Beyond Capitalism: a democratic, socialist, and ecological call to arms

(The ‘call to arms’ is meant—as is often the case—in a metaphoric and nonviolent sense.)

“Since there is no national organization around anymore that can set doctrinal boundaries for the left, there is today more room for expressing and acting upon the full range of issue and perspectives that actually constitute the radical, democratic, critical tradition. One can more easily be a Marxist in the morning, a pacifist in the afternoon, an environmentalist at dinner, and a feminist in the evening while going to church on Sunday [or the mosque on Friday, the synagogue on Saturday, the Humanist Society meeting on Monday…] and voting Democrat on election day.” — Richard Flacks, Making History: The Radical Tradition in American Life (Columbia University Press, 1988): 221-222.

At bottom, in the end, or structurally speaking, “capitalist democracy” refers to the contradictions and distortions of the ideal, principles, and practices of democracy by capitalist logic, by capitalist exploitation, by capitalist corporations and capitalist markets, by commodification, etc., etc. To the extent capitalism was an improvement on several fronts over feudalism and earlier forms of economic organization it evidenced real and symbolic progress in both general emancipation and individual freedom (as Marx himself appreciated, although of course this or that aspect of the former world worth saving went up in smoke as well), and thus it found sufficient political sanction and fortuitous correspondence with Liberalism as a political philosophy. In time, however, it became clear that political Liberalism itself (distinguishable from the Liberalism of J.S. Mill, John Dewey and John Rawls), which represented the historically progressive evolution of democracy, could not sufficiently constrain or effectively determine the power of capitalism in society, in particular, the industrial and technological character of capitalism, which in time has become more or less subordinate to the global forces of finance capitalism (this does not mean we throw out the baby—Liberalism—with the proverbial bathwater). In any case, whatever adjectives we find to more accurately describe this or that form of capitalism, its fundamental structure, logic and processes that constrict, distort or deform participatory, deliberative and representative democracy remain firmly or obdurately in place. And insofar as Neoliberalism is the regnant political ideology among political and economic elites who cannot imagine a world beyond capitalism, democratically inspired and suffused aims, purposes, ends, desires, dreams, and wishes of anarchists, socialists and communists will recede from view, and among those who have yet to see or entertain them, these will continue to be either elusive or nonexistent.

Of course we can and should continue to agitate, educate, and organize, to critique and experiment, to live the social and economic revolution here and now insofar as that is possible or meaningful, as a principled, ethical, and embodied prefigurative social and political praxis. But we need to explain to ourselves and those whom we are obligated to bring into our circle of solidarity, precisely why and how our anarchist and socialist ideals, values, and programs are necessary and substantial improvements that add up to a transcendence of capitalism, why and how they fill out the principles and practices of democracy such that the vast majority of us will no longer be alienated from or “used” by the prevailing economic order in a way that runs roughshod over human dignity and the triune principles and virtues of the French Revolution: liberté, égalité, and fraternité. Our symptomatic diagnosis of what ails us, the primary (yet not only) causal variable in the etiology of our collective illness—which makes for the pathology of normalcy—and our prescribed therapeutic regimen, must all be found rhetorically persuasive and compelling because they are sound in theory and have, here and there, then and now, been shown to work in praxis, at least insofar as we can construct and live on islands of anarchism and socialism in the rising sea of capitalism. We need to help our brothers and sisters (this includes our political foes) to see not only the big-picture, immediate and longer-term consequences of the frenzied pursuit of profit, ruthless competition between firms, and the global search for and construction of cheap and cheaper labor markets, but the corresponding vices and harms of conspicuous consumption as well. Environmental degradation and global climate change need not assume an imminent apocalyptic form. We must demonstrate to our brothers and sisters at home and abroad just what is wrong with the consequences of capital’s unbridled exploitation of technological innovation and intellectual property by way of supplanting (the costs of) labor, indeed, by way of dehumanizing both work and the discretionary or leisure time precariously perched just outside the labor market.

