<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Critics of capitalism have assumed (not just since Marx) that there can be no level playing field between those who own the means of production and those who have to sell their work of head and hands if they want to eat regularly.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">“Capitalistic economic relations perpetuate a form of bondage which, as early as 1767, Simon Linguet had declared
to be 'even worse than slavery' - writing</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">'It is the impossibility of
living by any other means that compels our farm laborers to till the
soil, whose fruits they will not eat, and our masons to construct
buildings in which they will not live. It is want that drags them to
those markets where they await masters, who will do them the kindness of
buying them. It is want that compels them to go down on their knees to
the rich man in order to get from him permission to enrich him. What
effective gain has the suppression of slavery brought him? "He is free," you say. That is his misfortune. These men, it is said, have no master.
They have one, and the most terrible, the most imperious of masters:
that is, need. It is this that that reduces them to the most cruel
dependence.'</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">"And if there is something degrading to human nature in the
idea of bondage, as every spokesman for the Enlightenment would insist,
then it would follow that a new emancipation must be awaited, what
Fourier referred to as the third and last emancipatory phase of history.
The first having made serfs out of slaves, the second wage earners out
of serfs and the third which will transform the proletariat freemen by
eliminating the commodity character of labour, ending wage slavery and
bringing the commercial, industrial and financial institutions, under
democratic control.” [Chomsky]</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">—CGE</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On May 11, 2017, at 3:38 PM, Dianna Visek via Peace <<a href="mailto:peace@lists.chambana.net" class="">peace@lists.chambana.net</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" class=""><div class=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;" class=""><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1494509555771_210440" class="">There's a vast difference between the free market, meaning a level playing field, and crony capitalism, where government and business are in bed with each other. Many folks on the left use the term "capitalism" to refer to both.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1494509555771_210526" class=""><br class=""></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1494509555771_210539" class="">Dianna<br class=""></div></div></div>_______________________________________________<br class="">Peace mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:Peace@lists.chambana.net" class="">Peace@lists.chambana.net</a><br class="">https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace<br class=""></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></body></html>