.com/2009/03/27/overpopulation-fears-miss-the-point/

lots to think about, glad to keep talking!

alex

March 15, 2010 at 4:02 pm

joel

Hey Alex, hope I’m replying correctly. Thanks for getting back to my points.

I suppose you’re right that given the uncertainty it makes sense to scale back CO2 production, though really I think this has gotten off-point, since the point originally was whether the environment was a limit to capitalism, though limits to capitalism itself are off-point as well.

From what I know of Africa, it has very little industry compared to Latin America. Most of the money that flows out of Africa into the capitalist hegemons is via resource extraction, which of course employs some small percentage of people, but the point is that the exploitation is much more of resources than of people in Africa. Subsistance farming is the norm there, and urbanization has yet to take off (see http://www.grida.no/publications/other/geo3/?src=/geo/geo3/english/410.htm). Again, I’m not saying that Africa is not being exploited, just that in terms of human labor, it is not yet nearly as exploited as it could be.

if the question is would it be more profitable to use machines to extract resources, i think the answer is yes, and the only reason it isn’t being done is because, as you say, warlords control the resources and they don’t have the stability needed to invest in better extraction methods… again, i see you getting caught up in the idea that more suffering = more profit, yet the equation is not so simple. of course even with machines you’d likely still have a lot of hard labor left for actual people to do, depending on what is being mined.

now as for the expanding global population, i agree that it’s a distraction by the right, but I never said it was the big problem that we need to prioritize… I said it was an area of potential growth for capitalism (more people to exploit)

March 26, 2010 at 1:45 am

alex

hey joel,

i think you are not grasping the true depth of the system’s dominance. it is much more complex than just saying industrialization / urbanization = capitalism. are most Africans really still living in communal lifeways and organic societies? raising animals or crops to sustain their communities, and not engaged in the global market? i find this highly contradictory to everything i have read or heard about the continent.

it’s necessary to appreciate the fact that capitalism always requires a process of “enclosures” to drive its growth. marxists call this “primitive accumulation” and it takes the form of driving farmers from their land, slavery and other non-wage forms of labor exploitation, starting wars and genocide, and destroying communal ways of life. this is not just what had to happen for capitalism to kickstart in Europe, it is an ongoing process all around the world. in capitalism there are always people being enslaved, working in abominable conditions, etc. and yes it is often more profitable than using heavy industry.

please check out my review of Caliban and the Witch, which goes into this: http://endofcapitalism.com/2009/11/05/who-were-the-witches-patriarchal-terror-and-the-creation-of-capitalism/

i am actually starting a discussion group about Caliban and the Witch, which is an excellent book that sheds an incredible new light on the nature of capitalism, from a feminist perspective. can’t recommend it highly enough!

alex

March 15, 2010 at 8:51 pm

Dave Hafsten

The ultimate question, it seems to me, is , do the systems that humans have created, taken precedence over deliberate human thinking. Personally, it seems to me, the systems have a life of their own, with the clearest example being the recent financial crisis. Too many people, and in order to manage the numbers, our systems have to take control. The other factor is non-linear results of ordered systems. Sorry humanists, we’re not in control any longer.

March 19, 2010 at 5:12 pm

Fred B

Hi,

I would like to know your opinion about the fundamental role that play internet in the imminent end of capitalism ?

Thanks

March 26, 2010 at 1:59 am

alex

hi fred,

that’s a good question and not one i have a detailed answer for, but here’s a sketch of my thoughts.

the internet is an incredible technology, and no doubt it is having drastic effects on our society, both good and bad.

on the bad side we can see how the internet is a function of capitalism. giant corporations like Google are taking control of more and more information, encroaching on privacy and civil liberties, etc. then you have the government using it to spy on us and monitor our activities, etc. plus consider that the internet is just one more huge distraction for most people, to occupy our minds with mostly frivolous junk and keep us from thinking about changing society for the better. this is all very worrisome.