No U.S. president, whether Democrat or Republican, can play a messianic role in saving us from the mortal sins of contemporary capitalism (please do not infer from this statement an insinuation that there is any sort of equivalence, morally or politically speaking, between the two principal parties, or that I am naive as to the immense and anti-democratic political power that has accumulated in the post-WW II office of the presidency). Yes, states—or the State—can intervene directly in the balance of power between capital and labor, but when they (or it) systematically intervene on behalf of the former over the latter (with the collusion or collaboration of non-governmental global institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and the WTO, the last being the most progressive of these institutions) the poor, working people, and those in the middle class will suffer (hence neoliberals need the power of the State to implement deregulation, fiscal conservativism and monetarist policies). “[E]ven in the best welfare states [be they social democratic, corporatist, or even liberal] social expenditures and taxes serve more to redistribute the living standard of labor than to change its average level. As a whole, labor largely pays for its own social benefits” (Anwar Shaikh). In short, the power of states to intervene in the operations of capitalism is severely constrained in a world of deregulated capital markets: states no longer have the same degree of power they once held in the period of “national capitalism” (a term that reminds us of the diminished power of Keynesian-inspired states to robustly ‘steer’ the economy and the reason why Claus Offe wrote about the ‘Contradictions of the Welfare State and Disorganized Capitalism’). The current round of (neoliberal) globalization is a conspicuous “combination of deregulated capital movements, advances in information/communication/transport technologies, and a shift in ideology away from social statism towards neoliberalism and libertarianism.” “One consequence of this new phase,” writes Meghnad Desai, “is that the state no longer controls the economy, but is one player (a major one of course) among many. The state has to adapt and adjust to forces which it cannot control but must respond to.”

When working people in the wealthier northern states understandably but myopically lament the effects of capitalist globalization on their lives (all the while failing to appreciate the disastrous effects of such microeconomic policies as deregulation and privatization), they seem to outsiders still looking in or those awaiting a seat at the table a tad self-centered, unabashedly selfish or simply unrealistic insofar as they are forgetting, deliberately ignoring or unintentionally neglecting (a result, in part, of debilitating psychological mechanisms that go hand-in-hand with ideology construction and maintenance) the historic effects of earlier forms of globalization on far more vulnerable and poorer peoples on our planet: “colonization, force, pillage, slavery, slaughter of native [‘indigenous’] peoples, the targeted destruction of potential competitors, and a huge transfer of wealth into the rich countries.” A diminution in their power and wealth is hardly comparable to the historical experiences of peoples now getting, so to speak, a bigger slice of the pie. This is not to ignore or deny the injustice of those in the affluent nations heretofore enjoying middle class lives (or the aspirations thereto) having that life cut out from under them. But the paramount fact is that capitalist globalization has reduced “three worlds” (as in ‘first,’ ‘second’ and ‘third’ worlds) to one, as millions around the globe are materially gaining at the expense of the middle classes in the affluent countries, even if this is not, to be sure, the “one world” of principled or democratic cosmopolitans who subscribe to the equal distribution of equal liberties. Most governments did not plan this, however much they have since capitulated to these economic forces: it is the predictable result of the global consolidation of turbo- and finance-capitalism, of the increasing power of transnational corporations. And while economic globalization has an upside in some parts of the world and has been responsible for a significant reduction in poverty (directly related to the economic downturn in the affluent countries), substantial local, regional, and international inequality persists, indeed, it’s often growing, particularly within countries. Once more with Shaikh: “One could easily well argue that the inequality and lack of democracy on a global scale is abetted by the political institutions and interests of the ‘democracies’ of patrimonial capitalism.” But the power of these institutions and those interests are diminishing, hence the ascendance of xenophobic nationalism, right-wing populism, and fascist authoritarianism, all of which represent in part a frantic and frightening attempt to regain the political powers that made for “national(istic) capitalism,” albeit sans any knowledge or appreciation of the historical sources and sociological nature and context of those powers. It is nostalgic and dangerous phantasizing for a bygone world, and its tenacious grip on the minds among many in the masses bodes ill for all of us, let alone the natural world.

