Black Folks Ain't Got No Money For Bootstraps: The Black Capitalist Dead End
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A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The African American economic condition deteriorates by the year, but that doesn't stop the 'bootstrappers' from talking trash. "The bootstraps mythology - sometimes under the shorthand, 'Do for Self' - implicitly or explicitly urges Black people to forego making demands of government, as if that amounts to 'begging the white man' for something."
Black Folks Ain't Got No Money For Bootstraps: The Black Capitalist Dead-End
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
"What binds the variations on the 'bootstrap' theme together, is an essential refusal to challenge the capitalist system."
The two devastating recessions of the last decade have had catastrophic effects on Black economic prospects. Yet, despite the monstrous setbacks of recent years and the general failure to bridge the racial wage and wealth gap over the last three decades, there still exists a strong current of Black political thought that insists African Americans can pull themselves and the rest of the race up by their financial bootstraps, through hard work and pooling of collective resources. Some of these arguments are unashamedly Black capitalist; others preach a brand of communal partnerships among Black entrepreneurs and consumers that attempts to make the entire Black community a kind of capitalist engine of self-help. What binds the variations on the "bootstrap" theme together, is an essential refusal to challenge the capitalist system. The belief is that Black "buying power" or race-based investment schemes will allow Black folks to rise from the bottom of the American economic barrel.
Implicit in this line of thinking is the notion that Blacks are at the bottom because they have not been trying hard enough to move up - which is also the assumption of white racists, whether they call themselves conservatives or liberals. The most fatal flaw in the Black capitalist world view is the assumption that Black people actually have the wealth and discretionary income to build an internal economy that could insulate them from the general capitalist crisis. We know different, because all the data tell us that Black household income is stuck at the same level relative to whites as back in 1979, and Black comparative wealth was steadily eroding even before the last decade's recessions. And we know that Black wealth has been further diminished relative to whites in the ongoing housing meltdown, in which Blacks are twice as likely to face foreclosure. And we know that Blacks, a majority of whom are renters, bear the brunt of the dislocations caused by rampant gentrification, which in some urban areas forces families to spend more than half their income on rent.
"The most fatal flaw in the Black capitalist world view is the assumption that Black people actually have the wealth and discretionary income to build an internal economy that could insulate them from the general capitalist crisis."
Simply put, there ain't no damn money for these bootstrap capitalism dreams, and there never was. There was never the possibility of building a Black General Motors - and now General Motors requires billions of dollars in federal infusions to survive.
What a great distraction this nonsense about bootstrap racial upward mobility has been - so much wasted time and misdirected dreams over the generations. Worse than that, the bootstraps mythology - sometimes under the shorthand, "Do for Self" - implicitly or explicitly urges Black people to forego making demands of government, as if that amounts to "begging the white man" for something. This attitude surrenders all Black claims to any of the society's resources except those we currently hold in our own pockets - which is the equivalent of social death. President Obama also warns Blacks to expect no redress from their government. At a recent press conference, he once again urged Blacks to be patient, that when the economy grows, everybody will be "swept up into that virtuous circle."
It never happened before, and it never will. Blacks need to "Do for Self," but not as aspiring capitalists. We have always made our greatest progress in political struggle. That's the Promised Land that we make, together.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
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The bootstraps/Horatio Alger
The bootstraps/Horatio Alger line is more myth than reality. Yes, there are/were many who started with nothing and ended up doing very well. However, the little secret the powers that be fail to acknowledge is that a shitload of those who rose to wealth and power did so with help - including help from the government. The rich and powerful (RAP) have been influencing who gets elected for eons. Once their puppets get into govt, they make legislation that enriches the RAP. Tax breaks, tax shelters, wars to clear the way for RAPs to pillage, pollute, and plunder foreign lands, govt research and patents that benefit RAP companies, legislation here at home to bust unions, discard health/financial/safety regulations, and suppress dissent - all these "govt handouts" benefit the RAP. You think names like Rockefeller, Morgan, Getty, and Kennedy "never" took advantage of a insider stock tip? That's how they made half their money.
Of course the media - the RAP's public relations machine - never points out this fact. Instead we here about welfare queens, not the welfare RAPs who've been pocketing every govt handout since the nation emerged.
This Post bothers me to the core...
And it reminds me of why I HATE LEFTISM.
They push Marxist slave dependence on the government to the people, while they control the whole pie and throw you a few crumbs. Look at Cuba. Look at Venezuela. If you think Castro and Chavez are treated the same as the average Joe in their countries, then I have a bridge to sell you, ok? Those guys are dictators! The Rockefeller's and the Rothchild's etc.. LOVE socialism. What they don't like is nationalist socialism, and that's their sole beef with characters like Chavez and Castro. They want global "free trade" (looting), global government (controlled by them), and slaves (controlled by them)and genocidal rationing/triage. Look at what Mao did during "the great leap forward." Look at what the Bolsheviks did. Look at what Hitler did.
Of course everyone is helped along the way during there lifetime, there's a general welfare clause in our constitution that must be honored. But Marxism endlessly questions the individuals ability to take care of oneself in order to perpetuate self doubt, low self-esteem, and addiction to rationed hand outs - so that the individual doesn't get any ideas about things like freedom and controlling their own land. As a man, I DON'T LIKE IT! I don't like being told that I won't be able to achieve anything. I don't like being told that I'm a weak and incompetent goy that needs the illuminati to take care of me.
The biggest mistake that the Republican party ever made, as far as the Black vote is concerned, is not co-opting the "do-4-self" Marcus Garvey movement and steering it in a productive direction. Instead, they turned to the southern strategy and allowed Hoover, the "liberal mafia," their "talented tenth" minions, and the evil reverends attack and fill in the power vacuum of the biggest mass Black Power movement in American History, EVER!
Ever! EVERRR!!! OK?
Just think about it... It is in our DNA -do to our historical references- to understand the importance of government, but at the same time, understand that we ultimately can not CAN NOT trust government unless We're running it!
I don't understand how people can complain about our government for 400 years and not come to the common sense conclusion that the government HATES US. So how did we get to this Karl Marxist ideology that we have today ?
At the turn of the 20th century, most Blacks were pious christian, Lincoln republicans. Black out of wedlock births: 1960 25%, 2000 70+% (some variation in different sites, but values all close), Whites in contrast went from 3% to 18%.
From www.hks.harvard.edu
Black male employment based on overall % of weeks employed annually (slightly different than unemployment rate better for this type of analysis - 1960, 73.2%; 2000, 64.3%: White male in contrast went from 85.4% to 83.7%.
Incarceration rate - the study used 1980 basis. Blacks 1980 3.8%, 2000 9.8%. Didn't dig enough through the study to find the white rate for this but charts, which didn't show overall, but broke it down by year and number of years in work force and education levels showed much smaller increases for whites. I won't get into the argument about changing laws unfairly penalizing Blacks. The article these numbers come from imply it could be due to rise in immigration, though they never did any control studies of areas with and without large changes in immigration to establish cause and effect.
The basis of my statement holds. The situation for blacks as it related to single parent homes and male incarceration is getting worse throughout despite gov't programs to help which started in the 60's.
As for digging further back, I have found pretty steady incarceration rates for blacks from 1930 to 1960, around 150 / 100,000. Whites were about 1/3 that in the same period. Proof of discrimination - probably. Same as taking 3 children of immigrants and sending them to reform school and the army in 1946 and letting the WASP kid go home with his parents for the same crime.
I contend that somewhere between 1960 and today there has been a cultural shift in the black community away from a sense of self responsibility and education as the key to success which were core values in these other groups which succeeded. And it was a core value in the black community prior to all the government programs initiated in the 60's and 70's.
The other immigrant groups believed they could raise themselves up, that family was sacrosanct, that they were responsible for their own success, and that education was the key to success. In all this they were proved right. Blacks believed this to - Frederick Douglas and Booker T. Washington were obvious proponents. But somewhere in the 1960's during the civil rights movement to fix state institutionalized discrimination in the south, there was added into the mix an idea that only through gov't help beyond protection of rights could the black community succeed. And it seems as more gov't assistance was given, the less the black community felt it had to take care of itself. Then, black leaders encouraged this as they decided it was their first priority to get as much aid as possible to their communities. The best way to do this was to cry out about victimization.
Is there any surprise that their constituents bought into this?
An alternate view...
The social programs instituted during the late sixties were set up as stalling tactics by the federal government. The Establishment was shocked that this major AA movement had successfully challenged them and even turned (Euro-American) public opinion aganist them. This powerful movement had inspired other oppressed groups (Euro Women, Gays, Chicanos and Native Americans) to demand redress. They were caught by surprise and had to placate AA's or face more disruption to the social system.
By the early seventies, they had already started a massive propaganda campaign to discredit AA' s and convince Euro-Americans that AA's just wanted a free ride at their expense. The irony of course was that the Civil Rights Movement was about access and inclusion to jobs, education, voting and housing. AA's wanted to be a part of the system, to work and contribute within the system.
Jean Hardisty's excellent book, Mobilizing Resentment, details the players in that campaign and the steps they took to achieve the success they enjoy today. In addition, punitive and selectively enforced drug laws, militarized police and mass firings of AA teachers were instituted to destabilize and demoralize AA communities.
The resounding achievement of this long term revenge campaign can be measured in the way in which even intelligent AA's spout rightwing talking points as if they were fact with no regard for context or history.