on the other hand the internet has the potential to be used to build opposition movements and connect people with anticapitalist viewpoints who would otherwise never have been able to connect. “social networking” sites like facebook can be quite useful for spreading information rapidly to lots of people. and obviously i use the internet to get out my views daily!

if we look at the Global Justice Movement of 10 years ago, which was highly successful at impeding a new round of global financial agreements through the WTO, FTAA and a bunch of other acronyms, that was a global movement in part because of the ease of internet communications across national boundaries.

see “The Shock of Victory” by David Graeber: http://endofcapitalism.com/2008/01/31/the-shock-of-victory/

so, my impression is that the internet is a mixed bag, and like any technology (except some purely evil ones like nuclear weapons), it can be used for bad or for good.

what’s your view?

alex

March 30, 2010 at 4:16 pm

michael dickinson

Excellent site. Added to links on Money-Free.

I wonder if you’ve heard about the 2012 World Strike? The message is spreading.

WORLD STRIKE 2012

If you agree that the abolition of money would be a fine solution to most of our problems, and that we could create a much better system where EVERYTHING – food and drink, clothing and housing, water, heating, education, health-care and entertainment – shall be FREE for EVERYONE – why not join the World-Wide Strike on the opening day of the Olympic Games in 2012?

The Strike will begin the moment the symbolic Olympic flame is lit – the signal for all who support the abolition of money to stop work and demand a new fair world of true freedom and justice.

WE WANT A MONEYLESS WORLD

Pass it on.

April 1, 2010 at 12:03 pm

Alex

A moneyless world. Sounds good. But money doesn’t mean just coins and paper bills. Money can be anything that is valued by people. Are you going to destroy everything that has value to human beings?

The day after the world becomes totally “moneyless,” how many people do you think will wake up at 7am and hop in their car, or get on the bus, or ride the subway to work? are you? do you think the people that run the electric, gas, and water companies that provide energy and water to your house are going to work if they know they’re not getting any “money” on payday? are surgeons and doctors going to perform life savings operations and procedures out of the good of their heart???? some may. most won’t. how are you going to motivate people to do all of the functions that are required to run what we have considered to be “daily activities”???

April 28, 2010 at 10:52 pm

John Steinsvold

An Alternative to Capitalism (which we need here in the USA)

The following link takes you to an essay titled: “Home of the Brave?” which was published by the Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm

John Steinsvold

April 1, 2010 at 11:36 am

Alex

“here again what i see is a system that rewards greed and cruelty, at the expense of basic human need. i see a system that profits from taking away people’s security.”

once “basic human need” is fulfilled, greed and cruelty will follow. yes i agree with you that capitalism has caused misfortunes for the majority of people that live on this planet, but it is a system that was created by humans. “1% of Americans control trillions of dollars and drive around in HUMMER limousines”- human beings on this planet want and strive to be that 1%. right this minute in Brooklyn, NY i’m surrounded by hundreds of employees who all work in finance. thousands more in this building. if any of us were offered the position of CEO earning a salary of $500 million and another $250 million in stock options, would any of ur refuse it? hell no! would you?????

years ago when man killed in order to eat he didn’t make banners and call to all other men to come and eat with him. he fought for his food and he defended it. is it considered greed to deny other members of his race the basic necessity to eat? he just wanted what was his. why give free handouts to others who didn’t work as hard as them.

I agree with you that people should watch Michael Moore’s movie Capitalism. Not just for anit-capitalism reasons, but just to open our eyes about life in general. to show how much life has changed as we continue to “advance” after our “basic human needs” are no longer everyday struggles.

what is the answer to all this madness? there doesn’t really seem to be any answers out there. is this just the path humans were meant to take? what do we do? how do we do it? whether it’s intentional or unintentional, change will come to this planet. good or bad.

Alex, whatever peoples’ veiwpoints, I applaud you for making this site. Thank you.

