How do you free your life from capitalism? Part 2

It was a long thread so I figure there's more interest to continue. Here is the previous thread.

In any case, I owe Sam an apology. I told him to shut the hell up since he was, in my view, giving away the farm by revealing too many (illegal) things that low income people do to survive. It was actually a very interesting read but I felt he was helping the enemy.

I think that people can no more free themselves from capitalism than capitalists could continue unrestrained by free market forces if they did not control and influence governments. We can continue making smart choices as consumers, but in the end people have to want and fight for real democracy in order to affect meaningful change. And what not a better area of the world to fight for change in countries where the globalization agenda emanates from like spokes of a wheel? We need democratic control of central governments not increasing decentralization that puts national agendas at a disadvantage while favouring multinational corporations' abilities to push narrlowly-focussed agendas. Corporations practice "bigger is better" and are becoming the very thing they feared most from socialism during the cold war era. And so must the people become bigger and more influential with democratically-elected central governments. Because right now there is no balancing act for marauding international capital.

Are we really talking capatalism or consummerism?

N.Beltov,

Can you please give me some rules and guidelines so that non of my contributions will contradict your positions and offend you.

What can I state? how should I participate? what is taboo? what points of view must I accept?
If I am not with you N.Beltov, am I against you and for your enemies?

[ 21 March 2008: Message edited by: TemporalHominid ]

Nothing to do today but troll?

Today being Good Friday, the Loblaws and Zellers were both closed. I went down the main street in my 'hood, and it was unusually packed. People were buying food mostly, but also wandering into the other stores. These little shops are mostly individually-owed small businesses, some of them selling fair trade stuff. And in most cases, the prices aren't all that drastically higher than the big chain stores (if at all).

Basically, I'm thinking of RF's point about capitalism vs consumerism. Speaking of freeing yourself from capitalism seems kinda meaningless, living in Canada and all. But if you want to liberate yourself from participating in the global economy, you can avoid buying a whole lot of cheap crap from Zellers, and instead buy less stuff that costs a bit more, supporting your local businesses in the process.

Capitalism and consumerism are the same thing. What many have lost sight of, I think, is that the market can exist and function without the construct of capitalist ideology.

I need clothes, trust me you don't want me walking around without clothes.

I can chose to buy clothes that are union and Canadian made and avoid overprice name brand labels as much as possible.

I have to "pay" for those clothes with money. I can not use the barter system for my clothes because my skill set does not produce physical product.

I do think there is a distinction between consumerism that promotes the acquisition of "stuff" for the simple process of "having", and trying to do away with commerce and free enterprise.

I certainly don't have the expertise to delve into the concept of living without capitalism. I just don't see how a socialist society would work.

There was a "Third Rock from the Sun" episode that explored socialism and, while also very funny, contrasted the challenge with this type of lifestyle and economy, as individuality derailed the experiment.

Mygod, where do you find Canadian-made, union-made clothing nowadays? It is a rarity.

quote:
I do think there is a distinction between consumerism that promotes the acquisition of "stuff" for the simple process of "having", and trying to do away with commerce and free enterprise.

Define it.

quote:
I certainly don't have the expertise to delve into the concept of living without capitalism. I just don't see how a socialist society would work.

But that is my point. Capitalism literally poisons us and yet we can't let it go. Sort of like an abusive relationship, eh?

Capitalism has effectively enslaved us. We succumb to it, become part of the system, and it feeds and clothes us. Sort of like the big government we're all afraid of.

By capitalism I mean the only one that matters: corporate capitalism.

Capitalism controls agriculture production and distribution. Capitalism controls every aspect of how we house ourselves. Capitalism provides the clothes on our backs. More and more, capitalism controls the flow of water, the building blocks of life, and life forms.

Capitalism is, we are told, all about choice. But capitalism deprives us of any other choice.

Even if we could see beyond capitalism, and we could free ourselves of our fears, we can't stop it anyway.

