Posted on 03/12/2018 4:27:51 PM PDT by grundle
Washington Post writer Elizabeth Bruenig recently wrote this opinion column.
She writes,
“I think the problem lies at the root of the thing, with capitalism itself.”
Capitalism merely means that property is privately owned. So she has a problem with private ownership of property.
She writes,
“Americans appear to be isolated, viciously competitive, suspicious of one another and spiritually shallow; and that we are anxiously looking for some kind of attachment to something real and profound in an age of decreasing trust and regard — seem to be emblematic of capitalism.”
I think these are things of human nature, and would exist regardless of the kind of economic system that we had.
She says that capitalism
“… encourages and requires fierce individualism, self-interested disregard for the other.”
I wonder how many repeat customers a business would have if the business owner had “disregard” for those customers.
She writes,
“As a business-savvy friend once remarked: Nobody gets rich off of bilateral transactions where everybody knows what they’re doing.”
When I buy a loaf of bread at the supermarket, it’s a win-win situation. There are no losers. And the owner of the supermarket is rich.
She said she supports
“decommodifying labor”
So she would let herself be operated on by a surgeon who gets paid no more than a janitor who dropped out of high school?
She said she supports
“reducing the vast inequality brought about by capitalism.”
In the capitalist U.S., where inequality is huge, poor people make $15,000 a year, while rich people make $15 million a year.
In Cuba, where there is equality, all government employees make $20 a month.
Bruenig wants the U.S. to adopt the same policies that are currently causing Venezuelans to starve to death. Everything that Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro have done was done because they hate capitalism just as much as Bruenig does. There is no basic difference between her views and theirs.
¡Siempre mas capitalismo!
I’m sure that Washington Post writer Elizabeth Bruenig is walking around the DC ghettos, throwing $100 bills out of her purse to spread the gospel of socialist sharing.
Oh, wait! Elizabeth is living in a white man’s armed and secured community where they aren’t any ghetto denizens to grab the $100 bills in her greedy communist purse.
Liz appears to be a Check Guevara/Hugo Chavez Communist at heart. Sorry. I won’t eat my Siberian Huskies. They would prefer to bring me rabbits.
This sounds like a special kind of stupidity to me.
So long as she doesn’t have to live under it, have her steak and eat it and all.
The girl is a nutjob.
This woman sounds completely detached from reality. Is she schizophrenic?
This looney needs to move to Venezuela to see how great things are there.
And yet, if you were to ask her to judge her own intellect, she’s is way smarter than you...
The conceit that“Americans appear to be isolated, viciously competitive, suspicious of one another and spiritually shallow; and that we are anxiously looking for some kind of attachment to something real and profound in an age of decreasing trust and regard — seem to be emblematic of capitalism.”
is cynicism towards society. Cynicism towards society motivates (or is motivated by) faith in, or even naiveté toward, government.And the combination of those two attitudes is socialism.
Funny, I remember when we were less competitive, more trusting, and spiritually fulfilled ... but that was before the drift toward humanist socialism, back in the days when we had a God to believe in, before we were "liberated" from such antiquated notions of morality.
“… [capitalism] encourages and requires fierce individualism, self-interested disregard for the other.”
Whereas socialism requires fierce allegiance to the State, and a complete disregard for self. Which is counter to everything in human nature. At least I can trust myself; I can't say the same for the State. And if I, as an individual can selfishly disregard "the other," how much easier can a gaggle of self-serving elitists a thousand miles away disregard them? I guess you could ask Joe Stalin. Or Mao. Or Fidel. Or Che. Or Maduro
“[socialism] decommodify[s] labor”
And commodifies misery.
the vast inequality brought about by capitalism.
Versus the utter subjugation of the human spirit brought about by communism.
“Stupid is as stupid does”
Cynicism is an antonym for faith.Conservatism is not naiveté toward either society or government. Conservatism is skepticism toward government, all right—but it is also sufficiently skeptical about society to recognize the (regrettable) necessity of government.
“In Cuba, where there is equality, all government employees make $20 a month.”
Plus whatever they can demand in bribes and other forms of corruption.
Elizabeth Bruenig - The Washington Post
Building a Moral Economy: Elizabeth & Matt Bruenig at the Harvard Law Forum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp6pUsJhKZg
Elizabeth Bruenig is an assistant editor at the Washington Post, whose writing focuses on ethics, politics, and culture from a Catholic social justice perspective.
Matt Bruenig is an incisive poverty analyst and popular Twitterer who has written for Jacobin, Demos, The Atlantic, Dissent and The Washington Post.
On April 5, 2017, they came to Harvard Law School to give a one-two punch of moral vision and economic analysis to wake up Harvard Law students to the imperative of working towards a moral economy.
Thank you for the link.
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