posted March 26, 2002Reading the "Alternative Budget for Nova Scotia" [PDF] from The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives it seemed clear to me the neo-liberalism agenda fulfills Marx's prophecy in that it creates its own grave diggers; the larger the share of a community's wealth that flows to those who are already wealthy, the more that wealthy elite will decide to their own benefit, in their own favour and in favour of those who serve their interests. The least inhuman outcome from this situation would be that the elite takes on the role of benevolence oligarchs. It is dreaming in technicolour to think that there can be anything like democratic development, except a transfer of decision making to those who on produce the wealth and are affected by the production and distribution. The wealthy struggle to preserve and extend their luxurious isolation; such is the actuality of how material reality conditions consciousness ... no surprise there. What needs to be underlined is this: it is exactly that luxurious isolation that skews their deliberations away from the public good. The wealthy minority would deny some even the fundamental material goods that would enable them to enjoy and make use of their rights. The majority, in the name of the public good, would deny the wealthiest minority only the most extravagant of their surplus. Yet it is those who already own and control so much who receive the most. It is the case that wealth is being accumulated by a few, and that the rate of concentration is accelerating. There may be no golden road to utopia, but it seems the road to hell is a well groomed downhill run.
posted March 25, 2002Perhaps the power of dialectical materialism only arises consciously when individuals and communities are confronted by outrageous indignity? In this case, people's struggle for access to water gave rise to a significant document: Cochabamba Declaration; perhaps all such instances should be as eloquently articulated.