The great success of capitalism is also its failure and ultimately the poison pill for anyone who would challenge capitalism - it created the conditions to greatly increase the earth's carrying capacity. A failure of the capitalist system would be catastrophic.

Now, for example, there are riots as capitalism shifts production from grain for food to grain for fuel.

It is a mathematical equation so simple even I can understand it. Infinite is the opposite of finite. Capitalism requires infinite growth through infinite consumption and we live on a finite world with finite resources.

quote:Originally posted by lagatta:
Mygod, where do you find Canadian-made, union-made clothing nowadays? It is a rarity.

Penmans - you can buy at Zellers. Even better is the factory outlet in Cambridge

Did you see the shoes there? Oh! And towels!

Cambridge towel is right across the street from Penmans (I spent 51 weeks working for Penmans when I graduated from University back in 1991-2)

When I lived in Waterloo, I dressed my kid's so cheap and so nice, by checking all the factory outlets at least once a month and since I knew how to sew, I'd buy the "damaged" stuff and fix it myself.

Shoes...well we had a moccasin making workshop in our building last weekend.........

quote:From Frustrated Mess:
Capitalism is, we are told, all about choice. But capitalism deprives us of any other choice.

N. Beltov was saying something like this in the other thread.

Isn't this true of any economic system? The only way to choose not to participate in any economic system is to remove yourself from it altogether, and become entirely self-sufficient. In a socialist country, this would be the only way to not participate in socialism. In a capitalist country, that is the only way to not participate in capitalism.

Similarly, you say: Capitalism controls agriculture production and distribution. Capitalism controls every aspect of how we house ourselves. Capitalism provides the clothes on our backs. More and more, capitalism controls the flow of water, the building blocks of life, and life forms.

But again, in a socialist country, socialism would control all of those things.

Allocation of resources depends on the economic system in use.

quote: But again, in a socialist country, socialism would control all of those things.
I might suggest that socialism, ideally, is "we the people" whereas in capitalism it is "we the elite". But maybe the answer is anarchy ...

In any case, under capitalism, there is necessarily a requirement for the consolidation of resources and wealth, as that is the essence of capitalism, along with the precondition of unlimited consumption of limited resources.

Under socialism, if I was advocating for that system, there is no such requirements or preconditions; and socialism can be constructed around sustainability whereas capitalism must be constructed around consumption and growth.

And finally, socialism is not bound to nor excluded from elevating the market to the central organizing principle of a society whereas capitalism is. So I would suggest socialism, which I am not advocating for, does offer some choice.

quote:I certainly don't have the expertise to delve into the concept of living without capitalism. I just don't see how a socialist society would work.

There was a "Third Rock from the Sun" episode that explored socialism and, while also very funny, contrasted the challenge with this type of lifestyle and economy, as individuality derailed the experiment.

Technically the only difference between a capitalist and a socialist economy is that in socialism the means of production are owned collectively or co-operatively rather than privately. I realize this is a gross simplification but I believe it needs to be said to demystify the belief that capitalims revolves around some define ineffable mysteries that are beyond comprehension. There operates some belief that somehow everything would stop functioning in the absence of an economic elite, remove the bosses and somehow we would be unable to be creative or productive we would hopelessly be lost. I'm not suggesting that a socialist social system would just mirror the capitalist one only with some concept of centralized control but the idea that we can't do without capitalism is the most powerful and absurd belief. It really is possible to organize ourselves differently but for the most part we don't want to look away from the dancing shadows on the cave wall.

As far as individualism is concerned that was a construction of capitalism to distract us from the reality we are inherently interconnected not only with each other but with all life and the planet itself. The sad reality is that self interest as constructed by capitalism is not really in anyone's interest we are caught up in a cycle of alienated production and meaningless consumption. We are distracted by shiny objects and bright lights to the extent that we are willing to exchange clean air and water to have them. I not only belief that we are in for a Global catastrophe but for a large percentage of this planet life already is a global catastrophe,if capitalism were to collapse I'm not entirely sure it could get much worse for them.

quote:Originally posted by rural - Francesca:
There was a "Third Rock from the Sun" episode that explored socialism and, while also very funny, contrasted the challenge with this type of lifestyle and economy, as individuality derailed the experiment.