BLAME WHERE IT BELONGS
In modern America, who owns the government and the church, and the media, and the capitalist system? Whom do these institutions serve? Everyone? No one? Whom does this nation serve? If the answer is only the rich and/or white, then how does that make this a victimless society? At the turn of the 20th century until well into the 1960's when many of them fled to the Mid-west or to the Northeast, most of the members of my family lived in absolutely squalid, wrecthed, poverty in Tennessee in the heart of the so-called bible belt. They had lived like that ever since their ancestors were brought here by Christian, capitalist, individualists who came here seeking a better life on stolen Indian land through use of slave labor. When overt slavery was abolished their descendants immediately replaced it with a combined peonage labor system (read the Wallstreet Journal article) and a share cropping system which retained many of the features of the slave system which they replaced. None of the the white perpetrators of these state and chuch sanctioned atrocities and injustices were either "Marxists", "leftists", or "Bolshevicks." Like all other cultures, all of the Wests failings can be laid at the doors of its core beliefs. Your suggestion that Blacks simply play by the rules of a rigged sysem is not much of a solution. I believe that Blacks need to go international as well as work together locally. The age of American omnipotence is over anyway. Why would we of all people be singing its praises or trying to save it?
Your hate is misplaced
C.N. you really need to read the Communist Manifesto. It won't take more than an afternoon of your time as it's basically a big pamphlet rather than a book. Read that and you'll see that your hating on Marxism in particular and leftism in general is quite misplaced. True Marxism is 180 degrees away from being "slave dependence" and instead seeks to empower the average person.
" Look at what Mao did during "the great leap forward." Look at what the Bolsheviks did. Look at what Hitler did. "
First of all Hitler was at the extreme polar opposite end of the ideological spectrum from communism. One can't get much farther away from it than Hitlerite fascism. As for Mao and Lenin they honestly weren't true communists any more than the crusaders could be considered true Christians. The Soviet Union for example went off the rails very early, at the stage when Lenin basically abolished the elected workers' soviets (councils). From that point forward, even before the demonic Stalin gained power, the Soviet Union could not be considered as following the precepts of true communism. True communism is grass-roots democratic proletarian socialism and represents the greatest hope for everyone in this world who isn't wealthy.
"But Marxism endlessly questions the individuals ability to take care of oneself in order to perpetuate self doubt, low self-esteem, and addiction to rationed hand outs - so that the individual doesn't get any ideas about things like freedom and controlling their own land."
You're falling for the capitalist propaganda. Marxism by no means seeks to control the average worker's ability to own their own home or car or t.v. etc. Marxism seeks to abolish bourgeois property, not proletarian property, in other words abolishing the private ownership of the means of production and exchange. In other words owning your own car is fine but not owning your own car factory because in so doing you would be in the position of being able to economically oppress those working for you who actually make the cars. Marxism isn't about handouts. It's about giving everyone an equal opportunity for success in life by a fair distribution of wealth. It's hard to fathom how anyone with a conscience could be in opposition to that. Who with a heart can honestly disagree that the highest form of human societal development would be a society in which there are no rich and no poor because everyone would be guaranteed (what would today be considered a middle class standard of living) from birth? What an individual does with that opportunity, whether he or she makes it worthwhile or squanders it, is up to the individual but an objective observer could hardly disagree with the idea of everyone being born into the same economic starting point.
"I don't understand how people can complain about our government for 400 years and not come to the common sense conclusion that the government HATES US. "
The government hates you because it is run by and in the interests of the WEALTHY. If you're not wealthy it shits all over you.
"As a man, I DON'T LIKE IT! I don't like being told that I won't be able to achieve anything. "
Individually. You won't be able to accomplish anything individually versus the billionaire elite of the Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and A.I.P.A.C. Sorry but though the truth sometimes hurts it is better to face it than to avoid it. Only through collective action, and I mean not simply collective African American action but of all races who are ground under the heel of capitalism, basically everyone who isn't rich, will we have a good chance at radically changing the social order. If you think otherwise you're more than welcome to wear a sandwich board and go by yourself to holler in front of the John Birch Society's headquarters or whatever but you're pissing in the wind. The deck is stacked against us. The elite own the media propaganda machine and they own the government that hates you. They own the plastic marionette candidates that successfully bamboozle the majority of the electorate into thinking they are accomplishing something by voting for one or the other when it doesn't matter in the slightest who they vote for or IF they vote because it's all a dog & pony show.
This is a class issue. For African Americans it is also tinged with a race issue given the history there and the continuing pervasive, endemic racism in America. But black misleaders and toadies of the status quo like Barack Obama are a glaring reminder that the root of all our problems regardless what race we are is that we are, at least so far, on the losing side of a massive class struggle. Realizing that is the first step toward emancipation. The pissant concessions by the ruling elite in the '60s were nothing more than a safety valve, blowing off a little steam rather than risking an enormous explosion that would upend their precious one-sided social order.
What you and many tens of millions of others need to realize is that capitalism cannot be reformed and must be smashed or else we will constantly be dealing with the symptoms of it, slapping band-aids on arterial bleeding until the end of time. Please realize that capitalism is not the pinnacle of human development but only an intermediate stage between horrid feudal absolutism and true democratic proletarian socialism.
The Collapsing Western Way of Life
The greatest threat to the Western Way of Life is the Western Way of Life itself.
by John Kozy
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19782
Excerpt:
"Chandran Nair writes,
The 20th century’s triumph of consumption-based capitalism has created the crisis of the 21st century: looming catastrophic climate change, massive environmental damage and significant depletion of natural resources. . . . The western economic model, which defines success as consumption-driven growth, must be challenged. . . . Advocates of the western model tend to play down its dramatic effects on natural resources and the environment. They refuse to acknowledge that their advice runs counter to scientific consensus about limits and the need for stringent rules on resource management. Instead, they argue that human ingenuity aided by innovations in the markets will find solutions. This is rooted in an irrational belief that we can have everything: ever-growing material wealth and a healthy natural environment. The stark evidence . . . should be proof enough that this is not possible.
No, it's not possible, but the impossibility lies in the system's logic, not in its effects. To use the preferred diction of economists, the system is unsustainable. Since the collapse of the industrial system is inevitable, a fundamental rethinking of the way the economy works is the only alternative. It has always been the only alternative. But even that leaves humanity soaking in the pickle."
capitalism destroys itself
"Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of the feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modern labourer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the process of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society."
-excerpt from The Communist Manifesto
whose standards?
"Please realize that capitalism is not the pinnacle of human development but only an intermediate stage between horrid feudal absolutism and true democratic proletarian socialism."
* So the pinnacle of human development is the transforming(I'm assuming of the world) from one method of European development(feudalism) to another(capitalism) to the final(socialism)? This is what gets me about Marxists - with all the talk about revolution - the mindset and goals are still set in the context of a 19th century well-off Eureopean's intellectual's myopic(but supposedly) universalist(meaning for the whole world) understanding of human development. Now don't get me wrong - I think's Marx's critiques for capitalism are amazing and worthy of study. However when we get into the realm of solutions - it's best to take them with a grain of salt and recognize from WHOM and from WHERE and from what WORLDVIEW they are coming from. The world does not conform to the intellectual whims of anybody and when we pin our views of the broad scope of human development to such a limited vision we are involved in just another form of Eurocentric reductionist thinking. I agree with EC's finer point - we need to "devise a new nomenclature."
Humanity's standards regardless of origin
"So the pinnacle of human development is the transforming(I'm assuming of the world) from one method of European development(feudalism) to another(capitalism) to the final(socialism)? "
In a word, yes. See that's one of the beautiful things about socialism is that it doesn't get hung up on nationalities, cultures, ethnic identities etc. I personally couldn't give a damn less what the origin of the Idea is; all that matters is that it is what's best for humanity. The idea of proletarian socialism wasn't invented by Karl Marx, rather he and Engels simply put down what they and many others already knew on paper so that nobody would have an excuse for claiming to be unaware what communists' goals are, in other words to refute the "nursery tale of the spectre of communism" by publicly outlining their goals. Marx himself was a white German who was born Jewish, raised Lutheran and died an athiest. But it makes no difference to me if he was white, African, Chinese or Bangladeshi, it's the universal truth of the message that is important.
Is the idea of the end state, proletarian socialism, applicable to all cultures and nationalities? Absolutely, though their readiness to be accepting of it varies widely as would be expected, just as their condition of economic advancement varies widely. "The medieval burghers and small farmer proprietors were the precursors of the modern bourgeoisie. In those countries that are but little developed, industrially and commercially, these two classes still vegetate side by side with the rising bourgeoisie." True for underdeveloped countries in 1848 and true today.
As for solutions, it's a two-stage process. Phase 1 is mass political education; the working class, working poor and desperately poor must be enlightened as to for one thing why things are the way they are, how and why they are oppressed, and for another, what they can do about it with unified action to radically change the social order. Phase 2 is translating that new-found education into a mass political movement and using that movement to upend the status quo to replace it with something designed around what's best for the most people.
For this second phase the esteemed Dr. King has already shown us the way forward with his Poor People's Campaign that was planned for the summer of '68 in which he intended to mobilize poor people of all races in America, poor blacks, poor whites, poor latinos etc. and march on Washington D.C. to carry out widespread, well organized civil disobedience. Sitting down by the thousands in roads and refusing to be moved, blocking off railroad tracks, surrounding the Capitol Bldg. and the White House and the Supreme Court and refusing to be moved until their demands were met. Unfortunately for humanity as we all know Dr. King was assassinated just before he could get the ball rolling on the Poor People's Campaign and almost certainly the fear by the elite of such a campaign was what caused him to be assassinated. But what happened to this great prophet confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that his idea was in fact a dagger aimed at the heart of a coldblooded social order, a threat of the greatest magnitude and it is that which we need to carry on and honor his memory and legacy by completing. He's already shown us how it needs to be done so it isn't like we would be starting from scratch.
So who are the "real" communist?
Excuse me if I can't seem to find any Marx influenced dictator's in the world today who are implementing policies of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, respect for private property, and freedom of the press. You people keep repeating the line that the system can not be improved when their is MOUNTAINS of evidence that it CAN be forced to improve, and ABSOLUTELY NO PROOF that your system of governance works. Total government control of resources and the means of production EASILY turns into tyranny, suppression, and mass murder via rationing and triage. History tell us this. No wonder international finance capital bankrolled Trotsky, Marx, the Bolsheviks, Hitler, Mao, Mugabe etc... I believe that anybody that wants to depend solely on the government for food, clothing, and shelter, might be clinically insane.
