It is the (capitalist) system that is the problem

September 2, 2025

I like, and usually agree with, much of what Caitlin Johnstone has to say about world affairs.

However, in her latest piece — on the demerits of “Western civilisation” — she is wrong to ascribe to all “Westerners” responsibility for the grave wrongs that have been carried out in effect by small concentrations of government and corporate power in the capitalist societies of the West.

To conflate the sins of this small, grasping, self-interested minority with Western civilisation and with what most Westerners believe is a mistake. Indeed, it might be said that Caitlin has fallen victim to the propaganda that would have us believe this (which she will hate!) – the idea that the history of civilisations is conveyed by their ruling classes.

The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming and to be found in the worldwide protests by tens of thousands of people against the genocide in Gaza and against other capitalist crimes, in literature and in the arts, in history, and so on.

It is the system and the elites that dominate Western and other civilisations that are not worth saving.