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2011: Calling Time on Capitalism
Recent decades have seen a massive redistribution of wealth, imposing the cost of successive crises on the poorest. Enough!
But recovery noises are useful for some. Republicans claim that government should do less since recovery is underway (of course, for them, government action is always counterproductive). Likewise, Republicans and many centrist Democrats claim that income redistribution policies are no longer needed because recovery means growth, which means everyone gets a bigger piece of an expanding economic pie. Recovery hype also helps the Obama administration to claim that its policies succeeded.
Yet, this is more fantasy than reality. After all, the nearly 20% of the US labor force that became unemployed or underemployed in 2009 remains so as we enter 2011. No recovery there. Worse still, a quarter of those who found work since the crisis began only got temp jobs without benefits. Second, foreclosure actions by banks – including those who got most of the government's bailouts – continue to eject millions from their homes. No recovery there, either (except for the bigger banks).
Third, consider why the Federal Reserve decided last month to create another $600bn of new money, and why Congress and the president agreed in December on an additional fiscal stimulus (extending Bush's tax cuts, reducing social security withholding for 2011, etc). They took those steps because all the previous bailouts, monetary easing, tax cuts and government fiscal stimulus expenditures had failed to end this crisis. Those immune to hype recognize that more of the same policies that failed before might do so again.
More importantly, the recovery noise distracts from a more basic failure of our economic system: its fundamental instability. Recurring "downturns" – which neither private nor government actions have ever managed to prevent – impose massive costs on society. They plunge millions of effective, productive workers into unemployment and resulting personal, family and community disasters. Governments tap the collective purses of their nations chiefly to rescue just those private capitalists who were major contributors to the crisis and whose wealth insulates them from the crisis' worst effects.
Then, governments turn on their people to impose austerities (cutbacks in social programs, social security, etc) needed to restore government budgets busted by that rescue's huge costs. Like someone convicted of murdering his parents who demands leniency as an orphan, corporate America demands conservative government and austerity on the grounds of excessive budget deficits. Mainstream media and politicians take those corporate demands seriously, reminding us who controls whom.
The last half-century suggests a very different analysis of the crisis and a correspondingly different response for 2011. Since the early 1970s, workers' wage increases came to an end, their benefits and job security shrank and government supports for average people came under conservative attack. These increasing burdens were justified as absolutely necessary to enable more investment and, therefore, greater economic growth. A bigger economic pie would then provide more for everyone including workers.
In fact, growth in the US and Europe steadily slowed over those years (see graph below by University of Rome Professor Pasquale Tridico):
Average growth of GDP per capita in US and Europe, 1961-2009. Source: Eurostat
While workers' conditions deteriorated, capitalist surpluses and profits soared and stock markets boomed. Income and wealth were redistributed from poor and middle to the rich. But the promised results never materialized: neither more investment, nor greater economic growth. As the graph shows, growth actually slowed and then the whole system imploded into a catastrophic crisis.
Today's recovery noises accompany government actions that will repeat in 2011 more of the bailouts, monetary easing and fiscal stimuli that have proved insufficient since 2007. None of those actions dare to question, let alone address, how capitalism redistributed income and wealth in the decades leading to the crisis or how that redistribution contributed to the crisis.
The recovery being planned and hyped aims at a return to the US economy before it crashed. However, that capitalism was like a train hurtling toward the stone wall of crisis. To return to a pre-crisis capitalism risks resuming our places on a similar train heading for a similar crash.
Republican and Democratic politicians alike dare not link this crisis to an economic system that has never stopped producing those "downturns" that regularly cost so many millions of jobs, wasted resources, lost outputs and injured lives. For them, the economic system is beyond questioning. They bow before the unspoken taboo: never criticize the system upon which your careers depend.
Thus, this crisis and its burdens will continue until capitalists see sufficiently attractive opportunities for profit to resume investing and hiring people in the US as well as elsewhere. The freedoms of US capitalists to gain immense government supports as needed, and yet to invest only when, where and how they can maximize their private profits are paramount: the first obligations of government. The freedoms from want and insecurity for the US people remain a distant second priority – until mass political action changes that.
