@ -21,36 +21,36 @@ Some longer chapter and section/subsection titles have been shortened in the tab
\chapterauthor{Gilles PERRAULT}
Blessed capitalism! It announces nothing and never promises.
No manifesto or twenty-point declaration programming the
turnkey happiness. He crushes you, guts you, enslaves you, torments you — in short, does it disappoints you? You have the right to be unhappy but not not disappointed, because disappointment presupposes a betrayed commitment.
Those who announce a more just, shining future expose themselves to the accusation
of deception when the attempt sinks into an awful cacophony.
Capitalism, on the other hand, wisely conducts with the present. It is. The future? He willingly abandons it to dreamers, ideologues, and ecologists. And so its crimes are almost perfect. No written record establishing premeditation.
Blessed capitalism! It announces nothing and makes no promises. No manifesto or twenty-point declaration programming the turnkey happiness.
It may crush you, gut you, enslave you, and torment you; however, does he disappoint you?
You have the right to be unhappy but not not disappointed, because disappointment presupposes a betrayed commitment.
Those who announce a more just, shining future expose themselves to the accusation of deception when the attempt sinks into an awful cacophony.
Capitalism, on the other hand, wisely conducts with the present. It is. The future? It willingly abandons it to dreamers, ideologues, and ecologists.
And so its crimes are almost perfect. No written record establishes premeditation.
For the Terror of 1793, it is easy for those who do not like revolutions to imagine its culprits: the Enlightenment and the unreasonable will to order society according to reasoning reason.
For communism, libraries crumble under the incriminating works. Nothing like this for capitalism. It is not to it that we can reproach manufacturing misfortune by pretending to bring happiness. It agrees to be judged only on this which has always motivated it: the search for maximal profit in minimal time. The others are interested in man; It only concerns itself with goods.
Have we ever seen happy or unhappy goods? The only worthwhile reviews are balance sheets. To speak about crimes is irrelevant. Let us talk about natural disasters. We tell you enough:
capitalism is the natural state of humanity. Humanity is in capitalism like a fish in the air. It takes the futile arrogance of ideologues to want to change the order of things, with the sad cyclical consequences that we know: revolution, repression, disappointment, contrition. This is the true original sin of man: that perpetual agitation that leads him to shake the yoke, the lyrical illusion of a future freed from exploitation, the claim to change the natural order.
Don't move: capitalism moves for you. But hey, nature has its disasters; capitalism too. Would you look for those responsible for an earthquake, a tidal wave? Furthermore, crime involves criminals.
For communism, the anthropometrics cards are easy to establish: two bearded guys, a goatee, some four-eyes, a mustache having man, one that crosses the Yangtze River by swimming, a cigar lover, etc. We can hate these faces. They incarnate.
When it comes to capitalism, there are only indexes: Dow Jones, CAC 40, Nikkei, etc. Just try to hate an index. The Evil Empire still has a geographical area, capitals. It is trackable. Capitalism is everywhere and nowhere. To whom should summonses be sent before a possible Nuremberg tribunal?
Capitalism? Cheesy archaism! Get up to date and use the right word: liberalism. The \emph{Littré} defines \enquote{liberal} as \enquote{that which is worthy of a free man.} Doesn't that sound good? And \emph{The Petit Robert} gives us a convincing list of antonyms: \enquote{stingy, autocrat, dictatorial, dirigiste, fascist, totalitarian.} You may have found excuses to define yourself as anti-capitalist, but admit that it would take vice to proclaim yourself anti-liberal.
So what is this black book of capitalism all about?
Can't you see the madness in this project's excesses?
The worst mass murderer in history, we grant you, but an assassin without a face or genetic code and who has been operating with impunity since centuries on five continents… We wish you a lot of fun. And what's the point? Haven't you heard the final gong announcing at the same time the end of the match and the end of history? It won. It monopolizes in its robust mafia-like version the remains of its enemies. Which credible opponent on the horizon?
For communism, libraries crumble under the weight of the incriminating works. Not so for capitalism. It is not to it that we can reproach manufacturing misfortune by pretending to bring happiness.
It agrees to be judged only on this which has always motivated it: the search for maximal profit in minimal time. The others are interested in man; It only concerns itself with goods.
Have we ever seen happy or unhappy goods? The only worthwhile reviews are balance sheets. To speak about crimes is irrelevant. Let us talk about natural disasters. You are told enough:
capitalism is the natural state of humanity. Humanity is in capitalism like a fish in the air. It takes the futile arrogance of ideologues to want to change the order of things, with the sad cyclical consequences that we know: revolution, repression, disappointment, contrition.
