Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Wake Up and Smell the System

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, May 3, 2010

Wake Up and Smell the System

by Frank Scott from his blog.

The engine of our system is capitalism; the pursuit of private profit through the market under corporate control, free of any public intrusion save for minor reforms that try to keep its most destructive tendencies from all working simultaneously and destroying society in the process. But destruction is what we face if we try to make society healthier by segregating one group or aspect of its illness from the social body without confronting the terminal social disease that escapes notice, is hidden from notice, or is forbidden from being noticed.