________________________________
From: [log in to unmask] [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask] [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 16 August 2011 21:03
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Feral Capitalism Hits the Streets by David Harvey
Case Study One: Gerald Kaufman MP fraudulently claimed £8,750 for a Bang and Olufsen television on his parliamentary expenses.
He was not prosecuted but asked to repay the £8,750
Case Study Two: A young woman with no previous is alleged to have looted a £750 Bang and Olufsen television (that's £8,000 less than Kaufman) from a store in Manchester. She was remanded in custody to crown court to get a sentence longer than 6 months
In a message dated 16/08/2011 21:01:49 GMT Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes:
Feral Capitalism Hits the Streets
“Nihilistic and feral teenagers” the Daily Mail called them: the crazy
youths from all walks of life who raced around the streets mindlessly
and desperately hurling bricks, stones and bottles at the cops while
looting here and setting bonfires there, leading the authorities on a
merry chase of catch-as-catch-can as they tweeted their way from one
strategic target to another.
The word “feral” pulled me up short. It reminded me of how the
communards in Paris in 1871 were depicted as wild animals, as hyenas,
that deserved to be (and often were) summarily executed in the name of
the sanctity of private property, morality, religion, and the family.
But then the word conjured up another association: Tony Blair
attacking the “feral media,” having for so long been comfortably
lodged in the left pocket of Rupert Murdoch only later to be
substituted as Murdoch reached into his right pocket to pluck out
David Cameron.
There will of course be the usual hysterical debate between those
prone to view the riots as a matter of pure, unbridled and inexcusable
criminality, and those anxious to contextualize events against a
background of bad policing; continuing racism and unjustified
persecution of youths and minorities; mass unemployment of the young;
burgeoning social deprivation; and a mindless politics of austerity
that has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with the
perpetuation and consolidation of personal wealth and power. Some may
even get around to condemning the meaningless and alienating qualities
of so many jobs and so much of daily life in the midst of immense but
unevenly distributed potentiality for human flourishing.
If we are lucky, we will have commissions and reports to say all over
again what was said of Brixton and Toxteth in the Thatcher years. I
say ‘lucky’ because the feral instincts of the current Prime Minister
seem more attuned to turn on the water cannons, to call in the tear
gas brigade and use the rubber bullets while pontificating unctuously
about the loss of moral compass, the decline of civility and the sad
deterioration of family values and discipline among errant youths.
But the problem is that we live in a society where capitalism itself
has become rampantly feral. Feral politicians cheat on their expenses,
feral bankers plunder the public purse for all its worth, CEOs, hedge
fund operators and private equity geniuses loot the world of wealth,
telephone and credit card companies load mysterious charges on
everyone’s bills, shopkeepers price gouge, and, at the drop of a hat
swindlers and scam artists get to practice three-card monte right up
into the highest echelons of the corporate and political world.
A political economy of mass dispossession, of predatory practices to
the point of daylight robbery, particularly of the poor and the
vulnerable, the unsophisticated and the legally unprotected, has
become the order of the day. Does anyone believe it is possible to
find an honest capitalist, an honest banker, an honest politician, an
honest shopkeeper or an honest police commisioner any more? Yes, they
do exist. But only as a minority that everyone else regards as stupid.
Get smart. Get Easy Profits. Defraud and steal! The odds of getting
caught are low. And in any case there are plenty of ways to shield
personal wealth from the costs of corporate malfeasance.
What I say may sound shocking. Most of us don’t see it because we
don’t want to. Certainly no politician dare say it and the press would
only print it to heap scorn upon the sayer. But my guess is that every
street rioter knows exactly what I mean. They are only doing what
everyone else is doing, though in a different way – more blatently and
visibly in the streets. Thatcherism unchained the feral instincts of
capitalism (the “animal spirits” of the entreprenuer they coyly named
it) and nothing has transpired to curb them since. Slash and burn is
now openly the motto of the ruling classes pretty much everywhere.
This is the new normal in which we live. This is what the next grand
commission of enquiry should address. Everyone, not just the rioters,
should be held to account. Feral capitalism should be put on trial for
crimes against humanity as well as for crimes against nature.
Sadly, this is what these mindless rioters cannot see or demand.
Everything conspires to prevent us from seeing and demanding it also.
This is why political power so hastily dons the robes of superior
morality and unctuous reason so that no one might see it as so nakedly
corrupt and stupidly irrational.
But there are various glimmers of hope and Light around the world. The
indignadosmovements in Spain and Greece, the revolutionary impulses in
Latin America, the peasant movements in Asia, are all beginning to see
through the vast scam that a predatory and feral global capitalism has
unleashed upon the world. What will it take for the rest of us to see
and act upon it? How can we begin all over again? What direction
should we take? The answers are not easy. But one thing we do know for
certain: we can only get to the right answers by asking the right
questions.
—
David Harvey is Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the
City University of New York. His latest book is The Enigma of
Capital, and the Crises of Capitalism.
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