The Cancer Stage of CapitalismIn this bold new look at the recent uncontrolled spread of global capitalism, John McMurtry, professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph, develops the metaphor of modern capitalism as a cancer. Its invasive growth, he argues, threatens to break down our society's immune system and--if not soon restrained--could reverse all the progress that has been made toward social equity and stability. On every continent, in every state, there are indicators of profound economic and environmental collapse. From the lands of indigenous communities to the currency markets of Asia, from the ocean floors to the ozone layer, the collapse is all-encompassing and deep-reaching. John McMurtry traces the causes of this global disorder back to the mutating assumptions of market theory that now govern the world’s economy. He diagnoses the malaise as a pathologist would a biological cancer, tracking the delinked circuits of the global system’s monetised growth as a carcinogenic disorder at the social level of life-organization. In the wide-lensed tradition of Adam Smith, Marx and Keynes, McMurtry cuts across academic disciplines and boundaries to penetrate the inner logic of the system’s problems. Far from pessimistic, he argues that the way out of the global crisis is to be found in an evolving substructure of history which provides a common ground of resolution across ethnic and national divisions. Reaching beyond conventional textbooks, this fascinating study offers a new paradigm which is accessible to intelligent citizens the world over. |
Contents
The Ancient Taboo | 1 |
The Pathologization of the Market Model | 37 |
The Social Immune System and the Cancer Stage | 85 |
Copyright | |
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Adam Smith agents attacks banks Canada cancer Cancer Stage capital carcinogenic cent circuits citizens civil commons competition costs currency debt decoupled demand destruction disease disorder economic effects environmental life-host evolved example fact foreign free market freedom function global market system global system Globe and Mail growth Guardian Weekly human increasing increasingly individual infrastructure institutions interest invasion investment investors labour level of life-organization life-ground life-protective life-sequence lives market paradigm means million money sequences money-demand money-sequence mutation nature operations organization pathogenic pattern pollution principle production profit rates recognized reduced regime regulating reproduction restructuring revenues rule sequence of value social and environmental social body social hosts social immune system social life-hosts social life-organization societies society's species structure trade transnational corporations underlying unemployment universal use-value value programme vital vital ranges workers World Bank World Trade Organization