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

Monday, May 9, 2011

Global capitalism and 21st century fascism

Click here to access article by William I. Robinson from Al Jazeera. 

I haven't had time to thoroughly digest this article, but it appears to contain much insightful material regarding the new form of capitalism which is increasingly showing fascist characteristics, and which is causing so many devastating effects on populations and the environment. It is important to understand this new phase of capitalism if we are going to have a chance of stopping it and replacing it with one that promotes human life and protection of the environment.
By the late 1990s, the system entered into chronic crisis. Sharp social polarisation and escalating inequality helped generate a deep crisis of over-accumulation. The extreme concentration of the planet's wealth in the hands of the few and the accelerated impoverishment, and dispossession of the majority, even forced participants in the 2011 World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos to acknowledge that the gap between the rich and the poor worldwide is "the most serious challenge in the world" and is "raising the spectre of worldwide instability and civil wars."
(Note: the author uses the Marxist term "primitive accumulation" which is a term used "to help explain how the capitalist mode of production came into being. According to Marx, before there could be money with which to make more, i.e. capital, an original accumulation must take place. This might take the form of resource extraction, conquest and plunder, and/or enslavement." See source.)