Tag: capitalism

Treating the symptoms, ignoring the disease

The patchwork nature of American politics makes it difficult to stay ahead of the smaller indignities that the capitalist system imposes on its subjects.

Issues are subdivided in a taxonomy of specificity; a hard line/border is imposed keeping us from looking at issues within a larger context of economic interest.

National security and war issues are separate from environmental issues, which are separate from the question of jobs, which is separate from immigration policy, which is separate from the political corruption of our campaign finance system. The fact that the same people benefit from decisions made across these categories gets forgotten — or is purposely hidden.

The nexus, however, is not difficult to discern: Our oil addiction creates massive profits for the oil companies, fouls the air and water, leads to the destruction of pristine land, drives our foreign policy, enriches arms companies and the military contracting and consulting business. High gas prices — a result of the addiction and a driver of profits — drives up food prices and the cost of all goods, which in turn raises costs for business, which in turn cuts into profits and leads to layoffs. Oil exploration damages land and water that produce food, driving up prices just as much as transportation costs drive up prices.

The linkages are massive and complex and right out in the open. We can see the system in action, but refuse to attack it. The problems we see — poverty and hunger, climate change, war, illegal immigration — are the symptoms of the larger disease of corporate capitalism. We must fight the smaller battles, but we can’t lose sight of the larger cause of what ails us.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Capitalism and democracy are not synonymous

Fang Li-Zhi, a Chinese dissident, reminds us that China’s growing economy means little for its commitment — actually, lack of commitment — to democracy and human rights. Using the occasion of Liu Xiaobo’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, Li-Zhi commends the Nobel committee for

challeng(ing) the West to re-examine a dangerous notion that has become prevalent since the 1989 Tiananmen massacre: that economic development will inevitably lead to democracy in China.

Increasingly, throughout the late 1990s and into the new century, this argument gained sway. Some no doubt believed it; others perhaps found it convenient for their business interests. Many trusted the top Chinese policymakers who sought to persuade the outside world that if they continued pouring in their investments without an embarrassing “linkage” to human rights principles, all would get better at China’s own pace.

More than 20 years have passed since Tiananmen. China has officially become the world’s second-largest economy. Yet the hardly radical Liu Xiaobo and thousands of others rot in jail for merely demanding basic rights enshrined by the U.N. and taken for granted by all Western investors in their own countries. Apparently, human rights have not “inevitably” improved despite a soaring economy.

This seemed obvious to those of us critical of mindless globalization (a globalization that eschewed an imposition of international rules). Maybe Xiaobo’s peace prize will wake everyone else up to the idea.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. it can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.