The Economics of Democratic Socialism – By Thomas Klikauer & Norman Simms (Counterpunch) / March 3 2020
The fact that capitalism is authoritarian is nothing really new and the fact that it needs to be replaced by democratic socialism is also nothing new. What is new is that there are three new arguments that outline why such a shift is urgently needed. The first argument is that “our” (!) current economy works well for about 1% of the world population. The second argument is that it barely works for the rest of us – the other 99%. Finally, we need to change and we can achieve this. Perhaps ever since David Ricardo and Karl Marx began writing about capitalism, it has always seemed to be in one state of crisis or another. Today, capitalism manifests itself in no less than six main crises.
The first crisis is that capitalism means economic irrationality. The second crisis takes place at workplaces. There we see not just the continuous existence of bullshit business and the rise of bullshit jobs but also structural workplace disempowerment of workers under the all guiding ideology of Managerialism. In short, more corporate bullshit coming our way. Thirdly, with the rise of the Age of Populism, politics has become a showboat, a spectacle leading to unresponsive governments in many countries. Fourthly, there is a massive social disintegration noticeable on a worldwide scale. Then there are rafts of international conflicts with a daily carnage played out on our TV screens. Despite Steven Pinker’s “all will be well” phantasies, there are wars. These are stretching from Iraq to Afghanistan, from Syria to Yemen. As a consequence, parts of the Middle East and North-East Africa look like Mad Max III, without Tina Turner, of course.
Unforeseen by the giants of economic theory during the 19th century, a new kind of crisis has recently been added. This sixth crisis is one of environmental unsustainability, the real prospect of an uninhabitable earth. All of this links to Jameson’s dictum that it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism.
As the end of capitalism isn’t in sight, the rich continue to enrich themselves rather relentlessly and often ruthlessly. One might highlight the Walton family, the owners of Walmart. The family alone has more wealth than 40% of American families combined. This is just one fact that destroys the often rehearsed rags to riches ideology which most Americans have been made to believe in. Still, some might think that there is something profoundly offensive in the fact that eight people, six of them in the USA, now own as much in assets as the entire bottom 50% of the world’s population.
Like an inconsequential treadmill, every winter when world capitalists meet at Davos for champagne and caviar, the British charity Oxfam releases a report on global inequality. That global capitalism is unbothered by such reports and the facts they depict have become blatantly obvious in recent years. Even the Davos Boys – mostly men like Klaus Schwab, Børge Brende, etc. – put Oxfam’s report on Davos’ own homepage. This is the final insult of Mill’s power elite to all those who still believe that things are changing.
Meanwhile, it is bad enough when huge numbers of people are either unemployed or grossly underpaid for their labour. But many people go to work and think they are earning a fair or living wage, yet statistics belie their beliefs. Today, only 45% of employees feel their employers listen to their ideas or concerns and just 31% feel their employers show concern for employees, not just for the financial bottom line.
Continue to article: https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/03/the-economics-of-democratic-socialism/
