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CAIRO, May 9 – With the tone of a teacher and the certainty
\n of a believer, the president of Iran wrote to President Bush that Western
\n democracy had failed and that the invasion of Iraq, American treatment
\n of prisoners and support for Israel could not be reconciled with Christian
\n values.<\/p>\n
"Those with insight can already hear the sounds of
\n the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic
\n systems," Mr. Ahmadinejad wrote.<\/b><\/p>\n
from the New When engaged in a life or death struggle, if one is to However, let us throw caution to the wind, and attempt to not only ask that question, but to put it to rest,<\/p>\n It is clear that Democracy is a flawed, contentious, And yet, our society seems poised at the lip of a great Could these problems be symptomatic of fatal flaws in the At the risk of being associated with the thoroughly discredited Modern Capitalism, formulated first and foremost in post But like natural growth in an organic body, growth Take, for example, the concept of the sweatshop. In Of course, in these enlightened times, such places don’t Or take, for example, indentured servitude, which brought Imagine being employed somewhere, far from a town or Now imagine opening your pay envelope at the end of the Millions of honest workers are trapped in some variation Then again, with the prevalence of consumer debt and inescapable Which is all just a reminder that Capitalism is not Capitalism is a natural match with our current petroleum-based This is because capitalism has a voracious appetite. It eats People The Dowbrigade thinks it basically comes down to what And who says that the CEO who visits his office two or three times a year should make 63 million dollars and that the woman who cleans that office every night should make $6.30 an hour for 12 hours, six days a week. Where is it written, where has it been ordained, that some work needs to be rewarded 10 times, or 100 times, or 10,000 times more than other work. Is some sweat worth so much more?<\/p>\n And speaking of the common good, who says that a defense contracter sending part of his kicjback to a lobbyist is contributing to it more than the kindergarden teacher who shows up for work every morning at 7:45 with a smile on her face and a song inher heart? Isn’t the opposite true? Shouldn’t the individuals involved be rewarded accordingly?<\/p>\n It seems inevitable, with such skewered values, that our system would be inefficient and non-competitive. Surely, there must be more productive and profitable uses for our excess capital that Bill Gates Pleasure Dome or Barry Bonds bling bling. How long til someone figures this out and beats us at our own game?<\/p>\n Oh, our privaleged, preeminent position in the world may continue on for a time, based as it is on historical imperative and a kickass military. But if things continues as they are, our society will become will be rotten and hollow inside, and There are those who would argue that this Can Capitalism be fixed, in the mongrel dog sense of the word? Scandinavia has produced some promising results, although Word out of China is spooky, sounding like 1984 meets The only thing we are sure of is that if we don’t change CAIRO, May 9 – With the tone of a teacher and the certainty of a believer, the president of Iran wrote to President Bush that Western democracy had failed and that the invasion of Iraq, American treatment of prisoners and … Continue reading
\n York Times<\/a><\/p>\n
\n prevail it is essential to understand the thinking and goals of one’s
\n opponent. Of course, in these paranoid times, with the unbridled interest
\n of Homeland Security reaching into nooks and crannies, public and private,
\n foreign and domestic, it could be dangerous to even ask questions like,
\n "Is it possible that we ARE on the wrong side, that Western Democracy
\n is a corrupt, hypocritical sham, and that it is doomed to defeat and
\n decay?"<\/p>\n
\n chaotic and corruption-prone form of government. It is equally clear,
\n according
\n to the old adage, that it is the best idea anybody has come up with so
\n far.<\/p>\n
\n precipice, teetering precariously at the edge of an abyss. We have lost
\n so much, these last 43 years; we have lost our innocence, we have lost
\n not only our moral conviction, but our moral compass, we have lost the
\n American spirit, and the American dream, and we’ve lost that loving feeling.