April 12, 2010 at 12:07 am

alex

hi alex,

thanks for posting, and for applauding.

i was a bit confused by your message. are you saying that people’s basic human needs are no longer everyday struggles? because i would strongly disagree with that statement. even overlooking the 2 billion of us who struggle to get drinkable water or edible food everyday, what about the billions more scraping by on poverty wages to try to feed their families all around the world, including right here.

i don’t know what the motivations of the financial workers and managers you’re surrounded by are, but i’m not surprised that it’s greed; the system has trained them with lifetimes of schooling to think and act that way.

you ask if i would take the CEO position of the financial firm. absolutely not. and not just because it would put me in a morally indefensible position where my decisions lead to the unemployment, impoverishment, and even death of hundreds or thousands or millions of people, as i’m sure that CEO’s decisions are doing.

no, i would reject that job for the simple reason that there is more important work for me to be doing. my work is the job of articulating some “answers” that you claim you cannot see to our common dilemma. and bringing people together who want to solve this mess. only WE can solve it. what good will millions of dollars do you as an individual when the climate is scorched, war, violence, racism and hate are everywhere, and fascism is on the rise? that’s the world we will inherit through our inaction.

action, on the other hand, can do many wonderful things. like make it so nobody has to go hungry just because the government wants to build more useless nuclear weapons.

keep thinking, living and loving
alex

May 31, 2010 at 7:01 pm

Danny

Agree with most of what I read here. I want to see action. And if it’s a fight they want, the poor will devour the rich purely through numbers. And I believe the rich know this and are struggling to keep us unorganized. Any ideas????????????

May 31, 2010 at 10:06 pm

Nobel Brwn

You’re right Danny,the establishment purposely keeps the majority population (the workers and unemployed) divided along manufactured lines. Economic (middle and lower classes) politics (republican and democratic) religious, national and racial. It’s s not a vast concerted conspiracy, at least not now, it now has a life of its own, we the exploited masses, perpetuate the very same divisions as our own with out conscious reflection, generally at least.

Talk is one thing and like you say where is the action? That’s what I’m here for. I’m trying to network with like minded individuals to consolidate the masses. Any effort for an improved world must come from the masses not from any elitist group whether left or right. But the masses are as usual ignorant and generally unresponsive. An effort must be made by those of us sitting at computers or at the coffee shops debating amongst ourselves to bring these diverse views together and consolidate our efforts. The left is so divided even amongst ourselves, the anarchists, the Marxists, and the social democrats. The important point is that we all basically agree on the end goal. Radical social change. The major rift is mainly over tactics. How do we get there? Anarchists believe we can go straight from a capitalist culture to a communal one, the Marxists or communists (although the term is very corrupted by the establishment) believe there must be a intermediate period in which the population or masses are guided into the communalistic society, both of these threads believing that violent revolution is necessary since the elites will never relinquish their wealth w/out a fight, the social democrats basically believe in non-violent subversion of the current political structure. Nut regardless of your ideological leanings action is still required. Talk is good and important to has out the issues but to focus here is to put the cart before the horse. Its all a none issue until the masses unite to gain our self- determining future. Allowing ourselves to be divided along ideological lines plays right into the structure needs. My email is wbuentello@comcast.net lets seriously start moving forward.

July 5, 2010 at 6:12 pm

alex

in response to Danny and Nobel, it’s great that you want to take action! i hope you are doing so.

i just want to encourage you to start from where you are, and then to organize. if you’re a student, why not organize other students? if you’re a worker, why not organize your fellow workers? if you live in a community, organize your neighborhood!

if you need help finding other radical people to learn from and share ideas with, connect with an organization! there are millions of organizations and projects all across the US aimed at changing this country for the better. find people who are already doing this work, and join them!

