Kill Capitalism ~ Save the World

[TBF]

It will take 100 years for the world’s poorest people to earn $1.25 a day

Jason Hickel ~ Jason Hickel is an anthropologist at the London School of Economics. Follow @jasonhickel on Twitter
Monday 30 March 2015 03.00 EDT

If you follow international news you will be accustomed to headlines announcing that world leaders have succeeded in cutting global poverty in half over the past couple of decades. Its sounds like brilliant news, but it’s just not true. The numbers have been furtively manipulated to make it seem as though our economic system is working for the majority of humanity when in fact it is not.

The sustainable development goals, to be decided in September, will take this dubious good-news story a step further. This time, the main goal is not just to further reduce extreme poverty, but to eradicate it entirely – and to do so by no later than 2030. This is a welcome move: it’s about time we finally got around to putting poverty eradication firmly on the agenda. But it also raises some tough questions. Is it possible to end poverty under our current economic system?

A few weeks ago economist David Woodward tackled this question in an article published in the World Economic Review. His findings are shocking. He shows that, given our existing economic model, poverty eradication can’t happen. Not that it probably won’t happen, but that it physically can’t. It’s a structural impossibility ...

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/mar/30/it-will-take-100-years-for-the-worlds-poorest-people-to-earn-125-a-day?CMP=fb_gu

[aspirant]

1. When profit again includes

the buying and selling of people, when will we ever learn?

[newfie11]

2. So true

But Americans are so brainwashed it will take years (if then) for Socialism in this country.

[DeSwiss]

3. !

[daleanime]

4. What's the old line, when all you have is a hammer......?

Capitalism can be a powerful tool, but no tool no matter how strong works well for every job. If you disagree feel free to show me how you iron your shirt with a blowtorch.

[F4lconF16]

8. ...3 shirts later...

Maybe impregnate the shirt with some sort of fire-retardant mixture in order to "fire-proof" it, then soak it in water and blast it from a long distance? I think this is possible somehow, but I've only got a few nice shirts, and I can't afford to ruin any to test this.

But you've got me thinking now, damn it.

That said, it's about time we recognized that capitalism is a failed system. I'm glad to see more awareness of this both on DU and out and about in the world.

[TBF]

12. "capitalism is a failed system"

That's definitely the truth but I'm not sure how many really realize it. Many seem convinced it can be reigned in. Personally I'd like to see a new system that puts people ahead of profits.

[F4lconF16]

13. That's one of the central things that we as socialists need to do, in my opinion.

We need to convince people that are almost there (progressive democrats, for instance) that capitalism cannot work. Not just that it's currently failing, but that--like the article in the OP states--it will never work, could never work. It's a system that reduces people to profit-makers. I think we will see real progress when we can convince a larger part of the country to support the idea of a new system.

That's one of my favorite things about the Black Lives Matter movement, too: it's making people realize that this system will continue as long as there is capitalism. There was a great panel with John Carson that drove that home to about 500 people up here in Seattle in January. It was a particularly fortuitous time, since it was right after the big MLK day march, and we were able to draw attention to a lot of what he advocated economically later in his life. I think the message is definitely spreading--I'm hopefully going to join the Seattle chapter of the ISO in a few weeks or so, and I know that getting out that awareness is probably the biggest goal in the group.

[socialist_n_TN]

17. Well, I think about it this way and try to frame it as such......

IF it were possible to equalize EVERYTHING, social background, education, initiative, even luck, under capitalism you would STILL have massive inequality. Why? Because the system itself is based on a few people getting MASSIVELY wealthy, a slightly larger percentage making a relatively good living off of that tiny sliver of the massively wealthy and then the rest of us who will just barely scrape by if we're even able to do that. The rules of the system don't allow for anything else.

[2naSalit]

5. Punctuated Equilibrium

Could be a phenomena that is applicable to all things including social change and economic collapse.

In 1972 Stephen Jay Gould took the scientific world by storm with his paper on punctuated equilibrium, written with Niles Eldredge. Challenging a core assumption of Darwin’s theory of evolution, it launched the career of one of the most influential evolutionary biologists of our time—perhaps the best known since Darwin.

Now, thirty-five years later, and five years after his untimely death, Punctuated Equilibrium (originally published as the central chapter of Gould’s masterwork, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory) offers his only book-length testament on an idea he fiercely promoted, repeatedly refined, and tirelessly defended. Punctuated equilibrium holds that the great majority of species originate in geological moments (punctuations) and persist in stasis. The idea was hotly debated because it forced biologists to rethink entrenched ideas about evolutionary patterns and processes. But as Gould shows here in his typically exhaustive coverage, the idea has become the foundation of a new view of hierarchical selection and macroevolution.