\n People are disgusted with both parties, all politicians, business leaders,
\n pampered sports stars, spoiled celebrities, high-powered lawyers and
\n doctors, bankers, insurance companies and corporate insiders. A dangerous,
\n lawless underclass is growing around the edges and in the cracks of post-industrial
\n democracies.<\/p>\n
\n Western liberal democratic model, as Ahmadinejad claims?<\/p>\n
\n school of Karl Marx, let us suggest that all of these problems, and more,
\n derive rather from intrinsic (although perhaps not fatal) flaws in the
\n prevalent modern conception of Capitalism<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\n Industrial Revolution England 250 years ago (see Adam
\n Smith<\/a>) in based on a need for constant, measured growth. It is not a steady-state economic
\n system. Capital must be put to work so that it can accumulate and grow.<\/p>\n
\n can go wild, out of control, with results that threaten the health and
\n even the life of the host body. Uncontrolled capitalism can cause capsules
\n of cancerous growth throughout an economy.<\/p>\n
\n 19th century England, thousands of factories employed hundreds of thousands
\n of children, as young as 7 or 8, forcing them to work 10 or 12 hours
\n a day, basically for a warm place to sleep and two meals a day. Meanwhile
\n the factory owners played parlor games at Dimwitty Castle with the Duke.<\/p>\n
\n exist. At least in the United States. Meanwhile, out of sight at the
\n edges of the global economy, where the hands meet the thread, tiny fingers
\n are bleeding.<\/p>\n
\n so many of our forebears to these shores, or its more modern incarnation,
\n the company town.<\/p>\n
\n city, and having to rent housing, and buy food, from your employer. Imagine
\n further that the only way to not think about how screwed you are is to
\n drink beer, which is available on credit at the camp commissary.<\/p>\n
\n month and discovering that you owe the company $627. <\/p>\n
\n of that scenario right now Of course, none of them are in the United
\n States, although we invented the technique during the great westward
\n expansion.<\/p>\n
\n dead-end jobs, there are those who claim the entire United States has
\n become one big company town.<\/p>\n
\n a perfect system, or theory, or economic reality. It is not inevitable
\n or inviolate
\n in its purity. It is a theory that has proven itself superior to socialism
\n or communism on the world economic playing field, and seems to be working
\n for the majority of the higher-performing economies in the world today.<\/p>\n
\n economy. Being a non-renewable resource, petroleum-based growth cannot
\n be sustained. Eventually it will run down and die. Capitalism, based
\n on growth, eventually will eat all of the resources available, and then
\n begin eating itself, from the inside out.<\/p>\n
\n raw material, it eats human effort, and human ambition, and human dignity.
\n It eats weaker competitors, and cheap labor, and intellectual development,
\n and raw talent. It eats all these things, and it shits profits. <\/p>\n
\n who learn to, or are in a position to, manipulate the efforts of others
\n become fantastically wealthy. Many more suffer. In between, most of
\n us wonder what it all means.<\/p>\n
\n people actually do with their time, how hard they work, and how much
\n they contribute to the Common Good. The Common Good, aka the Social Fabric,
\n is a much-neglected and sorely endangered facet of our national identity.
\n Without the Common Good, without a sense that "We’re all in this together”
\n no society can stand for long.<\/p>\n
\n will soon crack and crumble. <\/p>\n
\n is where we are today. That Western Civilization is coasting along
\n on inertia and accumulated capital, which allows it to be wasteful and
\n profligate, and remain in denial of the impending disaster. That our
\n post-industrial democracies are carrying huge non-productive populations
\n on the books,
\n as well as millions of marginal workers with marginal lives who are starting
\n to go off like human IED’s along the roadsides of our lives.<\/p>\n
\n Can it be tamed, and cured from eating its own young? Are there any alternatives to the Wall Street\/World Bank version of the beast?<\/p>\n
\n it remains to be seen if these ideas can be transferred to a huge, heterogeneous
\n population.<\/p>\n
\n Soylent Green. Spooky because we can’t ignore this model; they already
\n have us outnumbered, and will soon have more money than we do.<\/p>\n
\n course, pretty damn quick, we are off the precipice and on the long dive
\n down. We fear the crash at the bottom will not be pleasant.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"