``..I have no immediate response to say right now (I'm tired) and wondered what other folk think about the very relevant points my friend raised. Anyone game enough??'' Brenda
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Sure. But let's start at the introduction:
``The market economy has been around since ancient times, it has just evolved into the sophisticated, seemingly unstoppable organism it is today because of population growth and the spread of democracy, or perceived democracy around the world...''
The montrosity collapsed into the word, Market, has not evolved merely because of population growth. You might even be able to make a case for the converse, that population growth has been driven by the Market. As many people's previous cultural-economic system was destoryed and subsummed under expanding colonialism and imperialism, about their only means of survival was to produce enough working family members to survive---hence also a preferrence for boys over girls, simply as a consequence of their perceived greater physical capacity for heavy work.
But in addition, to that human population response (have more, so you can get more, because you need more, etc), let's remember it is and was the power elite class of governement organizing society for its own benefit (the accumulation of wealth and power) that pushed capitalism, then organized and drove its colonial and imperial expansions.
Modern so-called democracy was and mostly still is held by and for the propertied class that invented it---that the 18th/19th c revolutions were primarily devoted to expanding power to organize society out of the hands of the aristocracy/monarchy system and into the hands of the rising capital class of the high bourgeois. Then finally in 20th c. revolutions, minor extension of that social organizing power were extended to the non-propertied masses---primarily as consequences of war--the need for masses as armies. And, finally that many of the revolts, insurrections, and disturbances of the developed world in the latter half of the 20c were driven from below and were a reaction to a systematic erosion of these minor extensions of organizing power among masses of non-propertied peoples.
``...One reason why marxism will never get anywhere is because, when you peel it all back, it assumes that everyone should band together for the greater good. We are no where near being evolved enough as humans to go down this path...''
Actually, Marxism set-ups a general analysis of how masses can be organized out of their own collective interest in gaining the power to organize society for their collective benefit, benefit of the many, rather than restricted benefit of the few (capital). Goodwill and altruism only really pertain to an intellectual class mostly now intermixed with broad masses of workers. So it is something of a moral dilemma for an intellectual class whether they see their future survival among the many or the few (speaking as one of the fallen).
Gotta go work to extort government and insurance benefits out of the crippled masses of Oakland, and pretend its a good job. I'll try to work through some of the rest of the post later tonight.
Chuck Grimes