George Monbiot - Dare to declare capitalism dead – before it takes us all down with it

George Monbiot says capitalism is not working anymore, especially now as it is destroying the planet. It did for a while help us achieve great growth and improved our standard of living , but many people in the third world had their standard of living crushed as we grabbed their resources to we built our great society on.

The One Percent and the next 30% do well out of it, but for the bottom 30% it is hell.

In the 1930's people thought automation would produce the leisure society, but nowadays even with fantastic automaton and machinery going 24/7, 360 days a year, our time spent at work is going up again. Where's all the wealth going?

For most of my adult life I’ve railed against “corporate capitalism”, “consumer capitalism” and “crony capitalism”. It took me a long time to see that the problem is not the adjective but the noun. While some people have rejected capitalism gladly and swiftly, I’ve done so slowly and reluctantly. Part of the reason was that I could see no clear alternative: unlike some anti-capitalists, I have never been an enthusiast for state communism. I was also inhibited by its religious status. To say “capitalism is failing” in the 21st century is like saying “God is dead” in the 19th: it is secular blasphemy. It requires a degree of self-confidence I did not possess.

But as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to recognise two things. First, that it is the system, rather than any variant of the system, that drives us inexorably towards disaster. Second, that you do not have to produce a definitive alternative to say that capitalism is failing. The statement stands in its own right. But it also demands another, and different, effort to develop a new system.

The Guardian

Dare to declare capitalism dead – before it takes us all down with it