Occupy Our World

Uma nova atualização de Stanley Donwood, no Offtopic, é uma carta lida por ele no The Independent, Que reflete sobre os movimentos dos indignados britânicos.

 

 

This is a letter I read in The Independent, a British newspaper. It is, in my opinion, a very succinct summation of the Occupy movement.

The protesters in London's financial district are not opposed to capitalism, per se; they are opposed to the abuse of power, the greed and the corruption which have led so catastrophically to spiralling unemployment, massive national debt and the dismantling of our services and infrastructure.

Despite all the banging on by politicians and financial institutions about the failure of communism and how capitalism is the only system which works, it was their decision to shift virtually all manufacturing to the communist state of China – which has somehow led to reduced production costs and yet not yielded a corresponding reduction of prices – that has been largely responsible for the collapse of western economies. This manoeuvre provided a massive short-term gain to the directors and shareholders of the companies who took advantage of the cheap, unregulated labour market, but at an incalculable long-term cost to our own industries and our workforce.

Combined with other dubious money-market activities such as gambling in commodities which may or may not exist, and trading in debt, this has been a very dangerous game. Now real people are paying with their livelihoods and with the futures of their children.
Yet still we hear the wearisome whine: "Tax the rich to excess and they'll leave our shores." Please, let them shift their tax-avoiding activities elsewhere – after all, they've already shipped all the jobs; their contribution to society is negligible and their denial of responsibility is offensive in the extreme.

Julian Self
Milton Keynes

 

 

Stanley

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