Capitalism's Century on Life Support

Ninety years ago, capitalism was near death, or at least, it'll be 90 years in October. Black Tuesday happened in October in 1929. A few years later, FDR was elected as president and decided it would be best to put capitalism on life support with a jobs program and Social Security.

The policy was expanded upon during and after World War 2 and for a while, everything went as well as it could have given the fact that the US Empire was an apartheid state in all but name. After all, people of color were largely excluded from the whole thing when farm hands and domestic workers were prohibited from receiving Social Security and Medicare.

Then, in 1980, capitalism went into brain death, though the corpse was kept on life support so the capitalists could harvest and sell off the organs to the highest bidder. And so, for the last forty years, the decaying corpse of capitalism has spread its rot and fetid stench throughout the world. That didn't stop the capitalists from putting on a few band-aids and playing some music to make the corpse dance, as if to make it look as though it were living a la Weekend at Bernie's after the beginning of the Second Great Depression in 2007 with massive bailouts in 2008 and 'Stimulus' hush money in 2009 for the plebs. Oh, and don't forget the Pyrrhic Dodd-Frank horseshit and Romneycare going national.

And now, we have 'Socialists' such as Bernie Sanders or AOC trying to revive the corpse again with the watered-down Green New Deal and the corporate co-opted "Medicare for All" that do nearly nothing while keeping the power structures of capitalism and imperialism intact.

Why don't we just give it the burial that we should have 100 years ago and find a new path instead of begging the pigs to put a velvet glove on the iron fist of the zombie of capitalism?

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6RXRKlGsV8]

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

The Aspie Corner's picture

The Scholars by Wu Ching-Tzu

Some people would say that the Art of War, the Tao Teh Ching, the I Ching, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West are the most important writings in the history of China. While they are great works in their own right, I'd have to disagree.

This one is far more important because it explains the lies of meritocracy through biting satire. A similar critique could certainly be applied to the modern US Empire given our own decline over the last 100 years.

up
0 users have voted.

Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Big Al's picture

in the sense of private ownership and rights. Of course I shouldn't say never. Maybe the best we can do is take over the major corporations and banks, particularly the federal reserve system, or at least prevent monopoly capitalism if that's even possible. But capitalism and the ideology behind it at the lower levels seems so ingrained it's hard to imagine a complete change to true socialism. That doesn't mean we can't find a happy medium.

Funny though, I scanned an article a couple days ago making the case that much of our government is actually socialism for the rich and their corporations and banks. The "free market" lemmings don't realize, or won't admit, that the big government they rail against is actually their biggest protector and enabler.

Then combine all the other socialist type programs we have in this country, from the school systems to roads to medicare, and Trump's calling to nationalize 5-G, and previously referencing taking over Amazon, the entire argument regarding capitalism vs socialism is filled with ignorance and hypocrisy.

Perhaps all this talk from the dems about Medicare for All Improved, or a nationalized health care system which can only be achieved by becoming a non-profit function of society, is being purposely neutered by the fake debate about socialism

up
0 users have voted.

As a engineer I like to say that with capitalism you get the society that you designed, which is to say that you didn't therefore you don't. It's a faith based system. You have to have faith that you will get economic justice and social justice beamed down from outer space. The elite and the greedy will always win. For Socialism to grow and be popular the challenge is to design economies that are efficient with resources, that includes people. I think that it is possible to do that now especially using AI. If a socialist economy can outperform a capitalist economy in a set of reasonable metrics, then there is no reason to feed the sharks. The challenge is to get the people invested in that, and I don't mean by propoganda, but by actual measurable metrics.
When I was in China I asked some friends there why the Tianamen Square protest had no follow-on. I got two answers. The people were very satisfied with economic progress and were not willing to upset that cart, and secondly they knew the US model for capitalism and the US form of democracy and did not want the same for China.
I think that success works and we have to design a socialist system that works well and people will embrace it. The problem for socialism in the 20th century was one thing, the US. The great depression almost killed capitalism, if it wasn't for FDR. But he really did not succeed and it took a war to end the depression and save capitalism. Sound familiar?
The capitalists will claim that you are stealing wealth from them. But the truth is that they have been stealing a fair living from the people for centuries.

up
0 users have voted.

Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

#23
Completely defund the CIA and all of the block ops associated with that branch of the empire 's government. Take care of a lot of this shit. Revolution is happening baby. Let's just re-write the rules.

up
0 users have voted.