economialternativa : Mensaje: Wendell Berry

De: "GlobalCirclenet" < webmaster@...>

Fecha: 2 de septiembre de 2007 10:02:54 AM GMT-05:00

Para: globalnetnews-summary@...

Asunto: [globalnetnews-summary] Wendell Berry

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Wendell Berry:

"These forms of political economy

may be described as sentimental because they depend absolutely upon a

political faith for which there is no justification, and because they

issue a cold check on the virtue of political and/or economic rulers.

They seek, that is, to preserve the gullibility of the people by

appealing to a fund of political virtue that does not exist.

Communism and "free-market" capitalism both are modern versions of

oligarchy. In their propaganda, both justify violent means by good

ends, which always are put beyond reach by the violence of the means.

The trick is to define the end vaguely "the greatest good of the

greatest number" or "the benefit of the many" — and keep it at a

distance.

"The fraudulence of these oligarchic forms of economy is in their

principle of displacing whatever good they recognize (as well as

their debts) from the present to the future. Their success depends

upon persuading people, first, that whatever they have now is no

good, and, second, that the promised good is certain to be achieved

in the future. This obviously contradicts the principle — common, I

believe, to all the religious traditions — that if ever we are going

to do good to one another, then the time to do it is now; we are to

receive no reward for promising to do it in the future. And both

communism and capitalism have found such principles to be a great

embarrassment. If you are presently occupied in destroying every good

thing in sight in order to do good in the future, it is inconvenient

to have people saying things like "Love thy neighbour as thyself"

or "Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them."