This is the true original sin of man: that perpetual agitation that leads him to shake the yoke, the lyrical illusion of a future freed from exploitation, the claim to change the natural order.
Don't move: capitalism moves for you. But hey, just as nature has its disasters, so too does capitalism. Would you look for those responsible for an earthquake, a tidal wave? Furthermore, crime involves criminals.
For communism, the anthropometrics cards are easy to establish: two bearded guys, a goatee, some four-eyes, a moustached man, one that crosses the Yangtze River by swimming, a cigar lover, etc.
We can hate these faces. They incarnate. When it comes to capitalism, there are only indexes: Dow Jones, CAC 40, Nikkei, etc. Just try to hate an index.
The Evil Empire still has a geographical area, capitals. It is trackable. Capitalism is everywhere and nowhere. To whom should summonses be sent before a possible Nuremberg tribunal?
Capitalism? Cheesy archaism! Get up to date and use the right word: liberalism. The \emph{Littré} defines \enquote{liberal} as \enquote{that which is worthy of a free man}.
Doesn't that sound good? And \emph{The Petit Robert} gives us a convincing list of antonyms: \enquote{stingy, autocrat, dictatorial, dirigiste, fascist, totalitarian}.
You may have found excuses to define yourself as anti-capitalist, but admit that it would take vice to proclaim yourself anti-liberal.
So, what is this black book of capitalism all about? Can't you see the madness in this project's excesses?
The worst mass murderer in history, we grant you, but an assassin without a face or genetic code and who has been operating with impunity since centuries on five continents…
We wish you a lot of fun. And what's the point? Haven't you heard the final gong announcing at the same time the end of the match and the end of history? It won.
It monopolizes in its robust mafia-like version the remains of its enemies. Which credible opponent on the horizon?
Which opponent? The immense people of the civil parties to the trial. The dead and the living. The innumerable crowd of those who were deported from Africa to the Americas, chopped in the trenches of a foolish war, grilled alive by napalm, tortured to death in the jails of capitalism's watchdogs, shot at the Federated Wall, shot at Fourmies, shot at Setif, massacred by hundreds of thousands in Indonesia, almost eradicated like the American Indians, massively murdered in China to ensure the free circulation of opium…
Of all these, the hands of the living have received the torch of revolt of the man whose dignity have been denied. Soon inert hands of those children of the Third World whom malnutrition, every day, kills by tens of thousands, emaciated hands of the peoples condemned to repay the interest on a debt whose capital their puppet leaders have stolen, trembling hands of the excluded ever more numerous to camp on the margins of opulence.
Hands tragically weak, and disunited for now. But they cannot but join one day. And on that day, the torch that they carry will set the world ablaze.
\rauthor{Gilles Perrault}
Hands tragically weak, and disunited for now. But they cannot but join one day. And on that day, the torch that they carry will set the world ablaze.
\chapter{Introduction}
@ -60,24 +60,27 @@ Hands tragically weak, and disunited for now. But they cannot but join one day.
The world dominated by capitalism is the free world, capitalism, which is now called only liberalism, is the modern world.
It is the only model of society, if not ideal, at least satisfactory. There is and will never be another.
This is the unanimous song sung not only by economic leaders and most politicians,
but also intellectuals and journalists with access to the mainstream media: television, press, large publishers, usually in the hands of industrial or financial groups.
Dissident thought is not forbidden (liberalism obliges!) but channeled into a quasi-clandestine way.
Dissident thought is not forbidden (liberalism obliges!) but channelled into a quasi-clandestine way.
So much for the freedom of expression that the proponents of our liberal system gargle about.
The virtue of capitalism is in its economic efficiency. But for whose benefit and at what cost?
The virtue of capitalism is in its economic efficiency. But for whose benefit and at what cost?
In Western countries, which are the showcase of capitalism while the rest of the world is rather its back room, let us look at the facts.
After its great period of expansion in the nineteenth century, due to industrialization and the ferocious exploitation of workers, the movement that has accelerated over the last few decades has led to the virtual disappearance of the small peasantry devoured by large farms, with the consequence of pollution, the destruction of landscapes and the degradation of the quality of products (and this taxpayer's money since agriculture has not ceased to be subsidized), the virtual disappearance of small local shops, particularly food outlets, in favour of large retailers and hypermarkets, the concentration of industries into large national and then transnational firms which take on such proportions that they sometimes have larger treasuries than those of states and make the law (or claim to do so), taking steps to strengthen their power
without control, such as with the Multinational Agreement on Investment (MAI) over states. (United Fruit is the patron of several Latin American states.)
