Globe's Carroll: Capitalism 'Certain' to Self-Destruct in this Century

NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

[governsleastgovernsbest]

James Carroll, whose Boston Globe columns might be viewed less as reasoned discourse and more as auto-therapy for his notorious rift with his father, predictably turns his MLK, Jr. Day piece into a condemnation of all things American.

Vietnam was at the root of his split with his father, as Carroll documented in God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us. So Carroll naturally drags a Vietnam/Iraq analogy into his piece: "like Bush, Johnson was presiding over a lost war." Of course, if there was a lesson of Vietnam it's that we lost it because we lost the political will to win it.

But Carroll was just clearing his throat with his obligatory Vietnam riff. The heart of his column is a condemnation of capitalism. According to Carroll, since the days of King: "economic justice . . . if anything, is even further from fulfillment."

Really? In the America of 4.5% unemployment? Where colleges fight for the privilege of awarding scholarships to minority high school students with decent grades? Where the biggest food-related problem for our poor is not hunger but obesity?

Carroll goes so far as to predict the end of capitalism:

"If the 20th century seemed a time of capitalism's ascendancy, the new century seems an era of its certain self-destruction."

Can I get another "really" on that? Capitalism certain to self-destruct? That same capitalism that is exploding in India and China, literally lifting billions out of poverty? What does Carroll posit as an alternative to capitalism? You guessed it: "socialism, compared with the possible anarchy, is benign."

But why the false choice between socialism and anarchy? Why not the real choice: between the grinding hopelessness of socialism and the freedom and opportunity of free markets?

Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Capitalism-doomed ping to Today show list.

[JacksonCalhoun]

Like an old friend of mine said "If socialism works, why do they have to keep people in with in wall?".

[JacksonCalhoun]

er, "with a wall"

[governsleastgovernsbest]

How do we know they're not trying to keep capitalists out? ;-)

[Psycho_Bunny]

I wish I could make a living saying stupid stuff.

[johnny7]

In the name of the Father, Son and Marxist-Socialism...

[pieceofthepuzzle]

Proving again that you don't have to know anything to be a journalist. I have great respect for objective truth seekers. There seems to be a big deficiency of them in the current media.

[D.P.Roberts]

Oh, and gravity will be off from 2 to 5 this afternoon.

[PGalt]

Interesting reviews / history on this guy. Thanks for the link. Educational.

As long as individuals are free, James Carroll will be wrong.

[sergeantdave]

I'd bet a dime this useful idiot was standing on his sofa cheering on Pol Pot.

Good thing American Stalinists are afraid of owning guns or we'd be out in the streets and fields fighting Civil War II.

[Clifford The Big Red Dog]

Capitalism dying? I've heard this for close to 50 years now......


"Hyman Roth has been dying of the same heart attack now for over 20 years...."

[yankeedame]

Oh, and gravity will be off from 2 to 5 this afternoon.

What again?! Boy, I tell you, you pay taxes like crazy and... (grumble, grumble,grumble)

[Wilhelm Tell]

I'm sure you run into a lot of rich, spoiled, Western leftists who want to lecture you about how wonderful communism is.

[Wuli]

All anyone needs to do is to go back and read Carrrol's many articles (in publications like Harper's and Atlantic Monthly) in the 1980s and 1990s and you will find his level of accurate predictions of things to come amounts to ZERO.

He manages to maintain the semblence of intellectual respecatbility simply because he has tenure in academia and has been around so long, inspite of his continued lack of either real insight or rational analysis.

[Adder]

"As long as individuals are free, James Carroll will be wrong."


While I certainly agree, I also have grave reservations about an education system which has spent the last 30 years crapping on the Capitalist System to the point that our own children do not know what the systtem is about.

I think it will implode because of the stupidity of the economics being taught and the coming restrictions on the success of individuals. Hillary, I note, was not hooted from the stage after her "We will take it from you..." speech.

[subterfuge]

You make valid points Adder.

[Calvin Locke]

Mr. Carroll should look up Kondratieff Waves.

The story I remember is that Lenin asked an economist, Nickolai Kondratieff, when capitalism would fail. An estimated date for a depression was given, but he made the mistake of saying "but it bounce back", and was sent off some place.

Any way, in a nutshell, Kondratieff had plotted economic and historical activity as measured at the time, and noticed a pattern of 80-90 year cycles.

[bkepley]

Being around leftists due to a relationship, I can verify that the left lives in its own reality and that reality is unbelievably negative about everything.