capitalism

A response to the debate on socialism between YouTuber Destiny and author/professor Ben Burgis, from a libertarian-socialist / libertarian-communist perspective. Topics covered:

1. Are capitalists immoral?
2. Can socialism overcome incentives to destroy the environment?
3. Will widespread ignorance continue in socialism?
4. Can socialism provide a strong, thriving economy?

Also: Marx gets a makeover! (In the literal, not revisionist sense!)

On re-reading this piece, what is striking about the picture of the working class in capitalism's self-styled service economy in 2006 is how much it resembles the situation today. After decades of capitalist restructuring in the face of problems stemming from the declining rate of profit (problems by no means confined to the economy of the UK) there are now recognisable constants in the socio-economic profile of the 'restructured' working class.

It did not take the fatal consequences of recent record temperatures in Western Europe, or the recent wildfires in California, monsoon floods in Nepal, India and Bangladesh or the Mozambique cyclones, to tell us that something has radically shifted in the world’s climate. The existential threat of human-created climate change to life on the planet has been understood for decades. NASA, among others, first sounded the alarm about global carbon emissions in 1988 and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed the same year.

Part three of this series was published in 2005, two years or so before the great financial crash when the economic pundits were lauding the move away from manufacture to 'business and financial services'.