Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The half that will never be told. . .

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, December 14, 2016

The half that will never be told. . .

Click here to access article by David Ruccio from Real-World Economics Review Blog.

"The half that will never be told..." (about US history) refers to the huge contribution that African slavery contributed to capitalist fortunes, and those who have inherited this wealth, and its concomitant power, now constitute our ruling class. Thus our contemporary capitalist ruling class, whose agents control all ideological institution of our society, have a vested interest in covering up this history. Ruccio is outraged by the negative reviews of recent books that reveal the role of slavery in the building of capitalist fortunes.

That’s a problem for those of us who work in and around the discipline of economics: mainstream economists are simply unwilling to give up on homo economicus and doggedly refuse to examine either the economic effects of the brutal system of torture that was central to U.S. slavery or the role slave cotton played in the development of U.S. capitalism. Not to mention their arrogance in responding to the work of anyone who argues otherwise.

And that’s why the other half of the story will never be told by mainstream economists.

Note: You might also be interested in a review of a book entitled Capitalism and Slavery by historian Eric Williams.