Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Mahsa Shekarloo: Well, at the rate that capitalism is going, perhaps nothing. It might just destroy the world by the time it’s finished.

by Mahsa Shekarloo

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Martin Almada: We believe that at some point in time people will notice that this economic model cannot function any longer, it can´t continue like this. We expect the mankind to see that there is going to be a suicide,a collective suicide. This year the climate change has demonstrated how ferocious it can be. There is no time left for any doubts, we have experience and we have proof. We have to prepare and build up a more human political and economic system. Our next stage is possibly going to be socialism, democratic socialism, equitable and pluralist, multiethnical and multicultural. Such a world is possible and we need it. Probably our next phase is going to be that o suicide ferocity socialism

by Martin Almada

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Masami Saionji: Under capitalism, capitalists take sole possession of profits Very few of them gain prosperity. On the other hand, the people who cannot possess these profits are frustrated at this inequality. This frustration creates tense and conflict between them. If this type of capitalism continues, it destroys the harmony among people and turns into open conflict. To avoid such conflicts, I believe, hearts and minds of people are very important. There seems to be only the capitalism with self-interest minds around the world. Many people under current capitalism think only their own interest, profit and happiness. Gradually ... I think after capitalism reflecting every person's mind... pure-sharing... one lives with one's own man... one asks only what one needs... such ....

by Masami Saionji

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Masuma Bibi Russel: Well, well, I would say it’s socialism or we will have a real world. You know, we are enough of this capitalism and all this people will live in a world better way. There will be peace, there will be happiness, there will be love, affection, and people are part of this world. I think socialism, but I don’t know – I don’t know the word but there should be something, enough of capitalism. I think people will be living in the world which is a free world, it’s like – you are not stamped that you are coming from that part of the world, this part of the world. There will be a world where the economic development will be from each part, not only industrial development, in the agriculture, in crafts, in art, music and everything. I think that after capitalism I think we would have a world where will be wonderful to live. I don’t know the word of what will be. But maybe socialism in a better way, in a better world.

by Masuma Bibi Russel

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Mayank Mehta: That’s a good question. My first answer is, I don’t know, because we have no idea really right now what is capitalism and where is that going? I think the world is still inventing itself or still discovering itself and I could imagine a very positive way out of this. As more and more countries become capitalistic, there will be competition between capitalism itself. Right now, the capitalism, today it is practiced is the hands of very few and those countries who are capitalistic, or the so called First World. They are not really competing with each other. They have some way of pushing their competition over to some part of the world, perhaps to the Third World and win this war of capitalism. And my hope is that as people in the Third World, which are right now, the battle ground for the capitalism war between the First World countries as they become more and more prosperous, those countries in the Third World will migrate over to the Second World and then eventually to the First World. And then, there’ll be competition lets say, between China, which will be a capitalistic country, which will be able to fight in economic terms with the First World countries such as, Europe any of those in Europe and the United States. In that situation, I have a feeling that these whole game that is going on right now will move on in a better way. In that case, people will be able to treat each other much more even terms and capitalism will be tampered, it won’t be that mere profit of one set of country or a small subgroup of people in one country will dominate, as it is going on right now. The decisions of across the world, but it will be farmers in China, will be able to have some say in the development all along with perhaps, the mega-corporation in the United States, that’s the hope.

by Mayank Mehta

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Michael E. Tigar: Yes, that is a magnificent question. What did the French monarch say, "Apres moi, le deluge?" That's the first answer, isn't it? Let's hope that there is something after, other than a planet denuded of all its people and all its resources by the threat of nuclear war spawned, I'm afraid, by leaders of my own country in which though the leaders of other countries are also complicit. What's left after capitalism if capitalism succeeds; because of the dominance of the process of production by the honoring of private greed in destroying the planet through global warming and its consequences? Well, I think there is an after. I think that we are poised to take charge of our own destinies now. We are poised to develop and maintain institutions that bring the rule of law to bear upon the conduct of leaders that restrain and punish the activities of those such as President Bush who have engaged in war crimes and crimes against humanity, who bring to them therefore the same accountability that the square in Berlin where we are sitting in a sense represents in terms of the development and enforcement of these norms against claims of impunity, even by very powerful people. And we are poised as organized people to take charge of our own economies, through organizations of workers and other democratic organizations because we need to replace this confiscatory system, this kleptocracy with another one. Now, to do that, we have to grow organizations that reflect the values that we mean to have when we change things around. Trying to explain democracy to George Bush is like trying to explain a sundial to a bat. We have to talk amongst ourselves.

