[...] Capitalism has generated massive increases in productivity and extravagant wealth for some, yet many people still struggle to make ends meet. Capitalism is an inequality-enhancing machine as well as a growth machine. What’s more, it is becoming ever clearer that capitalism, driven by the relentless search for profits, is destroying the environment. And in any case, the pivotal issue is not whether material conditions on average have improved in the long run within capitalist economies, but rather whether, looking forward from this point in history, things would be better for most people in an alternative kind of economy. It is true that the centralized, authoritarian state-run economies of twentieth-century Russia and China were in many ways economic failures, but these are not the only possibilities.

Both of these stories are anchored in the realities of capitalism. It is not an illusion that capitalism has transformed the material conditions of life in the world and enormously increased human productivity; many people have benefited from this. But equally, it is not an illusion that capitalism generates great harms and perpetuates eliminable forms of human suffering. Where the real disagreement lies—a disagreement that is fundamental—is over whether it is possible to have the productivity, innovation and dynamism that we see in capitalism without the harms. Margaret Thatcher famously announced in the early 1980s, “There is no alternative”; two decades later, the World Social Forum declared, “Another world is possible.” That is the fundamental debate.

Two general kinds of motivations are in play in these diverse forms of struggle within and over capitalism: class interests and moral values. You can oppose capitalism because it harms your own material interests, but also because it offends certain moral values that are important to you.

There is a poster from the late 1970s that shows a working-class woman leaning on a fence. The caption reads: “class consciousness is knowing what side of the fence you’re on; class analysis is figuring out who is there with you.” The metaphor of the fence sees conflict over capitalism as anchored in conflicts of class interests. Being on opposite sides of the fence defines friends and enemies in terms of opposing interests. Some people may be sitting on the fence, but ultimately they may have to make a choice: “you’re either with us or against us.” In some historical situations, the interests that define the fence are pretty easy to figure out. It is obvious to nearly everyone that in the United States before the Civil War, slaves were harmed by slavery and they therefore had a class interest in its abolition, while slave owners had an interest in its perpetuation. There may have been slave owners who felt some ambivalence about owning slaves—this is certainly the case for Thomas Jefferson, for example—but this ambivalence was not because of their class interests; it was because of a tension between those interests and certain moral values they held.

Two general kinds of motivations are in play in these diverse forms of struggle within and over capitalism: class interests and moral values. You can oppose capitalism because it harms your own material interests, but also because it offends certain moral values that are important to you.

There is a poster from the late 1970s that shows a working-class woman leaning on a fence. The caption reads: “class consciousness is knowing what side of the fence you’re on; class analysis is figuring out who is there with you.” The metaphor of the fence sees conflict over capitalism as anchored in conflicts of class interests. Being on opposite sides of the fence defines friends and enemies in terms of opposing interests. Some people may be sitting on the fence, but ultimately they may have to make a choice: “you’re either with us or against us.” In some historical situations, the interests that define the fence are pretty easy to figure out. It is obvious to nearly everyone that in the United States before the Civil War, slaves were harmed by slavery and they therefore had a class interest in its abolition, while slave owners had an interest in its perpetuation. There may have been slave owners who felt some ambivalence about owning slaves—this is certainly the case for Thomas Jefferson, for example—but this ambivalence was not because of their class interests; it was because of a tension between those interests and certain moral values they held.

The unjust inequalities generated by capitalism extend beyond income and wealth. Capitalism also generates severe inequalities in the social conditions to live a flourishing life. Of particular salience here is access to meaningful, fulfilling forms of work. Most jobs that are generated by capitalist firms are tedious, even when they provide an adequate income. Of course, in any process of producing goods and services, there will always be unpleasant, uninteresting tasks to be done. The issue is the grossly unequal distribution of work activity that is interesting and fulfilling compared with work that is experienced as a burden. Capitalism generates severe inequalities in the distribution of such burdens.

The claim that capitalism harms democracy and freedom is more complex than simply proposing that capitalism is opposed to freedom and democracy. Rather, the logic is that capitalism generates severe deficits in realizing the values of democracy and freedom. Capitalism promotes the emergence and partial development of both freedom and democracy, but it obstructs the fullest possible realization of these values. [...]

First, the way the boundary between the public and private sphere is drawn in capitalism excludes crucial decisions that affect large numbers of people from participating in democratic control. Perhaps the most fundamental right that accompanies private ownership of capital is the right to decide where and when to invest and disinvest. [...]

Second, private control over major investments creates constant pressure on public authorities to enact rules favorable to the interests of capitalists. The threat of disinvestment and capital mobility [...]

Third, wealthy people have greater access than non-wealthy citizens to political power. This is the case in all capitalist democracies, although wealth-based inequality in access to political power is much greater in some countries than in others. The specific mechanisms for this greater access are quite varied: contributions to political campaigns; financing lobbying efforts; elite social networks of various sorts; outright bribes and other forms of corruption. [...]

Fourth, capitalist firms are allowed to be organized as workplace dictatorships. An essential power of private ownership of businesses is that the owners have the right to tell employees what to do. [...]

Finally, the inequalities in wealth and income intrinsic to capitalism create inequalities in what philosopher Philippe van Parijs calls “real freedom.” Whatever else we might mean by freedom, it is the ability to say “no.” A wealthy person can freely decide not to work for wages; a poor person lacking an independent means of livelihood cannot reject employment so easily. [...]

Why the revolutions of the twentieth century never resulted in robust, sustainable human emancipation is, of course, a hotly debated matter. Some people argue that this was just because of the historically specific, unfavorable circumstances of the attempts at system-wide ruptures. Revolutions occurred in economically backward societies, surrounded by powerful enemies. Some argue it was because of strategic leadership errors in those revolutions. Others indict the motives of leaders, saying those who triumphed in the course of these revolutions were motivated by desires for status and power rather than the empowerment and well-being of the masses. And still others argue that failure is intrinsic to any attempt at radical rupture in a social system. There are too many moving parts, too much complexity and too many unintended consequences. As a result, attempts at system rupture will inevitably tend to unravel into such chaos that revolutionary elites, regardless of their motives, will be compelled to resort to pervasive violence and repression to sustain social order. Such violence, in turn, destroys the possibility for a genuinely democratic, participatory process of building a new society.

Of course, not every reform of the rules governing capitalism, even those that are intended to neutralize some of the harms of capitalism, can be thought of as anticapitalist. Banking regulation that aims to prevent system-disrupting speculative risk-taking and stock market regulation to deter insider trading are better thought of as simply helping to stabilize capitalism, protecting capitalism from its own internal self-destructive tendencies. Regulation of fishing to prevent the collapse of fish stocks simply solves a collective action problem arising from large-scale capitalist fishing. Anticapitalist reforms are reforms that introduce in one way or another egalitarian, democratic and solidaristic values and principles into the operation of capitalism. Such reforms may also help stabilize capitalism—indeed, this is partially what makes them possible—but they do so in ways that also make the system as a whole function in a less purely capitalistic way.

A variety of forces have contributed to this reduction of the willingness and apparent capacity of the state to neutralize the harms of capitalism. The globalization of capitalism has made it much easier for capitalist firms to move investments to places in the world with less regulation and cheaper labor. The threat of such movement of capital, along with a variety of technological and demographic changes, has fragmented and weakened the labor movement, making it less capable of resistance and political mobilization. Combined with globalization, the financialization of capital has led to massive increases in wealth and income inequality, which in turn has increased the political leverage of opponents of the social democratic state. Instead of being tamed, capitalism has been unleashed.

Perhaps the three decades or so of the golden age were just a historical anomaly, a brief period in which favorable structural conditions and robust popular power opened up the possibility for the relatively egalitarian, social democratic model. Before that time, capitalism was a rapacious system, and under neoliberalism it has become rapacious again, returning to the normal state of affairs for capitalist systems. Perhaps in the long run capitalism is not tamable. Defenders of the idea of revolutionary ruptures with capitalism have always claimed that taming capitalism was an illusion, a diversion from the task of building a political movement to overthrow it.

Publicly supported cooperative development initiatives. There is a potentially important role for municipalities in fostering cooperative development. One of the major barriers to cooperatives is access to affordable space, especially in highly urban areas. Cities are in a position to create dedicated space for cooperatives as part of long-term community development projects—in one model, for example, cities own the land and buildings and lease space to cooperatives. Another model envisions space controlled by community trusts and governed by boards elected by cooperatives and other stakeholders.