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Anti-Capitalism in Five
Minutes or Less
By Robert Jensen
05/01/07 "ICH"
-- - We know that capitalism is not just the most sensible
way to organize an economy but is now the only possible way to
organize an economy. We know that dissenters to this
conventional wisdom can, and should, be ignored. There’s no
longer even any need to persecute such heretics; they are
obviously irrelevant.
How do we know all this? Because we are told so, relentlessly —
typically by those who have the most to gain from such a claim,
most notably those in the business world and their functionaries
and apologists in the schools, universities, mass media, and
mainstream politics. Capitalism is not a choice, but rather
simply is, like a state of nature. Maybe not like a state of
nature, but the state of nature. To contest capitalism these
days is like arguing against the air that we breathe. Arguing
against capitalism, we’re told, is simply crazy.
We are told, over and over, that capitalism is not just the
system we have, but the only system we can ever have. Yet for
many, something nags at us about such a claim. Could this really
be the only option? We’re told we shouldn’t even think about
such things. But we can’t help thinking — is this really the
“end of history,” in the sense that big thinkers have used that
phrase to signal the final victory of global capitalism? If this
is the end of history in that sense, we wonder, can the actual
end of the planet far behind?
We wonder, we fret, and these thoughts nag at us — for good
reason. Capitalism — or, more accurately, the predatory
corporate capitalism that defines and dominates our lives — will
be our death if we don’t escape it. Crucial to progressive
politics is finding the language to articulate that reality, not
in outdated dogma that alienates but in plain language that
resonates with people. We should be searching for ways to
explain to co-workers in water-cooler conversations — radical
politics in five minutes or less — why we must abandon predatory
corporate capitalism. If we don’t, we may well be facing the end
times, and such an end will bring rupture not rapture.
Here’s my shot at the language for this argument.
Capitalism is admittedly an incredibly productive system that
has created a flood of goods unlike anything the world has ever
seen. It also is a system that is fundamentally (1) inhuman, (2)
anti-democratic, and (3) unsustainable. Capitalism has given
those of us in the First World lots of stuff (most of it of
marginal or questionable value) in exchange for our souls, our
hope for progressive politics, and the possibility of a decent
future for children.
In short, either we change or we die — spiritually, politically,
literally.
1. Capitalism is inhuman
There is a theory behind contemporary capitalism. We’re told
that because we are greedy, self-interested animals, an economic
system must reward greedy, self-interested behavior if we are to
thrive economically.
Are we greedy and self-interested? Of course. At least I am,
sometimes. But we also just as obviously are capable of
compassion and selflessness. We certainly can act competitively
and aggressively, but we also have the capacity for solidarity
and cooperation. In short, human nature is wide-ranging. Our
actions are certainly rooted in our nature, but all we really
know about that nature is that it is widely variable. In
situations where compassion and solidarity are the norm, we tend
to act that way. In situations where competitiveness and
aggression are rewarded, most people tend toward such behavior.
Why is it that we must choose an economic system that undermines
the most decent aspects of our nature and strengthens the most
inhuman? Because, we’re told, that’s just the way people are.
What evidence is there of that? Look around, we’re told, at how
people behave. Everywhere we look, we see greed and the pursuit
of self-interest. So, the proof that these greedy,
self-interested aspects of our nature are dominant is that, when
forced into a system that rewards greed and self-interested
behavior, people often act that way. Doesn’t that seem just a
bit circular?
2. Capitalism is anti-democratic
This one is easy. Capitalism is a wealth-concentrating system.
If you concentrate wealth in a society, you concentrate power.
Is there any historical example to the contrary?
For all the trappings of formal democracy in the contemporary
United States, everyone understands that the wealthy dictates
the basic outlines of the public policies that are acceptable to
the vast majority of elected officials. People can and do
resist, and an occasional politician joins the fight, but such
resistance takes extraordinary effort. Those who resist win
victories, some of them inspiring, but to date concentrated
wealth continues to dominate. Is this any way to run a
democracy?
If we understand democracy as a system that gives ordinary
people a meaningful way to participate in the formation of
public policy, rather than just a role in ratifying decisions
made by the powerful, then it’s clear that capitalism and
democracy are mutually exclusive.
Let’s make this concrete. In our system, we believe that regular
elections with the one-person/one-vote rule, along with
protections for freedom of speech and association, guarantee
political equality. When I go to the polls, I have one vote.
When Bill Gates goes the polls, he has one vote. Bill and I both
can speak freely and associate with others for political
purposes. Therefore, as equal citizens in our fine democracy,
Bill and I have equal opportunities for political power. Right?
