Language

Speaking to the power

Submitted August 28, 2004 - 5:57 pm by Bill Conroy
Although speaking to the issues of racism and black power at the time (1966), Stokely Carmichael is relevant on this topic as well. You can't talk about libertarianism, free markets or any form of political system based on economics -- in the United States at least -- without considering Carmichael's thesis.

From "What We Want"

Ultimately, the economic foundation of this country must be shaken if black people are to control their lives. The colonies of the United States -- and this includes the black ghettoes within its borders, north and south -- must be liberated. For a century this nation has been like an octopus of exploitation, its tentacles stretching from Mississippi and Harlem to South America, the Middle East, southern Africa, and Vietnam; the form of exploitation varies from area to area but the essential result has been the same -- a powerful few have been maintained and enriched at the expense of the poor and voiceless colored masses. This pattern must be broken. As its grip loosens here and there around the world, the hopes of black Americans become more realistic. For racism to die, a totally different America must be born.

Seems to me that a "free market" is a form of rationalized exploitation; it's a system where there are always going to be far more losers than winners, where the civil rights of not only people of color, but of all people of conscience, are laid to waste by the greedy aspirations of the few -- typically those born with the most poker chips.

Libertarianism (or capitalism lite) seems to assume that everyone in the game is playing fair, that the invisible hand of the market is doing more than jacking itself off.

Libertarianism fails to account, in any substantive way, at least as I see it, for the deeper problem we have in this country, USA.

From Carmichel's essay:

The reality is that this nation, from top to bottom, is rascist; that racism is not primarily a problem of "human relations" but of an exploitation maintained -- either actively or through silence -- by the society as a whole. Camus and Sarte have asked, can a man condemn himself? Can they stop blaming us, and blame their own system? Are they capable of the shame which might become a revolutionary emotion?

Is libertarianism truly an expression of a "revolutionary emotion?" I don't think so. I think it is just another way to rationalize our ghettoes, (the hearbeat of our "war on drugs"), to avoid honestly confronting the shame.

I'll stay tuned for more debate on this topic.

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