miscellany

First, define the problem.

Then, propose the solution. Interestingly, instead of condemning capitalism outright, Philipsen suggests (after explaining the how fundamental to a capitalist system racism and exploitation are) that we give capitalism its due.

It solved the problem all mankind had sought to solve up to capitalism's inception: scarcity. We now produce enough for everyone. Literally, everyone. Now the problem is abundance, which capitalism is fundamentally incapable of solving.

Every other call to arms feels piecemeal in comparison to this fundamental restructuring of society in response to the "success" of capitalism and its perverse logic. And, once laid out so clearly, everything else feels less pragmatic, too.

Y'all should read this is what I'm saying.

source: unrolled thread, archived*

Anthropologists have long told us that, as a species neither particularly strong nor fast, humans survived because of our unique ability to create and cooperate. ‘All our thriving is mutual’ is how the Indigenous scholar Edgar Villanueva captured the age-old wisdom in his book Decolonizing Wealth (2018). What is new is the extent to which so many civic and corporate leaders – sometimes entire cultures – have lost sight of our most precious collective quality.

This loss is rooted, in large part, in the tragedy of the private – this notion that moved, in short order, from curious idea to ideology to global economic system. It claimed selfishness, greed and private property as the real seeds of progress. Indeed, the mistaken concept many readers have likely heard under the name ‘the tragedy of the commons’ has its origins in the sophomoric assumption that private interest is the naturally predominant guide for human action. The real tragedy, however, lies not in the commons, but in the private. It is the private that produces violence, destruction and exclusion. Standing on its head thousands of years of cultural wisdom, the idea of the private variously separates, exploits and exhausts those living under its cold operating logic.

source: archived*

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also disagreed with the controversial Citizens United ruling that opened up campaign spending. She was among the dissenters in the court’s 5-4 decision that erased campaign-spending caps, and called the ruling the “most disappointing” in her 22-year tenure on the court “because of what has happened to elections in the United States and the huge amount of money it takes to run for office.”