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anti capitalist view

2010-09-07 16:21:49

>So, if we could figure out a way to prove that terrorism, hunger, poverty, AIDS, or whatever injustice hurts the corporate bottom line, we'd see action being taken to clear it up in no time?

Close, but "hurting the bottom line" isn't enough because the Right is no more interested in money than the Left is interested in social justice. Both are interested in exactly one thing: power.

Capitalists get power from making money, but power--unlike profit--is a zero-sum game. This means that capitalists are willing to forego profits if that is necessary to prevent other people from gaining power.

That is, capitalists hate free-riders far more than they love money, so they are more than willing to lose customers to AIDS because curing AIDS for free would mean that someone else might also profit from those customers, and that would reduce the capitalist's feeling of power.

If wiping out hunger, poverty AIDS or terrorism would actually make someone money, then yes, it would be done very rapidly, the way slavery went out of style the moment it became more profitable to have consumer goods for sale to paid workers who could be controlled almost as well as slaves by debt.

Unfortunately, capitalists have learned that genuinely fixing problems is rarely the way to maximize their power. Far better to sell a more-or-less ineffective "solution" like the security-industrial complex's "War on Terror" or drug cocktails for AIDS or subsidized "food aid" for povery and hunger. Insert your corporation into one of those cash torrents and you will be in a position of power for decades to come.

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Posted: 2010683@827.00

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stranger

I salute you for resisting using all caps and maintaining a conversational tone, at least.

You're positing that all the world's problems are not only solvable, but easily solvable. I'm sorry to break this to you, but humanity is not omnipotent, we're barely competent. And yes, I am including those bad actors you accuse of creating war, disease and starvation in order to profit.

You mention some serious issues, but you're not helping to solve them by imagining a capitalist conspiracy of a mysterious "them" against the righteous "us". You're misdirecting your energies against ghosts and shadows instead of supporting what actually leads to progress: political activity, scientific research, charity and education.