Author: Replace capitalism

While it's a view that has become increasingly less popular since the end of the Cold War, Daniel Singer firmly believes there is an alternative to capitalism. Singer, a European correspondent for The Nation, spoke to a group of over 20 community members at House of Our Own bookstore last Wednesday night about his new book, Whose Millennium? Theirs or Ours? The book, Singer's third, uses the close of the 20th century as an opportunity to examine the effectiveness of the American-style capitalist system in Europe. In doing so, he calls for political activists to look beyond the Western laissez-faire economic method and find alternative systems that allow the pursuit of "the ideals of democracy and equality." However, Singer focused his discussion not on the contents of his book but on his motivation for writing it, as he discussed European politics in depth. Citing the current Polish trade union movement and 1995 labor strikes in France as evidence of growing public discontent with capitalism in Europe, he called Whose Millennium? "a book against TINA -- the idea that 'there is no alternative.'" "We are told by our system -- call it hell, call it heaven, call it purgatory -- that capitalism is unchangeable," he said. "The purpose of this book is to say no, we don't have to resign to that." Singer believes the massive strikes and labor demonstrations of France in 1995 were "the first revolt against TINA" and a statement by Europeans against the future capitalism holds for them. This book, Singer said, was another step towards fighting TINA and the unquestionable acceptance of capitalism. "You have to build an alternative [to capitalism]," he told the audience. "That is now our agenda." After Singer spoke about his book, he opened the discussion to questions. While topics discussed ranged from the anti-sweatshop movement to the sociobiology of evolution, the conversation largely centered on NATO's war against Yugoslavia last spring. "We haven't got the moral ground to be there," Singer said, explaining that NATO forces only exacerbated the already unstable situation in the province of Kosovo. Despite the fact that the Philomethrian Society -- Penn's undergraduate literary society -- co-sponsored the event with House of Our Own, Singer failed to attract many Penn undergraduates. The few that did attend were graduate students. Instead, the audience mostly consisted of local residents. However, House of Our Own owner Debbie Sanford still felt the event generated a "good turnout." Most who attended the talk were familiar with Singer's work in The Nation and were curious about his new book. Local resident Mary Rutkovksy said she came "to see what's going on in terms of the Left as the group is getting smaller and smaller." Singer kicked off House of Our Own's Fall Author Series. Authors Christian Parenti and Marshall Berman will each visit the bookstore within the next month to discuss their own recent publications.

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