In good times, as in bad, capitalism is a system that places a small minority of people with one set of goals (profits, disproportionally high incomes, dominant political power, etc) in the positions to receive and distribute enormous wealth. Those people include the boards of directors that gather the net revenues of business into their hands and decide, together with the major shareholders in those businesses, how to distribute that wealth. Not surprisingly, they use it to achieve their goals and to make sure government secures their positions.
No Keynesian monetary or fiscal policies address, let alone change, how that system works and who uses its wealth to what ends. No reforms or regulations passed or even proposed under Obama would do that either. To avoid the instability of capitalism and its huge social costs requires changing the system. That remains the basic issue for a new year and a new generation. Will they break today's version of a dangerous old taboo: never question the existing system?
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126 Comments so far
Show AllOkay, I will accept that capitalism can be exploited for bad purposes but to automatically classify capitalism as casino capitalism is off. Can we get some good regulations to keep the competition fair for all?
No.
If you think capitalism can be fair you are gravely mistaken.
and don't understand what capitalism is!
Most Americans are clueless about understanding the basics of socialism or capitalism. Half of them have the nerve to trash most European nations as "socialist" when, in fact, most of them each have an economic system that is a hybrid of capitalism and socialism. The only way to tame capitalism is to push for more socialism on all fronts.
If the goal is to "reform" capitalism, no good change will come from it whereas if the goal is to push to socialism for all, then regulating capitalism automatically happens. At least that is my impression of how it works. I am all for mainly socialism with limited capitalism at the most.
I'm with you Jennifer, as long as we recognize that "socialism" includes democratic worker and local community control of the workplace. We elect our local and central managers.
If the state, even an elected state, can control local enterprises and order workers about, that is not socialism but state capitalism. Labor is still alienated.
Although state management and workers' control have both been given the name of "socialism," they are in reality two completely different systems, and have been literally at war with each other - in the early Russian Revolution, in Republican Spain, and in Cultural Revolution China. Now the two systems are opposed in Venezuela.
Most Americans, including large sections of the "left," associate the name of "socialism" with state control of the economy. When we use the word, therefore, we should be certain to say that we are talking about direct workplace democracy. If we don't, then we will be seen promoting a system which proved to be even more oppressive and unstable than our own corporate capitalism. Perhaps we should use another word. "Co-operative democracy," anyone?
The MSM has demonized words like socialism,liberal,terrorist and many others, people are so ignorant and manipulated by very savvy corporate manipulators that have no interest in the public good...neither party cares..sure the dem's talk a good game,but end up enabling the barbarians of the free market..really what's wrong with sharing or caring about others..free market's are anathema to this thinking,and regulation is a joke as implimented in this country.
You have gotten to the heart of the core dispute here, and among liberals progressives and leftists everywhere. Obviously, those seeking to reform Capitalism, and thereby save it, have nothing in common with those of us who do not want to see Capitalism saved. Those two positions are much farther apart than "save Capitalism by method A" conservatives and "save Capitalism by method B" progressives could ever be. The two positions are diametrically opposed to one another.
Regulated Capitalism is not a plan nor a system, it is the messy and haphazard and unstable outcome of a yet-to-be decided ongoing struggle. As we can see, as the New Deal was steadily rolled back and destroyed by the wealthy and powerful, leaving the fox in the henhouse will eventually lead once again to all of the chickens being at risk. "Regulated Capitalism" is as though the foxes agreed - for a while - to only eat some of the chickens. Pretty soon they are after them all, and the only reason they agreed to "regulation" was to stop the chickens from permanently ending their rule over the henhouse. By making things a little better for some of the chickens, the solidarity of the chickens was broken up, and some of the chickens were even employed by the foxes to put a friendly face on the management of the henhouse.
The chickens the foxes employed, and provided with some security and perks, are the liberal and progressive educated professional people. They run around "speaking truth to foxes," or saying "the problem is there are too many chickens," or coming up with clever plans like putting solar panels on the henhouse roof, or calling for new and different trustees to manage the henhouse for the foxes. Or they say that we need to change the beliefs of the chickens, and that all of the problems are caused by the chickens being stupid and ignorant.
Since the wardens of the henhouse prison, drawn from among the smartest chickens, only have power and influence at the whim of the foxes, they cannot possibly lead the chickens or cause any serious reform. The only reforms that will ever be allowed are those the foxes agree to. The job of the intellectuals, then, is to tell the other chickens that the latest plan by the foxes - health care, the recent tax compromise, Benjamin's 10 things to be thankful for from 2010, are all "victories" for "us."
