In the news almost daily is some incident of horrific carnage, usually a suicide bombing somewhere far away. We are spared the gruesome footage of the strewn about body parts but we always get the body count. Or here in the US some fanatic is doing something illegal regarding an abortion clinic (like shooting a doctor) or more recently some guys in cowboy hats are engaged in some kind of armed insurrection for some ill-defined cause. (Then there are the nutcases going berserk with semi-automatic weapons - but that's another matter.)
The question is to what
degree is there a connection between this rise in zealotry and our
perpetually dysfunction economic order – global capitalism?
Capitalism as our means of production is predicated on class
dominance. From the offset capitalism was identified as a root cause
of much human misery (see Charles Dickens). While it has been an
engine of profound transformation much of it positive (if you
discount global environmental ecocide), at its heart is
anti-democratic domination. It originally emerged by enclosing
formally commonly shared land into large scale private estates. The
former subsistence farming population was no longer needed and ended
piled up into to grim dirty cities working in factories for
subsistence wages. The peasantry became the original working class.
Two distinct classes thus emerged: owners and workers.
This dichotomy although
now stratified and blurred still exists. As industrialization
proceeded over the years through hard fought wrangling and bloody
struggles the workers managed to claw back some of the value of their
labor mainly by joining together in trade unions. As the workers
could share in their increasing productivity, their living standards
rose.
All through 19th
and well into the 20th century until trade unions were
legalized there were violent confrontations and class driven
political turmoil. The underlying antagonism still persists albeit in
a muted form. Since the 1930s in the US and after the end of WWII in
Europe a sort of informal truce developed. But since the 1980s
especially in the US, class warfare has again erupted as one-side
attacks by the ownership class on the working class. Its objective
is to dislodge the working class from any political power and
economic leverage that it had acquired. In the US the worker class's
closest political party, the Democrats, having become ever more
reliant on the ownership class's money, provided little resistance
and in fact joined in. Many workers abandoned hope that the
Democratic Party was their political ally and turned away from
politics altogether. Others fell for the lie by the Republican Party
that it was not the owners who were their adversaries but the
government. It was high taxes not low wages that were the problem.
Some workers even became militantly hostile becoming armed
anti-government zealots. All the while the system became ever more
rigged so that any and all gains from ever increasing worker
productivity went to the owners especially the very richest of the
owners (currently referred to as 'the plutocracy').
Beyond exploitation
another serious problem with capitalism is its tendency to
periodically seize up like an internal combustion engine run without
oil. Sometimes it is 'merely' a recession, a normal phase of the
so-called 'business cycle' resulting in painful but temporary
layoffs. However sometimes the whole thing comes crashing down and
nearly everyone suffers even the ownership class in full scale
Depression. Yet means for mitigating these so-called 'market
downturns' was devised in 1930s known as Keynesian counter-cyclical
policies (named after famed British economist John Maynard Keynes).
Being a sensible means to save capitalism from itself it, was
embraced by political parties across the spectrum.
But since the 1980s these
policies have gone out of fashion. Keynesian counter-cyclical policy
confronts the endemic problem in capitalism of periodic phases of
inadequate aggregate demand by having the government step in and
borrow money and then spend it on things that everyone needs. But it
must be repaid when the economy returns to normal. However both
parties misused this government spending which was intended by
Keynesians to go to socially oriented projects. With especially the Americans government spending is directed mostly
toward military spending (see the Cold War and the rise of the Military
Industrial State). With previous rounds of Keynesian “pump priming”
not repaid, debt overhang became an issue by the 1970s. Inflation had been a tradeoff for growth but the relationship started to breakdown and along with other
issues (the OPEC oil cartel) unsatisfactory levels of inflation emerged. This was when Keynesian
counter-cyclical spending started to come under serious attack from the
ownership class and their allies in academia accusing it of fostering a 'welfare state' when instead in the US anyway it had created a 'warfare state'.
