Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Jerry Mander: Answertext will be available soon.

by Jerry Mander

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Jesper Green: What’s after Capitalism? I rather want to say what’s just before the end of Capitalism, that’s Apocalypse. And after Capitalism it’s exchange economy based on the resources you can find after the Apocalypse, end.

by Jesper Green

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Jodie Evans: What is after capitalism? Whatever it is, I hope it comes soon, and I hope it comes gently, and I hope it takes few prisoners, and I hope that the transition, the lessons that we've learned from capitalism are deeply embedded in a capacity to value interdependence, value the local, and actually value capital, value the human capital, value the earth, value and nurture everything, which would be actually a true capitalism. That we come back to a place where we learn how to collaborate, where it's based on feminine principles, where it's not the power over, who's the biggest, or who can accumulate the most. Where we don't rely on stories like, oh, if, if we -- human nature only behaves a certain way, that we don't play to the lowest common denominator of our nature, but that the new form encourages the best parts of us, encourages the better angels of our nature instead of pushing us to the lower, lowest common denominatorand stripping the angels from our human nature.

by Jodie Evans

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

John Gage: What is after capitalism? Capitalism is a name for an abstract idea of exchange of value and investment, control of those resources in the world. That’s the idea of capitalism. That idea is not going away. All of human interaction depends in some sense on the metaphors of human interaction that we find fundamental. And for an expanding part of the world, a fundamental metaphor is the metaphor of market and exchange. I buy, you sell, what is price, how do we think of the value of things in monetary terms? Now, clearly, this is a small portion of the value of life, of the value of living things, of the value of inanimate things, of the value of the planet. But, this subset of human activity, this metaphor of the market, this understanding of things in a price regulated way, this capitalistic form is inherent. Countervailing forces on an idea that is not one of simple price exchange but more one of sharing, of supporting, of community, of collaboration derives from the feelings humans have in a family. So, the family economics of supporting everyone, allowing everyone to be participant and to benefit from a common set of resources, that idea countervails, works against, tries to soften and change the harsh mechanisms of computation of immediate economic return. So, after capitalism comes capitalism, but capitalism shaped in a new way as global mechanisms of information exchange and of empathetic interaction among human beings enable us to think of larger and larger family like structures, the very essence of the metaphor of the market I believe fundamentally shifts. So, we are able to see, we have a responsibility far beyond immediate capitalistic gain.

by John Gage

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Jonathan Granoff: It's clear that we need a system of economic arrangement in which there's a higher level of respect for all people. And to the extent that capitalism doesn't have mitigating institutions, it's going to change. It's necessary to meet the economic needs of so many people on the planet, the gross disparities of wealth are not sustainable. Also capitalism's unlimited exploitation of natural resources is not sustainable. So at some point - I'm just giving two examples of places where unfettered capitalism has to be mitigated by other institutional considerations. As we become more effective as a human community in making our economic order responsive to protecting the environment, and more socially just, at some point will we still be calling the system capitalism - I'm not sure. You know when a system changes into something else, whether you still call it that. If what we mean by capitalism is the unfettered capacity to exploit the natural resources of the planet, and that the market determines the only wages of labor, I think that's on its way out. And what we're gonna call the new thing, I don't know what we call it, but will we do away with private property? Will we do away with the rights of movement, rights of capital investment, things that involve harnessing greed into creativity? I don't know.

by Jonathan Granoff

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Jonathan Meese: The only option is art. Art will come into power. There is no man-made ideology that has not been tried. Everything is a game, everything is the dictatorship and tyranny of love and art. And when art comes into power with its own conditions, a great adventure will begin - a hermetic and self-contained adventure that releases us into our freedom. Freedom is defined by itself not by us. We constantly try to define things by our own existential orientations, opinions and flavour to neutralize them. This will be stopped. Now we have arrived the dead-point. Capitalism is as dead as any other mankind-ideology. The only living is art. Art is a creature full of live, a wineskin that is able to replenish itself again and again with that what it wants to have - such as a predator. According to its own conditions this predator will have eaten it's fill and then it will eliminate a juice. This juice will hit us without us wanting it. It is the nectar of a new ideology, an ideology flows from art. We do not know anything. This could be the paradies - we do not know. It is a carousel - a carousel of a new power. Art is itself, art is the overcoming of the dead-point. The dead-point is replaced - by art. We have to meet this phenomen modestly. In the mine of of art capitalism is only a jewel.

by Jonathan Meese

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Jonathan Stack: I have no idea what's after capitalism. I guess we are going to find out over time. I mean, I think that the core of capitalism is the sort of self improvement, it's just a place to what certain obvious human desire, maybe [in this common economy], but built within capitalism seems to be the seeds of its own destruction. Eventually, if we just keep playing to the human desire, we are going to consume our chance of existence. There is going to have to be a more rational approach to economic production and the consumption. And I don’t know if that can exist without some form of like social production and social distribution, and it's happening anyhow. On that other hand, it's so powerful capitalism, it's so deep seeded that it's used to have transcended great criticism of it. Right now, I am not thinking capitalism or what comes after capitalism, I am thinking how can we do better within the system that already exists.

