Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Debtor's prison or credit control

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

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Debtor's prison or credit control

by Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene from Asia Times Online.

The authors offer some very sensible solutions to an out-of-control financial industry.

However, I argue that such solutions are shortsighted because they are only possible, along with other measures to promote sustainability, if ordinary people can take back control of their societies to serve the interests of everyone.

Capitalism with its privately held system of debt financing is the logical outcome of an economic system run for, and by, private interests. The current system promotes economic booms and busts which results in ever greater concentrations of capital, and that is precisely what capitalists want.

This system has thrived on cheap, and what appeared to capitalists to be unlimited amounts of fossil fuels and other resources and an environment capable of absorbing all the waste that the consumption of these resources creates, have combined to threaten our eco-system's ability to support human life. We simply cannot allow capitalism to continue to drive us to extinction.