Third Rock was a situation comedy which, I'm not sure whether they ever explored the possible paths for humanity if we were to globalize "this" and deregulate life for the other 85% of humanity. Possibly a sit-com that looks a lot like a recycled scene from Mel Gibson's "Mad Max" and a "Gilligan's Island" rerun? "Darn! We've stripped the world's resources bare in nothing flat, and now we're choking on the pollution. We should have listened to the professor! GILLIGAAAAN!"

Western capitalism and its ideologues once promised that this system nurtured individualism and creativity. Today it's increasingly uncertain as to whether capitalism can deliver on this promise for the nearly seven billion people on the planet. Personally, I think the promise of middle class capitalism based on consumerism was a colossal cold war era lie. I think it's possible to acknowledge and reward individuality, as opposed to extreme individualism, without destroying the planet and creating a world of gross inequality and concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few.

[ 21 March 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Absolutely no offence taken! I was eager to contribute information about families (mostly single moms) who would love to be part of capitalism but are shut out and are forced to devise incredibly imaginative ways to feed, house and cloth their families.

These families give me hope because of the ingenuity and bravery demonstrated by people considered on the margins, and supposedly a drain, on our society.

We've always tried to be frank about how things exist on the ground because it seems to me that only through honesty can a full understanding be gained of the depth of contempt with which capitalism is viewed by many poor people.

I think it is fair to say that for those who fall through the cracks of our economic system and, are barely able to survive, there is an element of self-loathing that eventually crops up. It is common to hear even kids whose parents are on welfare say things like "that is so welfare" refering to somebody's cloths or what not.

The motto of our group is "honesty is a privilege".

I'm wondering if the underground economy that exists, in fact is flourishing in housing projects for instance, is relevant to this discussion?

For instance (and I won't reveal anything here that isn't public knowledge) we organized a "Steal-a-thon" in our community in an attempt to show solidarity with those unable to make ends meet and who, as a result, find themselves forced to deny corporations thier profits by simply helping themselves.

We targeted five corporate grocery stores after first meeting with the store managers to try to get them to lower their prices. We purposely skipped the local "No frills" because the consensus was that this particular store charged comparatively reasonable prices.

Kinda gives the term "brand loyalty" a whole new meaning.

What really surprised me was the amount of support that we garnered from across the country as demonstrated by a cross country radio call-in programme soon afterwards.

Certainly there is no way to completely free our lives from capitalism without overthrowing capitalism altogether, and our society is sadly not there, and almost certainly won't be in any of our lifetimes.

However, we can free ourselves from many of the worst aspects of capitalism.

We can chose not to live in more housing than we need. Some of us can even chose to live in co-op housing, so we don't live in market housing (though becuase of the limited supply of co-op housing, not everyone can live this way).

We can chose to walk, bike, or take transit when possible, rather than using a car.

We can chose to keep the ammount of cheap plastic crap we buy to an absolute minimum.

We can chose to eat whole foods. We can also chose not to eat nutritionally deficient fast food, or to eat at overly bourgeois "fine dining" restaurants.

We can chose to buy second-hand clothes when we can find second-had clothing that fits and is in good condition (such clothing does exist). We can also chose not to buy high priced designer clothing, or clothing with brand names on it. Finally, we can chose not to become slaves to the latest fashion trends.

We can chose to shop at independent, local stores, when they provide what we need.

We can chose not to engage in overly bourgeois forms of entertainment, such as reality tv and action movies (there are different levels to which we can take this).

We can choose to opt out of christmas presents, as well as a lot of other hoopla surrounding christmas and other hollidays.

People who have moved from Canada to Cuba have freed their lives from capitalism.

But, as long as you live in Canada, you can't really be "free your life" from capitalism...at least until a great majority of people are convinced that capitalism needs to be replaced with another system. And there's no visible signs of that happening.