The truth that none of you will admit, is that the system of American political economy imbued in our nations Constitution and bill of rights is the best system EVER known to man. If you don't agree, you're more than welcomed to move to the countries that you guys rave about. Let's see what happens when you try to criticize the leaders there.
The problem with the System is that there is a small clique of super rich families, corporations, bankers, and organizations (some of which you have mentioned) that are more interested in usurping the national sovereignty of all nations (including the U.S.) and setting up a genocidal, tyrannical global serfdom than "spreading the wealth around."
They seem to want to push the worlds middle class into a "green" agrarian dark age through the use of oppressive taxation, and the total destruction of development/industry, with the simultaneous growth of big intrusive government. And some international socialist seem to want the same thing. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm
Real Communists are friends of the oppressed, not the oppressor
True communists are not dictators but in favor of a truer democracy than you've ever experienced with the flaccid, pale puppet show that is American bourgeois "democracy". You don't seem to understand that I'm not talking about a bureaucratic government ownership of the means of production but rather a system in which there is direct worker ownership of the means of production, i.e. businesses being owned jointly by all of its workers (except for those that are small enough to be worked entirely by its owner like hot dog stands or newsstands) which would itself be worker ownership because he or she would be doing all the work on their own.
If you think you can reform a system that is built around greed and screwing over everyone else in order to enrich a tiny clique and somehow transform it into something that really represents what's best for everyone who isn't rich then you're tilting at windmills. Capitalism is doing what it's designed to do and the whole American system including its constitution written by the elite slaveowning planter class in the interests of the elite would be laughable for its irony were it not for the immense human suffering it overlooks being obviously no laughing matter. It mouths nice and high-minded principles but they have never been lived up to and since the 9/11 false flag operation the mainstreaming of police state measures and descent into overt fascism have been plain for anyone to see.
What you don't seem to grasp is that myself and people like me don't advocate some kind of tyrannical police state with a nightmare of a bureaucracy but the opposite, a transparent, widely decentralized (council communist) government which can be recalled at a moment's notice if it strays from representing the interests of the proletariat. Debate should be encouraged, not curtailed. And the underlying laws governing society would be based upon advancing and bettering society as a whole and transitioning to a classless society; part of this includes being able to do what one wants to do as long as it's not violating anybody else's civil liberties, in other words an adult could choose to smoke herb or choose not to without fear of legal punishment but someone couldn't kidnap a person and force them to smoke it. Likewise someone could work where he or she pleases but the old ideas of (bourgeois) property relations would be discarded , meaning it would be impossible for a citizen to be in a position to economically oppress others in an employer-employee relationship. Instead it would be a beautiful paradox: Nobody in the bourgeois sense of the word would be a business owner but at the same time everyone would be a business owner by being a worker and part-owner of whatever business in which they work.
The betterment of the proletariat is what true communists work towards and that is why we always bring forward the property question. We want a world in which the worker owns his or her own home but not a world in which a person can personally own his own homebuilding business unless he can do all the work himself. Otherwise it would be owned by its workers and whatever would be its profit margin rolled back into payroll. Free health care, free education through college, a good opportunity from birth for everybody. These are the things that true communists want. To answer your question, if they differ from these things that I mentioned then they are not true communists.
disregarding culture and
disregarding culture and viewing human societies to be merely a series of class relationships is universal? wiping away religion and cultural forms in favor of a tasteless bureaucracy supposedly upholding the interests of the naked class interests of the workers is universal? you may insist that these are mere trappings and not the "diamond in the rough" of the true communism that you speak of - however - we can't ignore that Marx's theories did lead to these very things when they were practiced on a large scale. just as christians defend their religion from people who point out all the horrors practiced by the institution of christianity and say "that wasn't real christianity," Marxists are faced with the same dillemma of claiming the widely held and large scale experiments that donned the words "Communist" that were ripe with all the things that people generally associate with it was not "real communism." The same can be said for capitalism - defenders of the free market will say we don't have "real capitalism" we have something different and if the free market "were just allowed to work" - things would be better. We have problems of theory on paper versus reality in the real world. And perhaps all these analysis are neglecting a larger overarching point as to WHY these purported excellent systems always seem to betray their intentions? I have shared my thoughts on this in other posts on this site.
You're missing my point.
Anyone can claim to be working in the interests of something but the proof is in the pudding. As I stated, when Lenin dissolved the workers soviets (councils) from that point onward it couldn't be considered a truly communist state so any comparison isn't valid any more than someone could consider crusaders claiming to be operating in the name of Jesus then beheading villagers in the Middle East to be genuine Christians. It's only a problem for small minded people who can't understand that someone claiming to be something doesn't necessarily mean they are what they claim.
Read what I just posted if you want to know what true communists are in favor of and what we aren't then get back to me. You're repeating points like about bureaucracies I already explained to C.N. Regarding religion however I think that while national and international church hierarchies have no place in a socialist society because they have always been used as a mouthpiece for the elite in whichever country one finds them there should be no problem with churches at the local level and attendance should neither be encouraged nor discouraged. Some communists definitely need to be less dogmatic regarding religion and realize that it isn't religion that is evil but the abuse and manipulation of people by using religion by the establishment that is evil. Again, read what I posted above and you'll see what I am saying about non-violation of others' civil liberties underlying the new society's laws. As long as someone isn't violating anybody's civil rights or oppressing others, including economically oppressing them in an employer-employee relationship, then they aren't breaking the law. Debate should be encouraged, I noted that already.
"disregarding culture and viewing human societies to be merely a series of class relationships is universal? "
What's universal is that proletarian socialism is universally applicable to any people's situation because in the capitalist economic model the problem is always the same everywhere, the workers are everywhere enslaved, just in varying degrees of wage slavery. In other words a worker in a maquiladora in Los Angeles has infinitely more in common with a worker in a sweatshop in Cambodia than either of them has in common with the bourgeoisie in their own country.
To answer your question about why systems such as the Soviet Union or P.R. of China have betrayed their originally-stated or at least purported intentions is that by their own weakness the ones originally leading the social revolution become corrupted through an over-centralized format of government in which they are the center of it, they lose sight of working in the people's interest and (this is key) the people didn't ensure that they were installing a transparent government that can be recalled if it starts to go off the rails. I already addressed how transparency is absolutely critical and this is why. The Soviet Union became what it hated, a society with classes only in their case the ruling class was the pseudo-communist bureaucracy enjoying privileges and wealth unobtainable by the average citizen. It goes without saying that such a system doesn't adhere to communist principles any more than a Muslim theocracy would be a genuine Muslim theocracy if it encouraged everyone to eat pork and get drunk. Though it would be patently obvious that the latter situation was false it somehow eludes many people that a system that entrenches a new class division in place of the old one and doesn't allow the workers to remove the government if it becomes counter to their interests is (gasp!) not what genuine communism is about at all but 180 degrees away from it.
Basically you're arguing the same exact argument that certainly Leonardo da Vinci had to endure if ever he showed his plans for the flying machine with flapping wings to anybody. "That thing will never fly and it shows that people were never, ever under any circumstances meant to fly through the air. People being able to fly is an unnatural concept and will simply never happen!" But lo and behold in 1903 people were able to take off in a heavier-than-air fixed-wing aircraft and humanity didn't look back. Humanity's advancement will eventually catch up with its visionaries.
Not missing your point
Maybe you miss mine? I know EXACTLY what communism is "supposed to be" in the minds of some of the top academics in the field - namely Richard Wolff - I had some Marxian economics classes in his department in college. Communism is "supposed to be" an economic relationship - it is not "supposed to be" political. It is only "supposed to be" an economic situation whereby the workers who create wealth via their labor power have democratic decision making power over the profits of said enterprise. HOWEVER - it seems that all the LARGE SCALE experiments that donned the monicker "Communist" implemented large scale wiping away of cultures and focussed a lot on a very cold and calculated effort to remove vestiges of the traditions and culture of people in favor of a bureacracy which was supposedly focussing only on the class relationships(as if this was the most important thing). Can we say this IS NOT DUE to some of what Marx and Engles purported as "steps" towards their vision? I am proposing that "THE BATHWATER" that Marx and Engels carried along with them was the myopic Euro-centric ECONOMIC view - shared by other classical economists that reduces society to be merely a set of ECONOMIC RELATIONSHIPS - thereby de-humanizing and de-spiritualizing culture and the earth. Thereby - MARX's PROPOSED METHODS towards his utopian vision are very much suspect because they carry with them THE STAIN that OTHER economic models(i.e. Capitalism) - which was birthed by the SAME CULTURAL set of assumptions that we can witness running rampant in the globe.
Let me be CLEAR - worker ownership of enterprise I think is right on. However - it remains to be seen what kind of governmental, political and economic relationships would best serve the interests of people, communities, and the environment and foster TRUE democratic control. HIGHLY CENTRALIZED systems do NOT bode well on many levels for all the constituents and stakeholders involved. We need to investigate WHAT IT IS IN MARX's THEORIES that led to and justified the HIGHLY CENTRALIZED and BUREAUCRATIC nature of the POLITICAL systems that are the legacy of his namesake. If we can DO THAT - then I THINK more people will be willing to look again at the "NUGGETS" that many intellectual Marxians hold as the CORE of the philosophy - divorced from the stain of the historical record that his name is associated with. From what you post I think you and I are generally on the same page.
Please see another of my posts related to this issue:
http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/progressive-“red-baiting&r...
Yes we're mostly on the same page but talking past each other
Communism is both economic and political in that politics cannot ever really be divorced from economics.
