Myth #4: If we don’t like capitalism, our only other choice is socialism.
Reality: Capitalism and socialism are academic ideas that have never existed in their purest forms anywhere. A more useful way to think of it that we currently have a haphazard, corporate-run system, but it could just as easily be a democratic, community-run system. Citizens can have a role in which stores open up nearby, what incentives new factories get to move in, what kinds of new housing developments get built, and much much more, without limiting innovation or profits. There are thousands of employee-owned firms, neighborhood corporations, municipal enterprises, state investment strategies exploding at the grass roots level all over the nation.
Myth #5: We need to get there through incremental change.
Reality: We need to take a step back, and make major changes to the system. We need to alter the way we think about the size of our politics, the size of our bank accounts, and the size of our dreams. Many of the most successful new ideas discussed in America Beyond Capitalism are changing things one small step at time, but turning the many existing innovative pilot programs into a brighter future for all Americans will require wholesale changes in the way we think about things.
http://www.uvm.edu/giee/beyondenvironmentalism/alperovitz.htm
http://www.garalperovitz.com/UnjustDeserts.html
The solely profit-driven culture of the dominant left-brain -- as Alperovitz calls it, the "haphazard corporate-run system" -- doesn't cut it.
Thinking, acting, prioritizing, different is vital if humanity and most life on this Planet Earth is to survive, let alone to thrive. It's time for the more supple, contextual, big picture, proclivities of the right hemisphere of the brain (see Iain McGilchrist's The Master and the Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World) to be acknowledged and integrated into our understanding and actions, before it's too late. Neuroscience and developmental psychology show that LOVE, caring and empathy are not unquantifiable any more. These most human of qualities must be heeded by our left-brain institutions, and also by us. The many ways in which the best of humanity's inclinations are quantifiable is visible right now in our individual, collective, and international response to the tragedy in Haiti.
Remember "There but for the grace of god, go I." Donating to Partners in Health is one of the most effective ways to show that we care:
http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti
Thank you, Nan!
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