Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The war on the middle class

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

Monday, February 22, 2010

The war on the middle class

from The Economic Populist.

Capitalism hasn't failed. What has failed is the economic system in place today.
No amount of government taxes, trade barriers, or regulation caused it to fail.
No investigative reporter, or congressional oversight committee, or regulatory watchdog, exposed the massive fraud and corruption in the financial system today. All of the safeguards put in place to protect the public, and the current system from itself, failed.

I find this kind of thinking totally amazing. People like this blogger have a religious-like faith in this system which puts private ownership of production, free markets, wage slavery, and profits at its very core. Capitalism promotes sociopathic and predatory behaviors which no significant amount of regulation or government oversight can curtail for very long. In advanced capitalism, the owners "own" all the significant units of the economy as well as the government.

However, in spite of this naiveté, the author does provide a lot of useful information regarding the devastating social and economic effects of the system.