Why an extreme approach is not working and how to actually make a different!
“Fuck the system” and “Fuck capitalism” are common slogans of radical leftist. These statements are quite extreme and criticize the predominant capitalistic economic system as well as the political system. Contribution in the system is no option for them. They want a radical change of order. Officially they communicate their message via demonstrations, information media and by
word of mouth. Unofficially they attract attention with violence against police and graffiti or paint vandalism. I am personally not against everything leftist stand for. But I do not agree with any form of extremism. By being extreme people tend to be ignorant for other people’s opinions and forget to self-reflect. Either you are with them or against them. A really nice example for lack of self-reflect to me is the fact that on one hand leftist are official against commercial capitalistic companies. On the other hand they support them by purchasing for example sneakers of Adidas and Nike. To me they just criticize but do not come up with solutions for problems. I do see the problems of capitalism and I agree that we need to change certain things in our system. But I believe that one can only change the system by participation. Otherwise you will be left out of the system without any chance to be part of change.
A great example of this philosophy is the company who developed and sells the Fairphone. They came up with the idea of a mobile phone were the production process is fully transparent and visible for customers. Every customer can see where, under which conditions and from which
material his or her phone is made. As well as the process the phone can be fully disassembled. This offers the opportunity to replace batteries and other parts so the phone lasts longer and is therefore more sustainable. Their goal was not to get rich or become a multi-billion dollar company. They wanted to show the world that by participation in the system. You can achieve the same results on a value based and responsible manner. With this example they tried to change the system by being part of the system. As well as leftist they weren’t happy how things go in the current system. So they became part of the system in order change it. That’s why my message is “be the system in order to change it”.
Elias Vetter