The Golden Age of capitalism for the “club of the advanced capitalist countries” is over (and with it, the ‘national capitalism’ that flourished during this period). Looking back with Desai: “The Keynesian quarter-century had indeed been a party. Everything had stayed high—employment, hours worked, vacancies—or grown steadily—income, wealth. The public sector—central government, local government, public enterprises—had grown without causing any problems.” We may look back, but there’s no turning back. And there is no golden-like age on the visible horizon, despite the contrary proclivities and desperate yearnings among those of us old enough to be intimately familiar with this history. In other words, Keynesianism, post- or otherwise, is behind us, at least in the long term and globally speaking (it was Keynes, after all, who ‘made capitalism safe for democracy’). The current conditions are, Desai provocatively suggests, “analogous to sailing a ship on high seas. The ship has some machinery for control, but in navigating it, the captain does not control the waves or the wind. These forces can be studied, but they cannot be controlled. The captain who ignores or defies these forces may well run the ship aground or sink altogether.” Put differently, “[c]ycles, with their mania, crashes, and panics” are here to stay, as they undoubtedly “are endemic to capitalism” (Desai). And thus it seems implausible if not reckless to speak of the “imminent collapse” of capitalism, given its staying power through and beyond the duration of these cycles: at present and in the near-term, there are only different types or versions of capitalism, some meaner and some more beneficent than others. One reality North Americans and Europeans are alike compelled to confront, in spite of recalcitrant ideological blinkers or blinders: the current phase of capitalist transformation and entrenchment is truly global. In the words of Desai,

“The influence of capital—either as portfolio finance or as direct investment—the hegemony of financial markets, the increasing penetration of trade, have been experienced by all the worlds: First, Second, and Third. Indeed, this numerical categorization is now otiose. The benefits and costs of capitalism fall symmetrically—though not equally—on all parts of the world. For the first time in two hundred years, the cradle of capitalism—the metropolis, the core—has as much to fear from the rapidity of change as does the periphery.”

It is this fear that has been canalized by the Right (and projected on ‘the Other’), its ideological and political project facilitated by a considerable number of working class voters punch-drunk on a cocktail of denial, self-deception, and wishful thinking, if not illusions, delusions and phantasies. The fears, anxieties and anger of those workers in the (global) metropolis will not be assuaged, let alone overcome with the accelerated privatization of public goods, the deregulation of the finance sector, and the evisceration of remnant unionized workers.

We must once and for all forswear the perverse motivations and incentives (these are not the only motivations and incentives common to capitalism) associated with capitalist democracy (in its neoliberal iteration or otherwise), while avoiding the visceral and reactionary moods and frustrations of those—of late—economically disenfranchised (while the poor are subject to purely punitive policies). No substantive “public benefits” or significant “common good” will follow from such motivations and incentives. But we can predict with some confidence more pain and suffering for the poor, the disenfranchised, the vulnerable, and the working class in this country, that is, those outside the privileged pantheon of a political and economic plutocracy marked by kleptocratic pretensions.