They serve the foxes well.
I say throw the foxes out of the henhouse - completely and permanently. Those who seek to reform the rule of the foxes over the henhouse, in order to save the rule of the foxes, I oppose. Chickens who want to plan out all of our futures for us, and who carefully craft all of their ideas so as not to upset the foxes, I disagree with, just as much as I disagree with any right winger.
Knee deep in chicken feathers....
"Regulated Capitalism is not a plan nor a system, it is the messy and haphazard and unstable outcome of a yet-to-be decided ongoing struggle. "
I would offer that regulated capitalism is a function of a government, and the struggle you speak of is between those who want unfettered access to profits regardless of how destructive the outcome and those supposedly charged with the welfare of the people of the state.
Speaking as if corporations were run by a species different from those of the consumers may be an artifice that reads well but it serves, in my own opinion, to obfuscate and hide the real world. People tend towards selfishness and self interests, sad but true in far too many cases. Capitalism is a function of the market place, the predominant system under which our world currently works. Government is not capitalism but it has a responsibility to oversee the business practices of those who seek to do business in our nation in order to safeguard and protect the people of that nation from rapaciousness and overwhelming greed.
When one speaks of capitalism the image of Enron et al comes to mind, but , while that is certainly true enough, one tends to forget about the corner grocery, the local carpenter, and all the small business entrepreneurs, capitalists all. Thus the term "unregulated capitalism" has more meaning than a discussion of the relationship between fox and chicken. I do believe that large C Capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction, as does any man made artifice. That is why the need exists to ensure that the quest for endless profit is subjugated to the need for an honest product, produced in an environmentally nondestructive way and offered at a reasonable price.
I see the problem without the feathers and fangs, but applaud you for the entertainment value of your erudite post. End the status of the corporation as a person, make the CEO responsible to the people, end the practices that make our legislators so dependent upon the corporate checkbook and return the function of government to its rightful role, overseer of the interests of the people. Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy, whatever, all have a place, and all have a role. That these institutions are open to perversions of those roles is true enough. That we must work to keep those perversions from damaging our way of life is the key.
I hope I have made my opinion clear, I admit to not having your gift of authorship.
This is a good point here, in that most of the real damage caused by capitalism is hidden. I'm thinking of billions of hours of daily, silent human misery on factory floors, in dangerous mines, in soulless office cubicles and in a hundred-thousand other little corporate hells.
Capitalism is the whip to everyone's back, pushing the entire planet over the cliff as quickly as possible. Whether or not it is ever actually destroyed, it certainly deserves to be.
It's not hidden, just not acknowledged by the masses as their reality.
Yet.
Ms. Beddingfield, I admire your attempt to interject sanity and fact based logic into this thread. I fear, however, that your efforts are for naught in a climate of all or nothing broad generalizations and little actual understanding of complex subject matter.
Those who paint with too broad a brush, condemning, whether they understand or not, the corner grocer, the shoe repairer and the local carpenter along with the actual culprits, the far too large and far too unregulated multinational corporations that purchase our legislators at will, simply are a part of the problem though they think themselves so very astute.
True enough; capitalism is greedy, exploitive, and totally non- compassionate! The way for peace : compassionate socialism.
Democratic Socialism NOW!
We had some pretty good regulations following the Depression. But the Reagan revolution, followed by Bill Clinton believing a few crazy economists (can you hear that President Obama?) did away with them.
It still wasn't fair.
Never has been , never will be.
Actually, the beginning of the end of the New Deal came in 1947 when the Republican congress enacted the Taft - Hartley Act restricting labor organizing. After that, with the labor base of the New Deal crippled, the capitalist comeback was only a matter of time. As it always will be as long as "reform" leaves capitalists in charge of the economy, so that they can buy more and more of the government.
Wake up to the fact of CLASS WAR being led by Obama against the working people of this country!
Capitalism in the U.S. cannot be regulated so that it works for the benefit of the majority of the people. Capitalism is always being "bailed out" to the profit of the capitalists (super-rich individuals, banks, corporations, military-industrial complex, etc.).
President Obama, with Deficit Reduction goals, wants to de-fund Social Security and Medicare,etc. and impose "austerity" (i.e. vast impoverishment) upon the working people of this country, without imposing any serious "austerity" upon the gangsters who have caused, and profited from, the destruction of the economic commonwealth.
