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Anthony Arnove's
biography
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QuestionHow should an economic system be devised that isn't in conflict with human, animal or planet rights? Jens VoschAnswer
Anthony Arnove: Well, really, I think this is one of the most important questions that may be asked today, and the question really begins to answer itself. We live in a world today that has an economic system that is in conflict with human, that is in conflict with animal, that is in conflict with environmental rights. And so, we have to raise this question, because the matter of fact is if we don't begin to answer this question soon, we may not have the luxury of being able to discuss this question.
The kinds of environmental damage that capitalism is doing in the world today, the kinds of risks that its creating in terms of the possibility of nuclear warfare which could eliminate humankind, really is beginning to raise various concrete questions about the length of the human experiment on this planet. We face, in the words of Noam Chomsky, "a choice between hegemony or survival" in the direction things are going. The leaders of our planet are choosing hegemony over survival; are choosing the calculations of short-term profit over survival. So really, I think we have to say that we reject this system and we do need a new economic system. We do need a new way of organizing ourselves; organizing the way in which we meet our needs that is based on human need and not based on profit.
To do that, I think we have experiments in history that we can learn from; moments when people have come together and shown collectively, collaboratively, democratically they can make the kinds of decisions that respect the right of the environment; respect the right of people; respect the needs of their brothers and sisters. In those moments, we've shown the possibility of a different kind of world than the one that we confront today, which we're told is the only possible world; which we're told is the necessary order of things; but which we know from moments like the Paris Commune of 1871, the workers' communes that were set up in the Spanish Civil War, and in other moments of revolutionary change, that it's possible to organize things differently.
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