by Michael E. Tigar

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Michael Laitman: Humanity develops by means of the egoism that grows in it. Egoism develops us in such a way that we always think that something good lies in front of us. At least in the past, we always thought that something good lay before us, and we ran to meet the future. Time after time, step after step, like a baby who grows and matures—so we develop. We thought that we will come to a better culture, to a better economy, and that everything will be good, and if we did not feel very good at the time, then of course our children would feel very good. This is how we enacted everything present in our ego, until we came to the current times, when we no longer think that the situation can become any better. We have already become disillusioned in our development. Now humanity faces a dilemma. On one hand, if we continue developing by means of our ego, then we will come to Nazism in all the nations. In essence, it will be a governmental regime in the whole world, in all of the nations. In this case things are going towards a Third World War. Or we will come to altruism in all of the nations. We will achieve this if humanity will realize that altruism—is the law of nature. In essence, this is nature itself. Man will merit life and the forces of life and will be salvaged from annihilation only on the condition that he will observe this law. Just as observing all of the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology brings us good results, so it is here: if we will observe the law of nature, the law of altruism in human society, like in a living body, then we will merit the altruistic national structure and achieve equivalence of form with nature, equality between us, and a life in esteem and security. And if not, then God-forbid Nazism and universal annihilation will come into the world—together with all of the global ecological disasters.

by Michael Laitman

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Michael P. Totten: That’s a very good question. I think, I’ll take a little slice at that. There is a brilliant book that just came out, by Yale Law School professor Yochai Benkler, called the "Wealth of Networks", and he points out that in this last century, capital was absorbed by a few companies or individuals, in very large sums, to produce mass-produced goods that were then sold to a basically passive citizenry who had a few choices in which to purchase their goods. In the last decade we’ve seen a profound change with the collapse in the price of computers, and a collapse in the price of global internet networking that now we are seeing the emergence of non-market producers, the classic example today being Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that is now larger than any market based encyclopedia, is available in 43 languages, continues to grow on a weekly basis, has a peer-review process that sustains and improves continuously the quality of the material. And for Benkler's thesis is that in this century we are going to see competing with the market, non-market affiliations, associations, collaborative to create things like Linux, the open source software as another great example, that now is used by many places around the world in lieu of market offered software programs, and this was done all through voluntary effort and labor. People obviously are not just driven by market, they are also driven by passion, their interests, are motivated by moral and ethical principles, and they now see a tool that can bring them together with other interested persons wherever they are in the world, to create things that prior to this were limited to the market place with capital requirements that place it out of their control.

by Michael P. Totten

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Mohammed Arkoun: Yes, that is indeed a question difficult to answer because the world now faces a historic conjuncture where a generalized crisis of the mind itself is being noted. A strong mind, an aware mind, a mind opened to a humanist vision of the organization of the society is needed to sum up a long history of capitalism and to look at capitalism as a contribution to civilizations, societies, but also as a system that has been marked by considerable failures from the point of view of human rights, of the fundamental respect of other people as being equal people. And yet capitalism didn't do that. Therefore a critical balance of capitalism must be made by all citizens of the world, first because those who have been injured by the wild development of capitalism since the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth century didn't yet speak, and it is necessary for them to speak with their freedom, with their history, with their memories that are wounded memories, that are suffering memories and it is necessary to involve these wounded and suffering memories in a speech process at the world level where those who still practise capitalism, it should be said, in a cynical manner and often as wild as at the time of colonization, so that they finally hear this speech and that a reflection on a possible after capitalism can be undertaken.

by Mohammed Arkoun

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Monira Rahman: Obviously, it's socialism and the equal rights of the people of should be established, has to be established and the social development, solidarity; the social capitalism, the human capitalism and socialism. In that way -- where people have the power and where people can exercise the choices and where society provides equal opportunity to the people everywhere in this world for development and development for the people.

by Monira Rahman

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Nadja Halilbegovich: Well, I think that capitalism currently perpetuates this horrific gap between rich and the poor and I think that we need to work on making capitalism more humane and more altruistic. And by that I mean a system where the poor countries are not remaining poor and being crippled by their debt and people not included in trade and in production and in development. So I think I found three ways that we can help make the capitalism fair and more humane; one is use of microlending, I was talking about that earlier. I think it reaches people who truly need, you know, just that much that little trust and that little money that they can actually rise above their poverty. And I think it doesn’t empower them only financially, it empowers them just as human beings and you know, through research -- researching the effects of microlending they’ve come up with amazing stories of women who receive these microloans who are empowered as human beings and as heads of their families and their whole family, their children go and are educated, their health is improved. So microlending is one way. Another is fair trade, use of fair trade which means that, you know, people would actually -- get fairly paid for their hard labor and they’d live and work in conditions that are really humane and deserving, and third debt cancellation to poorest of the nation so that again the funds that they are paying back to the developed nations go to develop them to make AIDS pandemic finally something that we can grapple with, eradicate hunger and just again have them grow.