After its great period of expansion in the nineteenth century, due to industrialization and the ferocious exploitation of workers, the movement that has accelerated over the last few decades has led to the virtual disappearance of the small peasantry devoured by large farms, with the consequence of pollution, the destruction of landscapes and the degradation of the quality of products
(and this with taxpayer's money as agriculture has not ceased to be subsidized), the virtual disappearance of small local shops, particularly food outlets, in favour of large retailers and hypermarkets, the concentration of industries into large national and then transnational firms which take on such proportions that they sometimes have larger treasuries than those of states and make the law (or claim to do so),
taking steps to strengthen their power without control, such as with the Multinational Agreement on Investment (MAI) over states. (United Fruit is the boss of several Latin American states.)
The capitalist leaders could fear that the disappearance of the small peasantry,
of the crafts and the industrial and commercial petty bourgeoisie would strengthen the ranks of the proletariat.
But \enquote{modernism} has provided them with the parade with automation, miniaturization, computing.
After the depopulation of the fields, we are witnessing the depopulation of factories and offices.
As capitalism does neither know or wants to share profit and work (we see this with the indecent and hysterical reactions of the bosses on the 35 hours, a measure that is nevertheless very meek) we inevitably arrive at unemployment and its cohort of social disasters.
As capitalism can neither know nor want to share profit and work (we see this with the indecent and hysterical reactions of the bosses on the 35 hours work week, a measure that is nevertheless very meek) we inevitably arrive at unemployment and its cohort of social disasters.
The more unemployed, the less compensation is paid and the shorter the time. The fewer workers there are, the more pensions are planned.
This seems logical and inevitable. Yes, if solidarity is distributed over wages.
The more unemployed there are, the less compensation is paid and for a shorter time. The fewer workers there are, the more reductions of pensions are planned.
This seems logical and inevitable; yes, if solidarity is distributed over wages.
But if we take into account the gross national product which has increased by more than 40\% in less than twenty years while the wage bill has continued to decrease, it is quite different!
But this is not in the capitalist logic!
@ -85,35 +88,39 @@ Nearly twenty million unemployed in Europe, this is the positive result of capit
And the worst is yet to come. Major European and American firms whose profits have never been so prosperous announce
% these are double quotes in the original text, not guillemets
layoffs by the hundreds of thousands. It is necessary to "rationalize" production, competition obliges!
layoffs by the hundreds of thousands. It is necessary to “rationalize” production, competition obliges!
The increase in foreign investment in France is applauded.
In addition to the dangers to national independence, it is questionable whether it is not the fall in wages that encourages investors.
The French champions of liberalism — of \enquote{modernism}! — (see Alain Madelin!) swear by England and the United States
who would be the champions of economic success and the fight against unemployment.
If the destruction of social protections, the precariousness of employment,
low wages and the short-term non-compensation of the unemployed which makes them disappear from the statistics are Mr Madelin's ideal,
The French champions of liberalism — of \enquote{modernism}! — (See Alain Madelin!) only swear by England and the United States who would be the champions of economic success and the fight against unemployment.
If the destruction of social protections, the precariousness of employment, low wages and the short-term non-compensation of the unemployed which makes them disappear from the statistics are Mr Madelin's ideal,
I do not think it is the ideal of the workers of this country.
In the USA, a paradise of capitalism, 30 million inhabitants (more than 10\% of the population) live below the poverty line, and among these blacks are in the majority.
In the USA, a paradise of capitalism, 30 million inhabitants (more than 10\% of the population) live below the poverty line, and among these black people are in the majority.
The supremacy of the United States in the world, the imperialist and standardizing spread of its way of life and culture can only satisfy servile spirits.
Europe would do well to be careful and react, as it still has the economic means to do so. But it would also need the political will.
To assist productive investment in industry or services, capitalism has the will to make them competitive in the face of short-term financial and speculative investments.
How so? By taxing the latter? Not at all, we lower salaries and social charges!
How so? By taxing the latter? Not at all, by\rfootnote{in the original, there is \emph{on} which means \emph{we}, but it doesn't match with the rest of the sentence, so i suspect there is a typo and it's actually \emph{en} which lmeans \emph{by}}lowering salaries and social charges!
It is also a way of making the West competitive with the Third World. In Great Britain, they started to make children work again.
The vassal of the United States, nor his overlord, has not ratified the charter prohibiting child labor.
Neither the United States's vassal, nor his overlord, has ratified the charter prohibiting child labor.