"...in favor of a bureacracy which was supposedly focussing only on the class relationships(as if this was the most important thing). "
The class relationships/class struggle is most certainly the most important thing. You need to understand the historical nature of the struggle and how history moves in a certain pattern. All of it comes back to one central issue, that a thread running through all of recorded history is class oppression. It was true when feudalism was the in thing and all the bourgeois epoch has done is substituted a simplified and more overt version of class oppression for the multitude of sub-class gradations of the past like feudal lords, guildmasters, journeymen, serfs, slaves; all that has been simplified into two great opposing classes: the bourgeoisie (the wealthy, ownership class) and the proletariat (which should be considered everyone else who isn't rich.) Until you realize this universal truth that applies to every capitalist society from the U.S. to Poland to Nigeria to Syria, then you won't be able to grasp where communists are coming from when we talk about the universality of capitalism's oppression. Do you honestly think that a guy flipping hamburgers in the hot ass kitchen of a fast food restaurant has more in common with some bourgeois pig in his own country living in a gated community sipping mint juleps and bitching about how inefficient his servants are, than he has in common with someone spinning yarn in a sweatshop in some other country? If so there's not much for us to talk about.
I'm not in favor of eliminating cultures. Someone's culture should be embraced as it's a part of them and part of what makes them who they are. Great, no problem. But that doesn't mean that we should allow the world's (and each individual society's) cultural differences to balkanize us into acting like humanity is more than one species. When we do that we are just doing the work of the bourgeoisie. They want us to remain artificially divided with this ethnic group distrusting that ethnic group because it keeps us from coming together and kicking the shit out of them. Who benefits from white workers living in trailer homes fearing and loathing African American workers living in apartments who make the same starvation wages? The working class whites and AAs? Or the parasitic filth that keeps both of them living from hand to mouth? We have to remember who the real enemy is.
get back to me . . .
I had written something and then realized - why don't I just let someone else who may be much more eloquent than I explain just what the heck I am getting at. Here it is: http://www.dickshovel.com/Banks.html
Please read well and digest and get back to me.
Cheers!
too tribal and willfully balkanized for my taste
Russell Means is way too caught up in narrowminded cultural-nationalist thinking to be able to see the forest for the trees so to speak. The answer isn't to distrust everything that doesn't originate within one's own community. Again, that's just lending a helping hand to the ruling elite by ensuring that no one group gains a critical mass of people and that everyone remains divided into tiny ethnic enclaves. He fails to comprehend the big picture and seems too hooked on cultural exclusivity. What's the difference between a white bigot claiming that white-oriented culture is superior to all others and a Lakota Indian claiming that indigenous native culture is superior to all others?
The solution isn't to try to revert to some prehistoric Luddite wet dream of a social order where we all worship "mother Earth" and shun advances in technology and new ideas if they originate with someone who grew up speaking a different language or having a different culture. Likewise Means falls into the same philosophical trap that you seem to be falling into regarding condemning all Marxist thinking by the examples of societies like the Soviet Union that blatantly deviated sharply from genuine Marxist teachings. For example, in Means's railing against Soviet destruction of the environment he overlooks that they were doing so explicitly counter to Marxism. Consider that it states in chapter 2 of the Communist Manifesto that one of the goals of a truly socialist society is "the bringing into cultivation of wastelands and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan." Nowhere does it say to rape the environment. It would be like me criticizing Christianity for advocating the beheading of people that refuse to convert to Christianity when the crusaders were obviously acting completely 180 degrees against what Christ's teachings were. The actions of the crusaders no more condemn Christ's actual teachings than societies claiming to be acting in the name of Marx but pervert and ignore his precepts could be used to condemn Marxism. If I claim to be a radical environmentalist and in the name of the planet decide to go to an oil refinery and execute everyone then cause a giant explosion that destroys the surrounding town then does that mean that environmentalism is ipso facto evil because of what I did? Of course not. This point doesn't need to be belabored, it's self-evident if you think about it.
There are certain universal truths in life. One of them is that if someone who owns a business is allowed to then he or she will inevitably pay his or her workers no more than he thinks he can get away with paying them. Honestly, and this may sting a little but it needs to be said: An African American business owner with a shop in Harlem employing black workers is no more likely to treat them any better than a white business owner in Bel Air would treat his white workers. It is a class issue, a difference of haves and have nots. Moreover, regardless of ingrained prejudices that affect so many of our white brothers and sisters, a black businessman in the conditions of his economic existence has infinitely more in common with white businessmen than he does with his own black workers. The solution: the abolishing of bourgeois property in the interest of the betterment of everyone who isn't of the propertied class. This is the solution whether one is talking about the economically oppressed here or wherever capitalism is the dominant economic system. True human progress can only really be defined in terms of economic equality, of advancing to the stage where nobody is born into poverty and nobody is born into wealth. A society's development has to be measured against how close or how far away it is from that end goal. Maybe I'm ahead of my time, in fact I'm pretty sure I am but that's OK. The world will eventually grow the hell up and the vast majority of its people will eventually decide that what is in their own best interests is also in the best interests of their brothers and sisters of the oppressed proletariat much in the same way that nobody in the developed world sends their kids to work in a coal tipple anymore. It's progress and it can be delayed, it can even be reversed temporarily but it can never and will never be permanently derailed. Progress is inevitable. The bourgeoisie is on borrowed time.
"Likewise Means falls into
"Likewise Means falls into the same philosophical trap that you seem to be falling into regarding condemning all Marxist thinking by the examples of societies like the Soviet Union that blatantly deviated sharply from genuine Marxist teachings. For example, in Means's railing against Soviet destruction of the environment he overlooks that they were doing so explicitly counter to Marxism. Consider that it states in chapter 2 of the Communist Manifesto that one of the goals of a truly socialist society is "the bringing into cultivation of wastelands and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan." Nowhere does it say to rape the environment. It would be like me criticizing Christianity for advocating the beheading of people that refuse to convert to Christianity when the crusaders were obviously acting completely 180 degrees against what Christ's teachings were. The actions of the crusaders no more condemn Christ's actual teachings than societies claiming to be acting in the name of Marx but pervert and ignore his precepts could be used to condemn Marxism."
* you say the "proof is in the pudding" - and if i look at the institutional expressions that bear the name of christ and marx - we see deviations from what the faithful claim is the "real deal" of their respective philosophies. . . . so - what gives? in the real world - can economic theorizing or religious systems be divorced from the cultural mileau which influenced their development or implementation? for example - does a singular god whose only authority on earth being represented by a physical(universal/catholic) not dovetail rather well with the needs of an empire seeking methods of expansion and integration under a universal belief system/administration? my disagreements with marxist theory is that it posits that human societies most important elements are merely economic relationships(thus reducing the human experience to merely economic relationships(without considering and to the detriment and neglect of the countless other things that make a human society whole) - which is exactly what capitalists are guilty of - except they organize the distribution to benefit them.) this is what i am saying marx and his compatriots in the classical economic tradition(of the eurocentric persuasion - capitalists included) are guilty of and is the fault in the logic. as i said - my issue isn't with this "perfect" communism, just as my issue is not with the "perfect" christianity - it is rather with the cultural assumptions that are wrapped up with both of these expressions that may very well have had a bit to do with their "not true to their origin" implementations. i'm saying marxist theory needs to catch up with a more holistic view of reality - maybe divorce itself from some of the cultural assumptions that lay at its core. i am not dismissive of it at all - i am only putting it through the fire. i am saying - that marxism's faults don't lie in its critique of capitalism or its wonderful conclusion that greater good would come from workers having control over the fruits of their labor - but rather with the same cultural assumptions that it shares with its supposed anti-thesis - capitalism.
.
Yes, the proof is in the pudding as it is very easy to tell if any person or society that claims to be Marxist is actually Marxist in the same way that any person that claims to be Christian is actually Christian. It involves nothing more than actually reading their respective literature then comparing and contrasting the actions of the person or society in question with the literature they claim to embrace. Pretty effing simple. Jimmy Swaggart was a con artist. Does that mean Christ and everyone who is a genuine Christian is a con artist?
"my disagreements with marxist theory is that it posits that human societies most important elements are merely economic relationships(thus reducing the human experience to merely economic relationships(without considering and to the detriment and neglect of the countless other things that make a human society whole) "
Well human societies' most important elements that determine its current condition are in fact economic relationships, namely the state of its class struggle. Regardless of national differences, cultural differences, differences in cuisine and religion and its own shared group experiences there is something that is unavoidably present in every capitalist society and looming over it: The oppression of about 95% of its population by the other 5%, give or take a percentage point or two one way or the other. In essence it is unavoidable that with capitalism one has two distinct and extremely unequal sets of people, the haves and have nots. We can massage it and try to reform it and make it into something that has some compassion for the have nots but trying to reform it offers no changes beyond the cosmetic. If it wasn't about the "sanctity" of an individual being able to economically oppress others for his own personal enrichment then it wouldn't be capitalism. As an economic model it works great for the comparatively tiny clique that owns the wealth but for the rest of the people? Not so much. That's why the best bet for the bourgeoisie is to keep us as ignorant of our plight as possible and keep us as divided against one another as possible. Having a narrow focus or disregarding ideas simply because they were put on paper by a white man/European/whatever is closeminded to the Nth degree and playing right into the enemy's hands.
Ultimately what I'm saying is this: Underlying every capitalist society is the same oppression by the haves against the have nots. Yes there are a multitude of different cultures and religions and nationalities and that's a good thing as it would be a pretty damned boring world otherwise. But those differences in no way whatsoever change the fundamental class struggle that itself is the underlying problem within every single capitalist society in the world, just in somewhat varying degrees. That much we all as humans have in common if we live in capitalist countries, that this phenomenon is present. With this economic model it has to be present because capitalism is the polar opposite of anything that places human dignity and worth and the advancement of the average person over the narrow class interests of a tiny well-to-do minority. Anything that says the profit margin is more important than people's lives and well-being is inherently evil to its core and is beyond reforming. Tear it down and start over.