Again, the Left must exemplify, in theory and praxis, the triune principles and virtues of liberté, égalité and fraternité. Tenacity, courage, and imagination will likewise be critical in breaking through the authoritarian social-character armor that has been fashioned from the more regressive and aggressive socio-cultural and political materials found in this country’s history: conformism, homophobia, (white and ‘Christian’) ethno-nationalism, militarism, parochialism, racism, sexism, conspicuous consumption and acquisitiveness, unbridled ambition, celebrity worship and fame-seeking, the will to dominate others, in short, the “false consciousness” well-captured in Erich Fromm’s clever locution, “the pathology of normalcy.” We will need to avail ourselves of the best of democratic theory and praxis found in liberal, (democratic and utopian) socialist, anarchist, and communist traditions, taking inspiration from the many men and women who went before us, including those principled communists who fought against apartheid in South Africa, or came to power in the Indian state of Kerala, or struggled for civil rights and on behalf of organized workers in U.S. history. These traditions are chock full of lessons for fighting the demonic forces of xenophobic nationalism and fascism, the evils incarnate in white supremacy, religious fanaticism and authoritarian populism, indeed any ideology or movement that embodies the perverse logic of doctrines and dogmas that deny the fundamental premises of inherent human dignity and fundamental human rights, that thwart the untrammeled democratic representation of the will of the people consistent with same, or that evidence little or no concern with sustainable living in harmony with the ecological and natural processes on our planet. We will continue to fight the latest iterations of these backward historical forces. There may be periodic setbacks and localized defeats in the progressive realization of emancipatory ends, in the extension of democratic principles and practices beyond electoral politics proper (e.g., in the economic realm), but the purification of a “realist,” statist and right-wing politics, increasingly beholden to fascist or fascist-like sentiment must continue apace, animated by a compassionate combination of reason and passion capable of transforming conventional power politics into something consistent with or at least closer to the kind of life found in the daily round outside the Platonic cave. Thus we envisage a life, and various forms of that life, within the nourishing and warm light of what Iris Murdoch, after Plato, called the “sovereignty of the Good,” a life in which gains in global distributive justice, the exercise of equal freedoms and the realization of the full spectrum of human capabilities means everyone can find a seat at the bountiful table, a life in which individual and collective flourishing complement and reinforce each other. Thus what we aspire to is a life … and lives, made possible by the moral parameters of a democratic, socialist, and ecological society, a society at once sane, humane, and convivial.

References and Further Reading

Desai, Meghnad. Marx’s Revenge: The Resurgence of Statist Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism (Verso, 2002).
O’Connor, James. The Fiscal Crisis of the State (St. Martin’s Press, 1973).
Offe, Claus. Contradictions of the Welfare State (MIT Press, 1984).
Offe, Claus. Disorganized Capitalism: Contemporary Transformations of Work and Politics (MIT Press, 1985).
Shaikh, Anwar. Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises (Oxford University Press, 2016).
Therborn, Göran. The Killing Fields of Inequality (Polity Press, 2013).

