Is Capitalism an Illness?

[soulman]

If it is what is the cure?

 

[butchersapron]

One solution -final solution.

To the astrology forum with this stuff.

 

[soulman]

One solution -final solution.

To the astrology forum with this stuff.

.

 

[i-am-your-idea]

maybe its like measles,
have to catch it once.. then it won't happen again.

 

[DotCommunist]

It's certainly a fucking affliction

 

[gorski]

Fromm would say "Aye!!!" Well done! Alienation is to be overcome...

 

[danny la rouge]

It is a leper pearl.

 

[soulman]

It is a leper pearl.

No idea what you mean by that. Care to explain?

 

[derf]

If it is what is the cure?

Nope its just human nature.
Same goes for the unions but they are usually loosers trying to screw as much as they can from a system they are no good at dealing with.

<ducks for cover>

 

[fela fan]

If it is what is the cure?

Yes it is an illness, well, at least the rampant version that is practised in so many places.

The cure is dropping desire. An insurance policy against the return of desire is finding nature and its offerings.

 

[fela fan]

Nope its just human nature.

If it's human nature, then it would be found in all humans all of the time.

And that ain't the case.

 

[merlin wood]

If it is what is the cure?

Capitalism is more of a malaise than a disease, I'd say. The only cure will be the Real World Revolution. Which won't be a violent uprising but a revolution in our knowledge of the real world where competative materialist consumerism will no longer make sense to anyone.

 

[Santino]

No, illnesses are things like flu and cancer and measles. Very different from a politico-economic system based on private property and the lending of money with interest.

 

[Detroit City]

If it is what is the cure?

communism?

 

[kyser_soze]

It's the latest iteration of the historical tendency in large societies that have production surpluses, have elites that maintain control over those production surpluses and/or get first dibs on whatever resources are available.

 

[soulman]

It's the latest iteration of the historical tendency in large societies that have production surpluses, have elites that maintain control over those production surpluses and/or get first dibs on whatever resources are available.

Why would the majority allow some minority, or elite, to treat them in that way?

 

[Andy the Don]

Not an illness maybe more of an affliction or touch of the sniffles..

Cure, regulation & taxation, the same way the government controls many legal but harmful practises.

 

[kyser_soze]

Why would the majority allow some minority, or elite, to treat them in that way?

Fuck knows, but it's been going on for millenia. The question of why people accept hierarchy isn't one I can answer.

 

[bluestreak]

No, illnesses are things like flu and cancer and measles. Very different from a politico-economic system based on private property and the lending of money with interest.

Quite.

 

[paimei01]

Earth was never meant to be capitalist. You must take from nature what you need ,and respect it. When you take more, with the intention of selling it to others you are on a path to total destruction.
Nature will be destroyed, because others will buy your stuff even if it is not essential for them, so you will literally turn nature into money. And humans will no longer be humans they will be "Consumers"

Only when the last tree is cut; only when the last river is polluted; only when the last fish is caught; only then will they realize that you cannot eat money.

 

[Santino]

Earth was never meant to be capitalist. You must take from nature what you need ,and respect it. When you take more, with the intention of selling it to others you are on a path to total destruction.
Nature will be destroyed, because others will buy your stuff even if it is not essential for them, so you will literally turn nature into money. And humans will no longer be humans they will be "Consumers"

Quick, throw away your computer. Do you know how it was made? Someone took something from Mother Earth and sold it to you. For shame.

 

[paimei01]

I am not against technology. We could stop this destruction and still invent new stuff. We are wasting too much. Look here and remember it is from 1927 :
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2962

In a 1927 interview with the magazine Nation’s Business, Secretary of Labor James J. Davis provided some numbers to illustrate a problem that the New York Times called “need saturation.” Davis noted that “the textile mills of this country can produce all the cloth needed in six months’ operation each year” and that 14 percent of the American shoe factories could produce a year’s supply of footwear. The magazine went on to suggest, “It may be that the world’s needs ultimately will be produced by three days’ work a week.”

 

[gorski]

For every truckload of stuff we produce - we also produce 9 truckloads of rubbish/waste.

Capitalism is an illness. So was/is "sur-real socialism", btw - even more wasteful!

We are quite insane, since we do not worry much about cutting the very branch on which we sit, it seems... At the very least nowhere enough to what is necessary...

Reason is our potential but not quite yet a reality... For a while to come, it appears...

 

[merlin wood]

Quick, throw away your computer. Do you know how it was made? Someone took something from Mother Earth and sold it to you. For shame.

Yes, and Bill Gates is a multibillionaire as a result. How sick is that?

 

[Gym Beam]

Why would the majority allow some minority, or elite, to treat them in that way?

Dunno, Ideology, hegemonic, dominating technologies. Read Herbert Marcuse's two books (One Dimensional Man and Eros and Civilisation) for a critical theoretical view on why the dominated classes in capitalist societies accept the status quo.

 

[danny la rouge]

No idea what you mean by that. Care to explain?

It's a Hugh MacDiarmid quote. (He was a poet). He called capitalism that leper pearl. I always thought he meant it seemed shiny and to offer promise, but was, at core, diseased.

 

[Demosthenes]

maybe its like measles,
have to catch it once.. then it won't happen again.

a good thought.
Maybe.

 

[sleaterkinney]

Fuck knows, but it's been going on for millenia. The question of why people accept hierarchy isn't one I can answer.

Because it works?

 

[gorski]

By which group's standards?

 

[Santino]

By which group's standards?

The group that by accepting a hierarchical system get to live in a relatively peaceful and prosperous society in which all their material needs are met?