Yes, the proof is in the
Yes, the proof is in the pudding as it is very easy to tell if any person or society that claims to be Marxist is actually Marxist in the same way that any person that claims to be Christian is actually Christian. It involves nothing more than actually reading their respective literature then comparing and contrasting the actions of the person or society in question with the literature they claim to embrace. Pretty effing simple. Jimmy Swaggart was a con artist. Does that mean Christ and everyone who is a genuine Christian is a con artist?
* well that means you pick and choose what to read and what not to read in the literature. for example - christian literature is full of allusions to many of the things that the church was involved in and the justifications whereby it carried out these actions. if we are to get to this "pure Communism" that I know modern Marxist intellectuals like to allude to and want to disassociate from the Soviet and Chinese experiments - then we would need to ignore the Marxist literature which suggests these measures that were surely implemented to some degree in these large scale experiments :
"1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production,"
I mean right there we see the justification for the highly-centralized and bureaucratic state apparatus that many people associate with communism. I know you might say these are only "suggestions" - but these suggestions were borrowed pretty heavily by the Soviet Union and China. Any highly centralized and concentrated system will always betray the good of "the people" it claims to represent. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is just as true for the great centralizing force that finds its manifestation in monopoly capital as it is for a state apparatus that requires all power be granted to it. So while I will agree with the Marxian analysis and critique of capitalism - I find that if it's ultimate goal IS to return the power of the means of production over to the laborer and to encourage more democratic control over society - it's "suggestions" found in its very literature betray this intent and are ill-conceived or just ignorant of the general truth that greater centralization generally does not bode well for a democratic society. If marxists can address these issues head on - then i think there will less aversion to its overall tenants.
In Christian literature one
In Christian literature one doesn't need to go beyond the four gospels and doesn't need to consider anything beyond Christ's actual teachings. Those are pretty straightforward and don't contradict each other. Regarding Marxism, I agree with the vast majority of its tenets but in its application I personally tend to favor a more decentralized approach perhaps somewhat like the anarcho-syndicalist radical leftists in the Spanish Civil War carried out in the territories under their control from 1936-'39. This may just be a problem of interpretation or where the emphasis is placed more than a problem of substance. It isn't the power itself that corrupts a person or a group but the ability to exercise power unchecked with citizens unable to have any recourse or avenue for redress of grievances. This is why I've emphasized transparency in any workers state government. Once the class structure has been smashed it has to be the overriding goal to prevent another class structure from emerging in its place, e.g. a bureaucratic class unto itself that enjoys privileges that the regular citizens do not. This helped sink the Soviet experiment.
When Marx speaks of centralizing this or that in the hands of "the State" he's speaking of the ideal, 100% democratic workers state which would represent the will of the proletariat but even so I like yourself would rather place more power in the hands of local elected councils with the central government being nothing much more than a "meeting place" for representatives of these local councils to decide the few policies that need to be decided at the national level. All of them certainly subject to recall if they stray from the path of what's best for the proletariat. This is true council communism and the Soviet Union would have been a beautiful thing had it maintained this form of government rather than quickly discarding it in favor of their circular logic of "the Bolsheviks always know best and we're the Bolsheviks so we automatically represent the will of the proletariat so there's no need for elections." No way José, that route can't be taken.
Obviously there would have to be some kind of equivalent to a federal government if for no other reason than to organize the common defense of the workers state; in that vein I favor instead of a large standing army like seems to be popular among pseudo-communist countries/deformed workers states rather having a military that is sort of like a high-tech militia that can be called out when needed. Sort of borrowing from the Hezbollah model. It would be nothing that could be used to mount a real invasion and occupation of another country but something that is intended for deterrence against foreign counterrevolutionary incursions.
Regardless I think the key to the whole thing is transparency and ensuring that any central government that would necessarily need to exist would be 100% subject to the workers councils. The best way to accomplish that would be a national-level "parliament" made up entirely of elected workers who also serve in their local councils. That's how I've always envisioned it as it dovetails nicely with worker ownership of the means of production and exchange. Decisions affecting a locality, e.g. whether or not to build a broom factory there or convert acres of pastureland into cropland would have to be approved locally with a referendum, with the federal government in a position to advise but not insist. No permanent bureaucracy and no unelected officials. No career politicians. As long as it is transparent and accountable to the will of the people at every moment then I see no problem in a central government being formed. My difference with Karl Marx is in the emphasis, in that I would want the default to be the decision being made at the local level and anything that could not be decided locally would then have to be decided by the "federal" government which in my opinion should be just an extension of all the local governments.
Above all else we would have to remain careful to not allow any government to become a class unto itself or else we've defeated the whole purpose. I think you and I agree on most of this anyway. We're definitely on the same side.
Gettin' tight in here . . . !
Interesting vision. Yes -we agree on the need for decentralized power to better ensure local control and accountability along with full transparency. And we also agree on the beneficial nature of democratically run worker managed enterprises. Cool.
One further point to round out my positions on intellectual tradition. While we COULD take the 4 gospels of the bible out of the bible and say this represents "true" Christianity. That would mean taking it out of the context of the rest of the bible - including the old testament which Christianity is the direct philosophical/intellectual and cultural inheritor of. By studying some of these other books within the bible, we definitely can understand a bit more about some of the actions the institution of Christianity has taken - including its repression of non-Christians(chosen ones), destruction/demonization of other cultures, manifest destiny, taking more power unto itself in the name of its doctrine, etc. Similarly Marx cannot be divorced from the intellectual tradition that he came from - nor the economic.worldview assumptions that underpin European enlightenment thought. Marx did not exist in a vacuum, and neither does Christianity. There are no magical appearances divorced from cultural experiences/historical continuity - something that is given birth from another inherits features of its progenitor. I am suggesting that this reality is worthy of taking into consideration while we apply the positive and beneficial analysis and suggested courses of action implyed within the Marxist line of thought.
Even if you don't agree with me on that - what matters most is your view and my view are compatible in some very important areas and I would be willing to work with you or ones who held your views towards better ends.
Yeah Sure..
Capitalism can't be fixed. Let's just throw all of history completely out of the window.. Let's forget about America's fight against English finance capital. Let's forget about Lincoln, the civil war, the abolitionist movement, reconstruction, and women's suffrage . It was actually northern industrial capitalism that helped over the agrarian slave system in the south that was supported by the illuminati in Great Britain. Let's forget about FDR, the new deal, and the labor movement. Let's forget about the civil rights movement.
What the American system succeeded at is what your hero Trotsky failed miserably. Remember his "ooriginal" theory oof continuous revolution? LOL!
Your desire for a chaotic collapse of the entire system is irresponsible at best, sinister at worse.
Inevitability
C.N. the system is ALREADY collapsing chaotically whether you like it or not. No disrespect intended, but do some of yall read the essays and articles people post? The Greatest Threat to the Western Way of Life is the Western Way of Life. SUSTAINABILITY folks, don't you get it? Capitalism destroys and poisons your physical environment, that's the inescapable truth. Capitalism worships materialism (even more so) as much as you might allege Marxism or socialism does. We OVER CONSUME people, don't you get it? Don't you understand that our economy is rooted in CONSUMPTION which leads to waste, and environmental degradation? (Think all those empty water bottles wrapping around the earth). Over 3/4 of the US GDP is based on BUYING CHEAP SHIT!! Or unhealthy food.
Or servicing DEBT. Our own and the nation's.
We don't produce shit in this country, isn't that what the vaunted capitalistic system of entrepreunership suppose to counterattack?
That's why the economy is and will remain in a tailspin. As Christopher Hedges has written, "The Elites have lead America off a cliff."
Adopt new verbage, your analysis is straight-jacked by American Exceptionalism, Euro-Centric bullshit. For the last time goddamnit, White folks, Europeans didn't invent the fucking system of trade. We don't need no friggen Euro-Centric worldview as the dominant one, the only "true one," that's bullshit.
I agree with you CN.
Some folks want to replace a flawed system with a failed one. Clinically insane.
unless you're one of the wealthiest 2%...
Unless you're one of the wealthiest 2% capitalism is failing you already whether you're astute enough to realize it or not.
Amen. Plus, you can't say "capitalism" w/o saying "crony"
http://janinewedel.info/harvardinvestigative_InstInvestorMag.pdf
How Harvard lost Russia
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Source: Institutional Investor Magazine, Americas and International Editions
David McClintick
The best and brightest of America's premier university came to Moscow in the1990s to teach Russians how to be capitalists. This is the inside story of how their efforts led to scandal and disgrace.
Yall please give that "capitalism is the only way" shit a break. Friggen Harvard "best and brightest" fucked up Russia. Sheesh.
Btw, is it "comical" or "schizophrenic" that people are defending shit that's crumbling right before their eyes. There WILL BE alternatives to cut-throat, crony capitalism whether one likes it or not. Plus, second history lesson, didn't some of yall's construct of "capitalism" originate in the State/Nation sponsorship. My "D" in econ is weighing on me, but I believe it was called "Mercantilism." You know, same shit that goes on today. Hello East India Tea Company took 400 years for the Indians to wrestle it from the Anglos. "Ahh... 400 years of capitalism at it's finest. LOL
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/08/13/uk.east.india.relaunch/index....
Hey, East India Co, pack some tea - In Indian hands, symbol of ...
London, Feb. 8: The East India Company, whose brand name and controlling interests were acquired by diamond dealer Sanjiv Mehta in 2005, is to open a flagship luxury store in
London’s Mayfair. Mehta, 46, who has lived in the UK for 20 years, told The Telegraph that the East India Company was an instantly recognisable and available global brand name which he wished to develop to sell “luxury goods”.
http://india_resource.tripod.com/eastindia.html
Ha. Yall gone make me an "A" student before shits all said and done.
