The DUmmies love to advocate societal systems that result in them having all the fruit , but doing none of the picking or growing. They do it in the name of the "poor" but the projection is very clear.
Hannah Bell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jan-12-09 03:27 AM
Original message
The Myth of Scarcity
There is no real scarcity in the world; quite the opposite...Between 1970 and 1990, the population of Canada grew 25% while the GDP expanded 647%. The population of Britain rose 3.2%, while the GDP swelled 964%. In the United States...the population increased 20% while the GDP climbed 440%.3
One might think that such massive increases in wealth...would result in a generous rise in the standard of living, including universal access to medical care...(but) wealth is socially produced but privately owned, so only a privileged elite benefit from rising productivity...The combined wealth of the richest 200 people in the world is close to one trillion dollars...greater than the combined wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population...
Modern Malthusians
The State protects the “right†of the rich to privately own the social wealth and propagates the ideas that justify this arrangement....Since the 18th century, Malthus’ theories have been used to defend social inequality. All social ills, from poverty and disease to famine and environmental degradation, have been mistakenly attributed to the problem of too many people wanting too much.44
Malthus was wrong.
The development of science and technology has made agricultural land so productive that farmers in rich nations are paid not to grow crops while mountains of stored food are destroyed or left to rot every year. The problem is not too many hungry bellies. The problem is that food is sold for profit, and too many people can’t afford to buy it...
Modern Malthusians fill the mainstream media with cries of scarcity. Instead of praising the aging population as a medical and social success, they blame improved longevity for straining the system.... Discussions of what is medically effective are submerged by arguments about money. The myth of “never-ending crisis†is a deception practiced by all nations to promote public acceptance of rationing.45
The myth of scarcity is needed to reconcile the obscenity of growing wealth alongside growing poverty. According to the World Health Organization, around 300 million people live in 16 countries where life expectancy actually decreased between 1975 and 1995. Fifty percent of deaths of children under age five are associated with malnutrition. At least two million child deaths a year could be prevented by existing vaccines and most of the rest could be prevented by access to clean water and other basic necessities. Nearly 1.3 billion people live in absolute poverty, and more than 15 million adults aged 20 to 64 die every year from preventable causes.46
The myth of scarcity insists that such suffering cannot be prevented, because there is not enough to go around. This argument hardens our hearts, erodes our humanity, negates centuries of human progress and reinstates the law of the jungle, where only the strong can hope to survive.
We are expected to accept the unacceptable: beggars in the streets of the world’s most prosperous cities; an abundance of food, while millions starve; treatments for disease that the poor cannot afford; one part of the population being overworked, while the other part is desperate for work; surplus wealth growing alongside, and at the expense of, destitute populations. As American author John Steinbeck wrote in 1939,
“There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success…In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.â€47
The goal of modern Malthusians is to ensure that the grapes of wrath are never harvested, to justify the dominance of the few and the misery of the many, to obscure what would otherwise be obvious: that ordinary people create all of society’s wealth and deserve their share of it. The elite who rule society can never accept this account of the matter. If they did, they would have to abandon their system of private ownership and competition; they would have to acknowledge the inhumanity of depriving millions to enrich a few. Since they cannot deny reality, they promote the myth of scarcity.48
-Susan Rosenthal
http://susanrosenthal.com/articles/the-myth-of-scarcity...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4812203
They're cute when they pretend to be intellectual.
I wonder how it is that they don't understand why we call them commie rat bastards.
glowing Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jan-12-09 03:43 AM
Response to Original message
2. Rather disgusting the whole system.... the whole Game. Unity and sharing
would end a lot of this shit... We are all kept in borders of imaginary lines drawn over maps of the world.. and within those lines we are taught Nationalism and protectionism and learn to war instead of share. The illusions of our rules may one day be shed.. It sure is happening faster with the internet at our disposal.
Remember when they say share, it translates to "hand over your wallet, chump, I needs some beers".
bobbolink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jan-12-09 02:58 PM
Response to Reply #2
23. Wellllll, I think what's DISGUSTING is the propaganda that keeps us buying the whole myth!
We MUST find a way to break through the wall so that 'Murkins can learn to detect and reject propaganda.
