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The Unfinished Book About Who We Are

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Joseph Rain

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“Well, our economic system "works," it just works in the interests of the masters, and I'd like to see one that works in the interests of the general population. And that will only happen when they are the "principal architects" of policy, to borrow Adam Smith's phrase. I mean, as long as power is narrowly concentrated, whether in the economic or the political system, you know who's going to benefit from the policies―you don't have to be a genius to figure that out. That's why democracy would be a good thing for the general public. But of course, achieving real democracy will require that the whole system of corporate capitalism be completely dismantled―because it's radically anti-democratic. And that can't be done by a stroke of the pen, you know: you have to build up alternative popular institutions, which could allow control over society's investment decisions to be moved into the hands of working people and communities. That's a long job, it requires building up an entire cultural and institutional basis for the changes, it's not something that's just going to happen on its own. There are people who have written about what such a system might look like―kind of a "participatory economy," it's sometimes called. But sure, that's the way to go, I think.”

InequalityWealth Inequality
Book:Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
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“Når du allerede fra fødslen stemples, fordi du kun er en pige; når du fødes med mærkaterne skyld og skam præget ind i huden, fordi du kun er en pige; når dit vilkår som menneske er, at du aldrig vil være god nok, fordi du ikke er født som dreng – så har du kun tre veje, du kan vælge gennem livet: Du kan forsøge at holde ud, dræbe din stemme og gennemleve volden og undertrykkelsen som en tavs eksistens bag dit slør. Du kan dø for din egen hånd eller en mands. Eller du kan forsøge at bryde fri, selvom det koster dig alt. Måske endda livet.”

CultureHuman RightsGenderInequalityWomen S Rights
Book:Dødevaskeren
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“In some countries, the strictly Progressive man reveals himself to be just as much as if not more prejudiced than the typical Reactionary. There is at times a sort of arrogant condescension in one's gushing, bleeding-heartedness, in that, behind the mask of social activism, one is acting on behalf of one's perceived 'inferiors'. He may promote himself as the savior of the world; he may pat on the head all those he insidiously assumes to be the lesser, whether in status or class or ability, and treat them as helpless children: but the biggest danger of all is that by his own conscience he may feel for them, think for them, and thus, decide for them. It is with such, this artificial brand of empathy, and self-righteousness and narcissism, that we always naively yet so ignorantly pity 'the others', and ultimately, in our schemes to secure them, we merely hold them down.”

PoliticalPrejudiceEqualityPityInequalityProgressiveSaviorNarcissismSelf RighteousnessBleeding Heart
Book:Healology
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“The rich and powerful are going to survive longer, but the effects are very real―and they're getting worse very quickly as more and more people get marginalized because they play no role in profit-making, which is considered the only human value. Well, the environmental problems are simply much more significant in scale than anything else in the past. And there's a fair possibility―certainly a possibility high enough so that no rational person would exclude it―that within a couple hundred years the world's water-level will have risen to the point that most of human life will have been destroyed.”

CapitalismClimate ChangeInequalityGlobal Warming
Book:Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
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“Western capitalist society, and especially my own American society, is one characterized by great inequalities. In any such society, by the nature of the case, the greatest threat to rightful freedom is always the wealth and power of the privileged. The chief task of the state in protecting human freedom should always be to use rightful state coercion to limit the freedom of the powerful and privileged to infringe the rightful freedom of the less privileged and the vulnerable. Political struggles in the modern world are usually fundamentally struggles about whether state power will be used to protect the rightful freedom of all, or instead used to protect the wrongful freedom of the wealthy, powerful, and privileged. Wide social inequality necessarily indicates that these struggles have come out the wrong way, on behalf of the unjust and oppressive freedom of the privileged against the rightful freedom of the majority.”

FreedomOppressionInequalityCoercionWealth InequalitySocial InequalityState Power
Book:The Free Development of Each: Studies on Freedom, Right and Ethics in Classical German Philosophy
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