Our Post-Truth/Pre-Future Economy
A small portion of a sinister paragraph from Paul A. Baran's The Political Economy of Growth (New York: Monthly Review Press,
1957) is an apt description of the contemporary economy of the United States of
America:
Incapable of pursuing a policy of genuine
full employment and of genuine economic progress, having to abstain from
productive investment as well as from a systematic expansion of consumption, it
[ monopoly capitalism] has to rely in the main on military spending for
preservation of the prosperity and high
employment on which it depends both for profits and popular support
…..
To secure popular acceptance of the
armaments program, the existence of
external danger has to be systematically hammered into the minds of
people. An incessant campaign of
official and semi-official propaganda, financed by both government and big
business, is designed to produce an almost complete uniformity of opinion on
all important issues. An elaborate
system of economic and social pressures is developed to silence independent
thought and to stifle all "undesirable" scientific, artistic, or
literary expression. A spiderweb of corruption is spun over the entire
political and cultural life of the imperialist country and drives principles,
honesty, humanity, and courage from political life. (129-130)
Under the greatly admired leadership of a fake President
who tweets and excoriates with gusto and abandon, a significant number of
American citizens obediently worship in the synagogues, mosques, cathedrals, and evangelical churches of monopoly capitalism.
The new religion in our nation is a matter of fact. American facts are biblical; they do not lie.
Unfortunately, American facts in 2017 disembowel the trinity of charity,
hope and faith.
Jerry W. Ward, Jr. June
4, 2017
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