Caught in the infernal circle of competition, the Third World will have to lower costs and push its inhabitants a little further into misery, then it will be the turn of the West again…
Until the whole world is in the hands of a few transnationals, mostly American, and that we hardly need any more workers, except an elite of technicians…
The problem then will be for capitalism to find consumers beyond this elite and its shareholders… and to maintain delinquency born of poverty.
The accumulation of money—which is only an abstraction—prevents the production of capital goods and elementary goods useful to all.
The black book of capitalism is already written before us in its \enquote{paradise}. What about his hell, the Third World?\footnote{\label{foot0}In the dictionary of the twentieth century (Fayard), Jacques Attali puts forward the figure of one in four people living in the US below the poverty line. Worldwide, nearly 3 billion people have less than \$2 per day, 13 million die of hunger every year and two-thirds of the world's hands do not benefit from any social protection.}
The ravages of colonialism and neo-colonialism in a century and a half are incalculable, nor can the millions of deaths attributable to it be quantified.
All the major European countries and the United States are guilty.
The black book of capitalism is already written before us in its \enquote{paradise}. What about his hell, the Third World?\footnote{\label{foot0} In the dictionary of the twentieth century (Fayard), Jacques Attali puts forward the figure of one in four people living in the US below the poverty line. Worldwide, nearly 3 billion people have less than \$2 per day, 13 million die of hunger every year and two-thirds of humans do not benefit from any social protection.}
The ravages of colonialism and neo-colonialism in a century and a half are incalculable, nor can the millions of deaths attributable to it be quantified.
All the major European countries and the United States are guilty.
Slavery, ruthless repression, torture, appropriation, theft of land and natural resources by major Western, American or transnational companies or by local potentates in their pay, creation or artificial carving up of countries, imposition of dictatorships, monoculture replacing traditional food crops, destruction of ancestral ways of life and cultures, deforestation and desertification, ecological disasters, famine, exile of populations to megacities where unemployment and misery await them.
The structures that the international community has set up to regulate the development of industries or trade are entirely in the hands and at the service of capitalism:
the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization.
These bodies have only served to indebt the countries of the Third World and to impose on them the liberal creed.
What are the means of expansion and accumulation of capitalism?
War (or protection, like the mafia), repression, dispossession, exploitation, usury, corruption, propaganda.
The war against indocile countries that do not respect Western interests.
The war against non-compliant countries that do not respect Western interests.
What was once the prerogative of England and France, Africa and Asia (the last upheavals of colonialism in India, Madagascar, Indochina, Algeria caused millions of deaths), is today that of the USA, a nation that claims to rule the world.
To this end, the United States has not ceased to practice a policy of over-armament (which it forbids to others).
We have seen this imperialism exercised in all direct or indirect interventions of the United States in Latin America and particularly in Central America. (Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Grenada), Asia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Timor (genocide proportionally greater than that of khmer rouge in Cambodia — nearly two-thirds of the population — genocide perpetrated in indifference — if not with complicity — of the West), Gulf War, etc.\footnote{Read Noam Chomsky, Les Dessous de la politique de l'Oncle Sam (Uncle Sam's backstage of politics), Écosociété, EPO, le Temps des Cerises, 1996.}.
War is not only fought by arms but can take new forms:for example, the United States did not hesitate to help the Moon sect in Korea to fight against communism, the fascists in post-war Italy, they have not hesitated to arm or subsidize Islamic fundamentalists like the Muslim Brotherhood or the Taliban in Afghanistan.War can also take the form of embargoes against indocile states (Cuba, Libya, Iraq), oh so deadly for the populations (several hundred thousand, even millions of dead in Iraq).
We have seen this imperialism exercised in all direct or indirect interventions of the United States in Latin America and particularly in Central America. (Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Grenada), Asia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Timor (genocide proportionally greater than that of khmer rouge in Cambodia — nearly two-thirds of the population — genocide perpetrated in indifference — if not with complicity — of the West), Gulf War, etc.\footnote{Read Noam Chomsky, \emph{Les Dessous de la politique de l'Oncle Sam} (Uncle Sam's policy's backstage), Écosociété, EPO, le Temps des Cerises, 1996.}.
War is not only fought by arms but can take new forms: for example, the United States did not hesitate to help the Moon sect in Korea to fight against communism, the fascists in post-war Italy, and they have not hesitated to arm or subsidize Islamic fundamentalists like the Muslim Brotherhood or the Taliban in Afghanistan.
War can also take the form of embargoes against non-compliant states (Cuba, Libya, Iraq), oh so deadly for the populations (several hundred thousand, even millions of dead in Iraq).