People who live in Cuba have by no means freed their lives from capitalism.

It is the continued existence of capitalism throughout the world that continues to hold Cubans back from creating a socialist society that is totally emancipated from commodity production and market economics.

This is the result of many factors, including international trade rules and alliances, including the US embargo, the international financial system, the requirement of making military defence expenditures, and the political isolation of the country. Cubans are still prisoners of the law of value and are required to preserve in varying degrees capitalist relations of production and distribution.

quote:Originally posted by Sven:
But, as long as you live in Canada, you can't really be "free your life" from capitalism.

Canadians love their socialized medicine and the fact that they don't live in a U.S. right-to-work state. If it wasn't for my OHIP card and a number of relationships with people I hold dear in my life, I would choose to live somewhere other than this semi-frozen Puerto Rico. And I probably would not be competing with thirdworld Latinos for green card status in the U.S., that's for sure.

Being a business grad; I used to be all yay for capitalism, now after several years thats turned into more of systemic apathy, it is what it is; because as long as scarcity exists, no matter what system you have, injustices/unfairness will always exist. While it might be a dark view, a certain percentage of any population will be out take advantage of others, via captilistic means or otherwise (ie political) so my thought du jour would be to live life to the fullest, be a good person, and surround yourself with true hapiness.

Sounds like a pirate's creed: "Take what you can. Give nothing back"

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the distinct differences.

Some have suggested they are focusing on monopoly type ownership and corporate greed capitalism. So rolling back 150 years when individuals owned each and every business rather than the Waltons and the like.

Others have suggested a collective type of production for goods needed, and I've tried to get through the "pizza and beer" thread but my ability to grasp the math and implication is severely lacking at this time (my stress is through the roof and my brain shuts down in protest), but what I grasp is that it doesn't always work out so well.

What is missing is humanity's ability to make bad choices.

Keeping with pizza and beer, there is an assumption that the worker's output is constant and equal within each sector.

What is not factored in is that someone might just not work as hard as required, and there may be a keener who just really enjoys their job and they increase their particular production messing up the expectations and production required.

There is an underlying assumption in the opening goal of this thread, that if humans truly comprehended the impact they are having on their planet, that they would make the lifestyle changes they needed.

But it's like 8 people at the polar bear dip, they all want someone else to go first, so they can see the impact is has.

I know for my son, who has watched me struggle from poverty to stability and back and forth a few times, he gets angry and resentful when I suggest we give things up for the collective good of the planet. He has felt that we have always been the ones to make the sacrifices for everyone else, while we have gone without.

The other thing I thought of, while trying to sleep, is that either form does not equate to helping the planet.

A socialist society can also make bad environmental choices as much as a capitalistic one can too.

The Donald Trump's of the world don't keep making more and more money on the backs of others because they 'need' it, they do it because the like the game. It's about power, not about wealth.

And in any society, regardless of its form, there will be people who enjoy power.

quote:Originally posted by rural - Francesca:
And in any society, regardless of its form, there will be people who enjoy power.

Eliot Spitzer is merely a very recent example of a long list of bureaucrats/pols who crave to, and do (or in his case "did"), wield power.

Autonomy would lost if all power were in the government.

People don't like capitalism but, today, I could go out and start my own business, like millions of others. That's choice. That's autonomy.

[ 22 March 2008: Message edited by: Sven ]

The morality KGB down there caught Spitzer paying for sex with his own money.

At least someone isn't crooking and robbing American workers, pension funds, and small investors down there.

Yet another capitalist fantasy that government and corporate interests are distinct, I guess that's why the treasury is now shovelling heaps of money into failing financial institutions.

yeah you can open a business and it has nothing to do with your class, race and gender privilege.

It is possible to imagine a social system in which power is limited, Capitalism is a social system that was intentionally designed to concentrate power and wealth in the hands of the merchant class and in the approximately 500 years of existence it has only become more efficient to that end.

quote:Originally posted by Sven:

Autonomy would lost if all power were in the government.

