Right feeling but the wrong solutions

This is white American neo-liberal "I'm pissed at the (white created) world" rhetorical kind of thinking. It's the "we can overcome capitalism one-man-at-a-time"approach. It's the "If I now begin to act as my parents should have acted, I can correct for their centuries of mistakes."

It won't work.

Sub-optimized tactical solutions (such as those in your list) can seldom defeat entrenched systemic problems that are organic to a system that rewards its participants for continuing the very evils that create and drive the system.

U.S. styled vampire capitalism is an organic beast. Racism, greed, fascism, poverty, and indifference are the spokes to the wheel of vampire capitalism. They are the system! Without then the system does not work.

The idea that if you take them away -- one-at-a-time, and one symbolic person at a time -- something idyllic, profound and good will remain (or will happen), is a liberal illusion, a veritable pipe-dream born of wishful thinking.

Dismantling the wheel of an evil system spoke-by-spoke, does not produce in its place a new more humane system, any more than dismantling it altogether and replacing it with nothing, does. Dismantlement is not creation; it is not production; it is negation; it is destruction and negation and destruction alone, produce nothing.

Your list is a lazy man's solution to vampire capitalism, and by its very nature betrays a commitment to finding a "real" and enduring solution.

As much as I detest vampire capitalism, talking about dismantling it piece-by-piece is just that, talk: It does not constitute a creative process nor a realistic or creative program for fixing and/or replacing it.

In this regard, I believe that Churchill's comment about democracy being the worse form of government, except for all the rest, can also be made about Capitalism (or about almost any other form of government or economic system that has been created so far for that matter).

His point is this: that all systems of government and all types of economic systems have defects. The real problem with any system is not fixing the parts we detest most, but in locating and fixing the actual source of the systemic defect. Non-violent recycling, with a more humane eye toward our fellow man, feeding the poor on Thanksgiving day, and working towards a more peaceful world, because it does not focus on the actual defect, will not fix America's racism, or its war-based economy, or the greed that drives them both.

The source of the defect in Capitalism is not lack of compassion, too little non-violence, and more recycling, more concern for the environment, etc. Its defect is systemic. It is the same defect that inhabits all other economic systems.

To wit: Capitalism, like them, is not (automatically) insulated against corruption.

In this respect, all economic systems are equals. The real battle is the battle against corruption and corrosiveness of the system from the inside out. It is a never-ending battle. There are no panaceas; no silver bullets. The battle is perpetual. We can't "feel-good" our way out of it.

The only way to fight a battle against such a "systemic defect" is from within the system and at the "system level." There are no exogenous or sub-optimal tactics or strategies that will fix systemic problems. To think so is a liberal illusion. Being better white people is a good thing to be, but it does not fix the defects in vampire capitalism.

We already know that politicians are the weak link in our capitalist system. Money corrupts them, and through them it corrupts the entire system. At the same time, money also prevents the enactment of laws and changes that would fix the defect of corruption that the money causes. It is this chicken and egg problem inherent in the system that needs fixing: How can we ever take money out of a system run on, for, by and with money?

Here is a start:

Elections should be cost free to candidates; substantive debates should be mandatory; frivolous and emotional and demagogic debates should be ignored or severely curtailed; lobbying in which money and influence are peddled should be outlawed or severely controlled and made into enforceable crimes. Corporations are not human beings and thus should not be given the same political rights and status as humans.

These are some of the systemic problems that need fixing. Afterwards, your list of "feel good" practices will surely follow as the night follows the day.

by Herbert Calhoun (7 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 37 comments) on Thursday, November 30, 2006 at 6:22:50 AM