H -°, L 7° | Tomorrow: 
H 17°, L 4°Is it human destiny to become destitute and malnourished on the rotten grain we have sown for ourselves? Will we be able to rectify our currently doomed direction and choose a new path?
I wonder this at times as I look over the land to see vast economic devastation and environmental destruction.
The incredible contradiction of the deepening immiseration of the world�s poor alongside the monopolization of the greatest amount of wealth to ever exist never fails to sicken me. The ongoing saturation of our world with toxic compounds threatens many, especially in the developing world.
Corporations with interests directly opposed to both mine and yours inundate the halls of government with the rancid stench of corruption, while black voters are disenfranchised here, and Iraq has no democracy at all under unjust and unwanted occupation.
This same class of crooks then proceed to profit from every possible circumstance, including the privatization of the infrastructure in periods of crisis. Whether in regard to the schools of New Orleans or the water and natural gas of Bolivia, or the oil fields of Iraq, neoliberal economic policy continues to eviscerate the public interest. In my personal political development surrounding the question of why this was happening and how it could be reversed, I came to discover a school of thought known as sustainable development.
It is the simple idea that our development on the earth be logically coincident with a long-term objective of our mutual survival with other living things. It sounds crazy, right?
I studied this subject for two years, and when I was finalizing my thoughts, I realized that the economic system of capitalism makes this realization impossible. As long as we accept the idea that a minority of the population has an inherent right to control all of global production for their own profit, we cannot have an economy that is run on the basis of human need.
As long as we do not have equality and economic democracy, we will not have political democracy, and our institutions will be corrupt regardless of who is in the White House. As long as it is more profitable to dump chemicals into the systems we all depend on to survive, it will continue until we no longer have a place to support life. As long as we see our power as dependent on the proportionately small amount of cash in our bank accounts and what we do with it, we will never overcome the power of multibillionaires who are crashing our economy and destroying our planet.
We need a movement that can.
The question of how we can adjust our course is an essential one. It begins with people taking their destiny into their own hands and recognizing the power they have. When the city council of New Orleans met to decide to destroy undamaged public housing and give the land away to private developers, hundreds of people almost succeeded in entering the meeting after breaking through the armed guards and iron bars designed to deny them their voice. What if this happened every time our government did not do what we wanted?
When the Iraqi oil workers union went on strike in 2007 against the oil privatization law forced on Iraq by the U.S. Congress, they were taking matters into their own hands. What if the Iraqis can keep the oil out of the hands of foreign corporations and use it to help their own impoverished people? When the hundreds of thousands of Bolivians rose up and called massive strikes against the neoliberal U.S. puppet government and tossed it out, they were moving closer to control of their own destiny. What if people tried to do this in other countries where people want real change?
We need to build and expand these sorts of movements today and strengthen them with the knowledge of the past so we can fight for, and win, a better future for us all.
Join us for a presentation and discussion on �Disaster Capitalism� and the movement for a better world on Wednesday Feb. 13 at 7:30p.m., TITU.
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Ben Daniels ([email protected]) is a member of the International Socialist Organization.
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Hi Ben!
I agree completely, but the only way to get rid of the problem, is to rid the world of economies… which is destined to happen eventually. I can’t hardly wait. I (Wingnut) talk of a better system, and get personally trashed pretty nicely… over at this blogthread…
http://blog.acton.org/index.php?url=archives/2153-Natural-Capitalism.html
Be sure to come back to this fine blog when you’re done there, readers.
Take care - keep up the good studies and writings, Ben!
Wingnut MaStars
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Can’t wait for the commentary on this one!
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Look at Korea.
Socialist North Korea = starvation
Capitalist Sorth Korea = ?
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God Damn it Ben communism failed over and over and over and billions of people died of starvation and malnutrition. When the world moved from the arrogant commanding heights to the the free market system billions were raised from poverty. The post soviet nations are struggling for democracy and the major fault lies in their inability to move away properly from overregulation. Please look at SE Asia, please read a book called ‘Ending World Poverty,’ by Sachs. Please take an IPE course or an economics course or a reality check.
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The common thread in all of the Socialist’s thought is that human freedom should yield to central control by clever technocrats like himself.
The proles are unable to determine what would be in their best interest, the intellectual, elete Socialist must be empowered to decide for all.
He will of course need somewhat better than the common food and accomidations to accomplish this, perhaps it would be best if he moved into the mansion of the Capitalist that was roasted for dinner last night.
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Typical blah-blah from the ISO. Ben, under socialism, EVERYONE is poor! Those liberal political science profs don’t teach you everything, Benny. Sorry, but there are nowhere near enough socialist-minded folks in the world to promote a socialist paradigm successfully, let alone make it work.