Functionally the only
alternative to counter-cyclical spending by governments to counter
market downturns the economy is to become ever more reliant on unplanned
waves of speculation induced financial bubbles. These artificial up turns or booms that
are not based in producing anything of real value (no new factories or
infrastructure) are like using amphetamines - there has to be an inevitable crash. When these speculative bubbles eventually burst sometimes it drives the entire economy into a full fledged depression (see 1929, 1873)
In the late 1960s the
ownership class offered under the leadership of the University of
Chicago economist Milton Friedman an alternative too Keynesian
counter-cyclical policy. They argued simply by varying the money
supply, also known as monetary policy, government taxing and
spending could be avoided. This by the 1980s mutated into something
now called neoliberalism or 'aka market fundamentalism'. These
ideas were wholehearted embraced by the ownership class, and still
are.
With neoliberalism all
lessons from past recessions and depressions were thrown out the
window. These 'new liberals' (liberals in European sense,
unabashedly pro-capitalist) argue simplistically that a
nation's economy is just like a family in hard times. The government
instead of stepping in to prod a de/recessionary economy off dead
center, it would instead cut back and 'starve the fever'. This presumably would
reduce the 'investment stifling' debt overhang. Any fool should have
seen this will only aggravate things. If there is inadequate consumer demand, how can less demand due to less government spending do anything but make it worse? Yet somehow the argument has
gained credibility. Along with this quackery the neoliberals also
argue that all the hard won (but profit reducing) environmental,
safety and consumer protections are too constraining and are causing
'market weakness'. So the twin mantras – shrink government
spending and deregulate business have become articles of
faith and up until recently embraced by both major parties in the US.
It still is held as the 'one true faith' of the US GOP and UK
Tories.
But finally and
quintessentially the most serious problem with capitalism is that
either it grows (boom) or it shrinks (bust). But now we find we cannot
grow our economies indefinitely. With the need to perpetually
encourage expansionary economic growth, there is a terrible downside.
The resources of the planet are finite. But even worse are that all of
the costs of production are never accounted for especially the costs of
producing energy specifically from burning carbon based fossil fuels.
The cost of this invisible pollution created by burning fossil fuels
is now known to be astronomical. Yet it is a fact of life that
producers of goods under capitalism always try to evade external
costs (like dumping waste) if they possibly can. Their concern is
only short term and specific. Unfortunately under capitalism government's primary concern is to foster economic growth. So they tend unless
prodded otherwise to look the other way with regard waste disposal. It now turns out the cost of dumping CO2 waste into the
atmosphere for the last 200 years of industrial growth under
capitalism is very high indeed. It is changing the planet's very
climate – and very much for the worse. So we find with capitalism
were damned if we do and damned if don't. If our global capitalist
stops growing (recessions/depressions) and if it grows,
we use up all of the finite resources – fresh water, top soil,
fisheries, forest ground cover, etc. and in the process overheat
the entire planet.
Yet we find religious and
economic fundamentalism at the heart all attempts to hold back
progress in confronting this crisis.
We are disparately in need of something like an evolutionary
leap of our species. Yet we are bogged down in 19th and
20th Century reactionary paradigms such as 'market
fundamentalism' which is about perpetuating the existing perverse
undemocratic power to to allocate the worlds wealth. Whereas religious
fundamentalism is about perpetuating outmoded cultural practices
entangled in the most primitive literal interpretation of a given
religion and engendering horrific terrorist incidents and wars. While
each exists on a different planes of reality, material as opposed to
metaphysical, both are retrograde and reactionary. Both are
dysfunctional responses to the critical problems of our time. While
religion fulfills a necessary function in society in addressing (some
say falsely) the existential unknowns of mortality and eternity,
religion must evolve to coincide with science.
Both forms of
fundamentalism rely on ignorance. Un-evolved monotheistic ideology
relies on philosophical and scientific ignorance, while the free
market ideology relies on the power of political ignorance conveyed
by media indoctrination. Our political institutions on the surface
are democratic but operationally have been co-oped by the ownership
class. Electronic multi media forms re-enforce this domination.
This ever improving technology presents a dazzling allure of instant
gratification and encourages self indulgence while swamping us with
sentimentalism, cultural mythology and unrealistic schmaltz. Entire
industries run on it. Advertising whether for commodities or for
political candidates relies on psychologically manipulation and
artistically alluring agitprop, and is a major factor in public
misunderstanding and apathy. Art has been hijacked to imprison and
deceive. This deception is routine and total.
To make matters worse
particularly alienated or ill-adjusted individuals sometimes stray
from this mainstream blitz of happy talk and good vibes imagery and
discovers the ugly truth of the consumer society propaganda machine.
