What's Called "Capitalism" Is Far from Any Model of Capitalism or Market

[TexasTowelie]

Predators and prey. The homeless and left-behind are at the bottom ("decomposers&quot . Most of everyone else is in the next layer up ("producers&quot . The rest, from the well-off to the wealthy, are "consumers." Interesting how that language works, isn't it?

A recent piece I did on the British Labour politician Tony Benn featured a speech that offered a "history of neoliberalism" (click here to read and listen). Near the beginning of the speech, Benn said, "This country and the world have been run by rich and powerful men from the beginning of time." Consider that for a moment, what that means about the arc of human history.

Near the end of his short talk, referencing the Thatcher (and Reagan) counterrevolution against the great populist gains of the 19th and 20th centuries, he said that this is "what the whole [modern] crisis is about, the restoration of power to those who've always controlled the world, the people who own the land and the resources and all the rest of it."

That radical re-transformation of the world back to control by its original and longtime owners, "rich and powerful men," was begun in England by Margaret Thatcher and several deliberate policies. Benn (my emphasis): "So privatization is a deliberate policy, along with the destruction of local democracy and the destruction of the trade unions to restore power back to to where it was."

Benn also mentions the role of crushing personal debt in the Thatcher de-democratization of her society:

What she said, and this is very clever, "You can buy your council house so you'll be a property owner. You may not be able to get a wage increase, but you can borrow." And the borrowing was deliberately encouraged because people in debt are slaves to their employers."

- See more at: http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2015/09/whats-called-capitalism-is-far-from-any.html#sthash.IDH8bJ4n.dpuf

[Ghost Dog]

1. Nicely put:

For almost all of the time since humanity left the Stone Age, the mass of humans have been ruled by the rich and powerful, until the opening of a very brief window initiated, as Benn tells it, by the trade union movement of the mid-1800s.

That small window is now closing. We're watching the end, if we allow it, of this one-time-only freshwater teardrop in time, as it falls to become lost in the deep well of our salt-water civilized past. (And don't be confused. If that small window, the 250-year period of relative freedom, closes — if "rich and powerful men" regain full control as they have almost already done — they will also end the 5,000-year window of human civilization. Because, climate.)

[freebrew]

2. Capitalism is just a game...

Parker Bothers invented it: MONOPOLY

[Lychee2]

3. OK, but why does that mean that what's called "capitalism" isn't really capitalism?

Inquiring mind wants to know.