Re: <nettime> No More Bubble-gum: Mike Davis on Occupy Wall Street

[Newmedia@aol.com]

Patrice:

 

Mike Davis says --

 

> The great issue is not raising taxes on the rich or achieving a

> better regulation of banks.  Itâs economic democracy: the right of

> ordinary people to make macro-decisions about social investment,

> interest rates, capital flows, job creation, and global warming. If the

> debate isnât about economic power, itâs irrelevant.

RIGHT . . . but WRONG!!

 

There is no "right" for "ordinary people" to make MACRO-decisions about everyone else's life.  There has never been this "right" and no one has ever figured out how to run a society based on that fundamentally flawed notion.

 

The only RIGHT people have is to make MICRO-decisions about what they are going to do with their own lives!

 

DEMOCRACY of PRODUCTION = Economic Democracy *not* "Democracy of Consumption" (i.e. what we have today.)

 

That's the key to *economic* power and clearing away every impediment to exercising that power is the key to the situation.

 

> Personally I lean toward the anarchist position and its obvious imperatives.

 

BULLSH*T!!

 

The "anarchist position" is not compatible with the LENINIST position that he takes regarding "the debate" -- unless you are a cynical Leninist who welcomes the "bombs" so that *you* can take over once everyone is afraid of total breakdown.

 

He's right that it's about individual initiative and he is wrong that it's about vastly expanding STATE power -- which is demonstrably antithetical to individual actions.

 

Smart guy . . . he should know the difference.  My guess is that he does.

 

Mark Stahlman

Brooklyn NY

 

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