[lbo-talk] socially irresponsible investment

tully tully at bellsouth.net
Thu Apr 14 17:36:07 PDT 2005


On Thursday 14 April 2005 07:22 pm, Doug Henwood wrote:
>But we live in a
>capitalist society - what's the alternative? Every time most of us
>work we make the boss richer, but we can't not work, can we? There's
>no way to stay pure in the economic realm, unless you go live in a
>shack somewhere and grow your own food, and I'm not about to do
> that!

Plenty of ways exist to be true to one's political beliefs and work around the system. Start a worker-owned business, a co-op, or an intentional community. No one is forcing you to be a wage slave. You made that choice. There are other choices.

What kind of armchair politics is it to bemoan the capitalist system, the wealth gap, the focus on profit over the social good, and then turn around and actively pursue each of those things in your personal life? I'm still stunned how Carrol can keep saying he needs an "organized" boycott to move him to personal action. We all know what corporations to avoid. We all know that participating in the money markets helps to strengthen the control capitalism has over us and over the rest of the world. Why not invest in worker owned business or personally start one? Are we so attached to profit ourselves that return has the most weight in our choices? Isn't this exactly the sort of greed that we bemoan?

--tully



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