Thread by @mariliacout

1/ Savage capitalism? As I read a tweet from one of my twitter-friends, I wanted to compare the reckless behavior of the Trump administration with early stages of capitalist development. I was looking for "savage capitalism" or "primary capital accumulation". Sources?

2/ Obviously, nowhere to be found when you need them in your computer. So I googled both and found @davidgraeber's article:
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

3/ His point, or rather Thomas Piketty's point, was that "Capitalism does not contain an inherent tendency to civilize itself." Yeah, well, but... didn't we always assume that? (read on)

4/ And that's why regulations (economic and labor), as well as civil rights, were a product of a complex and conflictive negotiation as modern pluralistic democracies matured. Wasn't it that? But that's not really what's happening, is it?

5/ You look right and you see economies with clear primitive capital accumulation (China was the first). What about the idea that history can't happen twice? That in a global economy everybody would hop into the already-regulated market?

6/ Nope. Then you look left and you see democracies crumbling. Hell, I'm not sure what will be left of it in Brazil after one year of Bolsonaro government. Maybe the skeleton, a "perfume of the rose", whatever metaphor for something democracy used to be, but no longer is.

7/ The poblem is that old folks like me inherited another idea with the bag of concepts that are no longer being quite that useful: that if this stuff goes really wild and unregulated, if we hand society to maggats, for example, this thing is going to blow. Seriously blow.

8/ The thesis is that we won't even have time to see global warming have its catastrophic effects: the whole "superstructure" (institutions) will crumble as the "infrastructure" (economy) melts. But hadn't we agreed that the economy was more complex than that?

9/ As a social scientist (with a strong background in the other sciences, you know, those that predict catastrophe), I know we've failed. I don't *think* we failed: I KNOW we're too late on building a model for this hell. But I like @davidgraeber last lines:

10/ Or, as Venezuelan philosopher and educator Simón Rodriguez said: "O inventamos, o erramos" (either we invent it, or we'll fail).

11/ If you want to read the original book by Thomas Pikkety or a lot of his late amazing work, here is his account: @PikettyLeMonde

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