You can examine a rather ingenious way of illustrating the global economy - its waste and inequalities - HERE. From a website devoted to revealing the world through inventively visual methods, it's a remarkably effective way of showing up the truth of where money goes in our world, for example the awesome expense of the war in Iraq. It also exposes how affordable it actually is to feed the hungry or shift to renewable energies. However, the chaotic nature and priorities of global capitalism prevent these things happening.In a similar vein, I also recommend the Gapminder site.
With thanks to The Sauce for alerting me to the visualisation above.
The US has spent $2800b on the crisis so far. If they rounded that up to $300b (don't you hate walking around with change in your pockets) they could wipe clean the entire developing world debt slate. Oh. And if we didn't bother advertising shit in 2010 we could instead feed and educate every child in the world for five years. Capitalism isn't working.
ReplyDeleteBut Brendan just because there are inequalities doesn't mean that 'capitalism' isn't 'working'. For many people in the world capitalism is great as it provides so much, even the computer you're staring at now. The free enterprise system has a much more impressive record than state run economies.
ReplyDeleteCan you think of a viable alternative?
"For many people in the world capitalism is great ....."
ReplyDeleteMr Devine may I ask you a simple question; 'Who are those many people in the world who benefit from capitalism? Because this is the world that I know; In Latin America bullet riddled bodies are found in shopping trolleys where gang fighting is a norm and the reason for this is capitalism. An example - Colombian - Brazil. In Africa where I come from, dictators slaughter their own people so that western capitalists can grab the minerals; an example Zimbabwe and Congo. In the Middle East we have western backed dictators who are so high on opium they don't know who Allah is; because they slaughter their own people in the name of Allah. In the UK where I live, people are losing their livelihoods because of privatisation, the Post Office being an example.
Can you think of a viable alternative where communities can live peacefully?