Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Are Capitalists Nicer These Days?

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

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Are Capitalists Nicer These Days?

Click here to access article by Andrew Levine from CounterPunch.

In spite of the veneer of "niceness" that today's capitalists show to some of their select workers, Levine argues that it is okay to hate not only capitalism but capitalists.

...the hipster capitalists who make capitalism look cuddly and nice are up to the same tricks.

How ironic that, in an age of growing inequality and immiseration, brought on by the logic of capitalist development and exacerbated by neoliberal austerity policies – and at a time when the exigencies of keeping the capitalist system afloat include irreversible environmental damage and perpetual war — that high minded cultural sensibilities and causes would function to obscure awareness of the continuing – indeed, increasing – evils of the capitalist system!