What emerges strikingly from this book is that punctuated equilibrium represents a much broader paradigm about the nature of change—a worldview that may be judged as a distinctive and important movement within recent intellectual history. Indeed we may now be living within a punctuation, and our awareness of what this means may be the enduring legacy of one of America’s best-loved scientists

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674024441

Change will come, it's just a matter of how and when. Most life forms glide along some path until a major event takes place which becomes a catalyst for adaptation.

[TBF]

7. Excellent thought -

in this case climate change may be the catalyst (ironically) that forces the capitalists to reign themselves in.

[F4lconF16]

9. I disagree.

I think that they will continue to pursue profit and growth to the point that they destroy themselves. We're seeing some of that now, though it hasn't gotten really bad yet. I can't imagine someone like the Koch brothers or Cheney ever being satisfied with what they've got, even in the face of impending disaster.

[TBF]

11. Oh it definitely won't come from the old geezers -

it will have to be younger people who figure out relocating the entire planet to Mars isn't really a plan.

[marias23]

6. Capitalism is TOO GOOD

Last edited Mon Mar 30, 2015, 02:23 PM - Edit history (1)

My take is that capitalism is too good at delivering goods and services. It delivers by working our self interest. Capitalism has little or no incentive to limit these instincts so that everyone and everything becomes fuel for the capitalist fire - no matter if the machine takes and or ruins clean air, water and land or for that matter people's lives.

[F4lconF16]

10. Agreed, with a caveat--it's only too good at delivering them to an elite.

Not the people as a whole. Never has there been a capitalist system that has not resulted in some sort of mass inequality and poverty, other than in some Randian fantasy.

[ncjustice80]

14. Indeed.

By seizing the means ofnproduction and distributing wealth and resources, the government will garuntee an equal outcome for everyone! Of course, the rich industrialists fear having to live like the rest of us.

[F4lconF16]

15. Kicking nt

[TBF]

16. Thank you -

we're a small group here and protected otherwise this OP would have been torn apart in GD by pro-capitalists. But when we can push an article like this to the greatest page it gives me hope that not just the self-identified socialists are reading, but also those who have figured out that this system isn't great for the majority of us.

[benedict2016]

18. Where do all the proponents of alternatives to capitalism hang out?

I was excited to come across this thread which was quickly followed by my disappointment when I realized that it had fizzed out quite quickly. I'm really looking to find smart, like-minded people who can discuss the real prospect of capitalism coming to an end (hopefully a controlled transition rather than a chaotic and brutal collapse), without being called a "commie" or "naive socialist". I have a ton of ideas so I'm just not interested in participating in mud slinging fests, I want constructive criticism of my plausible concept.

If you guys are still active here then perhaps we can engage, if not please point me to other places of interest.

Thx.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

19. Welcome to DU, benedict2016!

You've posted in a thread that hasn't seen any activity for a while.

If I were you, and of course, I'm not, I would poke around in the major forums and see what's what for a while. Get a feel for the place as a whole. There's a lot to see and comment on here.

When you get to 10 posts, then you can start your own threads.

Welcome aboard!

[Saviolo]

20. Also:

What the big dollar capitalists don't want the average Joe to realize is that we're already in a massively socialist system, but only socialized towards the huge moneyed interests. The incredibly wealthy corporations get enormous benefits from the fruits of the middle and lower classes' taxation and labour, and receive massive tax breaks and deductions based on their profit.

On top of that, huge corporations benefit from government programs like food stamps for their employees that get paid meager sub-poverty wages while CEOs and top brass get enormous bonuses and stock benefits. It's a Capitalist Socialism that only benefits the corporations and the top brass of those corporations.

As entities, they only concern of the corporations is money for shareholders, money for board of directors, profit, growth, and more growth. The system is 100% non-sustainable and will (not might, WILL) collapse under its own weight. Any system that relies on constant and unfettered growth in order to be successful is a cancer.

Big money controls the message because they control the airwaves. Bernie is being painted with a bright red paintbrush, he's the new red scare. It's frustrating, I always feel so massively unable to effect any change in the face of huge impersonal monolithic corporations pushing everything down while they rise.

[TBF]

21. Great comments - thanks! nt