Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Why We Can’t Afford the Rich

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

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Why We Can’t Afford the Rich

Click here for a book review by Sean Ledwith regarding Why We Can't Afford the Rich by Andrew Sayer, posted on CounterFire (Britain).

[Sayer] expresses the supreme challenge of our times in stark terms: ‘capitalism is incompatible with saving the planet’. The title encapsulates the author’s conviction that capitalism has outlived any progressive tendencies it might have generated in the past in terms of revolutionising humanity’s productive capacity. The super-rich have jettisoned any form of useful economic agenda that might have had beneficial side-effects for the bulk of the world’s population, and are now blindly pursuing a tunnel-visioned stampede for profits.