The corporations own and control both Obama and the Democratic and Republican parties by massive funding of all "pro-business" candidates (especially Obama). The privately (corporate) owned mass media are all biased ("framed") towards pro-corporate views and perspectives. When you watch PBS or listen to NPR, supposedly "publicly" owned, you will see and hear the list of "sponsors", individual multi-millionaires and billionaires or oil companies.
Thus we never ever hear any serious and regular opposition to the Rush Limbaughs, Glen Becks, on Fox New, nor, on a more sophisticated level, do you ever hear any perspective on current affairs from the economic and political perspective of working people.
Richard Wolff has promoted this same message (see his DVD "Capitalism hits the Fan") for several years now!
Why doesn't Dr. Wolff now take his message to AFL-CIO Executive Council and President Trumka, Jobs with Justice, Working America,etc. and to working people everywhere and call for the formation of a new mass socialist political party, that refuses corporate money and agendas, that works for the economic interest of working people?
Good points, Jerry. I posted about the phony distinction between "good" capitalism (FDR regulated capitalism) and "bad" or "mutant" or "casino" capitalism which has arisen since Reagan. As Wolff has pointed out, capitalism learned from the 30s that it had to seize control of the regulatory apparatus in order to maximize profits and it has spectacularly succeeded in this. Obama is simply extending this process to its logical conclusion.
The current world economic system is simply capitalism assuming its true form without the inhibitions of regulations. It is that system which must be completely overthrown in order to create the conditions for real human development and ecological sanity.
I've been reading Dr. Wolff's articles for many years now. He has a knack for distilling the issues into easily understood talking points that can help promote an alternative to the capitalist system. However, I too wonder why he, along with many others that could be mentioned, does not help found a new mass socialist party. I have a feeling that if you asked him, he would say that conditions are not propitious right now for such a movement. Of course, one of the reasons they are not propitious is because clear thinkers like him are not banding together to form such a movement.
RE: However, I too wonder why he, along with many others that could be mentioned, does not help found a new mass socialist party.
Richard Wolff is a (radical) academic, not an organizer (and in the last couple of years, he has had some crossover into the liberal media). There's no need for him to "found a new mass socialist party" - they already exist. The reason you don't know about them is that the liberal/progressive media acts like they don't. There's roughly 20 socialist organizations in the US. FYI: the International Socialist Organization (ISO) is the largest. Do some homework and then make up your own mind. Just join one; that's how mass organizations are created.
Right again, Tom. I'm quite aware of the International Socialist Organization and the great work they do. Once again, you've caught some lazy wording on my part. Behind my words was the hope that many of the authors that write regularly for CD (Michael Moore, Paul Krugman, David Sirota, etc.) would move in a more radical direction and use their influence to help found a mass party which would be socialist in orientation as has happened in many South American countries. Surely, even die-hard Democrats can see at this point that the Democratic Party is no longer capable of even reforming the corporate state. It is simply another aspect of that state and one that is even more effective than Republicans at undermining rights and destroying the social safety net.
The problem is that capitalism is like trying to collect water in a rusty old bucket, full of holes. When it gets bad enough some of the holes can be patched so it doesn't leak as much, but it keeps rusting, and new holes keep forming.
The essential problem of capitalism is the the capitalists drain off the wealth -- the surplus value -- produced by the those who work to create tangible wealth in the real economy. When crisis hit some reforms can be made but the profit motive of the capitalists result in their immediately finding ways to get around the regulation -- and with the money they have they are very successful -- this is like the bucket continuing to rust and more holes forming, increasing draining away more water. The profits the capitalist get is not the result of producing wealth, but just having wealth and controlling the means of production.
This results in shifting more and more wealth from the poor, the working class, and even the middle class into the hands of the wealthy -- from the producers to the controllers. The solution is to put control of wealth into the hands of those who produce it and make the wealthy work for their money instead of skimming it from workers -- that's what socialism is about.
That is an interesting way to look at it. From what you say about capitalism, it sounds like socialism for the rich and putting us to patches the leaks for a living. I guess we're too worried about losing our jobs that we lose our wealth with that worry. The anti-socialists have done a swell job in making spreading the wealth a taboo.