Exactly.
Exactly.
An opinion from an armchair white intellectual . . .
"And it was a core value in the black community prior to all the government programs initiated in the 60's and 70's."
* I think your statistics are interesting. However I think it falls short to blame all of the increase in the worse off-ness of the Black community on simply an entitlement mindset that you say was fostered after the increase in the welfare state by the gov't. That is kind of short-sighted IMHO. There are plenty of other issues that go along with this. Let's not forget the huge de-industrialization of the country that occurred concurrently with these developments, migration patterns, etc. Loss of economic opportunity was felt hardest amongst those on the lower rungs of the social hierarchy in this country. The integration of Blacks into the greater economy was also coupled with a steadily lowered real wage and the loss of community solidarity that a more segregated social system fostered(paraphrasing Russell Means here). The Black community went from one form of overt segregation to an illusory "kinder, gentler"(and one wonders if this may even be an incorrect assessment given the erosion of families, and communities). Y'all became a large market to be tapped in a one world marketplace(by people who had built their capital originally on historical subsidies of free labor and free land ) rather than a liberated self-determined community. As a side note - "Inner city" culture - pioneered mainly by the ingenuity of Black Americans and other diasporic communities is the most copied and exported form of American "culture" in the world. Corporations controlled by mainly whites are making billions off of an image that has it's intellectual property originating in these areas. Where is the redress? . . .
MLK was invited to the White House when the agenda fit this general trend of introducing traditionally segregated groups into the capitalist economy in a managed way. However when the critique could not be neatly marginalized into just a struggle against the old school form of segregation in the South(vestiges of a dying system as capitalism evolved) and threatened to become a powerful movement questioning the warfare military-industrial capitalist paradigm - this is when MLK became a real threat.
"Not so fast my friend"
You can't conflate Chavez with Castro. Whether you like it or not, Chavez is DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED. Usually in overwhelming majorities. Your criticisms of "socalism" aside, don't buy the Pentagon, CFR, and Mass Media hysteria about Chavez being a dictator. No more "dictator" than GWB who stole 2 elections. (Where was the UN on that one?)
You might aver that Chavez manipulated the Constitution to engineer additional term(s) blah, blah, blah. But didn't the UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT manipulate the Constitution to engineer a Bush win in Florida? Didn't Diebold and the GOP steal Ohio in the subsequent election? How many Black (or other) felons are still denied the right to vote, or work for wages cheaper than those in Barundi under the prison system that incarcerates more people than anyone in the world? Try to start a new political party and watch how much money or how many legal obstacles are placed in your path.
Americans like to believe we are a democracy, we have freedom of speech, we can own "property," blah blah blah. Bullshit. We have manufactured consensus and election results engineered by the Elites. Freedom of speech? Don't make me laugh. How many times do we need to see peaceful protesters arrested whether on sidewalks or the Halls of Congress for speaking truth to power? If most, if not all of us said what we write here at BAR at work, in our local papers, in our churches, we'd be fired and ostracized to high heaven. The "consensus building system" would punish us economically and marginalize us socially for not adopting American Exceptionalism, the root and branch of global racism.
Think 9/11 Truthers.. tell your co-workers you believe 9/11 was an inside job and watch what happens to your performance appraisal. All of a sudden C.N. becomes a "poor fit," "he's not a 'team player' anymore," and soon his ass is unemployed and blackballed. Say what you will in America but pay dearly. Just because we can go to WalMart every other weekend and get on-demand porn don't mean we're "free."
Cuba would be faring much better were it not for the criminal US embargo, Venezuela is doing better than us despite repeated US covert actions to subvert the will of the people. Despite decades of the US foot on it's throat Cuba has the finest medical system in Latin America. Both Castro and Chavez have raised standards of living of the general populace because they don't interpret "property rights" through the Western lense.
Many of these so-called "socialist countries" would do fine if the US just left them the fuck alone. But you know as I do that anyone that doesn't toe the line is a "threat" which typically means anyone who speaks truth to power is a threat. Or anyone who experiments with a different political economy is a "threat." Start kicking up the dust around the lunch/breakroom about the real deal behind 9/11 if you doubt me, and you'll see how fast you on the outside looking in, on the sidewalk eating twinkies standing in the unemployment line.
Hey I'm all for self-help and sufficiency, which Blacks engaged in for millenia in the global sphere and hundreds of year in the American sphere. I mean, exactly WHEN were Blacks fully integrated into the "Capitalist System?" or are we even fully integrated NOW? Somebody please pencil in the date for me. Give the Euro-centric worldview a rest, it's bullshit.
Read the article on Hudson's address to BRIC. "Not so fast my friend."
Bootstraps/Black Capitalism
Glen,
I keep reading your commentary because I like your insights. I am sometimes troubled that the demands of progressives amount to constant complaining, and very few solutions that are viable. However, I agree with most of what you advocate in this article.
"The most fatal flaw in the Black capitalist world view is the assumption that Black people actually have the wealth and discretionary income to build an internal economy that could insulate them from the general capitalist crisis."
I agree that sustained and broad-based political action is our best tool for affecting gains across the Black population. More of us need to understand that this is not a once-every-four-years phenmenon, but a constant effort to produce outcomes we seek. I also agree that there is no "Black Capitalist System" that will free us from the world around us. Yes, the rich and powerful will always be there, as well as the poor. There is no nirvana where all of God's riches are equally distributed. That is a human flaw. Our constant struggle is to find a system of governance that yields the best outcomes.
My observation is that we must grow where we are planted -- in Cuba, Zimbabwe, South Africa, or the USA. There isn't much most of us can do about that. What we have to contend with here in the USA is a capitalist system. It is not likely to be overthrown soon. So we must attempt to seek redress and progress within the representative democracy that governs this capitalist system. It is true that we don't have money for bootstraps, but some of us make more progress than others within this system. And we must use "self-help" and other resources to help those who are less fortunate.
I often think about the Chinese Proverb, which reads, "Don't curse the darkness - light a candle." What you point out is that many don't have a candle or a match to light it with. We need to do both in our system. I am an advocate for improved conditions for the poor and disenfranchised (cursing the darkness), but I have also benefitted from capitalist toil. I prefer to keep making candles, and help light the way for others.
As flawed as USA capitalism is, I still think it is the best system in the world. We need more capitalists with a conscious. We also need our myths and fact checkers. Otherwise, what are dreams for?
The best system in the world??
"As flawed as USA capitalism is, I still think it is the best system in the world. We need more capitalists with a conscious."
I don't understand how you can mention Cuba and not acknowledge the fact, not a myth, that they have survived and prospered for over fifty years. We should be following the Cuban model of healthcare, education, and basic human rights for all. How do you create capitalists with a conscious when capitalism is all about Profits and nothing else!! Many individuals forced to live under capitalism do have a conscious but that conscious is socialist not capitalist.
I almost died laughing
"As flawed as USA capitalism is, I still think it is the best system in the world."
It's not even the best system compared to other capitalist societies like those found in western Europe where at least the workers have a little bit of clout, the government isn't unabashedly union busters and the people are educated enough to realize that socialism isn't a dirty word but the opposite. Capitalism is a heartless and evil system that works great for the wealthiest 1% or 2% or sometimes even 5% of the population but hands a giant shit sandwich to the remaining 95%+ percent and expects them to like it. Capitalism is very good at doing what it's designed to do: Make the rich richer with the consequence of making the poor poorer. It should not be applauded or apologized for but torn down and replaced with a system designed around what's best for the average non-wealthy person, not the average Rockefeller.
post script
"We need more capitalists with a [conscience]. "
There is no such animal. By its nature it would be a contradiction in terms. If they had a conscience they would be on the right side of the class struggle instead of on the side of it that gets rich off of other people's misery and enslavement. Capitalism can no more be reformed than one could polish a turd into a becoming a diamond. The sooner the world moves beyond this piece of shit economic model the better off we will be.
Though it is almost certainly true that as Marx said "When the class struggle reaches its decisive hour ... a small segment of the bourgeoisie will cast itself adrift and join the revolutionary class, the side that holds the future in its hands" and likewise it is also true that as he said "entire sections of the ruling classes are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat or are at least threatened in the conditions of their existence ... because their diminuitive capital cannot compete with modern industry" and thus they are forced down into the proletariat these are just examples of opportunism in the former instance and being overtaken by events and forces beyond their control in the latter.
Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater
Our dependance on the government, be it programs or politicians, has certainly been as disappointing as our attempts at black capitalism. The current administration being a glaring example. Democracy is great unless you're a minority, and damn near useless if you're a devalued minority.
"Do for self" is the most powerful ideology we have for moving ourselves forward. It goes hand in hand with "Think for self". We should "do for self" in the voting booth, in the business sphere, and in Academia.
I understand the focus on "black buying power" is overblown but we've been woefully remiss in dealing with and understanding financial matters. We can't afford to be as wasteful and material oriented as our non-black counterparts. I don't agree that Capitalism is the best system in the world but I do agree that you have to play within the rules of the game. A thorough understanding of the rules and loopholes will allow us to be more creative in how we approach financial endevours.
I'm not at all interested in building a black General Motors. Too many successful black businesses barely last a generation before they become successful white businessess (think Motown or BET). Nor am I interested in upward mobility because I tend to invision blacks chasing after Cadillacs and McMansions. I AM interested in community based economic activity such as microlending though. If there is enough "wealth" in Bangledesh for entrepreneurial activity, there is enough in our community. Let's be creative. And let me put on my rose colored glasses long enough to dream of a day when African resources can be integrated with African-American know-how for our mutual benifit.
As you know, our government only responds to money. Without a firm financial foundation we absolutely end up "begging the white man for something" with out the slightest bit of power behind our requests. And we're stuck on the Democratic plantation knowing that they are the only ones willing to even give up the table scraps.
