I sometimes despair that there are so few ‘viable’ alternatives to the failed system we are currently saddled with.
It is only in retrospect that we have learned that capitalism has NEVER worked and only thrived due to the collusion of the few it benefited.
(As we are witnessing, the only thing holding it together was avoidance of the massive train wreck switching to another system would cause.)
Perhaps the most distressing of all of these proposed ‘alternatives’ is the plethora of ‘half measures’ that don’t take into account the true nature of the problem.
Take this tripe for example.
Rushkoff also raises points worth considering, particularly for those of us trying to articulate, in the wake of massive failures of the economic system we've lived our whole lives with, some sort of alternative to the cycle of boom, bust, bailout.
He argues that perhaps we're going about it backward when we call for jobs, that maybe it's not a bad thing that technology is replacing workers, and points out that actually, we do produce enough food and “stuff” to support the country and even the world—that, in fact, we produce too much “stuff.”
He alternately harkens back to a past before jobs, when many people worked for themselves on a subsistence level, and forward to a future where we are all busy making games and books and communicating with one another from behind computer screens, with the hours we have to work dwindling.
Like most ‘half-measures’ Bobo leaves the details to ‘take care of themselves’. Worse, this half-wit doesn’t possess the presence of mind to focus on the crux of the problem, which is where a solution can be found.
Constant Reader knows where I place that crux (we don’t have a money problem, we have a legal problem, big time!)
It is the laws that need to be changed…and until they do, nothing will change!
Your kids starving to death? Sorry, nothing we can do, helping you (or you helping yourself to what you need) is against the law!
Yes good citizen, fuck you, pay me capitalism is ‘centered’ on property rights NOT the ‘common good’ (which empty -headed Libertarians routinely dismiss as being exploitive.)
So what the fuck is the thinking behind a future where only some people contribute?
Where’s the justice in that?
Which is to ask ’who the fuck thinks THAT is a ’good idea’?’
While A Simple Plan mandates 100% employment as ‘the price of citizenship’, detractors would question the sanity behind essentially quadrupling the commute.
Well, as we build a more sustainable future, working where you live will become the rule rather than the exception it has become today.
If you commute at all you will use your feet as the preferred mode of transportation.
Going anywhere else you’ll probably take the choo-choo (or a dirigible.) If your travel plans take you across one of the world’s oceans it is more likely safer to take a sailing ship.
Yes, we will ‘sacrifice’ supersonic speed for ‘fuel efficiency’.
Hopefully, slowing things down a couple of notches will give us all more time to think things over.
Everybody (even the ‘handicapped’) will be provided with the opportunity to ‘participate’ in society…and that means ‘jobs for everyone!’.
You WILL do your part, even if it is only for a couple of hours a day or a couple of days per week.
Which is to point out there’s no lack of things that need doing, it is capitalism which prevents them from being done!
People are already aware that they can no longer ‘breed like minks’ and that is the true danger of building ‘utopia’.
Which is to say that there are still ‘hard choices’ to be faced, that part doesn’t go away.
I strongly suspect only a ’hooray for me and fuck everyone else Libertarian’ is capable of conceiving of a future where not working (and thereby not participating in society) is an option.
It is uncertain which disturbs me more, the lack of critical think on display here or the fact that THIS ASSHOLE gets a national forum to air his nonsense in!
Oh fucking well…
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
No comments:
Post a Comment