An outstanding review of the crisis of contemporary capitalism and the necessity, not merely the desirability, for change if the human race is to survive.
The authors demonstrate what I have often argued--the propaganda organs (education and mass media) in the US have succeeded in raising an economic system to the status of a religion. Hence, the difficulties of getting people to examine capitalism and to consider alternatives are enormous. It's blasphemy to question it; and when one does, there are numerous punishments available by the enforcers of the system ranging from social ostracism to blacklisting and job threats. See also "The market : the new faith".
The question of how a socialist society would operate raised a horrible, dystopian image in this student’s mind. Such libertarian fears of a totalitarian state imposing socialism by force, even to the point of annihilation, on an unwilling people, who are presumed to be capitalist by nature, are all too common. This brings to mind Fredric Jameson’s comment: “Someone once said that it is easier [for most people in today’s society] to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.”
I keep wondering how bad things have to become before people wake up. What I fear most is that there won't be enough time for this to happen before we pass several tipping points to catastrophe.
