Re: Satan, Your kingdom Must Come Down
blah b b blah (jrovira@juno.com)
Wed, 17 Mar 1999 22:31:43 -0500 (EST)
Ugh, more one sided political ANAL-ysis :).
In the meantime, Cuba and the former Soviet Union (as well as communist
China, for that matter), are edging either slowly or by leaps and bounds
closer and closer to capitalism. Cuba (from reports by eyewitnesses I
know personally, who have been there recently) is in the very shape "now"
that you predict western society to be in "one day."
Many cities have raw sewage running down the streets, the grocery stores
are pitifully empty (and I mean that literally--bare shelves), and forget
about getting gas.
For the average person, that is. Not for the, eh, "elite" that's not
supposed to exist.
And let me tell you about a recent "event" in Cuba that you won't hear on
the news or in an academic journal, for that matter. One day a guy in
Havana set up "shop" in a square. People waited for him to be arrested
after two or three days. That's what usually happens. A week went by
and he didn't. So someone else set up "shop." After about a month there
was the equivalent of a flea market (open air market) in that square.
That was last year. I don't know what's happening now.
If our heads were really pulled completely out of our arses we'd see that
there's a necessary tension between an absolute free market and an
absolute guided market that needs to be maintained. One side or the
other needs to be weighted depending on the situation. In dire
circumstances such as the Great Depression a system approximating
socialism may be necessary for awhile until the economy starts to grow
again. But once growth has started, a 'hands off" approach is necessary
to allow growth to take place. We're in a growth cycle now in America,
and the current policy seems to have been to keep the brakes on simply to
keep the growth from happening too quickly and getting us into inflation.
It seems to have been working so far.
The rich envy the poor everywhere, America as well, and tend to blame
them for their poverty. Nations act like people, you know...
But I'm not kidding myself about the selfishness of corporations, either.
Nor am I kidding myself about the selfishness of those who complain
about the selfishness of corporations. I'd rather a competent, greedy,
evil capitalist was in charge than a stupid, compassionate,
victim-mentality spokesman for the herd. At least the pig won't be self
defeating.
Now, even within this context you'll have people that will see the
absolute free market as a philosophical ideal, while there will be others
that see some form of a Marxist society as an absolute ideal. Those
concerns need to be dealt with on a level other than the need at the
moment.
But for history's sake, the countries that seem to have had the greatest
prosperity for the greatest number of people have been capitalist.
China's socialist revolution did it a world of good, but it has to start
moving toward capitalism (and it has) if it's going to outgrow its
current status as the most powerful third world nation on earth.
But that's just my opinion :)
Jim
>>
>>
>>Why would you say the Bad Ol' Days of Capitalism? Capitalism is great
>>and it's what makes the world go round.(: I can not imagine what it
>>would be like living in a non capitalist society.
>>-Liz Friedman
>>
>
> Capitalism is a system which creates winners and losers by its very
>nature. If you're one of the ones winning in this proposition it's
>super
>groovy. On the other hand.... The reality is the stakes are so high
>and
>becoming more out of the reach of the majority of folks, that to
>believe
>that a horrible backlash isn't inevitable is naive. Remeber that the
>bloodiest war ever fought on this planet immediately followed the
>Great
>Depression.
>
> There are a lot of "little"people in the world these days starting
>to
>question how it is their societies became subserviant to ours. I
>think that
>if you are fully embracing capitalism as this point in time that you
>resemble those folks in the cafes in Havana on new Year's Eve in 1958.
> I
>don't know, it just seems to me that the big ride is going to be
>ending
>soon. How drastic the fallout is remains to be seen. It could just
>mean that
>there are a lot fewer Lexuses being released or perhaps people will
>be
>protecting their grain stores By Any Means Necessary.
>
> That's just me, of course.
>
>
> Robert Morris
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>> Hear, hear. I often wonder if one day we'll look at the world now
>as
>>the
>>> Bad Ol' Days of capitalism. Surely it's gotta hit rock bottom
>sooner
>>or
>>> later or we're all going to be economically rationalised out of
>>meaningful
>>> existence.
>>>
>>> Camille
>>> verona_beach@geocities.com
>>> @ THE ARTS HOLE http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
>>> @ THE INVERTED FOREST http://www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest
>>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
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