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Anthony Arnove's
biography
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QuestionIs the current economic system inherently corrupt? If so, how do we go about dismantling it? GlenAnswer
Anthony Arnove: I think the current economic system is absolutely corrupt. But the question of corruption can sometimes be individualized. It can be seen in terms of individuals who are seeking to personally benefit by going outside of the bounds of normal economic behavior, engaging in collusion, lying, deceit, in order to advance their own personal interests. And so we often have under capitalism regulation of individual or corporate behavior to try to single out certain actions as being beyond the bounds of the acceptable operation of the economic system.
But the reality is, corruption is inherit in our economic system. Our economic system encourages individual greed, competition, and systematically encourages corruption, deceit, in order to maximize profit. So it's not a question of individuals. It's not a question of a few bad apples. It's at the root of the system. So, in terms of thinking about an alternative of how we dismantle the economic system, I think we have to look at who has power under the economic system.
And the irony that Karl Marx pointed out – it's appropriate to think about Marx given where we are today in Germany – and given the world that we confront which matches so much his description of the Communist Manifesto of what globalization was beginning to produce in his time and certainly has proven so true today – is that you have to understand that under capitalism the people who seemingly have the least power, the working class people, actually have a tremendous power. They make the profits that keep the system running. They produce the goods. They run the factories. They transport the goods. And if those people withhold their labor; if those people organize their collective power – individually they may not have power, but collectively they have a tremendous power – they can transform the system. They can dismantle the system. They can build something new in its place.
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