In this short RSA Animate, radical sociologist David Harvey asks if it is time to look beyond capitalism, towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that could be responsible, just and humane. View his full lecture at the RSA. Download a transcript of this video (pdf).
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Well done!
But isn't Harvey making a point that people who are rich only become richer by propagating problems like the financial "meltdown"? Hedge fund owners become wealthier by speculation, there are more millionaires in India than ever before; as Marx stated, capitalist's don't like a barrier, they will ALWAYS figure out a way to circumvent it, because through the power of government and big business, they can write the system and the rules however they want. I think we as people absolutely have the power to change our system -- I don't believe that change can be induced from inside the system, it has to be achieved through a revolution in thought. His last comment, that we as academics and as people who are seriously involved in what is happening in the world, that we must CHANGE HOW WE THINK, should become the resounding theme of our generation. And yet, it is also the hardest change to initiate. Sometimes I think that human nature has always favored stratification, that we will always have a society that builds some up while pulling others down. But hasn't it reached the breaking point? More resources and more lives are lost to this system than EVER before. When you have a system like capitalism that makes EVERYONE -- EVERY.SINGLE.PERSON -- incredibly indebted and reliant on how the world works, it makes change almost impossible. Who wants to sacrifice their way of living to make the world better? Most people don't, and won't. Harvey should not be criticized for what he is saying -- he's telling us that this is how the system works, and that it will probably continue this way for as long as human society lets it. But what will it take for us to change? Massive drought, depopulation, atomic war? What will happen when the world no longer counts on money and financial capital to survive, and all these numbers and forms of currency become useless? You can't create water, food, and basic resources out of nothing. And whether we like it or not, this is what our civilization and our survival is built on, and capitalism and its practices are expending them at an exorbitant rate. You have to look at the bigger picture, and the long term. As Harvey says, this system is destroying us, AND WE'RE LETTING IT!
But that IS exactly capitalism working!
I think your problem with him is that he over simplified the matters - a thing that economists hate to do - they are always saying that "it's more complicated that that" (then they are actually as simple as this)!
I think you are committing a "non sequitur"
What does that have to do with anything?
People can have extensive knowledge of fields outside their own specialization!
I think it's insulting and reducting saying that just because he's a geographer he should only be speaking about Geography!
Hier ein Kursus zur Auffrischung unserer volkswirtschaftlichen Kenntnisse.