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Oh the lovely liberals thinking communism OR even socialism might still work. HA! I think there have been many failed attempts at it that have ended in mass-starvation, sickness and the crumbling of a nation. The most notable current nation trying out the whole “socialism-is-great” idea is Venezuela with that crazy Hugo Chavez they have in power.
So, Ben, move to Willy Street and live in your happy hippy commune, I’ll stay right here in a wonderfully capitalist society!
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I’m really sick of all the truly confused and misleading assumptions about what I am for. I was really for so called “socialist” North Korea I would be insane. If I was for want is labeled communism rather cynically by the Russian government and our own to defend their respective positions in the cold war I would be a complete tool. It’s a good thing then that those countries do not represent what I am advocating. From my article you must take the central theme as being collective and necessarily democratic mass movement for change. I want a system that reflects the interests of the masses who choose to take matters into their own hands, a democratically controlled economy aka socialism. This is entirely dissimilar from the brutal oppressive regimes that you two are describing. The fact that these countries or our own misname them socialist or communist or even democratic in order to attempt to justify there positions does not mean they truly represent those systems of organization. I have taken college level economics courses given by an amazing teacher when I was in high school so do not chalk my perspective up to lack of information. Can you not doubt a system that continuously demonstrates it’s failure to satisfy the needs of the people. Can you not question a system where a “self correction” means that thousands our hundreds of the thousands lose their jobs. Can you you not doubt the “invisible hand” that fails to provide necessities to oppressed people across the globe not because they are deliberatively being starved but because they are financially out of reach. If you think that this is the best we can do than I say it is you who are in need of a reality check. Here it is. This is what I mean by socialism and the struggle for it. I implore you to read it before you jump at my throat for being what I am.
How will workers run society? http://www.socialistworker.org/2002-2/421/42108WorkersCouncils.shtml
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Yet another glorious Socialist “democracy” shows the way - to penury:
Price controls haven’t held down inflation but they have produced shortages of the goods they cover. Milk, rice, cooking oil, chicken, beef, pork, sugar, black beans and eggs are all hard to find and Venezuelans say that grocery shopping now requires stops at five or six stores. The most reliable sources of price-controlled items are street vendors, who charge two and three times the legal limit but tend to have stock.
Control of the oil industry has been the main reason Mr. Ch�vez has been able to squelch democracy. His own warped logic suggests that he needs to control other key sectors if he wants to keep his grip on power. If he can strangle the private sector, he can starve his adversaries.
All of this is being policed by the army. With its monopoly on the use of force, the government can indeed destroy the private sector. But as Galtieri found out, it cannot decree that supply meets demand. As shortages become more acute, don’t be surprised to see the Venezuelan desperado picking more fights.
http://online.wsj.com/article/the_americas.html
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So tell me Ben, has there ever been a Socialist state?
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“oppressed people across the globe”
Would those be the ones whose rulers take Western handouts and deposit same in Swiss banks?
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Two arguments merit comment- First, capitalism in South Korea has meant the impoverishment of greater and greater sections of the population. Free trade agreements brought the country’s poverty rate from 3.1% in 1996 to over 11% today. There’s also been an epidemic of suicides among S. Korean farmers who’ve found themselves driven out of business by competition with multinational agricultural companies. So to say capitalism has done anything wonderful for S. Korea is silly.
Second, the argument that there has never been a socialist state is mistaken on two counts. First, there was a successful socialist state in Russia for a brief period until it was invaded by countries like the United States who destroyed the basis for democracy in the country. Also, the argument that there hasn’t been something is no reason to think there can’t be. Until the Haitian revolution there had been no successful slave revolt. Before the Wright bros. no one could fly. Before Edward Jenner there were no vaccines. Your proposition that since something hasn’t existed, it can’t, is patently ridiculous.
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11.54…ever heard of Western Europe nations or mixed systems??? It’s also bad to use Jeffery Sachs, one to minds behind Poland and Russia’s free wheeling systems that have ruined those nations.Even Sachs is opposed to the free market concepts being spit out of the IMF and World Bank…Read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein…The reason socialist nations fall is because neoliberals prop up juntas and maniacs…
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Jesus told his followers “Put aside your worldly possessions and follow me.” If Christ couldn’t make utopian socialism work here on Earth, you sure as hell can’t Ben!
