[p2p-research] crisis of capitalism

Mon Feb 16 06:31:15 CET 2009

thanks for explaining your ideas on this, I may respond, but perhaps later
...

On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 11:40 AM, Chris Watkins <
chriswaterguy at appropedia.org> wrote:

>
>
> 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
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This email is intended solely for the addressee.  It may contain private
>>>> and confidential information.  If you are not the intended addressee, please
>>>> take no action based on it nor show a copy to anyone.  In this case, please
>>>> reply to this email to highlight the error.  Opinions and information in
>>>> this email that do not relate to the official business of Nottingham Trent
>>>> University shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by the
>>>> University.
>>>> Nottingham Trent University has taken steps to ensure that this email
>>>> and any attachments are virus-free, but we do advise that the recipient
>>>> should check that the email and its attachments are actually virus free.
>>>>  This is in keeping with good computing practice.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> p2presearch mailing list
>>>> p2presearch at listcultures.org
>>>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Chris Watkins (a.k.a. Chriswaterguy)
>>>
>>> Appropedia.org - Sharing knowledge to build rich, sustainable lives.
>>>
>>> identi.ca/appropedia / twitter.com/appropedia
>>> blogs.appropedia.org
>>>
>>> I like this: five.sentenc.es
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> p2presearch mailing list
>>> p2presearch at listcultures.org
>>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
>> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
>> Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
>> http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
>> http://p2pfoundation.ning.com
>>
>> Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens
>>
>> The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
>> http://www.shiftn.com/
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Chris Watkins (a.k.a. Chriswaterguy)
>
> Appropedia.org - Sharing knowledge to build rich, sustainable lives.
>
> identi.ca/appropedia / twitter.com/appropedia
> blogs.appropedia.org
>
> I like this: five.sentenc.es
>

-- 
Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com

Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20090216/866c164c/attachment-0001.html>