Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The End Of The Road For Capitalism Or For Us All? (a "best post")

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

Friday, January 19, 2018

The End Of The Road For Capitalism Or For Us All? (a "best post")

Click here to access article by William Bowles posted on Dandelion Salad. (Again, I must thank my online friend and supporter, Christopher of northwest Oregon, for alerting me to this fine article.)

My god! I share so much of Bowles' perceptions about how British socialists were so fooled in the post-WWII years by the master class of capitalists, his anxiety about the tenuous condition of human existence, and his urgent plea for activists to get informed and off their asses and do something about it!

I opened this essay with Engels’ prophetic quote, written 135 YEARS AGO would you believe! And unless we, the people call a halt to industrial capitalism now, and I mean right now, we are doomed as a species and we have also doomed our amazingly beautiful planet that took Nature billions of years to evolve in an intricate dance of physical, chemical and biological relationships.

I have only very minor disagreements with some of his statements which I would mostly characterize as quibbling. Some examples: In the above quote he uses the expression "industrial capitalism". Capitalism as it exists today is a mixture of both financial and industrial capitalism. So, why use any adjective in front of "capitalism"?! Then he states that our planet is also doomed due to human activity. No! The planet will continue on. It is only a planet that can support humans and some other species that will end.