Christ died to provide forgiveness of the sins of mankind. The most heinous sins commited to humans and planet alike were and are commited by socialist despots trying to impose their doomed-to-failure utopian fantasies on the proletariat. The reason our American society has such high levels of productivity, financial charity, and community service is because capitalism works! It not only rewards self improvement and hard work with decent pay and advancement, it provides the very means for individual charitable giving without diktat from ‘revolutionary councils’ or ‘sustainable growth committees’.
A joke from the days of the USSR past was quiped by a comrade on an agricultural commune: “We pretend to work…. and they pretend to pay us…”. Socialism fails because it does not provide incentives to the individual to work hard and continually learn and improve. The proles have learned what happens to those who drink deeply of the socialist KoolAid. We’re not having any of that crap anymore!
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I think this highlights an ideological difference between leftist thinking people and conservative thinking people. Lets imagine a country’s economy (gross national product) as a pie. Everyone has a piece of the pie. Some people have a large piece, others have a small piece. Leftists want to divide the pie into equal portions for all, make everything even. Conservatives are more concerned about making the whole pie bigger, so everyone can have more than they have now. Why can’t we worry more about making what we have better than just making sure everyone has the same thing?
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Ben,
Say whatever you want. That is what it is all about. You might be wrong, right or just plain out of touch, like me. It just doesn’t matter. But not saying what you think is worse.
Minkwinkdink Thanks (remember, “Wind Power, It blows!”)
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“there was a successful socialist state in Russia for a brief period until it was invaded by countries like the United States”
In what fantasy universe do you live?
Oh yeah, the one where South Korea is a better place to live than North Korea (except for the starving to death part I guess).
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Socialism is seen to work fine in the U.S. military supply system (money-less and luxury-less)… and also the USA Public Library System is socialist, and works WONDERFULLY. VERY fair, both systems. Drag the military’s socialism… out into civilian land, and now you have something. Keep going-with/cheerleading-for the servitude infestation in capitalism’s church-o-competing pyramid scheme, and you’ll destroy the planet. (pyramid scheme symbol seen on back of USA one dollar bill). Tug-o-war pyramid schemes ALWAYS fall, and capitalism is no different. Will we be ready with a FAIR/Christian system when the church-of-pyramiding… falls? The Christian socialists are ALREADY ready… and have been for years and years. We’ve watched the caps do their little rat-racing… and laughed at their stupidity…. and their inviting of afterlife spankings.
Wingnut MaStars anti-capitalism-ists MI USA
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socialism works on the small scale, think of the Shire in LOTR.
bring it into the large scale, and you basically are relying on the fact that noone in power is going to try and game the system, which = FAIL
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By the fruits of monopoly capitalism you shall know its nature, �Terrorist Triumphs are the fruits of capital’s Disasters of Development�
In view of the almost hysterical Administration fear of terrorism including from the poor non-white countries I ask would the benefits of giving a fair price for their agricultural produce be an important step towards the basic human security necessary for democracy through strengthening the lower and middle classes resistance to oligarchic rule and corruption.
President George W. Bush spoke of “an age of terror in 2001� And among almost innumerable pessimistic references, in 2007 said: “The war on terror we fight today is a generational struggle that will continue long after you and I have turned our duties over to others.� The United States policy defining National Security Strategy Report identified a seedbed for terrorism with the words, “poverty, weak institutions, and corruption can make weak States vulnerable to terrorist networks.” US aapprehension is sufficiently great that defensive measures taken include provision of continent-wide �Africa Command� new US bases and permanent military forces. US intelligence reports now indicate that force, which has blown oxygen on the flames of belief and sacrifice, is failing.
Rather than making many unelected elites permanent by military support from the huge war on terror budget we should recognise that terrorism thrives in undemocratic conditions. The history of our own democracy demands we permit those who have most to gain from democracy and would support it, the billion plus peasants and farmers, an open market price for their output. the basic needs for literacy, shelter, clothing and food to be more available to the number would be enlarged. would support their needs. We could cease our manipulation of the world price of agricultural produce down to almost 50% below Adam Smith’s natural price which we achieve through agricultural subsidies and import tariffs.
More tolerance of political competition and more possibility for elites who are voted out of office to continue living adequately would follow. The benefits would open the possibility that the 66% of total aid which is presently given to non democratic or corrupt regimes be ceased thereby giving a further boost for democracy. We might fund some compensation for the starvation deaths caused by the price manipulation in past years from this saving.
We would Our do gooders would no longer fear the aggregate question; �why has no good been done�
The loss of low cost physical resources and some political control would be offset by the lessening of the undemocratic conditions which lead to terrorism. Not by coincidence, the most undemocratic country in the world, albeit utterly friendly, almost an honorary Western state, Saudi Arabia, supplied most of the 9/11 raiders