If you DUmmies were to somehow gain the ability to "detect and reject propaganda", you'd all drop dead of massive apoplectic fit on the discovery that everything you know is wrong.
RandomThoughts (709 posts) Mon Jan-12-09 04:45 AM
Response to Original message
4. Good article Updated at 7:30 AM
But most real wealth is not hording of 'things' at least for the mega rich the Bush group helps.
Wealth is about being able to make more wealth off of other peoples lives. Owning stock, Owning land, getting interest from loans.
The only place wealth is spent besides making more wealth, is controlling the thoughts and actions of others, or advocating for ones own ideas. This is done through media ownership, lobbying, buying laws or people that make them.
And dangling the carrot, which is why creating scarcity is advocated by some of the wealthy. Which is also why Materialism, and worshiping money is also advocated.
The exception is when people honestly spend what they have to help others, but even this says a few people should decide who gets helped and how.
Mmmmkay... Try to direct your "random" thoughts away from the bong for a while.
Ani Yun Wiya (539 posts) Mon Jan-12-09 05:51 AM
Response to Reply #7
10. What I fail to understand...
Is why even well intentioned and seemingly intelligent members of the species fail to see that there is actually a rather simple solution to the problem of the global economic "crisis".
And that there are equally simple solutions to the age old issue of war as well.
In my view we would all be better off cooperating and not competing.
Da tovarich politburo eh comrade ?
Hannah Bell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jan-12-09 03:47 PM
Response to Reply #14
25. We already produce enough food to provide everyone in the world over 2500
calories a day, & then some.
In the US, we already have enough housing to house every person, & then some. We have housing sitting empty, & no one to buy it.
We have work that needs to be done going undone, & 13% of the population unemployed.
We already have acres of new automobiles sitting in storage - but no one to buy them.
We already pay, exhorbitantly, for the healthcare of the poor - but they can't have it as a secure right, no, they have to live in fear for some reason, & everyone else must live in fear of being bankrupted from medical bills.
Our military spending equals our social security spending, yet we "can't afford" social security".
You say, everyone can't have everything. No, if "everything" = thousand acre estates, multiple factories all over the world, millions in stock holdings, weekend flights to Europe.
But everyone *can* certainly have secure food, housing, work, medical care, old-age, leisure & participation in civil society.
You can take your 2500 calorie gruel diet and stick it where the sun don't shine.
originalpckelly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jan-12-09 12:02 PM
Response to Original message
18. And yet planned economies didn't seem to solve the problems of the Soviets.
Edited on Mon Jan-12-09 12:03 PM by originalpckelly
Didn't they have a problem or two feeding people?
At least one of you sees it.
bertman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Mon Jan-12-09 12:32 PM
Response to Original message
20. I've spent the last few weeks trying to "downsize" my personal possessions, so I have
to agree that, at least at my house and my friends' houses, there is a massive OVERabundance of material goods such as clothing, furniture, dishes, pots, pans, blankets, etc. etc. The list is almost endless.
Granted, this stuff took a while to accumulate, but it is still surplus. And it is in very good shape.
I have a friend who just moved into a retirement community. She and her husband moved from a very affluent part of town. They spent WEEKS just giving away their personal belongings that they did not need. And they still live very comfortably and she says they have other possessions that they must find homes for. We have taken many items to a family that was burned out of their home, to the local thrift shops and second hand stores, plus she has given many very nice "things" to family and friends.
We Americans have far more than we need.
If you don't think so, just look in my attic. Sheesh.
You give me all your stuff seeing as you don't need it. No No , I won't pay , I *need* it more for reasons I don't have to elaborate on. How's that sound.
Hannah Bell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jan-12-09 04:58 PM
Response to Reply #27
28. People don't need to be bribed to work for themselves, their family, their community;
when they have a voice in the process & a share in the reward. In fact, it's pretty likely they're hardwired to do just that.
But they do need to be bribed to work for someone's else's enrichment, when they have no voice & only a small fraction of the reward.
There's no scarcity of labor. There's a scarcity of power on the side of labor.
Now here's the kicker.. You want "reward" but aren't prepared to "work for it" and just admitted as much.
Lazy leeching vermin.