3. Capitalism is unsustainable
This one is even easier. Capitalism is a system based on the
idea of unlimited growth. The last time I checked, this is a
finite planet. There are only two ways out of this one. Perhaps
we will be hopping to a new planet soon. Or perhaps, because we
need to figure out ways to cope with these physical limits, we
will invent ever-more complex technologies to transcend those
limits.
Both those positions are equally delusional. Delusions may bring
temporary comfort, but they don’t solve problems. They tend, in
fact, to cause more problems. Those problems seem to be piling
up.
Capitalism is not, of course, the only unsustainable system that
humans have devised, but it is the most obviously unsustainable
system, and it’s the one in which we are stuck. It’s the one
that we are told is inevitable and natural, like the air.
A tale of two acronyms: TGIF and TINA
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s famous
response to a question about challenges to capitalism was TINA —
There Is No Alternative. If there is no alternative, anyone who
questions capitalism is crazy.
Here’s another, more common, acronym about life under a
predatory corporate capitalism: TGIF — Thank God It’s Friday.
It’s a phrase that communicates a sad reality for many working
in this economy — the jobs we do are not rewarding, not
enjoyable, and fundamentally not worth doing. We do them to
survive. Then on Friday we go out and get drunk to forget about
that reality, hoping we can find something during the weekend
that makes it possible on Monday to, in the words of one
songwriter, “get up and do it again.”
Remember, an economic system doesn’t just produce goods. It
produces people as well. Our experience of work shapes us. Our
experience of consuming those goods shapes us. Increasingly, we
are a nation of unhappy people consuming miles of aisles of
cheap consumer goods, hoping to dull the pain of unfulfilling
work. Is this who we want to be?
We’re told TINA in a TGIF world. Doesn’t that seem a bit
strange? Is there really no alternative to such a world? Of
course there is. Anything that is the product of human choices
can be chosen differently. We don’t need to spell out a new
system in all its specifics to realize there always are
alternatives. We can encourage the existing institutions that
provide a site of resistance (such as labor unions) while we
experiment with new forms (such as local cooperatives). But the
first step is calling out the system for what it is, without
guarantees of what’s to come.
Home and abroad
In the First World, we struggle with this alienation and fear.
We often don’t like the values of the world around us; we often
don’t like the people we’ve become; we often are afraid of
what’s to come of us. But in the First World, most of us eat
regularly. That’s not the case everywhere. Let’s focus not only
on the conditions we face within a predatory corporate
capitalist system, living in the most affluent country in the
history of the world, but also put this in a global context.
Half the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day. That’s
more than 3 billion people. Just over half of the population of
sub-Saharan Africa lives on less than $1 a day. That’s more than
300 million people.
How about one more statistic: About 500 children in Africa die
from poverty-related diseases, and the majority of those deaths
could be averted with simple medicines or insecticide-treated
nets. That’s 500 children — not every year, or every month or
every week. That’s not 500 children every day. Poverty-related
diseases claim the lives of 500 children an hour in Africa.
When we try to hold onto our humanity, statistics like that can
make us crazy. But don’t get any crazy ideas about changing this
system. Remember TINA: There is no alternative to predatory
corporate capitalism.
TGILS: Thank God It’s Last Sunday
We have been gathering on Last Sunday precisely to be crazy
together. We’ve come together to give voice to things that we
know and feel, even when the dominant culture tells us that to
believe and feel such things is crazy. Maybe everyone here is a
little crazy. So, let’s make sure we’re being realistic. It’s
important to be realistic.
One of the common responses I hear when I critique capitalism
is, “Well, that may all be true, but we have to be realistic and
do what’s possible.” By that logic, to be realistic is to accept
a system that is inhuman, anti-democratic, and unsustainable. To
be realistic we are told we must capitulate to a system that
steals our souls, enslaves us to concentrated power, and will
someday destroy the planet.
But rejecting and resisting a predatory corporate capitalism is
not crazy. It is an eminently sane position. Holding onto our
humanity is not crazy. Defending democracy is not crazy. And
struggling for a sustainable future is not crazy.
What is truly crazy is falling for the con that an inhuman,
anti-democratic, and unsustainable system — one that leaves half
the world’s people in abject poverty — is all that there is, all
that there ever can be, all that there ever will be.
If that were true, then soon there will be nothing left, for
anyone.
I do not believe it is realistic to accept such a fate. If
that’s being realistic, I’ll take crazy any day of the week,
every Sunday of the month.
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of
Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist
Resource Center
http://thirdcoastactivist.org . His latest book is Getting
Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press,
2007). Jensen is also the author of The Heart of Whiteness:
Race, Racism, and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire:
The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (both from City Lights
Books); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the
Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang). He can be reached at
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu. His articles can be found online
at
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/index.html
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