by Nadja Halilbegovich

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Neela Marikkar: What’s after capitalism? I think it’s nationalism. I think, we are saying -- it is almost like it’s doing a whole circle. You are seeing an increased sense of patriotism, national agendas within countries. People are moving towards internalizing, holding on to their cultural values, being more nation-minded about buying products that are manufactured in their own countries. You are beginning to see people feeling it’s almost like -- it’s gone the circle of rejecting the global, how would you say it, the globalization. I think people are rejecting it, because there is a sort of a feeling of wanting to go back and internalize and feel strong about your nationalistic feelings. So, in a way it’s almost gone back in -- people are looking much more internally, they are more under threat, they are holding on to what they believe is intrinsically theirs culturally, their values. You are beginning to see this, it’s not a very positive thing in my opinion. I think that it creates all sorts of new problems, people begin to feel -- be more narrow in their thinking, and constantly feel insecure, I wouldn’t say insecure, but I think what happens here is that nationalism seems to be what is emerging as a trend in many of this -- many of the countries that have been capitalistic. I think you see this in America, you see this in my country, Sri Lanka, you see it in many parts of Europe as well.

by Neela Marikkar

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Oliviero Toscani: Well, there was communism – no, there was [Catholicism] and there was – and there are still [Catholicism]. There was – there is still communism and there is post-communism. There is capitalism and there will be post-capitalism. There will be, of course, an evolution, slow evolution of the human mind, of the human system that will take us slowly, slowly, very slowly with an incredible effort and with an incredible waste of energy and lives and human resources into a more – into an evolution where I hope, because I told you I am basically an optimistic man, then one day slowly we will be – we’ll evolute into a civilized breed. We are probably the least civilized part of the creation. Animal, plants, flora, fauna is all perfect. We human, we are not perfect. We are not finished yet. So we have to go through the – our development and we have to go through capitalism and I don’t know what will happen. I just hope that we will be better.

by Oliviero Toscani

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Oscar Olivera: What has to come some day after this dictatorship of the supranational capitals, of the imperial power of the United States, England and other governments, will be inevitable for the world. It will be a society, based on the four following fundamental pillars: mutuality, respect, solidarity and transparency, in a world where all of us will be equal. I believe that after capitalism there has to come the appropriation to our dreams, of what we have been dreaming for generations [in connection with its appearance these years]. And I think that what will come after this dictatorship of supranational capital, is to develop and to clearly define those dreams which we, the peoples, have had for many generations.

by Oscar Olivera

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Paul Knight: What is after capitalism? This is something that I too would like to know. Personally, I think we may go to a hybrid type system where we see a lot of the socialist ideals moving into balance out our economic processes and views and excesses that we currently see under the capitalist model. And partly this will come down to a slowing of growth in economies, the slowing of growth in markets. The issue that we face, I think, for this is we have countries like China and India which have the potential for huge population growth, huge opportunities for market development. So I don’t see change from the capitalist marketing processes and globalization occurring until actually these markets also slow their growth. So we’re many years away from changing capitalism I think. Although one thing that could change on this level would be the impact we’re having on the environment and I think this could lead to change so that we really do need to look beyond just the capitalist financial benefit of individuals and shareholders within companies to a system where we say okay, no, we need to be supporting beyond these systems. We need to ensure that these people outside of our sphere are supported. And by doing that I thank we’ll start to see that move back to more of a socialist type view within our current capitalist economic--

by Paul Knight

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Pauline Tangiora: A new world order must come up, and hopefully with this new world order there will be a fairness and a justice in people living together. This is a concern for all peoples of the world to be able to live in peace and harmony, of a just way of serving each other both in the market place and within the home, because capitalism is also destroying the family life and homes, because children look to having things which comes through capitalism. Maybe we will come back to the necessities of life and the basics of sharing and caring for each other. It is an important concept that we look towards living simply, so that simply others may live. And the downfall of capitalism is this. Then we will have achieved something.

by Pauline Tangiora

Sep 9, 2006 10:55:00 AM cite

Pico Iyer: After capitalism comes a more rigorous and more thoughtful, a more searching sense of what riches really mean. I think men are always going to have the impulse to acquire, to get on better in the world, perhaps to make money, much though many of us deplore it. It seems to be as fundamental a longing as hunger and thirst. And I don't think we can legislate or hope that men at any point are not going to want to enrich themselves, perhaps to form communities and in the formation of those communities, to form divisions. That's a part of human nature. As Churchill said of democracy, I think, it's a bad system or it’s an imperfect system, but it’s the best imperfect system we have. And some people may say the same of capitalism, but many of the alternatives are ideal, but idealism has cost a lot of lives. So I am suspecting that we will muddle through with capitalism and try to refine and reform capitalism from within rather than reaching towards an imported system, such as communism, which has the beauty and freshness of representing another way and yet sometimes hasn’t factored in enough the needs of human nature. A theory that works so stirringly, in theory and on the page and in the abstract, but regards humans as digits rather than breathing people with longings and cravings that, sad to say, are part of the human bargain.

by Pico Iyer