holy shit, you're not going to believe this, but I met the author at a hostel in Mexico City. He's a really cool dude, friendly, funny, and pretty interesting overall. I actually totally forgot about this and glad to see the book is out!
“How old are you, mate? Does this look like Jackanory to you?! I know you’ve lost a lot of money, but you won’t find a penny of it in them books. If you wanna know what’s happening in the world, take a look at the world. Go take a walk down the high street. See all the shops closed down. Look at the homeless people under the bridge. Go home, and ask your mum about her financial situation. Ask your friends, ask your friend’s mums. The time for books is over, mate. You’re here now. Look at the world with your fucking eyes.”
That's pretty damn sobering, and accurate. We're so use to being told what to think, and my whole takeaway from this, apart from "Eat The Rich", is to look for yourself. What he wrote after that paragraph is something we all should be doing. Looking at housing prices, looking at where real people are squeezed, and to act based on that. We're just cattle.
I look at the US primaries and caucuses and I see nothing but bullshit, "cute moments" as described in this article that won't help us at all. I look at Bernie Sanders' bill about the 32 hour workweek and I think about the weak willed moderate Democrats who won't vote for it, and all the scumbag Republicans who are not even hiding that they're part of this exact problem of enriching the rich while removing wealth from everyone beneath them.
Capitalism can work, when its heavily regulated with active oversight and robust enforcement. We haven't had a free market in many decades, the joke is on all the BS Republicans are peddling.
What do you mean by work in the statement, "Capitalism can work?"
EDIT: Just to be clear, I am asking what normative criteria you are using to assess the system. There is no non-moral objective notion of a system working without some ethical goal in mind
What I mean specifically is the Gilded Age, vs the period of middle class growth during and post WW2. Concepts such as the Public Trust became important during these periods due to the Gilded Age itself and the postwar priorities emphasizing we lift up the nation instead of just the rich. I mean that capitalism is just the tool, albeit with heavy regulations, that generated a great deal of prosperity from the late 50's through to the 70's.
That's the time period a person could graduate from High School and then earn enough to purchase a home and viably support a whole family.
