Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Why do we need the rich?

by Dan Russell from Socialist Worker

The author provides an easily understood Marxist perspective on jobs, wealth creation, and capitalist myths. A good primer on how the capitalist economy doesn't work for workers. and how it should be organized by workers, for workers.

However, his solution is hardly innovative or helpful:
When workers fight collectively and strike for a larger piece of the pie--whether for higher wages or higher taxes on the rich to pay for social or employment programs--they demonstrate that their labor is what drives the economy, and they begin to march down a path toward a different society.
We can't solve current problems of a dysfunctional, climate altering, and resource depleting economic system under the control of a powerful, small class of people using methods from the 19th and 20th centuries. Not that those methods aren't useful, but many more need to be created. Most critically needed are methods to take control of information and its dissemination. WikiLeaks is a good, but not a sufficient, example of a new method. And any attempts by corporations to control or limit access to websites must be fought vigorously.