You mean like it was with FDR's government and the way they were forced to slap emergency restrictions on over-extended banks and began borrowing heavily and spending socially after the last great crisis of laissez-faire capitalism?

Those were the end of the good ol' days for leave it to the market capitalism. A dollar a day was the average wage, and the harvest gypsies fled to California looking for work and hope for a better future at the end of a miserable 30 year-long experiment in laissez-faire.

But what about the individual's power?

Not government or corporation or even organziational.

The individual human's ablity and quest for power, in whatever forms.

I have leadership skills, and sometimes I catch myself, with the best of intentions, empire building.

quote: The other thing I thought of, while trying to sleep, is that either form does not equate to helping the planet.

A socialist society can also make bad environmental choices as much as a capitalistic one can too.

The difference is that capitalism can't exist without destroying the planet. It is inherent to the system.

quote: But what about the individual's power?

You already admitted you're powerless. Capitalism provides you with your means to live from food, to clothing, to housing and everything in between. You are a slave to the system. You're son is and will continue to be a slave to the system. Don't let it get you down. Penmans has a great sale on coats and I'm sure you can always use with more Canadian made towels from Cambridge.

Keep in mind the cycle of poverty and stability you experience is part of the capitalist system. You are, in the end, a labour unit. Under capitalism, the truer form of capitalism desired by so many, when you are a surplus labour unit you, and your family, should be left to your own devices to survive or die because, after all, labour is a renewable resource and isn't scarce at all.

[ 22 March 2008: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

You're missing my point [although I tend to agree with you]

Say we get to the point of living collecively, there will be power imbalances, where one person has power/influence/decision making over others.

Whenever you have power, you get people who abuse it.

I agree. The answer would be limiting power and authority to the greatest extent possible and instituting meaningful checks and balances with full accountability.

For example, under our current system, two nations were lead to war on the foundations of lies, a nation was ruined, and hundreds of thousands of lives ruined. Who has been held accountable?

Today, while you might still struggle to put food on the table and a roof over your head, they are debating using public money, tax dollars, to bail out a banking system in trouble for issuing bad risk mortgages - often based on fraudulent claims by both those seeking the mortgage and those issuing it, packaging them into off book assets, selling them as securities to everyone from each other, to pension fund managers, and all in between, and have placed the global economy at serious risk.

And when they bail out those institutions, with our money, they will say they "don't have the dollars for you, when you next need them, and, besides, you should be responsible for better managing your own affairs. The government isn't there to bail you out for being irresponsible."

And how many CEOs and executives have been held accountable for the credit collapse in the US? Not one.

That is because externalizing risk and failure is endemic to capitalist ideology. Profit is always private and loss is always public.

quote:Originally posted by rural - Francesca:

Whenever you have power, you get people who abuse it.

I was saying the same thing about Canada's dysfunctional democracy and overall democratic deficit [35] in another thread.

I think real democracy in these last three or four western-most bastions of political conservatism would be a nice change of pace, especially in the U.S. where ultra-rightist hawks have had to resort to stealing even FPP elections in recent years.

Yes, and it's an intrinsic part of human nature, so if you eliminate corporations, democracy and all those constraints you hate so much, you are still left with the common denominator - humans.

Humans who, by their nature, are competitive, competitive humans compete.

So no matter what form of organizational structure we have, or do not have on this planet, humans will find away to repress other humans and take advantage of other humans.

What's the answer, making noise constantly for the impact of the decisions of the decision makers; try to get decision makers in place that can see the big picture and understand the impact of their decisions.

And I think if we were to have a more competitive electoral system as exists in over 70 countries, our economy might rank in the top ten for a change along with the Nordic countries. Competitive economies are just not a priority for our two old line parties which have pretty much owned Ottawa for the last 140 years in a row. They can pretty much take Canadian voters for granted while holding our economy back. Canada is a hewer and drawer economy again as of 2005. And I think we will remain an exporter of massive amounts of fossil fuels and total energy to the most wasteful and most oil-dependent economy south of us for a long time to come.

oops!

