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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.
seriously!
The idea of eroding capitalism is not simply a matter of undermining the dominance of capitalist investments and firms in the market; it also involves eroding the capitalist character of capitalist firms themselves. What does this mean? Eroding the capitalist character of firms means restricting the array of rights that accompany “owning the means of production.” Property rights in the means of production are actually complex bundles of rights, and over time within capitalist societies, the state has imposed significant constraints on these rights. Minimum-wage laws, for example, restrict the right of employers to pay whatever someone is willing to accept. Health and safety rules regulating the workplace restrict the right to organize the production process in a dangerous manner. Pollution and product safety laws restrict the right to impose costs on others, even if this would be the optimal profit-maximizing strategy of a firm. Employment security laws restrict the ability of employers to fire workers whenever they like. In a democratic socialist economy, these constraints on the private property rights of capitalist firms would be extended and deepened in order to advance the values of equality, democracy and solidarity. Such firms would remain capitalist insofar as individuals can invest their capital in firms and receive a return on their investment, but the rights accorded to firms that accompany such private investment would be much more democratically restricted than in a capitalist economy.
In a democratic socialist economy, the democratic power of workers within capitalist firms would be extended and deepened. Isabelle Ferreras, in her book Firms as Political Entities (Cambridge University Press, 2017), has proposed one way of accomplishing this: All capitalist firms above a certain size would be governed by a bicameral board of directors, one elected by shareholders in a conventional manner and the other elected by workers on a one-person-one-vote basis. She argues that firms are political entities quite analogous to states. The largest global corporations, after all, have annual incomes much larger than most countries. During the development of representative democracy in states, there was frequently a period in which one chamber of a bicameral system represented property owners (such as the House of Lords in Great Britain) and the other chamber represented the people (the House of Commons). In a parallel manner, a bicameral board of directors could choose the top management teams of modern corporations, and all important corporate policy decisions would have to be voted on and passed by both chambers. This would significantly constrain the exercise of economic power within corporations and expand the role for social power.
this is interesting but isnt the us system pretty shitty due to gridlock? also the house of lords suck ass
It is not a simple matter, of course, to figure out precisely which services are best produced through markets, or which directly by the state, and which would best be organized through state funding to various kinds of non-state organizations. This is one of things that would be decided through a process of democratic deliberation and experimentation in a democratic socialist economy. But state provision directly and indirectly would certainly include most of the following: caregiving services—health care, childcare, eldercare, disability care; public amenities for community events and processes—community centers, parks and recreation facilities, theaters, art galleries and museums; education at all levels, including continuing education, lifelong learning centers and skill retraining programs; conventional physical infrastructure for transportation; and a range of public utilities. Collectively, these functions could easily encompass well over 50 percent of total economic activity in a technologically advanced capitalist economy.
hell yeah
Some things, of course, could be effectively provided by both the state and markets, and so the issue becomes the mix between the two. Consider access to books. Bookstores and libraries readily provide both. Commercial bookstores distribute books to people on the basis of their ability to pay; libraries distribute books to people on the principle “to each according to need.” In a library, if a book is already checked out, the person wanting the book is placed on a waiting list. Books are rationed on the deeply egalitarian principle that a day in every person’s life is of equal value. A well-resourced library will then use the length of the waiting list as an indicator of the need to order more copies of a book. Libraries often also distribute other important resources: music, videos, access to computers, tools, toys, meeting rooms and, in some libraries, performance spaces. Libraries thus constitute a mechanism of distribution that embodies the egalitarian ideal of giving everyone equal access to the resources needed for a flourishing life. In a democratic socialist economy, there would be an expansion of nonmarket, library-like ways of giving people access to many resources.
hell yeah
In recent decades, activists interested in making knowledge universally available for human purposes have created a number of alternatives to private intellectual property rights. Broadly, these are called “open-access” licenses, and include such things as Copyleft, Patentleft, Creative Commons licenses, and BiOS (Biological Open Source) licenses. These and other licenses have been used to protect the accessible status of open-source software, scientific discoveries with applications to agriculture and medicine, cultural products and other forms of knowledge. In a democratic socialist economy, while there may be a residual role for private intellectual property rights and limited patents, in general scientific and technical knowledge and information would be treated as part of a knowledge commons.
yes!