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

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

What Do We Mean By “Works”? Anarchist Economics and the Occupy X Movement

Click here to access article by Deric Shannon from The New Significance. (A must read.)
...one of the near-constant criticisms of these sorts of ideas [anarchist] goes something like this:

“That kind of system would never work [the implication being that the current system, although faulty, does work] because of human nature. We’re just wired to be greedy. It’s evolution, survival of the fittest, and all that.”
Many people have been so indoctrinated in the faith-based religion of capitalism with its mantra, "there is no alternative", that they can't think straight anymore.
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