STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 9 January 2013

[Demeter]

18. Is There an Alternative for Capitalist Economics and Politics? Richard Wolff Says Yes

http://truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/13759-is-there-an-alternative-for-capitalist-economics-and-politics-richard-wolff-says-yes

"Imagine a country where the majority of the population reaps the majority of the benefits for their hard work, creative ingenuity and collaborative efforts. Imagine a country where corporate losses aren't socialized, while gains are captured by an exclusive minority. Imagine a country run as a democracy, from the bottom up, not a plutocracy from the top down. Richard Wolff not only imagines it, but in his compelling, captivating and stunningly reasoned new book, Democracy at Work, he details how we get there from here - and why we absolutely must."

-- Nomi Prins, Author of It Takes a Pillage and Black Tuesday

Few are better equipped than economist Richard Wolff, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, to address the massive failings and inequalities of capitalism as he does in his latest book, Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism.

He also describes Workers' Self-Directed Enterprises (WSDEs) as an alternative to the capitalism that broke the US economy and has resulted in massive economic redistribution to the ruling elites...

"Capitalism, like all other economic systems, displays a variety of forms. There are, for example, largely private, laissez-faire kinds of capitalism that differ in many ways from forms of capitalism in which the state plays more significant roles, such as market regulator or social welfare guarantor (as in "state welfare capitalism&quot , or as a close partner of capitalists as in fascism. What remains the same across all such forms - why they all deserve the label "capitalist" - is the exclusion of the mass of workers that produces the output and generates the profits from receiving and distributing that profit, and from generally participating democratically in enterprise decisions. Capitalism excludes workers from deciding what is produced, how it is produced, where it is produced and how profits are to be used and distributed."

MONDRAGON, ANYONE?