I would fully support your opinion had you simply put the word "unregulated" before your usage of the word "capitalism". The abuses to which you accurately refer are all products of the far too large and far too uncontrolled multinationals and thus a blanket and somewhat unfair condemnation. My own vision includes both capitalism and socialism flourishing where each has its place.
One of the prime directives of capitalism is to weaken, and ultimately eliminate any regulation, and they can do that because the capitalists control most of the money. Capitalism in inherently destructive.
Edit:
Look at history -- we had regulated capitalism for a while, after the Great Depression, and the regulations were dismantled.
Dismantled , not by a way of doing business , but by a failure of those charged with the welfare of the people.....Capitalism, like any human created idea or ideal, is subject to the whims and will of those who function within it.
Making capitalism a bogeyman is not the answer. Blaming, and stopping, those who use great wealth to pervert it is the solution.
Capitalism will always accrete and concentrate wealth, like a force of economic gravity.
I'm looking at a chart (source Arthur B. Kennickell "A Rolling Tide: Changes in the Distribution of Wealth in the U.S., 1989-2001. "
By 2001, the top 1% owned 32.7% of American wealth, the next 5% owned 25% and the bottom 50% owned 2.8% of the wealth.
I'll bet that by 2010 the richest Americans were richer, and the bottom 50% were poorer. When do the numbers come out?
Cutting off those corporate bailouts, ending tax breaks/loopholes for the wealthy and corporate elites, and ending "free" trade will yield trillions to more than balance the budget.
P.S.: I will bet that the bloated military budget is far greater than 780b when all the costs, monetary and non-monetary, are all accounted for.
Even an unapologetic supporter of libertarianism like Milton Friedman recognized that every dollar spent on Defense returned far, far less to the economy than monies spent elsewhere. Eliminating the bloated defense budget would have a much greater positive impact upon our economy than the simple pluses and minuses of the dollar amounts in question.
It amazes me that Reagan came along, and with the stroke of a pen and a few lies, turned the entire financial country upside down, and no one even brought up how it had been done before and had ALWAYS brought about financial disaster, but now we can't even discuss changing it back to something that worked well before. Why is it that we all have to have economics Alzheimer's just like Reagan did in order be brought into the discussion?
This country had never had a period of more than 30 year without a financial disaster before FDR and his policies. Those policies brought about a period of about 50 years with NO major financial issues. The poor got wealthier, and the rich were STILL rich. That was one rising tide that DID lift all boats. Since the BRILLIANCE of those like Phil Gramm came onto the scene, we have done EXACTLY what we were doing BEFORE those 50 years, and is it any wonder that it's led us to the EXACT same point it has EVERY OTHER TIME? To expect anything BUT this outcome is a fool's game.
When the hell are people going to wake up and realize that Reagan was NOT on THEIR side, he was a money grubbing selfish asshole who sold them out to the highest bidder? That man will go down in at least MY book as the worst president of the modern era. W wouldn't have been able to hurt us nearly that badly had this piece of mentally deficient scum not set the path. I will NEVER understand how more people couldn't see through that scum bag. I did the first time he opened his mouth. It seemed so obvious to me at the time, and I still see it that way.
Get rid of the lowest tax rates the rich have ever seen in this country, put them back to Eisenhower rates, NO LOOPHOLES, kill off the entire idea of corporate personhood (which is a total joke in the first place), and remove private money from elections ENTIRELY. Until money stops being the be all and end all of life in America, nothing else will ever change. Funny, but to have a decent economy, money can't be the only thing involved. If it is, nothing else matters.
"worst president of the modern era." Worst person who EVER lived! Pushed us over the edge of the financial and environmental (and others) cliff. It's really sad to start a new year feeling doomed,doomed, DOOMED.
Plus my wine supply is getting low---MD
What is truely amazing is the neoloberalism of Reagan continued by Clinton Bush and OilyBomber that has obviously failed is still offered as a policy of repair.
WJM the "Catch 22" system will not allow any of the reforms you mention.
I propose an economic engine with a well regulated Capitalist generator and a generous Socialist distributor.
With a say 1:10 allowable extreme income ratio, say $50,000 poorest and $500,000 richest. Each nation can have a plebecite to decide the ratio they are comfortable with.
