American Capitalism vs. Democratic Socialism Reader

[Eric Rosenbloom]

Not a comment, but a book recommendation:

_Labor's Untold Story_, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M Morais, shows
how intrinsic racism has been to American capitalism. With racism,
industry after the north-south war of 1861-1865 learned to thrive in the
new order.

One small comment: the focus on capitalism and communism misses an
important part of the picture, which is the anti-democratic tendency of
any government and economy. Some people will always find themselves in a
position that allows them to think of themselves as specially chosen and
then redirect their energies to preserving that position. The same thing
drove ancient Roman history and ancient Egypt's priest-driven
conservatism (whence "hierarchy"), so it seems it is not a product of
industrial capitalism but is to be expected in all human society beyond
a small nomadic hunter-gatherer group.

Solution? Open government and vital democracy with the express goal of
opposing the interests of those in the money and power.

Yours,
Eric R

David Heal wrote:
> recently a few list members have been taking part in a casual
> discussion on capitalism and its relationship to racism.  i'll post an excerpt below for reference purposes and would
> be willing to here a critique of this guy's opinion.
> 
> "Capitalism is based upon
>   UNEQUAL distribution of resources. Capitalism needs social institutions
>   like racism and especially a class system to justify the exploitation of the
>   masses. Remove racism which is in large part a capitalist construction and
>   the class system then there would be no capitalism. Just as the effort to
>   create a utopian communist state ended in failure and misery, so will the
>   effort through modernization to create a utopian capitalist state."



**********************************************************************
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and
intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they
are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify
the system manager.

This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by
MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses.

www.mimesweeper.com
**********************************************************************