Mar 07 2009
This brief diary is meant to summarize and to call attention to Barbara Ehrenreich’s piece of yesterday in Alternet (well OK with Bill Fletcher Jr.): “If We Are in the Death Spiral of Capitalism, Can We Start Using the “S” Word?”. And, yeah, there’s going to be some analysis here too. As Han Solo said in Episode VI: “Hey… it’s me!”
(crossposted at Big Orange)
Mar 03 2009
cross posted from The Dream Antilles
My friend Claudia, who is a wonderful writer, has a piece up at her blog and at Huffpuff, in which she asks the eternal, dreaded question for writers, “Am I getting paid for my work?” The answer, as you probably expect, isn’t good:
Twice in the past week, I’ve heard the same bad news: two media outlets for whom I’d written articles informed me that they would not be paying me for the writing I had submitted.
Please join me below.
Mar 03 2009
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Declaration of Independence
1776
Has our form of Governance become destructive to the majority? If so how shall we work to change our government? What would a future with a different form of government, economy, social order look? Where is our current governance taking us?
Once a week I publish an installment in the story. This is followed by the Concepts Behind the Fiction section. This section is filled with information and links for you to investigate.
About a week after I publish on this site, I will publish on The Daily Kos, Z Communications and here. Check my Links button on my website to connect to one of these discussions. These posting will happen simultaneously and on a Saturday or Monday afternoon (depending on which day of the week I have off from my paying job). The day of the posting will be announced on my website. I will make myself available to moderate a discussion and for comments and questions during that time.
A running Post of what readers think are the most important issues for our future and how to get to the future we want will then be created as part of these discussions.
If you are coming to this blog in the middle then check out the Characters List and the Plot Summary pages.
Feb 23 2009
This will be a book review of Minqi Li’s “The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy,” a book which is important for its calculation of the rising contradiction between capitalist growth and ecological sustainability, and for its perspective on Chinese history.
Li’s prose is clear and understandable, and his use of graphs and charts really drives his points home rather than (as is the case with some economic writing) confusing the reader. In this review, I will look at Li’s book with one eye upon a conference I have volunteered with Focus the Nation to help organize. Li will be the keynote speaker at the FtN conference at USC.
(crossposted at Big Orange)
Jan 18 2009
The world has become so inured to mass death, perhaps the following will merit little comment or outrage among our political punditry, even if the story did make the back pages of the New York Times.
A new Lancet study, “Mass privatisation and the post-communist mortality crisis,” confirms what has been known but little discussed in the past eight to ten years: millions of people, mostly men of employment age, died as a result of the effects of the “shock therapy” transition from a collectivized to a privatized economy in Russia and other formerly “communist” states in East Europe. According to the Times article, by 2007 “the life expectancy of Russian men was less than 60 years, compared with 67 years in 1985.”
Jan 08 2009
Original article, by Neil Faulkner, via Socialistworker.org (UK):
The economic crisis that swept the globe in 2008 provoked debate about whether individual states or trade blocs could insulate themselves from the international turmoil through “protectionist” economic measures.
Dec 06 2008
Original article, subheaded Lee Sustar analyzes the roots of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression–and shows why Marxism offers the best way of understanding what went wrong, via Socialist Worker (US):
THERE ARE plenty of people who should be held accountable for turning an ordinary recession that began a year ago into a global catastrophe.
Nov 19 2008
Original article, subtitled With economic crisis sweeping the globe, many people are asking if there is a better way to organise society. Kate Connelly and Esme Choonara explain how a planned socialist economy might work, via Socialist Worker (UK):
Capitalism is chaotic and extremely destructive. War, hunger and unemployment are all permanent features of the system.
Nov 16 2008
This diary is about the G20 summit and the economy, but really it’s about the larger implications of a society which cannot let go of its status quo assumptions in time to save itself. Here’s the false dilemma: either the current system must be saved, or the current system will fail. The idea that we could switch over to another system, through a set of radical changes, cannot even insinuate itself into the conversation, outside of (perhaps) a marginal section of the blogosphere. Yet this is what the world most needs. In light of this, I recommend that we (bloggers) attempt to overcome resistance to some basic premises of thinking about the current situation.
(crossposted at Big Orange)
Nov 01 2008
Original article, by Lance Selfa and subtitled If Obama is acting like a centrist now, it’s most likely because he is a centrist–rather than a radical posing as one to get elected, via socialistworker.org:
WITH LITTLE else to offer on its own behalf, the McCain-Palin ticket has built an entire campaign on ridiculing and demonizing Barack Obama. First, Obama was a neophyte. Then, he was a celebrity. Now, he’s a dangerous radical, even a friend to terrorists.
Oct 30 2008
The first, Top Economic Strategist warns of ‘Catastrophe and Revolution’ by Rob Sewell looks at warnings from a leading strategist of capitalism in the City:
We are facing the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Despite all the efforts to bail out the banking system, the economic crisis has only just started to bite. How deep or long the crisis will last is difficult to estimate, but given the financial house of cards built up in the last world boom, the capitalist system has entered unprecedented times, in which a depression cannot be ruled out.
Oct 29 2008
In the hectic run-up to an important election, we need to keep minds focused on the larger picture, and on the potential for epochal change in light of environmental and economic crises.
Critical theory was begun in the 20th century as an alternative to capitalist “social science” and also as an alternative to Leninist forms of “dialectical materialism.” It sought to look at the world in terms of history, philosophy, and science, criticizing “mainstream” social science as infected by ideological attitudes while recognizing the persistent longevity of the capitalist system and wondering what to do about its injustices.
This diary will explore the possibility of critical theory, a 20th century “bigger picture” way of thinking about the world, as an intellectual and social discipline for the mind and for understanding the 21st century world.
(Crossposted at Big Orange)
