Friday, January 30, 2009

On a particular system

We as human beings seem bored with ourselves. We no longer seek the true pleasures of life and living in real harmony with each other, in love, and with our physical and natural environment. Rather we spend our time, efforts, and resources on just trying to get more and more for ourselves. And the very nature of our system, which reveals its failures from time to time, which some proponents discard as 'market failures', serve only to reinforce the self-perpetuating nature of that existence, whereby our every action and thought is directed by the need of gain in order to live...to survive...to remain 'relevant.'

"Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains." Self-betterment is fine, living a life simply to spend and acquire material possessions brought on / forced upon by a social system and all its many negative consequences, to me, is a deprived, incomplete and sad one. It seems we remain in chains even as we try to get out and attain some semblances of freedom.

I ask, am I too hard on capitalism? Maybe. Maybe not. But it's short-comings are what I protest against.