We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Learning About Capitalism at Gunther's Garage

by Joe Bageant from Counterpunch. Joe has a very unique style for capturing the gritty realities of working people and does so with love, compassion, humor, and insight. In this article he draws inspiration from talking to a working grunt in his hometown in Virginia and goes on to provide some rather profound insights on the economy and prospects for change. There are so many gems in this article to highlight that it is hard to select just one, but this is my choice:
Defenders of capitalism claim that there can be no real economy, no real material value created by the real people on Main Street, without the financing of Wall Street’s virtual economy. Allegedly, they are so intertwined as to be the same thing, which they are, and that no other way of doings things is possible, which is patently untrue. The storyline goes that without virtual economy financing from Wall Street, without the ever-expanding debt that drives the quest for limitless growth, the world would end.