353 - Haughty Power (The Capitol and Das Kapital)

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Episode #353 - Haughty Power (The Capitol and Das Kapital)

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⌚ Sun 8 April 2007  ☻Bill Moyers, Loren Goldner, Bonnie Faulkner, John Taylor Gatto (reading)

Download Hour1 Download Hour2The 19th century French social philosopher Pierre Joseph Proudhon, the first to describe himself as an anarchist wrote in his essay "What Is Property?" Property, acting by exclusion and encroachment, while population was increasing, has been the life-principle and definitive cause of all revolutions. Religious wars, and wars of conquest, when they have stopped short of the extermination of races, have been only accidental disturbances, soon repaired by the mathematical progression of the life of nations. The downfall and death of societies are due to the power of accumulation possessed by property.

Last week's speaker John Marciano quipped that the liberal sees a man sleeping on the street and says the system isn't working, and a radical sees the same thing and says that the system is working. What accounts for such divergent conclusions about the same objective fact. And there are other conclusions as well, such as that the sleeper is lazy, crazy, or addicted to intoxicating substances or that that he is a sinner out of favor with god, or a person with bad karma, in short in some way culpable, and our social system blameless. One's conclusion about the man on the street therefore is based on what one believes about the basic nature of the society we live in, and what governs its dominant processes. We conclude by continuing reading chapter 12 of The Underground History of American Education.
Thanks to Global Voices for Justice, Guns and Butter
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