Alf
7th September 2010, 09:34
International Communist Current Public Forum
The catastrophic nature of capitalism
18 September 2010
2pm, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1
The earthquake in Haiti, the fires in Russia, the floods in Pakistan are presented to us as a series of tragic but unrelated ‘natural catastrophes’, although even the official media are forced to admit that both in their effects and their origins, these disasters do have a ‘man-made’ element: in their effects, because the vast majority of the victims of these events are the poor and the disinherited, forced to live in vulnerable regions and sub-standard housing; in their origins, because many of the disasters are directly linked to global warming, in turn resulting largely from the burning of fossil fuels, from deforestation and other consequences of human action.
But what the media don’t tell us is that the pollution and devastation of the environment, and the impoverishment of vast swathes of the world population, are a direct result of capitalist accumulation in a stage of history when it has lost all rationality and when its very continuation is plunging humanity into crisis after crisis, whether ecological, economic, or military. The same capitalist system that lies behind the ‘natural’ disasters also stands behind the global economic recession and the bloody wars raging through Africa and the Middle East.
Faced with the growing catastrophe of capitalism, what response can we expect to see from the exploited and the oppressed? Will it lead to fear, denial, a flight into reactionary ideologies, or to a growing consciousness of the need to do away with this system and replace it with a really human form of society? And what role can be played in this by those minorities who have already concluded that such a society is an urgent necessity?
Come to this forum, where after a short presentation the focus will be on discussion and the confrontation of ideas and opinions.
The catastrophic nature of capitalism
18 September 2010
2pm, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1
The earthquake in Haiti, the fires in Russia, the floods in Pakistan are presented to us as a series of tragic but unrelated ‘natural catastrophes’, although even the official media are forced to admit that both in their effects and their origins, these disasters do have a ‘man-made’ element: in their effects, because the vast majority of the victims of these events are the poor and the disinherited, forced to live in vulnerable regions and sub-standard housing; in their origins, because many of the disasters are directly linked to global warming, in turn resulting largely from the burning of fossil fuels, from deforestation and other consequences of human action.
But what the media don’t tell us is that the pollution and devastation of the environment, and the impoverishment of vast swathes of the world population, are a direct result of capitalist accumulation in a stage of history when it has lost all rationality and when its very continuation is plunging humanity into crisis after crisis, whether ecological, economic, or military. The same capitalist system that lies behind the ‘natural’ disasters also stands behind the global economic recession and the bloody wars raging through Africa and the Middle East.
Faced with the growing catastrophe of capitalism, what response can we expect to see from the exploited and the oppressed? Will it lead to fear, denial, a flight into reactionary ideologies, or to a growing consciousness of the need to do away with this system and replace it with a really human form of society? And what role can be played in this by those minorities who have already concluded that such a society is an urgent necessity?
Come to this forum, where after a short presentation the focus will be on discussion and the confrontation of ideas and opinions.