Naomi Klein Interview
Aug. 19th, 2008 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
webfarmerFascinating individual, imo.
Naomi Klein Interview - The A.V. Club - 12 Aug 08
" . . . in general the debate is not between capitalism and not capitalism, it's between what parts of the economy are not suitable to being decided by the profit motive. And I guess that comes from being Canadian, in a way, because we have more parts of our society that we've made a social contract to say, 'That's not a good place to have the profit motive govern.'
Whereas in the United States, that idea is kind of absent from the discussion. So even something like firefighting—it seems hard for people make an argument that maybe the profit motive isn't something we want in the firefighting sector, because you don't want a market for fire.
If we think about the big books of the right, like Milton Friedman's Capitalism And Freedom, which in its very title is bundling those two very ideas. Or Francis Fukuyama's The End Of History, which was part of the very same intellectual exercise, saying that the endpoint of mankind's ideological evolution was free markets in the economic sphere and liberal democracy in the political sphere.
On the surface, that may sound self-evident, but it also means you can't democratically decide to change what kind of economy you want. You're really limiting the sphere of democracy.
Naomi Klein Interview - The A.V. Club - 12 Aug 08
" . . . in general the debate is not between capitalism and not capitalism, it's between what parts of the economy are not suitable to being decided by the profit motive. And I guess that comes from being Canadian, in a way, because we have more parts of our society that we've made a social contract to say, 'That's not a good place to have the profit motive govern.'
Whereas in the United States, that idea is kind of absent from the discussion. So even something like firefighting—it seems hard for people make an argument that maybe the profit motive isn't something we want in the firefighting sector, because you don't want a market for fire.
If we think about the big books of the right, like Milton Friedman's Capitalism And Freedom, which in its very title is bundling those two very ideas. Or Francis Fukuyama's The End Of History, which was part of the very same intellectual exercise, saying that the endpoint of mankind's ideological evolution was free markets in the economic sphere and liberal democracy in the political sphere.
On the surface, that may sound self-evident, but it also means you can't democratically decide to change what kind of economy you want. You're really limiting the sphere of democracy.
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Date: 2008-08-20 01:37 am (UTC)Just one more box she manages to think outside.
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Date: 2008-08-21 05:11 am (UTC)I hope you're well. =)
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Date: 2008-08-21 05:36 am (UTC)I'm doing okay. Semi-productive day today. Went to the T. Boone Pickens presentation at the Lancaster County Events Center. That was interesting and I'll blog on that later. Ran into some alternative and wind type friends there.
Then drove over to talk to my wind buddy who stayed at work instead of checking out Pickens. His office is in the north part of town and since I was in the neighborhood I thought I'd drop in and say hello and see how things were going.
Then it was home and getting a little rest. Ended up having a Skype video chat with a computer science professor friend of mine in Idaho about renewable energy prospects for his home.
He's German so we also talked about the differences between the intense activities going on in Germany over energy issues verses our more talk that action situation over here. Among other things.
Watched Dr. Strangelove tonight. That was interesting in particular the extra features part of the DVD.