Beware of hyperbolic headlines. But in this case, I’m afraid, as Ulrike Herrmann’s very readable book The End of Capitalism makes clear, the choice between capitalism and civilisation really does seem to be either/or – and the end will probably come a lot sooner that we thought.
You misunderstand. Capitalism will end. The question is whether or not it will take humans with it.
Sure, but this a facetious and nihilistic point. The question of the article is whether and how we might choose to end it.
There’s not going to be an end of capitalism, despite what liberal professors and influencers say. It’s a global system, every country has to participate in it by either becoming capitalist (or inevitably become capitalist in one form or another if they choose to have some weird mixed system like we’ve historically seen) or become isolationist which cripples the country and makes it easy pickings for imperial capitalist nations.
Even if we disregard this, for a country to become socialist or whatever (which is the only alternative right now, any other suggested alternatives are just capitalism with different tax scheme or straight up fascism which is also just capitalism) you need a lot of people to think in terms of their class and not nationality or left vs right which by far dominates the current political landscape and is the current default of people’s ideological view.
Liberals, especially online love to preach about electorialism, how voting for good people will solve all of our issues but it’s not a solution, it’s less than a bare minimum thanks to the checks and balances designed to keep status quo, barrier of entry to politics, behind the scenes deals. Capitalism through will never substantially change - the best thing you can hope for is capitalism with a different tax scheme, which does not address any fundamental issues or corruption that capitalists have always gotten away with. No matter how well you can tax the rich (assuming they don’t launch a media campaign against you), the money will always disproportionately go to the top, skyrocketing the social power of capitalists and eventually you have the oligarchy that owns the news and politicians.
Thanks for coming to my batshit insane sleep-deprivation fueled TED Talk
Who would have thought that infinite growth on a finite planet would cause problems ?
