In 1949 he wrote, yet again on his feelings regarding capitalism. He had some good ideas, unfortunately no one listens to this kind of talk here in America.
"I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate (the) grave evils (of capitalism), namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow-men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society."
Albert Einstein, Why Socialism?, 1949 [13]
That last sentence almost makes me want to cry.
That we need to make substantive changes to our economic system is clear. However, here we are watching the state of Missouri debating, not when, or even if, but how much of our tax dollars they should give away to Ford Motor Company so they don't pull out of the Claycomo plant near Kansas City.
Yes, they'd take 3700 jobs with them not to mention the peripheral jobs that would dry up if they left, but seriously, we're paying some undereducated lug 70k to put windshield wipers on an SUV, which no one even buys anymore. Why don't we pay 70k to the guy who teaches our children? We've got it all backwards and the system can't sustain itself.
Until and unless we start figuring out that voting against our own interests is not the way to go we're doomed. Look at the Midwest. The small towns are drying up. They're dying slow protracted deaths, and no one can seem to stop it. Yet the people who live there keep voting Republican. All they have to do is look around, it doesn't take a genius to see that the very people they keep in office are the ones helping to destroy their economy. Why do they do so? Religion.
Religion is killing our country like it has so many before it.
Recently the Kansas City Star ran an article extolling the virtues of immigration to western Kansas. They told of economic development in Garden City, and how the schools were overcrowded because so many families are moving there from Mexico just to work at the meat packing plants.
What they conveniently neglected to mention is that those self-same meat packing plants run the whole she-bang. If they don't get the tax breaks they want they pack up and move to the next town where they will get them. They insist that they don't have a tax burden so the poor workers are saddled with the burden of creating roads, which don't exist, schools, which are overcrowded, health care, which the companies don't provide, and it keeps the towns and the citizenry poor and stupid just the way the company wants them.
And all the while the rich get richer.
The system is going to implode. We've seen this kind of rot in cultures in the past, yet we deny it exists in our own.
Take me for example, I hold an associates degree in ceramics, a Bachelors degree in Liberal Arts, a Master's degree in Theatre, and a PhD in comparative religion, and I work in a grocery store, for about a third of what I made two years ago when George Bush invited his friends over to sack the treasury.
Imagine trying to maintain your standard of living on 1/3 of your income. Let's be clear here, I live in a 650 sq ft apartment, I drive a 3 y/o car with 70k on the odometer, and I have so little retirement savings that it's laughable. Credit card debt I no longer concern myself with because I'll likely have to file bankruptcy within the calendar year. The days of travel, of housekeepers, of , hell of HBO and Showtime are long over, yet I keep on keepin' on, what choice do I have?
Am I bitter? Fuck yes I'm bitter! But I'm not alone, that's my only solace. There are millions of me.
Shortly before the 2008 elections I heard a report on doom and gloom radio (read NPR) and this guy who at the time was with some government agency said that he often emerged from meetings on Wall Street and looked around and thought to himself, "If the people knew what was going on there'd be a revolution."
Well, they know now...
And so it goes:
