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In defence of global capitalism

Pete | 08.04.2002 21:13

books, SWP, Mayday

anyone read Johan Nordberg's 'In Defence of Global Capitalism'? top book. helped remind me of some of the good things that have happened or are coming about like the fact that we've seen the biggest reduction of poverty ever in the last 20 years and its now at its lowest ever level. that's nice. but there's still a load of bad stuff. anyway, its published by a Swedish think tank. you can get it on amazon i think. i recommend it to everyone who seeks a fuller understanding of the GPE and its effects especially you dogmatic puritanical SWP idiots whose movement is in perrenial decline because you keep flogging the dead-weight of Classical marxist orthodoxy. SHUT UP. we are not 19Century ragged trousered philanthropists anymore!! to everyone else see you on mayday with a bit of luck and SWP don't try and bloody hijack it AGAIN with your 5 blokes with 200 placards.

Pete
- e-mail: sh@hotmail.com

Comments

Hide the following 6 comments

Free thinking

08.04.2002 21:44

So you read a book by some right-wing Swedes. Well done. Is this the first book you've read? You accuse the SWP of flogging a tired ideology, but have you read any of Marx's works and found out your own critique? Or do you rely on others to do the thinking for you? Have you read Kropotkin, Tolstoy, Foucault, Gramsci, Horkheimer, etc? They are all intriguing, compelling and very different critiques of modern society. The left isn't just Marxism and not all Marxists have an identical outlook - there is immense diversity in the anti-capitalist movement.

If you lifted your eyes from your two-bit think tanks and read more widely, you'd understand the depth, breadth and history of anti-capitalism, from its roots in the English Revolution to the Battle of Seattle. You may still agree with your Swedish friends even after a bit more study, but at least you'll know your enemies better, be able to engage in more erudite debate and not look like the reactionary jerk.

Dan Brett
mail e-mail: dan@danielbrett.co.uk


SWP / Mayday

08.04.2002 22:23

Hijack Mayday ? Don't be ridiculous, the SWP is actively trying to build this event. Having spent 11 years as a member of the SWP building campaigns and involved in activity I am yet to witness my first "hijack" !

Here's for a good one on Mayday
And for a very bad one for the NF at Bermondsey !

Thylacine.

Thylacine


capitalism blows me away

08.04.2002 23:27

Pete,
The intellectual calibre of what you just wrote blows me away. Who would of thought that by screwing over the planet and the workers we're reducing poverty!!? Now I can smoke my cigar in peace while police brutalize those protestors. I can watch my wealth grow. I especially enjoy my increased profits due to the "war on terror." I look forward to more words of wisdom in future posts. ciao for now

Mr Blair


The offence of capitalism

09.04.2002 11:15

The defence of global capitalism is published in
daily in every corporate owned newspaper and magazine
in the world. It's not necessary to buy a book on it.

The defence is as follows.

Capitalism improves the general level of prosperity.
We can prove this by inventing a measure called the
GDP that goes up whenever there is environmental
destruction (eg an oil spill). This keeps going
up, proving that you are more prosperous than
ever before. If you don't believe this then you
are (a) stupid, (b) naive, (c) don't know what's good
for you, and (d) selfish, not hard working enough
while everyone else's lives are getting better.

Capitalism appears to work because there are some
major losses occurring that have been notified as
strictly off-balance sheet losses. These include
(a) dwindling oil stocks, (b) soil erosion, (c) forest
destruction, (d) fish stock depletion, (e) loss
of coastal land due to global warming, (f) pollution
of other lands from nuclear waste, (g) loss of
effectiveness of antibiotics through capitalist-promoted
over use (eg in pig feed) that threatens to negate all
the life-promoting effects of medical advances in
recent years.

But Capitalist philosophy refutes this by claiming
that they have created technology. So take: (a) dwindling
oil stocks. Oil was of no value before technology
was invented to extract, refine and burn it in a
profitable way. Then it became valuable and only
then began to exist, since stuff of no value does
not exist, since it does not matter if it exists.
Therefore if we burn through it all,
we haven't made a net loss because it's value didn't
exist in the first place, even though now it is all
gone.

Now, anyone who accepts that argument (and there are
very many who do) will be interested in the flat earth
theory where resources and land extends infinitely
in all directions. Some of us have woken up to
the fact that the world is round, therefore finite,
therefore any activity that is unsustainable is doomed
whether you like it or not.

goatchurch


dear Thylacine

09.04.2002 12:40

I hope you will raise these matters at the SWP Members only National Convention, Sunday 14th April, Palace Theatre, Cambridge Circus, Central London.

The Fools !


Capatalism My arsE

10.04.2002 13:58

Right wing Swedes more like absolute turnip, if any one in the leeds or west yorkshire area is interested in getting down to may day we should be running a bus from leeds university, and before you indy media hacks start saying GR is an SWP front and moaning, well were not we are a collective of people based around the universities coming from all different political angles, so come down tickets should be cheap and e mail us at  leedsglobaliseresistance@hotmail.com

Leeds GR
mail e-mail: leedsglobaliseresistance@hotmail.com


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