Financial Chaos and the Crisis of Neoliberalism

In my search for alternatives, I came across this series of lectures provided by the Socialist Project, found here .

There are three lectures: (1) Marxian Views of Financial Capital and Credit, (2) Capitalism, Neoliberalism and the Current Crises of Wall Street and Bay Street, and (3) Bank Bailouts or Socialist Alternatives?

Unfortunately, they’re a little long and there were no talking points or other efforts to ‘short-form’ the presentations.  Sad, isn’t it:  I’m definitely of the ‘MTV Generation’.

Now, I did invest a little time with each lecture and noticed one trend that the presenter was discussing:  the urge to centralize capital.  Thinking this through, the light started to go on.  The purpose of neo-liberals is to de-centralize everything (government, small businesses, consumers, municipal planners, etc) and as they centralize capital, they are able to exert control on our financial lives, while leaving us flapping on a dock like a fish out of water as we try to organize ourselves on local levels.

At no time has it been more obvious to me that individuals need to centralize a lot of their efforts.  Whether it’s creating sites that share information about how to stop Wal-Mart from setting up shop outside your town limits, or buying food from local producers (without intermediaries), or, more impotrantly, finding our own system for rechanneling savings and our own personal assets so that they can be productive for neighbours, local is the new black.

If you’ve invested the time to watch all of these videos, please feel free to post any summary comments that the rest of us can enjoy.