I share most all of your disgust and convictions, but disagree with the idea that taxing the rich to the extent you suggest would work, as much as I'd like to see it in a get-even sort of way. I think if we went back to Eisenhower taxation and closed loopholes, they'd just leave, and have plenty of harbors to welcome them in. I really don't believe they have any allegiance in staying here. We're a slowly dying white elephant.
Elizebeth,
Then I for one would say let them leave - it would be a blessing. The super rich certainly don't do anything for this country now except actively seek to drive the 90% of the population not at the top into the dirt. If these people all packed up and left we'd all be so much better off than we are now. The only real problem would be to ensure that from among those remaining we don't let a new group grab the wealth and take their place.
And don't forget that they cannot be allowed to take their ill-gotten wealth with them. It won't be easy to do that, since many of them have their money in foreign bank accounts, and their companies incorporated in foreign countries. So we need the people in other countries to do the same as we do.
Sweeden corporate tax rate is 26.3%.
Residence – A corporation is resident in Sweden if it is registered with the Swedish Companies Registration Office.
Basis – Residents are taxed on worldwide income.
------------------------------------------------
Sweden's tax rates are among the highest in the world, yet Sweden has proportionally the highest number of corporations. No corporation's HQ leaves the country for Oman.
Very enlightening, regarding Sweden. What do the corps like about Sweden?
Trouble is even with the bloated 1% leaving the USA the multinational corps would still use the USA as its militia at the expense of USA taxpayers.
It occurs to me , lately, just how much the "American experiment" was, inseparably, a Freemasons' experiment (taking the textbook definition of Freemasonry as "the science of morality, veiled in allegory, illustrated by symbol". They have their problems with inner corruption too, like every other institution on this minor hell-world, in the outer darkness of physical space). Their plan could have never worked without cultivating a sufficient number of morally upright citizens (ESPECIALLY where it counts; in positions of power & responsibility). Without sufficient "moral strength" it is irelevant to rage against monarchy, anarchy, aristocracy, plutocracy, oligarchy, capitalism, communism, a mixed-economy,etc... ANY of these systems will work, in a nation of saints. NONE of them will, in the land of the wicked & vile. I see the reason behind the "God is dead" theme, along with the propagation of a particular kind of libertarian economics devoid of any over-riding morality ( IE. pursuit of mammon & filthy lucre for the "screaming I"), in the sixties (ALONG with some key assassinations, worldwide). It was for the LITERAL "de-moralization" of the mass of humanity, to prepare them for the insane business of "culling the herd" by those unlawful owner-rulers of the world, by getting them to do it, to one another. This, too, shall fail, fortunately.
"Recovery'" means that Wall Street gamblers are doing well and the unemployed and the evicted are suffering.
Many think there is a "good" capitalism which appeared in the 30s and 60s and a "bad" capitalism which goes by various names: casino capitalism, mutant capitalism, neoliberal capitalism, etc. Their theory is that before the 80s there was a regulated capitalism which generated many productive benefits while keeping excesses under control through regulation. Unfortunately, a longer historical view makes nonsense out of this theory.
First, "mutant capitalism" did not suddenly appear in the last 30 years. It existed during the late 19th century before the progressive reforms of Theodore Roosevelt. Then it existed again during the roaring 20s until the crash came and regulations were imposed during the 30s. I would contend that these were not mutant aberrations, but capitalism reverting to its true form which was then resisted by government power.
What makes the current crisis different is not that a new form of capitalism has arisen, but that it has become so strong that it now controls the government that once acted as a check on it. This has allowed capitalism to assume its true form. As Wolff indicates elsewhere, the system cannot be reformed because its inherent dynamic is to seize control of the regulatory apparatus and mold it to its own advantage. That is what has happened in the last 30 years. To believe that we can return to the more regulated version of the 30s is a fantasy that ignores the history of the past 30 years. Government can no longer regulate corporate power because it is now corporate-owned. The starting point of any serious progressive movement has to be the questioning of the entire system.
Boyd, I would add that unlike the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the systematic ill-conditioning and mis-educating of most Americans has made it easier for disaster capitalists to slip away while counting on people to blame socialism and expect the same capitalism to "rescue" them. I also blame the "food" in this nation compared to other nations for the rotten thinking that exists among the majority. :(
The system is surely being questioned, but at some point people need an appealing vision of an alternative. For myself and many others, Cuba isn't a greatly inspiring model as compared to Northern European or Scandinavian democratic socialist countries, or even some of the new leftist South American countries that don't entirely obliterate capitalism - they just kneecap it badly enough to keep the oligarchs in check.
