Tony,
    Thanks for forwarding this piece. It made an interesting reading. Another
example of how things have yet to be better the way we expect to under
capitalism.
    I just want to ask whether there is a credible alternative to capitalism?
It is very easy to expose the shortcomings of turbo capitalism but Herculean
to cite credible and practical alternatives. The beauty about capitalism (by
capitalism I shall refer to it here to mean as compassionate and regulated
liberal economics and not market fundamentalism/radicalism associated with
the neo-liberals of the early 80's) is that it is progressive: it harnesses
the full potentials of an able individual. An individual/family at the bottom
of the ladder say in 1980, could be classified as middle class or even upper
class nouveau riche 1999.
    Capitalism benign, compassionate and regulated could bring out the best
in man. It is precisely this that Marx overlooked in his analysis capitalism:
that it (capitalism) could reinvent itself according to the moods that suits
a particular time. So it is easy to diagnose capitalism's swashbuckling
proclivities, but Herculean to prescribe a credible and workable alternative.
This reminds me what the Historian Louis Namier said of Marx: that he got the
diagnosis right but with the prescription went wide off the mark. Marx was
fuller of truth but mistaken.
    Good day to you.
Hamjatta Kanteh


hkanteh

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------------