I concur
I too "dream of the day," whether out of pride or self-preservation, because when it's all said and done, when the Rethugs gain control of the House and/or Senate and the Dummocrats shift further to the right, it behooves our people to be self sufficient, because we'll have no choice. Economics call it "marginalization" I can it being "ass-out." Necessity is the mother of invention, no? The Pan African link is so doable, so achievable, so within real grasp that it's frustrating as hell that AA lack the leadership to seize it, or too many Africans are too selfish and corrupt to seize it.
This is the problem with the present day adapation of capitalism, it's rooted in cronyism, excess material consumption, and additionally, the "Rose-Colored Glasses" most see is fractured by the prism of Euro-Centric capitalism. If Black folk understood real economic power they would stop begging white folks, stop turning store-fronts into churches, the ten thousandth church on the block with a congregation of 20. The Bible said, "greater is he that is within me," didn't say nothing about "pie in the sky." We're too damn afraid and conditioned (so it appears) to break the cycle and put on your and my glasses that capture a whole new light, people are too scared and conditioned and enthralled to the establishment or to enthralled with material trinkets to break the chains that hold them.
But one day soon people (like the Tea Party is doing on a certain level) will ponder (albeit differently--hopefully--than the TP) what is "my" stake in capitalism? That day is upon most of us, for other's is fast approaching around the corner.
I don't understand why people can't deal with "less material" shit, because that's damn sure what they gone get in the future. That and a big screw job from the political establishment.
Maybe we can revisit this conversation on "capitalism" after November or the first of the year when Obama and his "Catfood Commission" rolls back Social Security and Medicaid. That's goning to be some interesting shit, we'll see if Mommy and Daddy and Aunt Sue and Uncle Billie accept Obama's excuse that "the Rethugs made me do it." LOL
I can't wait the suspense (and possible, I stress possible awakening) are killing me. LOL Who knows, we might see the Old School Civil Rights vets rolling down Penn. Ave. in their wheelchairs and strollers and shit singing "We shall Overcome...some day." Maybe at that point Obama will finally be a "transformative President." LOL
STOP CRYING AND WHINING AND DO-FOR-SELF
There is no reason why black people can't "do for self" when you consider that what others have that they read a book has "how to" acheive, impliment and acquire the paths they have chose to get where they are now therefore what one person... can learn to read so can another.
There is "no where" black people can hope to go or acheive whereas we can bypass reading to get there.
Black people refuse to read, don't like to read, want to read or wish to read.
Black people choose to take the path of the least resistance while crying and whining like the author of the article i am responding to that: "we don't have bootstrap money"
The authors strategy appears to be or imply: Dear goverment, Dear white man, give me, lend, me, can you spare, take me here, take me there, pick me up, push me and will you carry me?
FORGET ABOUT IT! " DO FOR SELF" OR PERISH BUT PLEASE BY ANY MEANS NECCESARY STOP WHINING ABOUT HOW THE WHITE MAN HAS MORE THAN ME!
DEAR BLACK AMERICA 2010 http://chicagosblackbusinessnetwork.ning.com/profiles/blogs/black-america-2010-dont-drink
Euro Troll Falling
It is obvious that you have no firsthand aquaintance or knowledge of African-Americans (AA's). Your comments are dripping with venomous rightwing propaganda:
In your social milieu, such tripe makes perfect sense. After all, coming to this site and dumping your anger and frustration about your spiraling impoverishment is easier than facing the reality of your own people shipping your job to China and India and getting rewarded with tax breaks. Bashing AA's blunts the pain of MegacorpMart destroying your small town economy (with its millions of stable family businesses and jobs) with the lowest price and leaving you with nothing but boarded up windows, oxycotin and meth labs.
So you listen to hate radio, look at Faux News and frequent internet hate sites to salve your hurt instead of organizing your fellow sufferers and demanding that the government becomes an extension of the people (all of them) instead of a tool of Megacorps to destroy lives and livelihoods.
Yes, EuroTrollFalling, why should you do anything productive and proactive? After all you still have your pale skin and all of the privileges that it confers. Anti-AAism worked for PawPaw and his pals. The question is: in ten, twenty or fifty years will it still work for you?
May I suggest someone devise a new nomenclature
Part of the difficulties in establishing new paradigns is because of the uncritical acceptance of "received wisdom" about what particular, iconic terms mean. Below is a definition of capitalism and it's one that's clearly slanted towards the "system." As evident by arguing that MOST importantly is a "moralistic system." Get that, a moralisitic system. LOL Now anyone with half a brain knows better.
http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Politics_Capitalism.html
Here's another analysis that get's at my point:
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Capitalism#Capitalism_in_political_ideo...
"Many Greens, Marxists and anti-Globalists agree that the governments of the major industrial economies are not serving in the role of protecting "the free market", but would go on to say that these governments are, in fact, acting to protect the owners of capital and corporations as their first priority, sometimes expressed as "socialism for the rich, capitalism (cut throat competition) for the poor." These critics, therefore, would assert that the correct term for the core industrial nations is neither capitalism, nor mixed economy, but corporatist. Libertarians and other free-market advocates may also share this opinion regarding some or all of the major economies.
Nevertheless, mainstream economists, for their part, admit that the present economic systems have diverged from earlier forms labeled "capitalism", and many believe that some of the modern economies are still best described as being "capitalism" rather than "mixed economy" or "corporatist.""
There you have it folks. Capitalism is a loaded term. It is also distinctively Euro-centric and thus ethnocentric. It comes encrusted with American (and Western) Exceptionalism and other potent toxins. (Which is why it underlines the rhetoric of the Tea Party)
Why are we describing the exchange of goods and services, whether through trade or batering or other forms of mutual economic exchange as "capitalism?" We need to be mindful that "trade" existed long before capitalism, long before the system of indebtedness that followed capitalism, long before excess production/consumption or concepts of private property, long before the Euro-centric political economy. Capitalism makes us "slaves" although we think we're free. The system squashes free thought and speech, punishes us economically if we speak or write or otherwise step outside the box. The system will blackball us into extreme poverty.
Fuck the western definition of capitalism which is racist, ethnocentric, and narrow minded. Africans, Asians and other cultures were engaged in trade when Whites were still in caves or warring for 100 years. That's not intended as an expression of who's superior, just a simple expression of FACTS. And most importantly a reminder that the "West" didn't invent free trade. We don't need no stinkin capitalism, we can create fairer instruments of trade. Islamic culture for instance frowns on usury to this very day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Africa
"Humanity originated in Africa, and as soon as human societies existed so did economic activity. Earliest humans were hunter gatherers living in small, family groupings. Even then there was considerable trade that could cover long distances. Archaeologists have found that evidence of trade in luxury items like precious metals and shells across the entirety of the continent."
Thanks to you all for the many insightful suggestions. But let's keep in mind that usage of the term "capitalism" is full of unnecessary baggage. It confuses and stunts the dialogue between "Left" and "Right." The Left wants to categorically assume capitalism is unfair but yet want to be fairly rewarded for their talents and labors, the Right assumes socialism is bad, yet negates the fact that capitalism institutionalizes inequalities. The language is nothing but an intellectual straight jacket.
Until we begin to think outside the box in terms of what is or isn't "capitalism," until we acknowlege the true origins and facts of world commerce and trade we'll continue to hamstring our efforts to create a new and workable paradignm. Everybody engages in trade, but not all trade is "capitalistic." Well, it certainly doesn't have to be so, does it??
Another View
In this article, Glen Ford states: “Simply put, there ain't no damn money for these bootstrap capitalism dreams, and there never was. [Emphasis mine]
I see things differently. I agree that seeking economic redress is important. After all, the government has taken our money through taxes for decades and created wealth building programs for Euro-Americans while deliberately and systematically excluding African-Americans (AA’s). From GI Bill college benefits to VA Home loans, Euro-Americans have benefitted handsomely from a system that still bouys them. The only way that we will ever benefit from from our own tax dollars is if we push and push hard.
And at the same time, I do feel AA’s have the intelligence and the capacity to pull together and create an internal economy. AA’s have done it before:
1. In Baltimore and Philadelphia in the early 1800’s, Free AA’s dominated the maritime trades, especially shipbuilding. Between 1790 and 1850 AA carpenters, sailmakers, caulkers, riggers and ropemakers formed the bulk of the maritime workforce. Merchant marine ships often had one third to one half AA crew members. It was in the skilled trade of caulking or waterproofing the ships that AA’s excelled. By 1838, AA caulkers had formed the Caulker’s Association, a trade union that allowed them to negotiate wages and working conditions with shipwrights. In the book, Freedom’s Port: The African-American Community of Baltimore, 1790-1860, author Christopher Phillips describes how AA’s built on this stable employment base to start autonomous churches, purchase land, start businesses, schools and eventually the beginnings of a political voice.
In a review of this book, Laura Croghan Kamoie describes the intense backlash by Euro-Americans (native and immigrant) which culminated in a failed re-enslavement movement by native Euro-Americans and a successful job-busting campaign by German and Irish immigrants.
2. In Tulsa, OK in the first two decades of the 20th century, AA’s built the Greenwood District filled with homeowners and AA owned businesses. The district even had its own bus system. This remarkable community, dubbed the “Black Wall Street” was destroyed by envious Euro-American mobs in a weeklong rampage of arson, looting, rape and murder in the spring of 1921.
3. In Detroit’s Paradise Valley between the 1920’s to the 1960’s, AA’s built a thriving commercial and entertainment district that provided jobs and supported a professional class. This district was literally bulldozed out of existence by the construction of Interstate 75, which like most interstates ravaged AA communities.
