Shall we overcome?

“[Marx's] analysis implies that overcoming capital entails more than overcoming the limits to democratic politics that result from systematically grounded exploitation  and inequality; it also entails overcoming determinate structural constraints on action, thereby expanding the realm of historical contingency and, relatedly, the horizon of politics”

-Moishe Postone, 2006 (“History and Helplessness: mass  mobilization and contemporary forms of anticapitalism”.  Public Culture 18(1).  P 94)

Feel-good

“The technology presents itself as a feel-good solution for politicians who’d rather not face the more profound, persistent and difficult questions of politics and distribution…[T]he danger of such crops…is not merely that they are ineffective publicity stunts.  They actively prevent the serious discussion of ways to tackle systematic poverty…

…The structural problems facing rural communities can only be addressed by concerted public action.  The intervention of genetically modified seed, however, postpones the need for this action, delaying the imagination and creation of more robust alternatives”

-Raj Patel, on GM crops, 2007 (Stuffed & Starved. Brooklyn NY: Melville House. 2007. pg 137…157)

Most Philosophers Agree…

“A lot of people, mostly people without a lot of money, say that money can’t buy everything. Especially it can’t buy happiness: people with 25 million, for example, are not perceptibly happier than people with 24; and besides, rich people are generally unhappy. Still the rich have many consolations, as Plato observed—the chief among them presumably being their money. And despite the fortitude it takes for the rich to endure their disadvantages (Rex Stout), most modern philosophers agree that money is better than poverty—“if only for financial reasons,” as Woody Allen speculates.”

-Marshall Sahlins, 2002.  (Waiting for Foucault, Still.  Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press. Pg 30)