A requiem for CAPITALISM

Capitalism, a model that started as an experimentation to fund foreign expeditions under the Dutch East Indies Company. A model that was sketchy and awkward, now has become the model of predilection through the world. It conquered the last bastions of so called "Communism" and through the impulsion of right-wing neo-liberal ideology in this 2nd decade of the 2nd millionaire it implements itself not only as a concept of trade or a "façon" of commerce but more so as a "way of life". It interlinks itself with so called notions of freedom and of liberty, even of "social evolution".
It is very important nowadays to try to understand the origins of this ideological capitalism, to understand how did capitalism root itself so deeply in our common culture, in our common perception of our world and of its surroundings.
Today capitalism is in many ways link as a synonym to the notions of liberty, of freedom, it nourishes itself off the myths of the "self made man" and the tales of "rags to riches". But was capitalism always seen in such a manner? Was capitalism always the banner carrier of liberty, and all of these notions born of the enlightenment?
No is the answer and we don't have to recollect to far in the past to understand that capitalism wasn't always intermingled with this notions. The fact is that the rise of capitalism, "industrial capitalism" during the 19ht century in the heart of Europe (England, the German States, France and the lower countries) were in fact earthquakes metaphorically speaking creating anew social tensions, creating greater wealth without any doubt, but creating such disparities in this new creation of wealth, that it created two new social classes. One empowered by their investment and the other empowered by their hands (manual work), it goes without saying that in the power struggle of class relations one was stronger then the other. And so was born the bourgeoisie and the working class. The only difference between the relationship between the nobility and the non-royal subjects (the third estate) was that the bourgeoisie was had thicker rows then the nobility and that the working class were subjected to a sort of unprecedented impoverishment. It was was a new kind of impoverishment in the sense that the new working class was completely subject to the new ruling classes. It may seem a simple explanation but one the greatest differences between the so called peasants of the feudal age and the "labourers" of the industrial age was the absence of land to cultivate, in fact they were masters of nothing. The peasants at the time were in subjects of their feudal lord, but the had land and could feed off the land in tranquility by paying off the lords taxes. On the other hand the new working class were brought from the countryside into the cities lived to raggedy, shabby shantytowns on the outskirts. They couldn't produce their food, and so couldn't produce a living, their independence became a complete dependence to the newly born capitalistic system. And the backlash against the newly born system would be called first socialism, and later on communism. So the question is now to be asked: so if capitalism wasn't at the start linked to freedom and liberty quite on the contrary, then why and how did it link itself to such causes? And was this link justifiable?
Well to understand the creation of this link between capitalism and such values such as freedom and liberty, human rights and social evolution, we have to understand the ideological fight that fallowed the second world war. At the end of the second world war a great tension between two different economic models was born. The first called communism was born as a backlash against the capitalistic society, its masterminds Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels believed in a society of pure equality "form each according to his abilities to each according to his needs". Engels and Marx regarded the capitalistic society as the means of domination of the upper-classes that behold the means of production and so subdued the working class into a semi-slave state. The working class needed to unite and conquer equality with their bare hands. The problem that would play out later on was that the need of a "revolutionary elite" in the first steps of the revolution, in fact in practice always turned out to be the empowerment of a new elite, the communist party. So the two differing ideologies would struggle for world dominance throughout the later-half of the 20th century. Above all the "Cold War" was an ideological war, it was a war to conquer the "hearts and minds" of the world, it was a war of ideas, a war of propaganda. And it was during the Cold War that capitalism through the pens of it's "mad men" would link itself with the greater cause of liberty and freedom, values that were most often assimilated to democracy (democracy in its radical sense the rule of the people, the power that emanates from the people). But capitalism and democracy have never been the same, and very small are the similarities between the two models one political and the other economic. It's as if today capitalism has become the extension of democracy and visa versa.
But crisis such as the 2008 market crash, a bitter reminder of 1928, in a sense a bitter reminder of the real values of capitalism. Unlike democracy, capitalism is not a system in which each and everyone has a say, quite on the contrary, capitalism is system that alike communism creates an elite that controls piratically everything, and when you look at it today as you go through your bills trying to make some sense out of it all a small tiny minority doesn't need to through their bills, hey they got 100million dollar bonuses. And yet something seems out of touch here, because just 3 years ago these same guys had brought the world economy to it's knees and prayed for forgiveness and asked for bailouts. And it was, but three years down the line unemployment is still rising, no regulation has affected the life of that small minority, and the gap between those at the top of this capitalistic system and those at the bottom gets wider and wider by the day.
Now I'm not against capitalism completely as a system, I'm against radical and insane capitalism that has imposed yet another "Gilded Age" on us. What we have learned with the revolutions that have turned and spiralled the world forever changing it is that system are not eternal, that the road to real sustainable democracy is a long one but that unlike Francis Fukuyama said history is far form being over. So capitalism as we know has its days numbered a new sort of economic model with be born form its ashes (for the better or  for the worst) because a system that puts entire nations up against the wall, creates millions of disaffected citizens, and destroys our planet and our democratic regimes has no where to go but to the grave.
One last thing : CAPITALISTIC VALUES ARE NOT DEMOCRATIC/ DEMOCRACY IS NOT CAPITALISM/ CAPITALISM CAN BE CHANGED.   

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