Capitalism’s Terrorism In Bangladesh

As one reads this story in Der Spiegel it doesn’t take much imagination to remember the days of yore in American and European factories.  How private capital was a form of endless abuse of the economic rights of western democracies.   Oftentimes it too lead to large accidents and death.  For some short period of time American and European workers organized against the tyranny of private, for-profit capital and many enjoyed some share of the pie in the wealth created.  Wealth created in large part by their labor.

How our nation and other nations would be different if “public” companies were really publicly-owned rather than being owned by private class, rank and title as they are today.  ie  The shareholders to corporations were actually all of the citizens of any democracy not just those private interests who have accumulated its wealth and power for whatever reasons.  Certainly, the vast majority of public companies never would have qualified to receive democracy’s capital and thus wouldn’t even exist.  And there would be no need to organize against private for-profit capital and corporate power because dividends and surplus value would be governed by public capital aka democracy.   Companies like this one in Bangladesh and untold tens of thousands of others who prey upon humanity and the planet would then never exist.  

1,100 people needlessly died because of the endless terrorism that is the king’s private for-profit capital.   Who weeps for these victims of private capital’s terrorism and their families?  Was this or the other thousands of examples on the front page of every newspaper in our nation as was the terrorism of 9/11?  No.  These are the nameless faces of the people who, under duress and lack of economic and human freedom, make our cell phones, clothes, gadgets, auto parts and on and on.   Yet we have no idea who they even are and the corporate state clearly wants it that way.  This truly is nothing comparative to private, for-profit capital’s endless crimes against humanity - war, misery, terrorism and death over hundreds of years.  How many dead due in some large part to private, for-profit capital?  Over one hundred million?  I think certainly much more.   Both world wars were to some large degree created by private, for-profit capital.   How many lives enslaved to exploitative and predatory suffering and indignity?  Billions. 

No human being should ever have to suffer the indignity, economic slavery and death that the people of Bangladesh experienced.  Modern science and the monetization of science, including productivity, has created a world of abundance so that no person on this earth should ever have to yield to repressive exploitation and suffering.  Public capital would transform the human experience and the natural world in more ways than are imaginable.

Title link here.