Now, long term, the trends appear to align with what you say. The CIA and every other right wing organization is chewing away at the new South American left, and the transnational capitalist organizations (IMF, EU, World Bank) are chewing away at the established social safety nets of democratic socialist countries.
It may be as you believe that capitalism simply cannot be allowed to exist, or it may be that the struggle to contain it cannot ever end. What may be required is an endless will to resist the greed, violence, stupidity and injustice of the economic and political right.
Cuba has done very well, considering that there has been an embargo since the Kennedy years. Much of what we consider bad and dictatorial has been a reaction to the United States policy of insanity. I admire Castro for loving his people and for doing his best for them. He's no saint but he IS an intelligent and thoughtful man. He is even willing to admit his mistakes and apologize for them.
How can you keep oligarchs in check? As far back as the Greeks that has proved impossible. You can restrain them for a time, but they are always there waiting in the wings. It's best to get rid of them, as a class. They might not be able to be 're-educated' but their children are. They should never be allowed to keep their money or their power.
Maybe we could deport them to China.
Oops No! then they would just come back in a cheap contaminated product
Excellent post, fake_french. I think you may be right about the "endless will to resist", but the "greed, violence, stupidity and injustice of the economic and political right" is not simply human nature as the capitalist would have us believe, but one of the primary products of the capitalist system.
Rather than arguing about systems, I think what's important is to re-conceive the type of society we want to live in. In this society, our lives are focused on accumulating things in order to validate our self-worth. If we lived in a society where we found fulfillment in producing goods to meet human need, the need to validate our self-worth in this way might disappear, and many other negative human characteristics as well.
According to Marx, we achieve human fulfillment by producing for others not by accumulating material goods for ourselves. Material goods are an unsatisfying substitute for real wealth, which is human relationship and growth in capacities and inner fulfillment. And precisely because material goods are so unsatisfying, we believe that we can never have enough of them.
Capitalism builds a society which at its core is a relationship of separate property owners. This is the basis for the "freedom" which it promotes. We produce not for other human beings but for property exchange between owners. This relationship does not merely reflect selfishness, but actually produces the selfishness which capitalists attribute to eternal human nature. When we relate to each other as owners, we use each other's needs to gain power over one other. It is the cultivation of this relationship that produces distorted human beings. Selfish, greedy, isolated human beings is the primary product of capitalism, not material abundance.
Yes Boyd, but as a fine point life's purpose is not production of any kind but caring for all things of Mother Nature.
And yes producing for others is an important part, but no kind of production should be the central tenant.
I think much of the Wests attack on Islam is the living practice of charity, in which a wealthy Muslim loses face if downtrodden are allowed to suffer in his realm.
Nicely put.
Good post.
RE: The starting point of any serious progressive movement has to be the questioning of the entire system.
I like very much that you are saying this, however it is not a correct use of the word "progressive." This is not a academic criticism; it is crucial. Progressive politics have always been reformist in orientation.
Traditionally, in political theory, the word "radical" means (as in math) to "go to the root" of the problem. The capitalists have conflated the meaning of radical with extremism, for obvious reasons. It is radicals that provide the SYSTEMIC critique and analysis of capitalism - not progressives. Because of this, radicals see capitalism as the problem. Therefore the aim of (true) radicals is the overthrow of capitalism and the aim of progressives is its reform. Many radicals (including this one) were once progressives.
Point well taken, Tom. You are right - I should be using another word other than progressivism which as you say is reformist in orientation. I, like many others here, tend to use that word as a catch-all term for those with a left-leaning orientation. Radical is the correct term, but it is loaded with a lot of baggage from the past 40 years and has morphed into a cliche and a kind of scare word. Be that as it may, my intention is to radically critique current social relations on a systemic level, not to reform or "save capitalism" as most liberals (another problematic term) or progressives wish to do.
This little line right here says it all "Third, consider why the Federal Reserve decided last month to create another $600bn of new money." It couldn't get any crazier if the so-called world leaders got together and planned it. Print paper money and give it to the wreckless criminals who caused the problem with their greed and their wanton disregard for humanity, the environment and the economy to begin with. That must be that Yankee ingenuity they keep talking about.