Smash the Mirror: Imagining a Different System
The global health and economic crises are points of opportunity. Arundhati Roy, the great Indian intellectual and writer says, “Whatever it is, coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality. Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
Speaker
David Harvey
David Harvey is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of many books, including The Limits to Capital, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Spaces of Global Capitalism, A Companion to Marx’s Capital, Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism and The Ways of the World. He is among the top twenty most cited authors in the humanities and is the world’s most cited academic geographer.
Cathy Seitz –
I liked it all, but especially one place where he mentions gift economies. (my comment: this is the pre-monetary style. There is also trade, of course, but simply giving, when inspired, is much more powerful and could transform everything if taken seriously. Note the different emphasis between giving and taking.)