An amazing article by David Rushkoff that briefly explains exactly how the capitalist system we work under was a contrived system to serve the royals and proto-capitalists (and is not a “natural” development as the hegemony would have you, the proletariat and the petite bourgeois, believe), and how what we are witnessing may be the beginning of the end of it:
. . . Unlike local currencies, centralized currencies were biased towards retaining their value over time. Capitalism (in addition to being a lot of other things) is the way people get rich simply for being rich. Capital becomes the most important component in the capital/labor/resources equation. Since the purpose of the Renaissance innovations was to keep the currently wealthy wealthy, the currency was biased to favor those who had it – and could mete it out at high interest rates to those who needed it for their transactions.
What we witnessed over the past decades has been the necessary endgame of the scenario.
. . .
The collapse of centrally controlled commerce and currency simply creates an opportunity for local commerce and currency to revive. For people to learn to work and live together on a human, local scale – as the original free market advocate, Adam Smith, actually suggested. Admittedly, this would be a painful transition for many – but it’s better than maintaining dependence on a fiscal system designed from the start to turn people and communities into extractable corporate assets. (Think about that the next time you’re called up to “human resources.”) . . .
This reminds me of the post I wrote not too long ago in which I discuss, ad nauseum, the failures of conservativism and the corruption of capitalism, and the ideals of anarcho-socialism:
And to a lesser although probably more readable degree:
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