We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, August 26, 2011

Passive revolution: are the rich starting to get scared?

Click here to access article by Jérôme E. Roos from Roarmag.
Warren Buffet wants to tax the rich, Forbes warns about a global class war and Nouriel Roubini says that Marx was right about capitalism. What’s going on?
The author astutely contrasts the recent expressed concerns about the capitalist system from several of its panicking spokespeople with a deeper understanding posed by Gramsci who argued how the political operatives of the ruling class have used cultural tools and compromises to keep the chaotic system of capitalism going. 

We are now witnessing such spokespeople sounding the alarm about their system, and some of them are willing to cut back on their looting of the economy in order to protect their goose, the capitalist system, that lays all their golden eggs.

During the 1930s economic crisis in the UK and US and in the post WWII US Empire we have seen the New Deal in the US and social democracy in many European countries which brought temporary benefits to working people, but only to save the system. We must not be lured into accepting these temporary inducements once again! This will merely leave us eventually drowning in goose droppings. It is no longer only a matter of social justice; it is now a matter of protecting our planet which supports all life from the continuing ravages of capitalism.