In each of those instances, local (which include Euro-American mobs sanctioned by local government) or national governments worked to destroy those early AA economies. Bootstrapping in this country is applauded for every group but AA’s. In fact, the whole Asian “Model Minority” stereotype is often used as a cudgel against AA’s. We are often told, “if they can do it, why can’t you?” Yet, historically when AA’s bootstrap and build, our efforts are greeted with hostility and naked aggression.
I think the deeper issue is not one of whether AA’s have money for bootstrapping but why cohesive, prosperous AA communities are considered a threat to vast swaths of the Euro-American population and their allies.
Co-signing
"Here, here." And would you (we) also agree that the same modus operandi has been activated on a global scale. Anytime an Asian, African or Latin American country/nation wanted to control their own resources and design their own institutions and cultures or devise their own political economy they were considered a "threat" and subsequently subjected to the full panoply of the United Facist States of America: boycotts, embargos, sanctions, assassinations, funding of political opposition, infilitration of government and media, and when all else failed, full-throttle military invasion.
Agreed, EC
Agreed, EC. The name of the game is repression. If AA's and Africans on the continent were in control of their own resources and doing well, racist propaganda would be so glaring as to be unbelievable.
Also, controlling AA's makes it easier to control all of the other groups. AA's are a demonstration project in the US, like the Greeks are in Europe: "do as we say or else you will end up like them !"
Thanks for this important contribution here, Afroseer!
The limousine liberals have an interest in constantly branding Africans as a hopelessly incompetent charity case (I guess that's why China is kicking their ass in Africa):
Poor idea, Bono: Nothing says, "Wipe out AIDS and poverty" like Band-Aids and a black-and-white cookie.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/poor_idea_bono_bsUzJMfT2mBJbqyXgp6YoO
The devil is a liar!
'NEVER FORGET' the peaceful, quiet, self sufficient and prosperous town of Rosewood, Florida:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre
This story was the basis of the script for one of my favorite films, "ROSEWOOD." 300 innocent, good, pious, JESUS CHRIST LOVING people massacred for no reason. All government had to do was protect our right to live a happy life on our land and leave us alone. Add this to the very long list of government ineptitude. Right next to Katrina. The "Black left" knows that what I'm saying is truth.
Also Afroseer, you might want to take a closer look at the original Pan-Africanist. The precursor to Marcus Garvey and Malcolm. I'm talking about god fearing, JESUS CHRIST LOVING American patriot, philanthropist, and merchant, Paul Cuffee:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cuffee
Even thought he failed (and I think he should've focused on creating a stronger Black power base in American FIRST, then moved on to African issues), you still have to study the man that created the biggest INDEPENDENT mass Black movement in the history of the United States of America.
Marcus Garvey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Garvey
(Interesting who he blames for his downfall)
As you already know, wiki may not be a adequate reference but I didn't have the time. Perhaps you have better sources.
.
.
Where is the World Economy Headed?
By MICHAEL HUDSON
Last Thursday Michael Hudson addressed the Council of Economic Advisors to the President of Brazil (CDES) . He offered an unsparing description of how the global economy is being shaped and exploited by Northern bankers. Then he outlined the ways in which Brazil and other major “BRIC” economies – Russia, China, India – can steer an independent path and thus preserve and improve their nations’ condition . CounterPunch is delighted to feature here Dr Hudson’s very striking address. AC/JSC
http://www.counterpunch.org/
a thought to ponder
I will pose this question again......... What if we got what we wanted......... A president and a Congress that said "No More War" and meant it. How would we do it? You are looking at an unemployment figure that would be at LEAST 60%.
I don't know about that
Considering the country's infrastructure is literally falling down around our ears I think there is a hell of a lot of opportunity out there for people to be employed in rebuilding it if we had a government that put a priority on employment rather than toadying to the oil barons. Who really benefits from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Those who 1.want to force a different way for natural gas to be transported out of Turkmenistan without having to go through Russia or Iran; 2.those who want to take advantage of Iraq as the soon-to-be center of gravity of the 21st Century world's oil production and get their hooks in it to privatize its resources into being subsidiaries of Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco and Conoco Phillips; 3.the armaments manufacturers; 4. the mercenary "contractors" like Blackwater/Exe, Triple Canopy etc. In other words a pretty small slice of the American population.
The enormous amount of corporate giveaways to this tiny sliver could be infinitely better spent on programs of social uplift and employment projects like a second New Deal. Maybe call it the Real Deal? The late great Dr. King once said that "Any society that spends more on military defense than it spends on programs of social uplift is headed for spiritual death." From where I sit its spiritual EKG is looking pretty damn shaky.
I usually don't reply to (overt) racist...
But aren't we looking at something worse (extinction) than unemployment?
And let's say that the world is completely conquered by one entity and there are no enemies left except the civilian population? Are the guns and eugenics programs then fully applied on the goys in the name of "jobs"?
This is coming from someone that knows that money has no intrinsic value if you can't use it to feed, cloth and house your family when shit hits the fan, and the bankster financed left wing (and rightwing) anarchist who hate America has their way: A Break down of the entire system.
I know that "the master race" has their fully automated underground bunkers, but what about the common man?
The gambling and these draining wars are bankrupting this country and the sleeping giant that is the white masses are taking note of who are responsible for getting us into this mess. I know I shouldn't be having these thoughts, but I've been thinking that certain elitist groups want to avoid what happened in europe in the 1930's, and instead have the white man's raft visited upon the heads of hispanics and Blacks -instead of them- when the collapse of the world economy happens (again).
E.C.
This is why I promote American White, Black, Hispanic unity every chance I get. I'm a bit of a troll, but my words are not aimed at you or "Y"
@CN
.. I enjoy your contributions substantially, even when I disagree with some or all of what you say. I don't mind that kind of "trolling." In case you didn't notice, I'm something of a contrarian myself. Sometimes I do it sincerely, sometimes to provoke discussion. Though I appear to get "personal" on occassion that's not the case. I write how I write because it's what I'd say if we were in the back yard or a bar. In most cases it's my twisted take on the Socratic method or reality. I like most posts whether I agree or not because I enjoy the intellectual jousting. I get a little snarky or sarcastic but that has as much to do with not taking myself too seriously as pushing the envelop.
I adamantly believe in Black self-help and I am aware of the dependency pitfalls of welfare. But as I once wrote in response to an article in governing.com eschewing "federal funds," fuck that, (that wasn't in the article): "Grant me my Grants!" Let's get rid of "Black" welfare when we get rid of "White" welfare, the welfare given to the business class.
We confuse what "government handouts" are, they're okay if it's WASPish and "business-like" in nature, tax abatements, historical tax credits, "enterprise zones," subsidies and the like that actually inhibit COMPETITION, whereas, some believe not helping Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Mae with Medicaid or Niecy with Section 8 is okay, but it's good to help Boeing, Lockheed, and Martin-Marietta. I say Bullshit! "Grant me my Grants!"
Plus some of yall write that flowery, academic shit way better than me. We are fingers on the hand. lol
p.s. You sure love u some Alex Jones, Bro. I agree with some of Infowars/Prison Planet material, but some of that shit is specious. Isn't Jones accused of being a Zionists? Wouldn't that make him part of the Illuminati or at least a kissing cousin? LOL
Have a great day my friend. Hope no one takes what I say personal, I'm just f***king wit ya. Consider it the "intellectual's eqivalent of the "dozens" lol!!! You know sometimes when you bring an argument home, it cuts through all that hi-falutin stuff. There's a method to my madness. lol
Economics 101: “Capitalism” is a WASP Construct, get over it
Lord Have Mercy.. Blacks/Africans were engaged in trade for millennia. They were engaged in trade under the US slave regime. It’s what’s called “underground economy.” It’s the same thing that’s happening in the ghetto, or so-called Third World countries.
(It’s gone be happening in the US soon as we learn to barter instead of buying shit we can’t afford. The fucking economy might evolve around one big, constant “yard sale”).
AA don’t need to “prove” self-sufficiency, simply need to recall its roots. Since the advent of capitalism we’ve always been engaged in a “parallel” economic system, shunned, abused and left out of “capitalism.” C.N., funny, but it was under the “capitalist” system that the welfare system of dependency was erected?!
And speaking of “don’t throw the baby out with the bath water..” Goddamnit, give my tax receipts to people who need it!!! Give it to WIC, Section 8, child-care, community colleges, the elderly, the sick, the infirmed., NOT General Dynamics, Bechtel, NGOs, Sugar and Corn subsidies, the MIC, and other WASPS pimping the system, selling me on some bullshit they call “capitalism.” Notwithstanding my “D” in econ I do understand that all economies are mixed. Capitalism is practiced in Russia, China, and yes Cuba, in varying degrees. HA, in fact the Chinese are kicking our asses at it. China is reinventing the Green Economy while dumb fuck Americans jerk off to Sarah Palin.
Get over your WASP construct. Blacks were self-sufficient because first and foremost we were inventive and industrious, fast forward to "modern times" and we were locked out of opportunities by “capitalism,” we were self-sufficient for THOUSANDS OF YEARS because we were master craftsman, farmers, and traders, mathematicians and scholars. For the sake of my sanity and promise not to use 4 letter words in lieu of grandiose economic principles, would yall please go back and review history, please take off your “Rose-Colored Glasses of Ameri/Euro-Centricity,” the goddamn universe wasn’t created with the advent of the “Age of Enlightment” or “Industrialization.” No more than God/Allah/Yaweh/ came into existence the last 2000 or so years.
I know some of yall don't like history but it is what it is and no amount of "mythology" will change the facts on the ground.
Update: One more thing about your prescious captalism. I'm listening to Anthony Shadid inform Terry Gross on NPR Fresh Air that US sanctions destroyed Iraq's Middle Class. And yet dumb fuck Americans think sanctions will engineer "regime change" in Iran,-- by whom ass holes? The Middle Class you're destroying through the sanctions? My oh my. Capitalism like Democracy is a whore, willing to dress up or dress down.