[ 22 March 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

worth repeating! [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

The electoral process is stupid. I dip a toe in the political process over the past year, and I've decided I can make more sustainable changes by being an uppity woman in the community, than trying to affect the political process.

The terrorism of the market. Market Terrorism.

quote:Rick Wolff: The world's markets comprise a terror network, a system for producing economic disaster and delivering it to every corner of the planet.

Much like other kinds of religious fundamentalism, market fundamentalism -- the dogma that markets guarantee efficiency and prosperity -- has wrecked economies and lives. Plato and Aristotle explained the dark side of markets thousands of years ago. They and countless others since then have shown how and why markets repeatedly destroy the bonds of community and undermine social cohesion. Yet the market fundamentalism of recent decades blinded leaders and many followers to the known failures of markets.

Wolff doesn't seem to distinguish capitalist markets from markets in general.

quote:Rick Wolff: In any case, markets, whether controlled more or less, are not our economy's only basic problem. How markets work is shaped by how we organize production. Our economic system organizes production in ways that do more damage than markets.

The remedy, of course, is for workers to have a say over production decisions, decisions that affect their lives. That's called socialism.

quote: Humans who, by their nature, are competitive
I don't think that's true. Humans are social and naturally collaborative or we would never have progressed as far as we have.

But humans are both acquisitive and develop hierarchical social structures subject to corruption, abuses, and conquest.

Such social structures are more dominant and less subject to control with larger populations.

quote: Humans who, by their nature, are competitive
I don't think that's true. Humans are social and naturally collaborative or we would never have progressed as far as we have.

But humans are both acquisitive and develop hierarchical social structures subject to corruption, abuses, and conquest.

Such social structures are more dominant and less subject to control with larger populations.

With plutocracies, competitiveness is encouraged among workers as a general rule. This is especially true of the nouveau capitalism with flexible labour market experiments in the English-speaking western countries since the 1980's. Flexible labour markets were supposed to fix problems with high unemployment in North America, U.K. and Australia. However, the Nordic countries have since demonstrated that there are alternatives to flexible labour markets while maintaining overall economic competitiveness. To a lesser degree, Canada has followed the U.S. strategy for flexible labour. And Canada still doesn't rank in the top ten most competitive economies.

I think there is a psychological aspect to it as well. In the investment markets, the brokerage houses exploit greed and fear, making a commission when things go up or down.

In the retail markets, the idea of 'keeping up with the Jones' also exploits greed (for more possessions) and fear (of being excluded from the 'middle class'). If you are poor, you feel inadequate when you see people driving by in fancy cars when you have to decide whether to walk or blow the subway ticket.

Watching the markets go up and down is kind of like watching a collective manic depression at work.

Capitalism seems to thrive in an environment of unhealthy psychology. If people felt good about themselves, they would not need to be seen eating at Red Lobster or driving a BMW, and they would not feel that their self-worth was connected to their financial worth.

I am not sure how that can be addressed.

quote:Capitalism can live quite happily with a few people who have decided to "drop out". This presents no threat to it, since the masters of power continue to control the life of society as before.

Even those who profess to "drop out" will find in practice that they cannot drop out. They are obliged to use money, buy the necessities of life in the shops, fill up their old vans at modern filling stations, where they will purchase their products from the big oil companies that ravage and pollute the environment, be shunted from one area to another by the cops - just like the rest of us.

The idea that it is possible to turn one's back on society and politics is an illusion. Just try it! And you will find that one day politics will come to your house and ring the doorbell (if it does not smash the door down first).

The attempt to find an individual solution is essentially reactionary because the only way to fight against capitalism and the bourgeois state is to unite the working class and organise it in a revolutionary movement. To opt out of this is, one way or another, to place yourself at the mercy of Capital and to help perpetuate the existing order.

In order to cover their nakedness, the advocates of New Ageism claim to stand for special spiritual values which - as they imagine - sets them apart from "ordinary" mortals and places them in a direct line of communication with supernatural things that passeth all understanding. They thus feel themselves superior to the rest of humanity which is not privy to these great Mysteries.

