>
> On May 2, 2011, at 3:00 PM, Alan Rudy wrote:
>
> > the aggregate level of human immiseration generated by capitalist
> > technological "progress" is far higher than the net benefit to capitalist
> > and professional classes
>
> Really? You mean there were mass literacy and 80-year life expectancies
> back in 1600?
>
Fair enough, at the same time, the capitalist law of population - another consequence of the forces that brought about mass literacy, etc., are generating some pretty serious contradictions across the 27 urban systems expected to have more than 8 million residents in 2015.
>
> Isn't it safer to say we can do a lot better for many more people now than
> we are than it is to make an insupportable claim like this? And one of the
> reasons is that the social structure of capitalism inhibits the fruits of
> material progress from being distributed equitably?
>
>
Up to a point, I think this is fine. There is, without a doubt a great deal
of good that's come from democratic capitalism but I don't have to be a
Malthusian to see remarkable material obstacles being produced by capitalism
relative to the that more equitable distribution. Posting too much...