Which Capitalism Will It Be?

As America, recession-mired, enters the hope-inspired age of Barack Obama, a struggle for the soul of capitalism is being waged. Can the market system finally be made to serve us? Or will we continue to serve it?

George W. Bush argued that the crisis is "not a failure of the free-market system, and the answer is not to try to reinvent that system." But while it is going too far to declare that capitalism is dead, the philanthropist George Soros is right when he says that "there is something fundamentally wrong" with market theory.

The issue is not the death of capitalism but what kind of capitalism - standing in which relationship to culture, to democracy and to life?

President Barack Obama's Rubinite economic team seems designed to reassure rather than innovate, its members set to fix what they broke. But even if they succeed, will they do more than merely restore capitalism to the status quo ante, resurrecting all the defects that led to the debacle?

Obama's stimulus plan and his homeowner bailout program announced last week are technical steps in the right direction, and have the virtue of working bottom-up through mortgage holders and workers rather than top-down through the inert banking system. But they remain technical fixes aimed at pumping up demand and getting people spending.

It is hard to discern any movement toward a wholesale rethinking of the dominant role of the market in our society.

No one is questioning the impulse to rehabilitate the consumer market as the driver of American commerce. Economists and politicians across the spectrum continue to insist that the challenge lies in revving up inert demand.

For in an economy that has become dependent on consumerism to the tune of 70 percent of GDP, shoppers who won't shop and consumers who don't consume spell disaster. Yet it is precisely in confronting the paradox of consumerism that the struggle for capitalism's soul needs to be waged.

The crisis in global capitalism demands a revolution in spirit - fundamental change in attitudes and behavior. Reform cannot merely rush parents and kids back into the mall; it must encourage them to shop less, to save rather than spend.

Penalize carbon use by taxing gas so that it's $4 a gallon regardless of market price, curbing gas guzzlers and promoting efficient public transportation.

And how about giving producers incentives to target real needs, even where the needy are short of cash, rather than to manufacture faux needs for the wealthy because they've got the cash?

Or better yet, take in earnest that insincere MasterCard ad, and consider all the things money can't buy (most things!). Change some habits and restore the balance between body and spirit.

It's time, finally, for a Cabinet-level arts and humanities post to foster creative thinking within government as well as throughout the country. Time for serious federal arts education money to teach the young the joys and powers of imagination, creativity and culture, as doers and spectators rather than consumers.

Recreation and physical activity call for parks and biking paths rather than multiplexes and malls. Speaking of the multiplex, why has the new communications technology been left almost entirely to commerce? Its architecture is democratic, and its networking potential is deeply social. Yet for the most part, it has been put to private and commercial rather than educational and cultural uses. Its democratic and artistic possibilities need to be elaborated, even subsidized.

Of course, much of what is required cannot be leveraged by government policy alone, or by a stimulus package and new regulations over the securities and banking markets. A cultural ethos is at stake.

For far too long our primary institutions - from education and advertising to politics and entertainment - have prized consumerism above everything else, even at the price of infantilizing society. If spirit is to have a chance, they must join the revolution.

The costs of such a transformation will be steep, since they are likely to prolong the recession. Capitalists will be asked to create new markets rather than exploit and abuse old ones; to simultaneously jump-start investments and inventions that create jobs and help generate those new consumers who will buy the useful and necessary things capitalists make once they start addressing real needs (try purifying tainted water in the Third World rather than bottling tap water in the First!).

The good news is, people are already spending less, earning before buying (using those old-fashioned layaway plans) and feeling relieved at the shopping quasi-moratorium. Suddenly debit cards are the preferred plastic. Parental "gatekeepers" are rebelling against marketers who treat their 4-year-olds as consumers-to-be. Adults are questioning brand identities and the infantilization of their tastes. They are out in front of the politicians, who still seem addicted to credit as a cure-all for the economic crisis.

And Barack Obama? We elected a president committed in principle to deep change. Rather than try to back out of the mess we are in, why not find a way forward?

What if Obama committed the United States to reducing consumer spending from 70 percent of GDP to 50 percent over the next 10 years, bringing it to roughly where Germany's GDP is today? The Germans have a commensurate standard of living and considerably greater equality. Imagine all the things we could do without having to shop: Play and pray, create and relate, read and walk, listen and procreate - make art, make friends, make homes, make love.

There are epic moments in history, often catalyzed by catastrophe, that permit fundamental cultural change. The Civil War not only brought an end to slavery but knit together a wounded country, opened the West and spurred capitalist investment in ways that created the modern American nation. The Great Depression legitimized a radical expansion of democratic interventionism; but more important, it made Americans aware of how crucial equality and social justice (buried in capitalism's first century) were to America's survival as a democracy.

Today we find ourselves in another such seminal moment.

Will we use it to rethink the meaning of capitalism and the relationship between our material bodies and the spirited psyches they are meant to serve? Between the single-minded commercialism that we have allowed to dominate us, and the pluralism, heterogeneity and spiritedness that constitute our professed national character?

Candidate Obama certainly inspired many young people to think beyond themselves. The convergence of his election and the collapse of the global credit economy marks a moment when radical change is possible.

But we will need the new president's leadership to turn the economic disaster into a cultural and democratic opportunity; to make service as important as selfishness (what about a national service program, universal and mandatory, linked to education?); to make the needs of the spirit as worthy of respect as those of the body (assist the arts and don't chase religion out of the public square just because we want it out of City Hall); to make equality as important as individual opportunity ("equal opportunity" talk has become a way to avoid confronting deep structural inequality); to make prudence and modesty values no less commendable than speculation and hubris (saving is not just good economic policy; it's a beneficent frame of mind).

Such values are neither conservative nor liberal but are at once cosmopolitan and deeply American. Their restoration could inaugurate a quiet revolution. The struggle for the soul of capitalism is, then, a struggle between the nation's economic body and its civic soul; a struggle to put capitalism in its proper place, where it serves our nature and needs rather than manipulating and fabricating whims and wants.

Saving capitalism means a revolution of the spirit. Is the new president up to it? Are we?

Join Us: News for people demanding a better world


Common Dreams is powered by optimists who believe in the power of informed and engaged citizens to ignite and enact change to make the world a better place.

We're hundreds of thousands strong, but every single supporter makes the difference.

Your contribution supports this bold media model—free, independent, and dedicated to reporting the facts every day. Stand with us in the fight for economic equality, social justice, human rights, and a more sustainable future. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover the issues the corporate media never will. Join with us today!

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.