Socialist Imagination, Thought, and Praxis

Albert, Michael and Robin Hahnel. Marxism and Socialist Theory: Socialism in Theory and Practice. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1999.
Alperovitz, Gar. America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2005.
Baer, Hans A. Democratic Eco-socialism as a Real Utopia: Transitioning to an Alternative World System. New York: Berghahn Books, 2018.
Bahro, Rudolf. The Alternative in Eastern Europe. London: NLB, 1978.
Bahro, Rudolf. Socialism and Survival. London: Heretic Books, 1982.
Bahro, Rudolf. From Red To Green. London: Verso, 1984.
Bayat, Assaf. Work, Politics and Power: An International Perspective on Workers’ Control and Self-Management. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1991.
Benn, Tony. Arguments for Socialism. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1980.
Benton, Ted, ed. The Greening of Marxism. New York: Guilford Press, 1996.
Bernstein, Henry, et al., eds. The Food Question: Profits Versus People. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990.
Blau, Eve. The Architecture of Red Vienna, 1919-1934. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999.
Blum, Mark E. and William Smaldone, eds. Austro-Marxism—The Ideology of Unity, Vol. 1: Austro-Marxist Theory and Strategy. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books (reprint), 2017 (Brill, 2016).
Blum, Mark E. and William Smaldone, eds. Austro-Marxism—The Ideology of Unity, Vol. 2: Changing the World: The Politics of Austro-Marxism. Leiden: Brill, 2017.
Borgnäs, Kajsa, et al., eds. The Politics of Ecosocialism: Transforming Welfare. New York: Routledge, 2017.
Bottomore, Ted and Patrick Goode, eds. Austro-Marxism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Braverman, Harry. Labor and Monopoly Capitalism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1994.
Buchanan, Allen. Marx and Justice: The Radical Critique of Liberalism. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1984.
Burkett, Paul. Marxism and Ecological Economics: Toward a Red and Green Political Economy. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2009.
Burkett, Paul. Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2014.
Carter, Alan. A Radical Green Political Theory. London: Routledge, 1999.
Case, John and Rosemary C.R. Taylor, eds. Co-ops, Communes & Collectives: Experiments in Social Change in the 1960 and 1970s. New York: Pantheon Books, 1979.
Cohen, G.A. Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Cohen, G.A. Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defense. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000, expanded edition.
Cohen, G.A. Why Not Socialism? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
Dahl, Robert A. A Preface to Economic Democracy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985.
Danto, Elizabeth Ann. Freud’s Free Clinics: Psychoanalysis and Social Justice, 1918-1938. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
Dobb, Maurice. Welfare Economics and the Economics of Socialism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
Eatwell, John, Murray Milgate and Peter Newman, eds. Marxian Economics. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1990.
Edmundson, William A. John Rawls: Reticent Socialist. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Elster, Jon. Making Sense of Marx. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Elster, Jon and Karl Ove Moene, eds. Alternatives to Capitalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Foster, John Bellamy. Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000.
Foster, John Bellamy. Ecology against Capitalism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2002.
Foster, John Bellamy. The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2020.
Fung, Archon, Erik Olin Wright, et al. Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance (The Real Utopias Project, Vol. 4). London: Verso, 2003.
Ghosh, B.N. Beyond Gandhian Economics: Towards a Creative Deconstruction. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2012. [I have included this title because I think both Marxists and environmentalists (and by implication, ecologists), can benefit from examining Gandhi’s principles of moral and spiritual political economy.]
Gornick, Janet C., Marcia K. Meyers, et al. (Erik Olin Wright, ed.) Gender Equality: Transforming Family Divisions of Labor (The Real Utopias Project, Vol. VI). London: Verso, 2009.
Gorz, André. Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology. London: Verso, 1994.
Gruber, Helmut. Red Vienna: Experiment in Working-Class Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Harrington, Michael. Socialism: Past and Future. New York: Arcade/Little, Brown & Co., 1989.
Harvey, David. The Limits to Capital. London: Verso, 2006 ed.
Hobsbawm, Eric. How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism. New York: New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011.
Hudis, Peter. Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2013 (Brill, 2012).
Kovel, Joel (Quincy Saul, ed.) The Emergence of Ecosocialism: Collected Essays by Joel Kovel. New York: 2Leaf Press, 2019.
Löwy, Michael. Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2015.
Lebowitz, Michael A. Beyond Capital: Marx’s Political Economy of the Working Class. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2^nd, 2003.
Levine, Andrew. Arguing for Socialism: Theoretical Considerations. London: Verso, 1988.
Lieten, Georges Kristoffe. Continuity and Change in Rural West Bengal. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1992.
Lieten, Georges Kristoffe. Development, Devolution and Democracy: Village Democracy in West Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1996.
Luntley, Michael. The Meaning of Socialism. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1990.
Magdoff, Fred and Brian Tokar, eds. Agriculture and Food in Crisis: Conflict, Resistance, and Renewal. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010.
Miller, David. Market, State, and Community: Theoretical Foundations of Market Socialism. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1989.
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Nichols, John. The “S” Word: A Short History of an American Tradition … Socialism. London: Verso, 2011.
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Schweickart, David. Against Capitalism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996.
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Wright, Erik Olin, ed. Approaches to Class Analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Wright, Erik Olin. Envisioning Real Utopias. London: Verso, 2010.

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01/30/2021

Beyond Capitalism: a democratic, socialist, and ecological call to arms

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