by Jonathan Stack

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

José Manuel Prieto: Well, this kind of question gets me into trouble. What comes after capitalism? One can remember in this case the famous thesis at the end of one story from Francis Fukuyama, which is so criticized and controversial: „If there came something of this from capitalism, it would be, to think eternally with the same obsolete logic of progress, that there is a chain of of systems that follow in turn, so that after capitalism would come socialism, after socialism would come communism, and communism would be a system that would end the chain of human development or culminate in it.“ It’s a question that carries in itself a scheme of thought, from my point of view, outdated. There wouldn’t have to be talked about a system that would come after capitalism or any other system. There would have to be talked about systems which were improving, which were optimizing themselves, which were incorporating different discoveries or were proceeding in social engineering, so that they were hybrid systems or systems which incorporated elements of socialism, to call them like that, or what had been socialism, incorporated elements of capitalism or elements of many other systems. Therefore it cannot be talked of obtaining a system that comes before or after another one, but of a simultaneous corporation of many elements. I think that this would be my answer to that question. Thank you.

by José Manuel Prieto

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Jwan M. Aziz: We know that the socialism was not really successful and we thought that the capitalism together with the democracy will be effective for the human being but it was unsuccessful ..also the socialism was unsuccessful. I hope that after the capitalism will come a system which leads to the full freedom for all people ,that everybody will be free in everything in his life..free in his residence ..free in his education ..free in the place where he wishes to live ..free to express his opinion, so we want the freedom as we know it ,so i hope that will come after the capitalism.

by Jwan M. Aziz

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Kailash Satyarthi: This question is important. First of all, it’s very difficult that what after capitalism to think because capitalism has its own manifestations, it will come in new incarnation or what we call the new avatar. And, the new avatar of capitalism is the neocapitalism. So, it is not the complete new system. It’s a growth of capitalism. It's an advancement of capitalism where the people started realizing that there should be more regulated economy, as well as there should be more control on the public -- of public services -- more control of the government on public services. So, that is something which is emerging in a number of country. India is one example which has not operate for economy, but for a kind of an economy of capitalism, but more a kind of neocapitalism where there is a mixture of some social public sector, as well as the private sector. So, the private sector is free in many ways. But, on the other hand, when it comes to health, education and some other service sectors, then they are regulated and controlled by the government. But, I would also think that this will lead to a sense of dissatisfaction, disillusionment and then reactions, in some cases violence, in some cases of insurgencies and so on because if in capitalism and neocapitalism the profit is not distributed to the one who are producing the wealth they are going to be dissatisfied and the reaction could go in any manner and that could be the violent manner too. That’s the danger.

by Kailash Satyarthi

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Kigge Hvid: Hi, Wera. That’s really a hard one. You are into -- you are actually in a country that lived with two very, very, very different economic systems. Germany lived with both capitalism and communism. So, actually, I think, you would have more experience than I would. What is after capitalism? What -- capitalism came after communism in your countries. What do you think would be better? I would have one goal which is also a part of it. I would say that what's after capitalism is the knowledge economy. It’s a creative economy, which is about thinking, planning, doing, innovating, sharing in a totally different way than we do now. I think already now we see small, small things getting up around the world of people doing things differently. I think, in the old world, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, things were really, really black and white. We had capitalism and we had the capitalists and they were really, really mean; and then we had people and they were not mean. If you look into it right now, I think that all these borders are falling. We do not have black and white anymore. There is no bad - only bad, of course, there is only bad and only good. But, it’s less and less. So, I think, also what we in the old world will call capitalism or capitalists. They also have a huge interesting in common development of our world right now.

by Kigge Hvid

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Kurt Weidemann: Capitalism in its extreme form, sometimes called turbo capitalism, will condemn itself some day and become abundant because human beings are not going to put up with everything. Certainly, systems aiming at global power, like socialism or communism, cannot be enforced any more. I think an enlightened form of socialism, which really cares for the concerns of the people might take over from the absolutely capitalistic system which only judges according to categories of win and loss. Wealth and power should not be occupied by economic systems or bank systems or ideological systems or religions.

by Kurt Weidemann

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Lesego Rampolokeng: Constipation,
bloated body’s occupation,
beyond prostitution,
open lips of constitution and Human Rights Bill,
the powerhouse via blocked entrances
of []
where power plays the ball of impotence
down death [] passageways
and deep stench decapitated
[]
ranched out of soil to toil
inside the money python’s coil,
did his towels for beastly bowels of blood, oil,
a line of semen and excrement
transform President to resident
and deep in the hole
and venom in ferment, the serpent is unrepentant
seed to weed.