Students for a Democratic Society (newsds.org) is one that i can recommend, i used to be very active with their work of organizing students and youth for a more democratic and sustainable society.

thanks again
alex

August 1, 2010 at 2:30 pm

Bob Drysdale

I agree with your theoretical position that our present capitalist system is unsustainable since it depends on continuous growth of output. Unfortunately I have not come across an economic theory which is based on a society with zero or negative output. Obviously when we live in a world with finite resources we cannot expect them to last for ever. We we must work out an economic system which conserves what we have and rebuilds what we have lost

August 7, 2010 at 12:18 am

noble brown

capitalism isnt unsustainable due to a focus on continuous growth of output. this is just a symptom of a larger issue. that being its express reliance on exchange value and a systemic rejection of use value. the true meaning of use value is ignored and glossed over by the mainstream economists, their books and their theories of operation. finding an economic theory based on negative or zero output is almost an oxymoron since economics is based on output. its the value that this output has that is important to addressing the current problems social and economic. in a nutshell exchange value is based on scarcity and use value on abundance.

exchange value: the less ppl use it ie the less social good an item has, the more valuable it is to the individual. the focus: individual profit

use value: the more ppl use it ie the more social good it has, the more valuable it is TO SOCIETY as a whole. the focus: social good

as u may have noticed use value is almost an alien concept w/in the current manifestation of the capitalist social construct… a shame

August 24, 2010 at 12:51 am

alex

hey bob and noble,

thanks for commenting! i appreciate your thoughts.

in response to Bob, there are many people who are theorizing an economy that does not grow. this website has a list of links to different interpretations of this, including the “Steady State Economy” as theorized by Herman Daly, “DeGrowth”, the “Genuine Progress Indicator” (as opposed to Gross Domestic Product), and more. check it out!

http://growthbusters.org/find-out-more/economic-growth/

alex

August 18, 2010 at 10:13 am

Aragorn

Read of your blogs recently Alex, where one person was arguing for a capitalist economy on the basis that he should not have any upper ceiling on what he could earn. I am so sad that this mindset exists at all let alone prevails. How can we call ourselves an intelligent species when so many view this as the most important reason for living, regardless of the suffering this imbalanced reward system creates. It is also the case that the imbalance and decisions to reward some many time more than others, is not God given or cast in stone, nor does it follow any natural law.

This is an argument that ought to have dies out with the dinosaurs.

August 24, 2010 at 12:44 am

alex

thanks for your thoughts aragorn. i think you’re right. Christianity says greed is a mortal sin, right? strange how the Christian Right has twisted Jesus’ values.

August 29, 2010 at 4:47 pm

noble brown

i would like to interject w/ a point regarding christianities part in the capitalist culture. w/ the growing influence of capitalism in the world economy in the 16th century you also had the protesant reformation which did alot to moralize individualism and profit seeking. the protestants didnt explicitly equate the profit motive w/ greed, going w/ the now common axiom that, in terms of the economy, seeking your own personal gain provided for the greater good through the so called trickle down effect as ben franklin famously explained. this i believe is where the christian right draw their moral righteousness from.

August 23, 2010 at 1:24 am

Marie Marshall

I was directed to this site by a friend. I am glad to have found it, and to see that there are unshackled minds in America.

A correspondent above made the mistake of saying “Complete freedom means having no rules, no laws, no accountability”. This is perhaps the oldest canard that exists in uninformed critiques of (small a) anarchistic solutions; as Mikhail Bakunin said “In matters of bootmaking I yield entirely to the bootmaker”.

My own blog exists mainly for humour, but I will be making occasional serious entries, and even in the humour you may find some message. Please feel free to visit.

I will bookmark your site, and look forward to your FAQs coming on line.

August 23, 2010 at 2:06 am

Marie Marshall

… by the way, I disagree that “socialism is a dead word” simply because it was discredited by the oligarchy that was the USSR. “To each according to her needs, from each according to her abilities” is still a sane, rational, humane principle. Again I quote Bakunin: “Freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice and Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.”