Spoliation is the obvious reason of the use of force. If you want to rob a house where the inhabitants are, it is better to have a weapon.
The practices of capitalism are close to those of the mafia, which is probably why the latter proliferates so well in its the former's soil.
Like the mafia, capitalism protects docile rulers who shamelessly let their country be exploited by large American and transnational corporations.
It thus consolidates — when it does not set them up — dictatorships, which are more effective in protecting corporate assets than democracies.
Its weapons are indifferently democracy or dictatorship, trading or gangsterism, intimidation or murder.
Thus, the CIA is arguably the largest criminal organization in the world.
Usury, another mafia process: like the mafia lends to the merchant who can never pay his debt and ends up losing his shop (or life),
countries are encouraged to invest, often artificially, and weapons are sold to them to help fight indocile states,
and they must repay eternally the accumulated interest on the debt, this way you become master of their economy.
Repression and exploitation go hand in hand: anti-union repression (which was once legal), now unacknowledged but still practised in companies,
repressive surveillance, criminal employers' militias\footnote{Read Marcel Caille, Les Truands du patronat (Bosses's thugs), Éditions sociales, 1977.}, unions initiated by the bosses (CFT) and repression against any radical workers' protest\footnote{Read Maurice Rajsfus, La police hors la loi (The Outlaw Police). Le Cherche-midi, 1996.}.
This is the price to pay to make exploitation possible.
countries are encouraged to invest, often artificially, and weapons are sold to them to help fight non-compliant states,
and they must eternally repay the accumulated interest on the debt, and so this way you become master of their economy.
And we know, since Marx, that the exploitation of labor is the engine of capitalism.
Repression and exploitation go hand in hand: anti-union repression (which was once legal), now unacknowledged but still practised in companies,
repressive surveillance, criminal employers' militias\footnote{Read Marcel Caille, \emph{Les Truands du patronat} (Bosses's thugs), Éditions sociales, 1977.}, unions initiated by the bosses (CFT) and repression against any radical workers' protest\footnote{Read Maurice Rajsfus, La police hors la loi (The Outlaw Police). Le Cherche-midi, 1996.}.
This is the price to pay to make exploitation possible. And we know, since Marx, that the exploitation of labor is the engine of capitalism.
Western economies benefit from slavery in the Third World and from the serfdom of illegal immigrants in Western countries.
Corruption: Multinationals have such financial or political influence or pressure on all public or private officials that they stifle all resistance in their octopus tentacles.
@ -157,10 +168,10 @@ defense of democracy, freedom, struggle against the \enquote{communist} dictator
while it most often defends only the interests of a propertied class, that it wants to seize raw materials,
govern oil production or control strategic locations.
This propaganda is propagated by economic and political rulers, a servile press and media.
These are the \emph{watchdogs} already denounced by Nizan, the \emph{Betrayal of the clerics} vilified by Julien Benda\footnote{Read Serge Halimi, Les Nouveaux Chiens de garde, Liber — Raison d'agir, 1997.}.
These are the \emph{watchdogs} already denounced by Nizan, the \emph{Betrayal of the clerics} vilified by Julien Benda\footnote{Read Serge Halimi, \emph{Les Nouveaux Chiens de garde}, Liber — Raison d'agir, 1997.}.
Supporters of liberalism, lauders of the United States, I have not heard your voice speak out against the destruction of Vietnam, the Indonesian genocid,
the atrocities perpetrated in the name of liberalism in Latin America, against American aid to Pinochet's coup d'état, which was one of the bloodiest in history\footnote{Read Chili, Le Dossier noir, (Chile, the black file) Gallimard, 1974.},
the atrocities perpetrated in the name of liberalism in Latin America, against American aid to Pinochet's coup d'état, which was one of the bloodiest in history\footnote{Read Chili, \emph{Le Dossier noir}, (Chile, the black file) Gallimard, 1974.},
the killing of Turkish trade unionists; your indignation was somewhat selective, Solidarność but not the Disk, Budapest but not Algeria, Prague but not Santiago, Afghanistan but not Timor,
I did not see you indignant when communists or simply those who wanted to give power to the people or defend the poor were killed.
For your complicity or silence, I do not hear you asking for forgiveness.
@ -171,3 +182,4 @@ Maurice Cury is a poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter and television, radio a
\emph{La Jungle et le désert} (The Jungle and the Desert) (poems and texts) E. C. Éditions, \emph{Le Libéralisme totalitaire}.
President of the Permanent Council of Writers, Vice-President of the National Union of Authors and Composers.
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