We're Failing Capitalism: Part 1 of 5
I went to my first Peace Forum meeting one evening, and it felt good and inspiring to be around other people (there were about 20 total) who thought the war seemed unethical. I kept going back to Peace Forum. I'm mildly sad now thinking that at a school with over 30,000 students, only 20 people showed up to these meetings. But we weren't the only ones opposed to the war.
Here's a letter to the editor I wrote to the student newspaper, The Diamondback, in December of 2002 during my Peace Forum days (there shouldn't be a period at the end of the first sentence in the second paragraph):
I asked a fellow Peace Forum member one day about the "ISO" button on her jacket - the International Socialist Organization. I had heard of socialism, but I didn't really know what it was. So I went to a meeting. And I kept going back.
The meetings were educational, giving me a perspective on history and current events I had never before learned or been introduced to. We had discussions, guest presenters, workshops, teach-ins, and book loaning and swapping. I learned about revolutions from around the world that I didn't know had happened, about the struggles of people I never knew existed, and about ways to organize the education of others.
And the best part was that they had figured out the source of the world's problems: capitalism.
If only we got rid of capitalism and welcomed capitalism's natural successor: socialism. If only we could destroy the profit motive, people would have the space to be motivated by altruism, equality, health, and respect.
I officially joined the organization a month or so later. An overthrow of the US government had started to sound good:
So I stopped going to meetings and workshops, and I stopped calling myself a socialist. I was no longer a card-carrying member of a socialist organization.
But Capitalism was for me still the source of the world's problems.
This is the first part in a five-part series on how we're failing capitalism. In this first part we'll be looking at how I came to view capitalism as the source of the world's problems. (I no longer see it this way.) The five parts to the series are:
- The source of the world's problems?
- Some of capitalism's successes
- The winning formula
- We're failing capitalism
- The way things are. Or not.
In 2002 the US began arguing for the need to invade Iraq, and this seemed wrong to me. I was studying at the University of Maryland, and posted on a bulletin board outside the Physics building was a flyer for "Peace Forum", a meeting to engage in conversations about the possible war.
I went to my first Peace Forum meeting one evening, and it felt good and inspiring to be around other people (there were about 20 total) who thought the war seemed unethical. I kept going back to Peace Forum. I'm mildly sad now thinking that at a school with over 30,000 students, only 20 people showed up to these meetings. But we weren't the only ones opposed to the war.
Here's a letter to the editor I wrote to the student newspaper, The Diamondback, in December of 2002 during my Peace Forum days (there shouldn't be a period at the end of the first sentence in the second paragraph):
I asked a fellow Peace Forum member one day about the "ISO" button on her jacket - the International Socialist Organization. I had heard of socialism, but I didn't really know what it was. So I went to a meeting. And I kept going back.
The meetings were educational, giving me a perspective on history and current events I had never before learned or been introduced to. We had discussions, guest presenters, workshops, teach-ins, and book loaning and swapping. I learned about revolutions from around the world that I didn't know had happened, about the struggles of people I never knew existed, and about ways to organize the education of others.
And the best part was that they had figured out the source of the world's problems: capitalism.
If only we got rid of capitalism and welcomed capitalism's natural successor: socialism. If only we could destroy the profit motive, people would have the space to be motivated by altruism, equality, health, and respect.
I officially joined the organization a month or so later. An overthrow of the US government had started to sound good:
Our organization participates in many different struggles for justice and liberation today, while working toward a future socialist society, free of all exploitation and oppression, and built on the principles of solidarity and democracy. (Source.)It sounded good until I realized that our chapter leader wasn't talking about a peaceful revolution by changing hearts and minds. No, he was talking about an armed revolution. I thought that was silly then, and I think it's silly now, but also dangerous.
So I stopped going to meetings and workshops, and I stopped calling myself a socialist. I was no longer a card-carrying member of a socialist organization.
But Capitalism was for me still the source of the world's problems.
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