What comes after capitalism is death and destruction, because capitalism carries the seeds of its own destruction. Capitalism is an evil system that indeed sells the idea that visiting untold suffering, visiting impoverishment on those around you in order to suck the life force out, that’s what capitalism is. Capitalism is the belief that it is right to dehumanize, if by doing so you can get yourself to view yourself as human. So, capitalism inherently carries forth with it, the seeds of the destruction of humanity. Capitalism is a system that is beastly that is based on inhuman and bestial concepts and principles. Capitalism is a celebration of soul death, the celebration of spiritual destruction. Capitalism is material presented as soul as transcendental, as positive. Capitalism means the bones and the blood of entesticals of humanity being used for thrones of those who can, those are the [guns], those are the means, that is what capitalism is, that is what capitalism means and after capitalism comes its own nothingness.

by Lesego Rampolokeng

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Leung Ping-Kwan: Well, we don’t know what is after capitalism. But if we look at China and Hong Kong in the ‘70's, it should be an example to be considered because China after more than 50 years of socialism and communism and now moving towards capitalism and Hong Kong as a capitalist city under British colonization for more than 50 years now is returned back to socialist China. So, the one country, two-system situation in Hong Kong which we have home capitalist and socialist and working together and most of the time, sometimes in conflict which each other and there are new consideration coming out, and I think that things needed from capitalism, like the concern for humanistic values. But there also are things missing from the socialist and communist as well. We don’t know what would come after capitalism, but we do see that there is a need for the change of the present capitalist system; and on the other hand, we don’t see socialism or communism as the ideal solution for capitalism. Probably, we are in need of a new kind of combination of socialism and capitalism or capitalism with more humanistic concern or socialism with more concern for political feudal system. We need to get back a new kind of mixture or a new hybrid or a new sense of economic form of the present fighting opposition.

by Leung Ping-Kwan

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Lijun Fang: According to the our speed of energy consuming and the current development, do we still have any chances to see what is after capitalism?

by Lijun Fang

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Lillian Holt: Wow, what a wonderful question. All I can say is hopefully happiness. That’s all. I mean, everybody wants to be happy. Nobody wants to be sad. Also, we’d like to be successful, but what is success? Success is actually really knowing yourselves ultimately. And success is about also interiority as well as exteriority whereas I think that Capitalism has been about the external essentially and exteriority. And there’s been some good things about it. It gives us a level of survival. But sometimes I think the materialism, consumerism and the individualism and narcissism that has accompanied it has not been good for ourselves, our spiritual development if I can call it that. I’ll talk for myself. But so in terms of Capitalism, what’s after Capitalism? I would say hopefully happiness and harmony in terms of the human condition and how we connect to one another rather than disconnect and how we are humanized in the presence of one another rather than being dehumanized. And that includes the systems which we also work under and in which we live at times. We can’t afford to have dehumanizing systems whether it be in a work area, whether it be in our communities, wherever. And we can’t afford to have dehumanization. And I think that sometimes the idea of greed and profit associated with Capitalism has encouraged that dehumanization and other aspects of it. I think that hopefully happiness I would say, because everybody wants to be happy. We all want happiness. We don’t want sadness. Human beings. And I think it’s possible to have that.

by Lillian Holt

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Livingstone Maluleke: In my understanding, capitalism refers to the private enterprise, the private engagement of the private sector and national sect privatization or individual approach of centric, the center putting of aspects of business and; therefore, it is more self-excluding of other aspects and it is also self-centered in the sense. It is full of hypocrisy and it creates a lot of individualism. So, this issue of capitalism is an issue which is so self-centered and do not need more to development; development that could then be realized from a very central, centric point of view and; therefore, it is not a very good thing. Capitalistic approach is not what I would call for if I had to make a choice. Socialism is an aspect, which is better than capitalistic approach.

by Livingstone Maluleke

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Mae-Wan Ho: Well, the post capitalist world is neither socialism nor capitalism. It’s a world which reflects the real value of things, physical as well as spiritual and ascetic and it won’t be based on money. Maybe we can have an economic system that is based on energy because energy is something you can account. The value of money is purely arbitrary and having been to many developing countries where they produce the most amazingly beautiful goods in arts and crafts and things like that and they are literally selling them dirt cheap, based on our currency, based on our current unequal rates of exchange, our unequal terms of trade, which is politically distorted. Therefore money is purely arbitrary. The value of money is totally arbitrary so that the currencies of developed countries are overvalued and that inflates their purchasing power and that is very damaging to the environment because it enables them to consume inordinate amounts of resources and which leads to further destruction and devastation of the world’s resources. It is totally an economic system that doesn’t tell the ecological truth. And a future world, a post capitalist world, a post capitalist economy should do that.

by Mae-Wan Ho