Friday, February 23, 2018

Richard D. Wolff — Capitalism as Obstacle to Equality and Democracy: the US Story

The Cold War displaced the legacies of the New Deal. Time and Trump are now displacing Cold War legacies. Where capitalism was questioned and challenged in the 1930s and into the 1940s, doing that became taboo after 1948. Yet in the wake of the 2008 crash, critical thought about capitalism resumed. In particular one argument is gaining traction: capitalism is not the means to realize economic equality and democracy, it is rather the great obstacle to their realization....
Economic liberalism (capitalism) and political liberalism (democracy) are antithetical.

Counterpunch
Capitalism as Obstacle to Equality and Democracy: the US Story
Richard D. Wolff, Marxian economist and founder of Democracy At Work

3 comments:

djrichard said...

"Where capitalism was questioned and challenged in the 1930s and into the 1940s, doing that became taboo after 1948."

I recently put the question, "why don't we call it capitalist supremacy?" to an article on a different site. The idea being to supplant and supersede the campaign against "white supremacy". Got crickets in response. And this was on an article which was rightly going on about just that need, to focus on the proper target: capitalism. See https://medium.com/@shujaxhaider/what-makes-life-shitty-e739902b2529

Flip side of this, what's the response nowadays to the question, "What are we fighting for?" It is it to defeat capitalism and rip it asunder? Or is it less ambitious, say to tame it and make it subservient to national sovereignty instead of the other way around? Even the latter would get a lot of squishy responses across the spectrum. Even so, if people are convinced that the days of having your cake and eating it too with respect to capitalism are over, the tide would change.

djrichard said...

Just following up to the last point from my comment above. This bit from CJ Hopkins resonated https://consentfactory.org/2016/07/12/the-blood-dimmed-tide-of-neo-nationalism-and-other-scary-simulacra/

The blood-dimmed tide of Neo-nationalism currently sweeping the Western world is a simulacrum in the classical sense. It isn’t a deceptive (i.e. “fake”) alternative concealing an authentic (i.e. “real”) alternative to globalized neoliberal Capitalism, but, rather, an all-too-real phenomenon concealing the fact that there is no alternative, and that, at present, an alternative is unimaginable … literally unimaginable, in the sense that we are not yet capable of conceiving a credible alternative system, or a way to get there.

The global capitalist ruling classes are extremely fond of this simulacrum, as it distracts us from facing where we actually are, and from working together to conceive that alternative, or even just asking the kind of questions that might help us actually get there, someday.


In another post (chronologically before this one that I linked above), CJ argues that rather than looking backwards (neo-nationalist), we need to be looking forwards ... what comes after capitalism? And the impression I'm getting is that he's not thinking that what comes after needn't be significantly disruptive - he's seeking an evolution.

That said, I for one do think that it does make sense go "backwards" on banking, from the reserve lending as it is perfectly realized today (by the central banking system) to the Lincoln greenback. Or I don't care, let's say we're evolving to positive money MMT system. That to me seems the answer to "What are we fighting for?". Or flipping it around, the question is "Why don't we call it a banking supremacy?".

djrichard said...

"And the impression I'm getting is that he's not thinking that what comes after needn't be significantly disruptive." Do'h too many negatives in there. But you get my point.