A crisis of capitalism – in simple animation
The left should be in the ascendancy following a crisis of capitalism, but it is not. The right is leading for a number of reasons but just one of the problems for the left is that the narratives and explanations it offers tend to be more complicated than those offered by the right.
When David Cameron describes the UK’s debt as an overdraft it doesn’t matter that he’s wrong, it is easy to understand.
When a Government’s finances are compared to a households it is intelligible to all whereas thinking about the public sector deficit as a mirror image of a private sector surplus seems counter-intuitive.
In this animation radical sociologist David Harvey presents an honest left wing analysis of the crisis in an accessible and genuinely entertaining way.
Presenting information in an easily understandable way is something the right has done for years, it is time the left caught up.
It’s worth watching for the animation alone.
The actual speech is here. (via @danhancox)
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Left Outside is a regular contributor to LC. He blogs here and tweets here. From October 2010 to September 2012 he is reading for an MSc in Global History at the London School of Economics and will be one of those metropolitan elite you read so much about.
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Nice animation – though I wouldn’t describe it as uncomplicated!
And while he offers a diagnosis, which may be right or wrong, he says nothing at all about what his alternative might actually look like…
“The left should be in the ascendancy following a crisis of capitalism, but it is not. The right is leading for a number of reasons ”
Recap: in the slump years of the 1930s, the electorate voted overwhelmingly for the Conservatives at the general elections in October 1931 and in November 1935.
“The left should be in the ascendancy following a crisis of capitalism, but it is not. The right is leading for a number of reasons ”
The Left seem to be doing alright down south, according to Oliver Stone’s latest documentary, South of the Border.
I am genuinely amazed how anybody can look at Chavez/Venezuela and think “yes, that’s what we want”. Let’s hope Mr David Harvey has some better ideas. If not he’d better start work on an animated looking at “the internal contradictions” of Chavez style socialism.
That film about down south actually looks quite good. Evo Morales is the man.
I don’t know about Morales … but f*ing Chavez? I’m not sure in what sense a film that lionises him can be “good”.
“I don’t know about Morales … but f*ing Chavez? I’m not sure in what sense a film that lionises him can be “good”.”
So much depends upon what went before.
David Harvey’s analysis is generally pretty good in my experience. How it feeds into his political ideas is another matter.
Last I heard, Signor Chavez was creating hunger by nationalising supermarkets (one thing you should never do – they may be monopolistic, but they can only retain that status by providing things relatively efficiently). But I can’t see the highly partisan Mr Stone providing a balanced account.
1 – But then neither did Marx. It’s just supposed to magically happen when capitalism finally collapses.
Beautiful animation, and analysis of the crisis. Appalling ending. Simply saying, ‘Look at how all of this went wrong” without saying what you’d do differently simply lends to an impression of smugness. I was hoping for the beginnings of an alternate vision from this – quite frankly, from anyone on the left – and this has disappointed me. We really do need to go back to first principles, right back into systems of value judgements – I wrote about this here: http://declineofthelogos.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/reinvigorating-the-left/.
What’s wrong with Chavez?
1 – The solution is ‘Modern Monetary Theory’ and the pursuit of near full employment, to increase aggregate demand for goods and services. Up till now demand came from consumer credit, which is now a broken model.
See Professor William “Bill” Mitchell’s blogs where he describes in detail the new MMT system which should emerge, here is an example:
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=10554
Kind Regards
Charlie
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- Liberal Conspiracy
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- Sam Goodby
Amazing animation of an excellent speech. RT @libcon: A crisis of capitalism – in simple animation http://bit.ly/dsUMAH
- Jonnie Marbles
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- Faye Clark
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- Elly M
Actually not that simple, but brilliant.
RT @libcon: A crisis of capitalism – in simple animation http://bit.ly/dsUMAH - hilary
The inherent contradictions of capitalism. In cartoons. Brilliant, funny, thought-provoking. http://bit.ly/d8DRVI
- Aboodi Shabi
RT @regordane: The inherent contradictions of capitalism. In cartoons. Brilliant, funny, thought-provoking. http://bit.ly/d8DRVI
- Jon Lansman
RT @libcon A crisis of capitalism – in simple animation – a short film worth watching http://bit.ly/bgafN5
- JOHN TUITE
RT @AboodiShabi: RT @regordane: The inherent contradictions of capitalism. In cartoons. Brilliant, funny, thought-provoking. http://bit.ly/d8DRVI
- Jonathan Bygraves
Want to learn about the crisis of late capitalism via an amusing animation? Voila! http://bit.ly/dsUMAH (via @libcon)
- Aboodi Shabi
"We have a duty to change our mode of thinking." – http://bit.ly/ciMx86
- Rogue
RT @libcon A crisis of capitalism – in simple animation http://bit.ly/bgafN5 < brilliant
- Alex ab Barrera
#animation A crisis of capitalism – in simple animation | Liberal Conspiracy: A crisis of capitalism – in s… http://bit.ly/d0Cto3 #motion
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RT @libcon: A crisis of capitalism – in simple animation http://bit.ly/dsUMAH
- Tom
“@libcon: A crisis of capitalism – in simple animation http://bit.ly/dsUMAH” @leftoutside this is 70% patent nonsense + 30% not quite there.
- Tom Blackburn
RT @libcon A crisis of capitalism – in simple animation http://bit.ly/bgafN5 worth watching just for the speedy marker pen action.
- MEEEEEEEEE
RT @libcon A crisis of capitalism – in simple animation http://bit.ly/bgafN5
- MUKA
an old history never telled…
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/07/05/a-crisis-of-capitalism-in-simple-animation/
- Mario Klippa
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