August 24, 2010 at 12:41 am

alex

hey marie!

thanks for your kind words.

i believe my full words were “socialism is a dead word in the United States.”

obviously the US is the exception to the world, as usual. in Latin America, Europe, the UK where you are, and most places, “socialism” means a system of democracy and equality.

in the US, “socialism” almost exclusively means USSR, China, Cuba, North Korea, and to a disturbing number of uninformed individuals, it means Nazism/Hitler.

so the reason i’m not a fan of using the word is simply a strategic decision on my part, considering the people i am trying to reach. whether we like it or not, if you call yourself a socialist, most Americans have ceased to listen to you.

moreover, even if we could strip the word of all the immediate negative associations we have been taught, we would still need to imbue the word with an original positive meaning, because the socialist movement has in my opinion provided inadequate answers to the 2 major crises we face: the ecological crisis and the social crisis.

for that reason ive decided it’s a better use of my energy to begin with the word “progressive” to describe my politics. not only does it have a general positive association, it is relatively undefined, and therefore there is an opening for it to be defined by anti-capitalists such as ourselves.

i explained my perspective in more detail in my audio interview recently: http://endofcapitalism.com/2010/08/15/podcast/

thanks again
alex

August 29, 2010 at 4:59 pm

noble brown

i also agree w/ yuo on the pitfalls of using an outmodwed or even corrupted term like socialism or communism. if the goal is to reach ppl then its important to be sensitive to the public perception whether right or wrong. this is not about us but about the fullfillment of the ppl as a whole. in order to be effective we must instead use terms like progressive, which, by the way, fox news and the right has been very quick to try to counter w/ hilarious montages by the likes of glenn beck saying ridiculous things like progressiveness is evil and leads to fascism and hitler.

August 29, 2010 at 6:30 pm

alex

hey noble!

thanks for being a consistent commenter and supporter! you have a lot of useful things to say. i agree with you, Glenn Beck is absolutely a terror. if we keep doing what is right, soon enough we’ll all be up on his chalkboard. that would be a sign that we’re on the right track!

alex

September 2, 2010 at 12:00 am

wbiro

the end of Capitalism would be sad- for who would the Communists steal technology from then?

September 2, 2010 at 9:17 am

noble brown

technically the capitalists historically “steal” technology from the social structure itself. how? a great majority if not all major technological advancements which fueled the largest of the capitalists profit gains did NOT start in the private sector as the propaganda would like you to believe. the r&d is funded by the public usually through the military but also thru subsidies. it gets turned over to the private sector once it becomes profitable. this is well documented & not open to interpretation.

as a side note the so called “communists” which operated under a command economy as opposed to a market economy actually were responsible for quite a few technological innovations and played an equal role in the technology race. a consequence of which is alot of the nifty little things that you use everyday and erroneously believe are the sole result of capital risk ventures like new technology. before the recent market saturation, capitalist were inherently reluctant to invest in the development of new technology since the whole idea was to systematically increase profits and r&d is always very expensive. they therefore preferred, most logically, to re-invest capital in production like economy of scale. only now due to market saturation do the xcapitalist invest in risk ventures and those ventures are almost exclusively to be found in the financial markets & not r&d of new technology.

September 2, 2010 at 9:30 am

noble brown

alex

im glad you appreciate my input. i enjoy the dialog. i live in a very small community that is very conservative christian right. there just isnt many local outlets for me to network w others. i just got back from a 4 year “hiatus” during which i educated myself and began to see the real picture so this is very instructive for me. im continously looking for ways to participate.

September 2, 2010 at 6:25 pm

alex

hey noble,

glad to hear the enthusiasm. there are a million ways to participate in the construction of a more sustainable and democratic world.

i’ll send you my recent interview, which lays out the basic theory i am proposing. i’m not sure if you’ve read it already. but if you have an interest in giving me feedback, i’d be excited to read your response.

and if anyone else is reading this and wants to give feedback, just email alex@endofcapitalism.com

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