[p2p-research] crisis of capitalism

Mon Feb 16 05:40:43 CET 2009

On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 20:38, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> For those wanting to explore the issue:
>
> - see for more material: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/Meltdown
>
> Chris: how much more environmental and biospheric destruction, poverty,
> etc.. would it take to make you change your mind that there is a 'crisis of
> capitalism'? What is the treshold?

Actually, I was careful to say I don't see a crisis of capitalism" *in the
current financial crash*. It's bad, it's the result of bad management
(mainly by Bush's crony capitalism) but it doesn't look like the end of the
world, and it doesn't take the capitalist system below the major
alternatives that have been tried, in terms of results.

In terms of the environment and biosphere, the market is able to get results
- I understand the USA's Clean Air Act Amendments of
1990<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_%281990%29>was
successful in reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide. The improvement in
wealth and quality of life has meant that wealthy communities have been able
to set more stringent environmental standards, require the use of more
pollution-control technology, and choose to not allow development in areas
where there are spotted owls or whatever species we might be concerned
about. The capitalist/free market economies are getting better, not worse -
though some battles are being lost and there is a long, long way to go.
(Eastern Europe under communist management never managed as well as this -
it was an environmental nightmare.)

The lack of political will is the problem - and an enormous problem now that
we face what is probably the most critical problem we've ever faced by far.

Books have been written about these things so I know this isn't an
exhausting treatment.

I wonder - perhaps the free market is the original P2P system. Every player
is free to engage in an interaction, and the decisions are made between the
participants, not by a central authority. But I digress.

I'm not sure what Cuba has to do with it? A family can be in crisis, even if
> the husband doesn't have another relationship, to use a bad comparison ...

I just meant that Cuba is in a much worse state overall than the mostly-free
market countries - any other state-controlled economy could be used as an
example. The one virtue of Cuba's system, in terms of the environment, is
that the economy's collapse following the withdrawal of the USSR's subsidies
led Cubans to give permaculture a serious try - and when they got results,
even the government eventually had to stop dismissing the approach and take
notice. (This is based largely on a documentary I saw a couple of years ago
- I'm open to correction.)

Cuba has other virtues, such as the fact that the murderous oppressive
revolutionary leaders, who through out the previous oppressors, happened to
be doctors, and rightly put a lot of resources into health. But I'm not
aware of any virtues in terms of economic wisdom.

>
> Michel
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 2:30 AM, Chris Watkins <
> chriswaterguy at appropedia.org> wrote:
>
>> If you want to tempt us to watch a one-hour preview (or realize that some
>> of us will never find the time for it) it would help to tell us something
>> about what the "crisis of capitalism" *is* about.
>>
>> I don't see a "crisis of capitalism" in the current financial crash. The
>> capitalist economies could drop their incomes by 50% and still be in a
>> better state than Cuba, the former Soviet Union and other "alternatives".
>>
>> Which is not to say we can't do better: we can, whether through tweaking
>> or much larger reform). And it's not to say there isn't a crisis: the
>> current system's way of dealing with our environment has worked in some
>> ways, but failed drastically in managing our climate, which is by far the
>> most critical challenge we face.
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 13:20, Wittel, Andreas <andreas.wittel at ntu.ac.uk>wrote:
>>
>>> This is perhaps the most interesting approach to understand the crisis of
>>> capitalsim I have come across.  Rick Wolff says it's not a financial crisis,
>>> the core problem is not money, interest, speculation etc.. It is also not
>>> about neoliberalism and deregulation of markets, the core of the problem is
>>> the classical Marxist take of the tensions between owners of means of
>>> production and workers.
>>> All very well explained. I am not an economist, but the analysis is
>>> convincing.
>>> Here you can watch a one hour preview:
>>> http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=139
>>>
>>> best,
>>> Andreas
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Chris Watkins (a.k.a. Chriswaterguy)
>>
>> Appropedia.org - Sharing knowledge to build rich, sustainable lives.
>>
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>>
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>>
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>
>
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-- 
Chris Watkins (a.k.a. Chriswaterguy)

Appropedia.org - Sharing knowledge to build rich, sustainable lives.

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I like this: five.sentenc.es
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