Henry A. Giroux — Capitalism Is a Tumor on the Body Politic: What's the Alternative? Beyond Mid-Election Babble

The biggest challenge facing those who believe in social justice is to provide an alternative discourse, educational apparatuses and vision that can convince US citizens that a real democracy is worth fighting for.

I think it is more appropriate to call it neoliberalism, neo-imperialism, and neocolonialism than "capitalism." This is much more about institutional power and its use than economic systems. Economics is a tool of politics, which is about the nature and use of institutional power in society. Economics is a manifestation of that power, analogous to the way the visible universe of phenomena is the manifestation of invisible energy underlying and causing phenomenal change. Physically we live in a universe of energy, and socially we live in a world of power.

In spite of what the established media claims, the election results contained a hidden order of politics that do not suggest a popular shift to the right, but a failure of both parties, especially the Democratic Party to address the popular needs and mood of the electorate. How else to explain that a number of states voted to raise the minimum wage. Joseph Kishore writing on the World Socialist Web Site gets it right in arguing:

"The Democratic strategy of appealing to affluent layers of the middle class on the basis of identity politics while working with the Republicans to step up attacks on workers' jobs, wages and living standards produced an electoral disaster. In a contradictory way, reflecting a system monopolized by two-right parties of big business, the election showed that appeals on the basis of race, gender and sexuality move only a small fraction of the population, while the broad masses of people are driven by more fundamental class issues—issues on which the Democrats have nothing to offer."

This is the problem for democracy of interest and identity politics based on exploiting wedge issues without addressing the needs of the social system. The result in never satisfactory, and people begin to conclude that democracy is a waste of time.

As Paul Buchheit points out, capitalism [I would say "neoliberalism"] is spreading like a tumor in US society and the key is to cut out its ability to convince people that there are no other alternatives, that the market should govern all of social life including politics itself, and that the government's only role is to protect the benefits of big business and the interests of the super-rich.

TINA and trickle down.

Truthout | Op Ed

Capitalism Is a Tumor on the Body Politic: What's the Alternative? Beyond Mid-Election Babble

Henry A. Giroux