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Have I been told off by Julian on the Drudion for....
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IanB
IanB
6761 posts

Edited May 03, 2009, 10:08
Re: capitalism and the law
May 03, 2009, 08:32
dave clarkson wrote:
"I hear it as a call that is against capitalism, but especially against the values that are at their most distinct releif in the American expression of capitalism. The highest consumers in the world, twice the UK's carbon emissions yet a lower standard of living for most, that laissez-faire freemarketeering that views the rest of the world as serfs and raw materials for corporate profit."

I believe China is the highest consumer in the world.




Given humanity's current stage of enlightenment and the last 250 years of history I tend to believe that in our corner of the world capitalism is often the only reliable bullwark we have against despotism. I know Bucky Fuller wasn't hanging with the MC5 and that he and his like aren't considered to be all that hip any more but many of the most remarkable far-seeing and progressive thinkers of our age when it comes to the allocation of resources are card-carrying disciples of the profit motive.

I would sooner seek a solution to global injustice from someone who knows how to build something that works in terms of successful human interactions and can see the importance of detail within a bigger picture than from any kind of wide focus idealogue. Once the concern with detail at a human level is let go then all kinds of horrors are possible.

Whatever colours or insignia our leaders wear the idea that the nation or empire can do without some people (sometimes quite a lot of people) if it means that those leaders can impose their will and achieve their aims is common. The collective amnesia that allows it to happen equally so. We know it is a lottery. We choose to allow it to continue.

Whether that proess of selection is achieved through war, disease, unenlightened colonial power, starvation, a more subtle form of economic degradation or some other mass misery the concept is the same and we are in some cases talking loss of life on an unimaginable scale.

What seems to temper despotism is the hope for material improvement. Doesn't say much about us as a species but it holds back the worst of what we are capable of. We all know what happens when the marketplace is cast aside and Great Men break out the flags and drums and teach us how we are to live and die.

The Chinese of course know all there is to know about that Terrible Arithmetic and to view it as an American or Anglo-American or Euro-American problem can be as reductive as any other form of chauvinism. Self-loathing is not the same thing as the kind of self-knowledge that creates a collective imagination that operates beyond tribal borders.

That said I still believe that if people in the more prosperous nations were specifically told the number of Dollars or Euros or Pounds that they themselves would have to give up each year in order to guarantee a just global distribution of water, food, health care and shelter then there would be a majority who would sign up for that if the plan is credible regardless of the material cost to them personally. No flags required.
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Re: capitalism and the law (dave clarkson)		 Replies:
Re: capitalism and the law (Merrick)
Re: capitalism and the law (sanshee)
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