Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The NGO sector: The Trojan horse of capitalism

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

Thursday, October 31, 2013

The NGO sector: The Trojan horse of capitalism

Click here to access article by "Crn Blok" - an anarchist group from Macedonia posted on libcom. (Note: The translated pamphlet is broken into translated segments following this first segment.)

Much has been written about the role of NGOs in stifling, managing, and even engineering dissent (think "color revolutions"), but this appears to me (I've only read the first two segments at this time) to be an excellent in-depth study of their operations. The first paragraph starts with this perceptive statement:

There is a good reason why we, anarchists, would pay some attention to the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) sector, principally because the general public considers this "third sector" as a tool for democratisation of society, and even worse, as an alternative to the struggle against centralized authority, oppression, poverty and all the other collective misfortunes of the people. To us, this is yet another of the great deceptions of capitalism that serve to keep the illusion of choice and freedom alive.