Tragically some end up embracing what appears as a refreshingly moral
polar opposite and they yield to the siren call of religious
fundamentalism. Others of a more agnostic inclination fall prey to
the political demagoguery of right wing cable news and talk radio
both which smuggles in 'free market fundamentalism' as they ride the
wave of whatever so-called so-called 'conservative cause' that is
currently in the headlines. In Europe this is manifested by joining
neo-fascist organizations and political parties.
To further complicate
matters, class identify has been losing ground since the late 1970's.
Class struggle was once well acknowledged as a major causation of
historical process. Class identity still exists but in a much mutated
form. The leveling effect of the emergence of the great American
middle class undercut working class identity. While membership in
good standing in the middle class was emblematic of membership in
what was once known as the 'affluent society', the downside was that
it hid ones true role in the economy. Working class identity lost
importance. This helped the de-unionization of the US work force (now
down to 14% ) begun in the 1980s under the Reagan Administration.
Instead of a classless
society we thought we had a one-class
society – the amorphous middle class with variations on the
upper and lower ends. Except of of course it was all a myth. We were
all in the 99% and the 1% were calling the shots.
Now instead of working
class identity and a push for expansion of union membership to regain
lost ground, there is widespread concern over falling out of the
middle class, but to where? People choose sides based on exaggerated
angers evils and dark illogical conspiracies. Of course scapegoating
is popular with immigrants being the target. Underpinning all of this
is a stubborn residual racism. In post Reagan America many of the now
beleaguered caucasian working class see “Big Government” as their
foe, not their real enemy, the ownership class. In fact even left
politicians like Bernie Sanders talk of the greed of oligarchs and
the pernicious behavior of Wall Street not of a dominating ruling
class. To become President Obama by default joined the ruling class.
That is why so many of his positions on key issues have been such a
disappointment.
We
are now well into the of the 21st Century with awesome
technological capabilities unimaginable even fifty years ago, yet
billions still rely for their life's meaning on superannuated
theological dogma thousands of years old. Even worse these beliefs
often drag along with them brutal and sexist cultural norms and
practices. That the world's great religions can evolve and can absorb
modernity is well known. Yet pockets of fundamentalist reaction have
an disproportionate influence in some of the great religions which
moderating internal forces cannot restrain. The
interface with the ever-resurfacing inherent contradictions of late
monopoly capitalism that keeps millions in abject poverty and
illiteracy, causes these same millions through illiteracy and
ignorance to allow 'conservative' religious leaders to define their
metaphysical reality in the most reactionary and dangerous way.
We
are at the very cusp of an an environmental catastrophic of world
historical proportions. Yet the balance of international attention is
fixed on responding to an irrationality. The Mideast is being torn
apart by oil states funding proxy wars over which retrograde
versions of the Muslim religion will prevail – Iranian Shiite or
Saudi Arabian Sunni and which oil dictatorship, theocracy or
monarchy will have geopolitical dominance in the region. Underlying
this at least in the minds of the jihadist inspired foot soldiers and
loosely affiliated networks of potential terrorists some kind of
mad impossible dream of recreating a 10th
Century Caliphate in the 21st
Century.
Most
importantly all of this hinders the US in engaging in necessary,
forceful and effective leadership and restructuring our own economy
to deal with this real crisis. It is not violent jihadism or the
increasingly unstable nature of global capitalist economy but the
ever worsening buildup of CO2 that will do us in. We are permanently
damaging our entire biosphere in still yet to be undiscovered ways.
The already documented ecological damage is bad enough: sea rise,
fresh water depletion, ocean acidification, loss of top soil, loss of
biological diversity, intensification of weather events, etc, yet
scientists expect further bad news as feedback loops kick in.
This
entanglement in ideas from our atavistic blood drenched past is
perpetuating violent struggles fostering untold human misery. That
they no doubt underpinned by deeper geopolitical and ruling
class-driven economic forces. But all of it amounts to tragic
distraction. All of our wars and class struggles are merely are
merely petty internecine squabbles when compared to the cold hard
fact of climate change. We are now destroying the very life support
systems of our planet. Rome is burning and we are fiddling, playing
a stupid 'Games of Thrones'. And we are running out of time!
