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I question whether you even read, or worse, understood what Hedges was getting at with this piece. Hedges is essentially saying we should become Marxist, but he

I question whether you even read, or worse, understood what Hedges was getting at with this piece. Hedges is essentially saying we should become Marxist, but here you are saying that maybe we can redeem ourselves and survive on the 'knife edge'. Hedges addresses this by quoting Emma Goldman about half-way through. Capitalism can't be fixed with a few patches here and there, it must be abolished and trying to appear moderate makes you no different than the crew members of Pequod who played into Ahab's mania. The assumption here is that moderation is what has prevented the course of Pequod (and decaying civilizations) from correcting their course. You question what happens when we throw Ahab overboard while ignoring the fact that each passing minute and hour you let Ahab run free, your security and well-being are threatened. Why fuss over what happens when you toss Ahab over when Ahab poses a nearly immediate threat to your well-being? That's just more of the moderation that silently rationalizes Ahab's actions. Hedges brought up a number of revolutionary thinkers from all walks of the revolutionary left, yet proposed we follow no single system. The subtext being that we need to move away from capitalism, and generally need to move to the left. Whether that's straight up Marxism or more moderate forms of radical schools of thought are secondary or even tertiary. The point is we need to change the course of the ship immediately, or we'll just repeat history for the thousandth time.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago
Oooh an actual reply :-) Thank you - I did miss it however. > Capitalism can't be fixed with a few patches here and there, it must be abolished and trying to appear moderate makes you no different than the crew members of Pequod who played into Ahab's mania. This may sound silly but is there a common definition of capitalism? It seems rather woolly compared to say, Marxism. Capitalism seems to me to be something we have been doing for tens of thousands of years. Saying "no capitalism is what Marx said it was so that he had something to be against" is kind of backwards. (that may not be what you are saying, but its what I got from the article) To my mind the biggest difference between capitalism and communism (as practised) has been the use of price as a signalling mechanism (see the way China moved away from a centrally planned model). Otherwise capitalism seems to have covered a vast vast range of practises over centuries, but perhaps can be boiled down to trade or trade with price as a signalling mechanism. If this "definition" of capitalism is right, then it seems that it gets fixed often. BTW, I am in favour of massive change, including the dunking of captains, the fundamentals of our society are creaking and there is a new approach needed. Its just that the next workable approach is not an approach anyone has so far tried, and probably not thought of, (although much more open transparent decision making and information is almost certainly going to be involved thanks to the Internet). So chucking Ahab overboard when we do not know what course to set after is a bad idea, but chucking him overboard if he threatens to sink the ship is a good idea. We are just disagreeing on whether this current bout of mad behaviour (whatever it may be) is a threat to the ship or not. Thank for the reply anyway.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

Oooh an actual reply :-) Thank you - I did miss it however. > Capitalism can't be fixed with a few patches here and there, it must be abolished and trying to appear moderate makes you no different than the crew members of Pequod who played into Ahab's mania. This may sound silly but is there a common definition of capitalism? It seems rather woolly compared to say, Marxism. Capitalism seems to me to be something we have been doing for tens of thousands of years. Saying "no capitalism is what Marx said it was so that he had something to be against" is kind of backwards. (that may not be what you are saying, but its what I got from the article) To my mind the biggest difference between capitalism and communism (as practised) has been the use of price as a signalling mechanism (see the way China moved away from a centrally planned model). Otherwise capitalism seems to have covered a vast vast range of practises over centuries, but perhaps can be boiled down to trade or trade with price as a signalling mechanism. If this "definition" of capitalism is right, then it seems that it gets fixed often. BTW, I am in favour of massive change, including the dunking of captains, the fundamentals of our society are creaking and there is a new approach needed. Its just that the next workable approach is not an approach anyone has so far tried, and probably not thought of, (although much more open transparent decision making and information is almost certainly going to be involved thanks to the Internet). So chucking Ahab overboard when we do not know what course to set after is a bad idea, but chucking him overboard if he threatens to sink the ship is a good idea. We are just disagreeing on whether this current bout of mad behaviour (whatever it may be) is a threat to the ship or not. Thank for the reply anyway.