For a long time, and particularly since WWII, societies around the world have managed substantial parts of their productive activity in non-capitalist zones. In the UK, for example, health care is provided by the National Health Service. It operates in a market society, but it is not part of the process of capital accumulation. The education system is an example in the US. We can think of these non-capitalist enclaves as a social commons. We all share in them, and we all have a stake in seeing to it that they operate at a high level.
With the turn towards neoliberalism in the past 35 years, the rich have tried to colonize these non-capitalist sectors. Currently UK capitalists and the Tories are intent on privatizing the NHS for their personal gain. They look at the way the US medical/drug system works for the benefit of the rich and they want that for themselves. In the US, we have already turned over big chunks of the prison system to these people, with predictable results. The big push in the US is the effort to take over the education system for personal profit. In a larger perspective, the capitalists and their economists tell us constantly that European welfare states are impossibly expensive and must be privatized. Why? Why is this such a big deal?
It might be easy to put this down to greed, or to the Great Man theory of economic progress, or creative destruction. But perhaps there is something in the nature of capitalism that can explain this better. Two books published in the wake of WWII examine a broad sweep of economic history to try to understand how that war happened. Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation sees the war as the end of the experiment with unrestrained free market capitalism, and offers the hope of a more socialist future. Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism offers a dark view of human nature and of the capitalist system, and is much less hopeful…
Arendt has a strong Marxian flavor. Polanyi sees the value of the increase in productivity brought on by the industrial revolution, but believes strongly in the Enlightenment view that humans can control and direct society to prevent the damage that unrestrained capitalism can bring, damage he describes in detail. Far from celebrating capitalism, both Arendt and Polanyi argue that unrestrained capitalism and free market ideology were significant factors in the rise of fascism…"Privatize everything that can be monetized."
Capitalism Versus The Social Commons
Ed Walker
3 comments:
I was trying to find the book, The Private Abuse of the Public Interest,on my kindle this morning, when I saw the amount of ebooks I have on finance criticizing neoliberalism, most of which were written for the may lay public. And then I saw all the other political books I had, books by Paul Craig Roberts, Micheal Hudson, Glenn Greenweld, Greg Palast, and a whole load more.
Now where I used to work no one read any of this stuff, and where I go dancing no one had read this stuff either, and my girlfriend has no interest. And listen to this, my last girlfriend used to say to me, why couldn't I buy a proper newspaper like everyone else?
Now the NHS might get privatised because the bankers see how much they it is worth: Billions. They got the telecoms, the power companies, the water utilities, and recently the The Royal Mail, and now they are after the NHS as well.
But how many people have read the book, The Private Abuse of the Public Interest, where the authors show that privatized companies in the US cost the public two to three times more while the services became lower quality. And the British book, In Government We Trust, written by accountants (professors) who say the same thing has happened in the UK.
So we have all these brilliant books, all these brilliant sites, and yet the NHS might still get privatised.
Now if isn't really the public's fault that they are not informed. They are probably too underwhelmed and stressed by work, and life can be difficult, so they have enough worries. The problem is that the mainstream media are not informing people, or allowing a public debates.
Everyday I see the blatant lies on TV and I can't believe that I'm seeing this in the UK, and it's in the BBC, which is spewing out complete lies and propaganda. And do you know, it probably always has, except years ago the was more debate. The BBC did produced the excellent documentary, Operation Gladio, but they would probably wouldn't be allowed to make nowadays.
This was sure of the propaganda in the TV recently:
The MSM kept reporting that the Syrian refugees were fleeing Assad's bombing when they were really fleeing the US backed rebels.
The libertarians must feel very secure. I can only assume many are rich, and the others feel young and invincible.
My dad got struck by serious illness when I was very young and he couldn't work anymore. It plunged us into poverty and we became reliant on the state. My dad becoming ill and seeing him struggle affected me deeply.
As an adult I was always aware they only my good physical health held me back from absolute poverty. A serious illness and I could lose my job, my home, everything. What libertarians don't realise is that a pooled risk managed by the government is going to be first class and inexpensive compared to private insurance. Although it isn't first class because the ruling elite won't allow it.
It's unfortunate that people take their health for granted. That is a lesson I am learning now. I can't say that I believed differently when I was younger. There was and still is a lot of unemployment in the region I grew up in. It was clear that not everyone can pretend that they are independent.
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