THE HANDSTAND

SEPTEMBER 2005


the design of Market Capitalism : Unintelligent
COASTAL POST
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September,2005


by Frank Scott


The imperial axis of evil , operating from its biblical and banking headquarters in USrael , endangers not only the middle east, but the entire planet. Its globalized nationalism is spreading the economic pandemic of market capitalism to the whole world . Pushing doctrines of religious and racial supremacy under the guise of democratization, this malevolent system threatens humanity's social nature, as well as its collective sanity. It makes social transformation not only necessary,
but imperative.

Mainstream opposition to this growing threat is almost nonexistent. Politicians trade empty platitudes and are shamed by the grieving mother of an Iraqi war victim. While they play nuanced word games, she calls for immediate withdrawal from both Iraq and Occupied Palestine as the only way to end terrorism. Neither George Bush nor Hillary Clinton are likely to meet Cindy Sheehan, whose eloquence, however manipulated and distorted, expresses deeply felt public disgust with current policy .

The hypocrisy of our imperial dictatorship fosters contradictory attitudes , claiming freedom as its goal, while denying freedom to all who do not speak its physical or metaphysical language.

Thus we have a debate among supremacists who deny any belief system but their own, while demanding freedom to say that their own is what's best for everyone. The capital market mythology's scriptural and governmental underpinnings are unified in acceptance of god, or belief in no god. The market church takes money from both congregations , as long as they accept the rule of the church: capitalism.

Past attempts at breaking from this rule have been defeated, at least temporarily. New attempts at rebellion are in some cases not clearly defined, but frenzy over terrorism, and the retaliatory hatred it has bred for Islam, threaten to do more damage than the previous Cold War.

That undeclared battle between the US and the USSR did cost millions of lives in proxy wars, but the new struggles may endanger even more people. Terror, once only practiced by governments , has been democratized and created a free market of opportunity for all killers, including NGOs. But bloody as it has been and could be , it also offers hope that people will demand peace. Having seen that mass murder doesn't only happen far away , but where they live, the lesson may be learned that no one can be safe and secure, unless everyone else is safe and secure as well. That calls for another kind of world.

The blatant hypocrisy that rules this one is apparent in areas like nuclear policy. Israel's present possession of several hundred nukes threatens the future of its neighbors, at least, but is silently accepted without question. But Iran's nonexistent but potential future nukes are judged an immediate menace to all humanity in the present. Is it any wonder that the American sales pitch is unbelievable to most global citizens? Anyone who'd buy the product would likely buy a bridge, possibly one stretching to the end of the universe. That's where evolution meets intelligent design, and where religious and scientific shamans help perpetuate what they should try to understand - the origin and meaning of capitalism - by pointlessly debating what they can't possibly fathom - the origin and meaning of the universe.

Whether our menace of the moment is an oil peak , a real estate bubble , a sea of debt , or global warming , our problems cannot be solved within this system, since they are created by this system. But its divide and conquer illusions can often confuse us into acting against our own best
interests.

When people support illegal immigrants, because they are often poor people with few alternatives , and oppose Americans who sell illegal drugs, who are often poor people with few alternatives, the rich capital that profits from both groups can easily escape notice. An unprincipled entity earns interest from both the cheap labor provided by those poor immigrants, and the ghetto peddlers of illegal drugs who make dope banking a lucrative business. Whether the illegality and immorality are
at the front or back end of the transaction, the economic laws observed are the same ones that ration health care while splurging on warfare, all at enormous public cost , to accumulate massive private profit .

A system that spends billions of public dollars on outer space transit, but cannot provide adequate funds for inner city transit, is no longer worth sustaining. A system that nurtures individual consciousness stressing the care of homeless pets, while clouding social consciousness to the reality of homeless humans, is dysfunctional and beyond repair.

And a system that squanders billions on murdering foreigners and claims it is spreading democracy and peace should be characterized as what it is: criminally insane. And we may be the same, the longer we allow it to hide behind the high priced legal representation of corporate government that rationalizes these things as acceptable and normal aspects of life.


Whether the mystery of the universe was a creation of intelligent design , unreasoned chance or moronic folly , is a matter for the consideration of those in the religious philosophy business. But the awesome calamity of this system's unintelligent design is a matter demanding the immediate attention of humanity. The problem of the origin of that universe is mind boggling and beyond present human capacity, despite what investors in the markets of religious science may claim. But the problem of capital markets is not mysterious at all, and its awesome damage will continue until people become aware that it is man made, not mystical, and its solution subject to control by democratic forces. Those active , informed democratic forces are desperately needed to bring about a different world, now more than ever .



Copyright (c) 2005 by Frank Scott. All rights reserved.