skip to main |
skip to sidebar
The fundamental problem of political philosophy is still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly (and that Wilhelm Reich rediscovered): Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?
I would argue that people are a product of their institutions, not institutions as a product of people. This means that behaviors are a reflection of cultures and heirarchies. For instance, in this alienating, wealth-accumulating, capitalist system we live in makes people so malcontent, individualist, and absurd.
ReplyDeletePeople fight for the right to be oppressed because they are not free. People live to make money because they don't understand the value of wealth.
TO change this, you wouldn't need some amazing PR blitz or a unifying enemy, but the elimination of the factors that create people who live to take orders.
i've come across the same issue as to who is at fault -- the system or the people defining the system--obviously not one or the other but a combination of the two--from a logical perspective we assume that first came people and from them grew large institutions--i think we've broken that threshold and have produced a self-intensifying loop(to use an anthropological term) / a combine(a more metaphorical term) that now in turn reinforces specific actions and ideas...as one aspect of capitalism rises or as more 'capital' is freed the other characteristics are allowed to flourish too--and their flourishes such as technological advances reinforces and promotes the abundance of capital -- and so on and so forth
ReplyDeleteYet capitalism is a heirarchal system - there are very very few people at top. The same way that one business if it has ten stores, can operate at a loss and drive down prices, eventually running ten small scale businesses out ... capitalism allows very very few people to impose their will the rest. Business do not have to get back. Power structures do not have to keep growing. This growth mindset encompasses all aspects of life as does its converse; sustainability.
ReplyDeleteSo yes - capitalism is a self-intensifying system but toward what end. I believe that its end is the accumulation of wealth. But who owns this wealth? that top one percent, whom with a greater percentage of wealth, continue to grow more wealthy and powerful while the rest are slowly falling farther and farther behind.
ReplyDeleteSo capitalism does come from people - that top one percent, who have more money and therefore matter more as people who continue to reinforce the institution of capitalism for the sake that I described above.
*Business do not have to get bigger*