In reality, these ideas are not superior to the thinking of ordinary mortals but rather far beneath it. The first law for one who seeks to change society is to understand it and live in it. By trying to turn one's back on society, all that is achieved is to become completely powerless in the face of existing society, and to renounce eternally, hopelessly, irrevocably, all chance of changing it. Along this path lies not an alternative, but only more of the same - forever.Alan Woods

quote: The attempt to find an individual solution is essentially reactionary because the only way to fight against capitalism and the bourgeois state is to unite the working class and organise it in a revolutionary movement. To opt out of this is, one way or another, to place yourself at the mercy of Capital and to help perpetuate the existing order.

In order to cover their nakedness, the advocates of New Ageism claim to stand for special spiritual values which - as they imagine - sets them apart from "ordinary" mortals and places them in a direct line of communication with supernatural things that passeth all understanding. They thus feel themselves superior to the rest of humanity which is not privy to these great Mysteries.

To be fair, I wouldn't call myself a "New Ageist" and I don't stand for any kind of spiritulaism. In fact I reject spiritualism and find it difficult to associate with people who are all about "feelings".

On the other hand, I do agree it is impossible to leave capitalism. I have made the argument before that we can no more divorce ourselves from capitalist consumer culture than a fish can divorce itself from water. Like the fish, we are immersed.

However, the goal of what I am arguing is self-preservation. To find like minded individuals and develop communities that can become self-sustaining.

I have been a part of the labour movement. I have been arrested, photographed, processed, finger printed, sat in court and got convicted for being on a picket line.

I have participated in the labour rallies and the organizing. I have participated in radical left politics and preached the message of revolutionary change.

But there are several problems. The first is that the labour movement neither supports nor wants revolution. The labour movement is part of the capitalist model. A junior partner without respect or standing, to be sure, but a partner nonetheless.

It is part of the reason why the NDP rejects class politics. Because so does the labour movement. For the most part, labour really desires for its members more cul-de-sac monster homes complete with SUVs and filled with stuff no one uses.

And the working class does not want to be organized. The working class can be found selling out each other at Wal-Marts and fast food joinst all over North America. The bumper sticker on the car says "Still have a job? Keep buying foreign" as though the car is not comprised of foreign made parts and as though the car is not parked outside the Wal-Mart.

The working class would rather watch TV in between buying lottery tickets than be organized.

And say the working class were willing to be organized and the ways and means existed to do it (no one ever talks about how to organize the working class in the face of mass marketing and television propaganda), what would we organize them to do? What is the carrot at the end of the stick?

Will they be freed from the chains of consumer capitalism? In exchange for what?

Don't get me wrong. I am all in favour of a revolutionary movement. Where do I find one (I mean besides Venezuela)?

By the way, about Venezuela: ownership tv-sets: 180 - 185 per 1000

Source: http://www.populstat.info/Americas/venezueg.htm

Maybe that says something.

[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

kill yourself, that's the only way. people are too stupid and selfish for anything else to work

[ 24 April 2008: Message edited by: maxplanck ]

"Solidarity", says Samir Amin in
'Market Economy' or Oligopoly-Finance Capitalism? The author deals in some detail with the financialization processes of late or senile capitalism, the unsustainability of the system, the farce that has come to take the place of the "market" that is invoked by conventional economists, the role of foreign exchange transactions and derivative financial instruments transactions [this latter is especially interesting. See the table below], and, most important of all, the enduring central role of solidarity.

Turns out that "Workers of all lands, Unite!" is still relevant, almost 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and 120 years after the death of Marx.

quote:

Table 1. Synthetic table (amounts in trillions of dollars, 2002)
goods and services transactions (world GDP) 32.3
foreign exchange transactions 384.4
foreign exchange transactions for international trade 8.0
derivative financial instruments transactions 699.0

The author says: "the dwarfing of the transactions associated with world GDP by world financial transactions is at least intuitively obvious from the above."