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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Historic Plague of Individualism Continues Under Present Day US Capitalism
--by Danny Haiphong
"Capitalists hoodwink the masses into belief in an ideal of individualism, which “places sole blame for the misery of capitalism on the individual person experiencing it.” The U.S. Founding Fathers – a group of very rich white men – created a political infrastructure in which “the oppressed are coerced into competing among themselves for the crumbs the capitalist class has stolen from them.”
(Snip)
"Individualism is a founding ideology of American capitalism. American capitalism is rooted in the colonial policy of the British Empire. Racism and "individual liberty" was a modification of the feudal "divine right," which to the English colonialists, more suitably justified the enslavement and murder of hundreds of millions Black Africans and Indigenous nations. The emerging profitability of the agricultural and merchant capitalist economy in the British colonies of North America created conflict between the interests of the British aristocracy and the growing colonial bourgeoisie. Individualism united the colonial bourgeoisie in opposition to the Crown’s demand to abolish slavery and pay outstanding debt (“taxation without representation”). What the English colonialists in North America meant by "individual freedom" was the ability of the American capitalist class to profit from African slavery and stolen land without having to politically or financially answer to the Crown. This conflict of capitalist interests led to the war of "independence" and the eventual formation of the United States of America."
Individualism flourished following the establishment of the American capitalist state. The "Founding Fathers," or more correctly the first “American” capitalists, primarily concerned themselves with a problem they deemed the "tyranny of the majority" while drafting the US Constitution. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the propertied interests they represented, feared popular revolt from indebted whites, African slaves, indigenous people, and women. The drafters of the constitution envisioned a federal state that would socially control exploited populations. In its early years, the US government was used to smoke out slave rebellions and create unfair treaties for indigenous land robbed directly from tribes and Nations. American individualism was never about "freedom" and "liberty” for just any individual, but rather an ideological weapon the capitalist class wielded to maintain and further the exploitation of the “tyrannical majority.”
Full article here...
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/historic-plague-individualism-continues-under-present-day-us-capitalism
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NobodyHere
(2,810 posts)AOR
(692 posts)to effect real change and stop the race to bottom for the majority of workers under capitalist social relations. I guess if one is happy with the status quo and business as usual - while ignoring and disregarding the destruction of others taking place around them - then individualism is the way to go.
there is nothing in our existence that doesn't depend on others now and before we came into existence. Once someone realizes that fact... solidarity in what benefits the whole rather than what benefits the individual should be a given much more priority.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)Both are the best systems available to us, though. History has proved this time and again.
Socialism always fails.
You'll never make me an anti-capitalist. There has never been the argument contrived that could convince me to be anti-capitalist.
AOR
(692 posts)Capitalism and U.S. Imperialism are responsible - directly and indirectly - for the deaths of hundreds of millions of lives and the destruction of hundreds of millions more throughout its insidious history- here and elsewhere - and it gets worse every day. That is objective reality. It does not call for a sales job or a plan to to convince YOU of anything. Who are you ? You are a bee in a hive.
Throd
(7,208 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)which Marx would not have recognized.
And capitalism has been at its game for 300-plus years. Leninism/Maoism rose and fell within 1915-1980. Capitalism's body count easily runs into nine figures by now.
Throd
(7,208 posts)Capitalism comes in many shades as well.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)eventual destruction of every person and resource on earth in the name of Holy Profits for the Capitalists. That is its readily apparent internal logic, about which Karl Marx was absolutely correct. Profits come before everything and anything. People, the planet, justice and even sanity itself. The Beast must be fed to enrich the capitalist class at the expense of everyone else, and the system will be enforced by violence if needed.
AOR
(692 posts)a rational and objective discussion could be had on communism ( in which very little resembling a social structure in which the means and distribution of production, resources and the commons are commonly and publicly owned by society as a whole has been tried) but not in the midst of those who lap up any and all "scary red", spoon fed, ruling class propaganda to defend capitalism at all costs.
Very well said.
Capitalism is completely incompatible with justice, equality, peace, freedom and the sustainability of the planet and the human species.
"First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?" The nature of capitalism is to exploit and destroy everything in the name of profit. That is a feature, its primary feature, and not a bug.
mountain grammy
(28,819 posts)
PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)Not worth my time explaing. It is self evident.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)