By using the expression "it´s capitalism, stupid!" seeks to emphasize the need to assign to the capitalist system as largely responsible for the barbarism that characterizes contemporary era. Rampant violence and crises which manifest themselves in various forms in the world in which we live are caused by the world capitalist system. Therefore it is essential to break with the current model of development, capitalism, which has proved unable to regulate, much less, to prevent and overcome violence and crises that has created throughout its history.

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“IT´S CAPITALISM, STUPID!”
Fernando Alcoforado *
The phrase "it's the economy, stupid!" was used by James Carville, the election
strategist Bill Clinton, to emphasize the need for the Democratic Party criticizing the
management of the US economy to defeat George H. Bush, the father, in presidential
election of 1992. By using the expression "it´s capitalism, stupid!" seeks to emphasize
the need to assign to the capitalist system as largely responsible for the barbarism that
characterizes contemporary era. Rampant violence and crises which manifest
themselves in various forms in the world in which we live are caused by the world
capitalist system. Therefore it is essential to break with the current model of
development, capitalism, which has proved unable to regulate, much less, to prevent
and overcome violence and crises that has created throughout its history.
It can be said that humanity has evolved so far from the stage of savagery to barbarism.
Savagery is a characteristic stage of primitive societies or primitive peoples, which are
normally associated with indigenous peoples. The term barbarism has two distinct
meanings, but linked together: lack of civilization and barbaric cruelty. Eric Hobsbawm
notes that barbarism means a break with the moral standards that regulate life in society
and traditional social controls giving way to unbridled violence and contempt for human
[See La barbarie: guia del usuario (Barbarism: User Guide) posted on <http: //
pt.scribd.com/doc/50203686/La-barbarie-guia-del-usuario>]. The great challenge of the
contemporary era is to make humanity progress from barbarism stage at the time to
civilization.
Civilization is considered the most advanced stage of a given human society. There are
some elements generally accepted by everybody of what would become a civilized
society: 1) provide guaranteed security for all citizens who should not fear the loss of
their lives or have physical damage; 2) provide health care the best possible for all
members of society; 3) granting access to food and water for all citizens so that no one
goes hungry or thirsty; 4) provide basic living conditions for all citizens; 5) have a
democratic legal system whose laws are established to preserve the well-being of the
population; 6) provide an educational system that guarantees equal access to high level
of education for all people in order to make its highly educated population; and 7)
provide for the population to freedom of thought, belief, religion, affiliation and
expression and the right to participate in government decisions.
According to Eric Hobsbawm, the last 150 years, barbarism has increased permanently.
Year by year, decade by decade, violence and contempt for the human being have
increased seeming does not exist a limit to this phenomenon. Something far worse: men
and women have become accustomed to the barbarism so far there is no surprise,
strangeness, or horror face the inhuman acts. Marx wrote in 1847 this amazing and
prophetic passage: "Barbarism reappeared, but this time she is engendered in the bosom
of civilization itself and is an integral part of it. It is the leprous barbarism, barbarism as
leprosy of civilization" [See Barbárie e modernidade no século 20 (Barbarism and
modernity in 20th century) of Michael Lowy, published in Brazil by the newspaper "Em
Tempo" - emtempo@ax.apc.org and, originally in French, in the journal "Critique
Communiste" No. 157, hiver 2000).
The First and the Second World War established a new form of eminently modern
barbarism, far worse in his murderous inhumanity of the practices of conquering

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warriors "barbarians" from the end of the Roman Empire. According to Eric
Hobsbawm, the Great War (1914-1918) opens the bloodiest stage of world history.
1914 begins with unlimited sacrifices in the effort to eliminate the enemy. This sacrifice
incorporating own civilian population. 1914 begins the era of total war, the lack of
distinction between combatants and non-combatants [See the article by Eric Hobsbawm
entitled La barbarie: guia del usuario (Barbarism: User Guide) posted on <http: //
pt.scribd.com/doc/50203686/La-barbarie-guia-del-usuario>]. From 1914 to 1990, killed
187 million people in warlike acts or systematic extermination.
Despite the repeated intentions of all countries of the world to maintain world peace, the
twentieth century was the scene of two world wars. In World War I (1914-1918), died
about 9 million people. Only twenty years later, broke out the Second World War
(1939-1945), which killed between 40 and 52 million people. In addition, the violence
of the conflict in our time has no parallel in history. The wars of the twentieth century
were "total wars" against combatants and civilians without discrimination. The historian
Eric Hobsbawm [The A Era dos Extremos (Age of Extremes), Companhia das Letras,
2008) adds: "Without a doubt it was the most murderous century of which we have
record, both in scale, frequency and length of the war, barely stopping for a moment in
the 20s, as well as the single volume of the human catastrophes it produced, from the
greatest famines in history to systematic genocide".
The tragedy of wars in the twentieth century reached most families over two, three or
four generations. The call to arms took millions of sons, husbands, fathers and brothers
to the battlefield, and millions have not returned. The Nazi genocide against the Jews,
gypsies and communists, the use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the
Stalinist Goulag, the Vietnam War, the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in
New York, the two Iraq wars, the war in Afghanistan, the recent civil wars in Libya and
Syria and indiscriminate violence by the Islamic State exemplify the most complete way
the barbarism that characterizes the world we live in. In this context of bleak prospects,
it is urgent to attack the evil in the bud barbarism with the construction of a new
civilized world order to replace the dominant capitalist order generating of attacks on
civilization in all quadrants of the Earth that register for more than 500 years.
*Fernando Alcoforado , member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor of Territorial
Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, a university professor and
consultant in strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is
the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova
(Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado.
Universidade de Barcelona, http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e
Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX
e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of
the Economic and Social Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller
Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe
Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora, Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e
combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011),
Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012) and
Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV,
Curitiba, 2015).