To most people in the United States, capitalism is a kind of religion. That capitalism is essential to the happiness and well being of the general population is taken as an article of faith. The very idea that someone would question its basic tenets is considered heretical. Such heretics are quickly marginalized by the people in the mainstream, if not completely shunned. So though many may agree with the thoughts in this web page, you would never see any of them expressed in the mainstream media - newspaper columns, radio (Pacifica is an exception) or television.
The thoughts and ideas in this page are not original. Most of them have been borrowed from various writers and political commentators I have read, or speakers I have heard.
Also before you proceed. I would like to mention that if I do not think much of capitalism, I think even less of communism and not much of socialism (as it has been practiced in various countries). But merely because other systems have not worked, it does not mean we should not examine capitalism critically and look for other viable alternatives. If nothing else, we should at least recognize capitalism for what it is - a predatory economic system based on greed and selfishness, rather than think of it as God's gift to mankind as it is often made out to be.
America society has historically been divided into the propertied class and the non-propertied class. With a little bit of luck, there was always the opportunity for a member of the non-propertied class to work hard and eventually join the other class and even retire comfortably his savings. When capitalists like Henry Ford realized that if he did not pay his workers enough to afford his cars, the market for his products would be very limited, this American dream became accessible to many more people. Recently, however this dream has evaporated. The competition from cheap labor abroad as well as the availability of a world wide market for American products, has made it all but impossible for the non-propertied to enter the propertied class. Blue collar workers who could formerly relatively easily buy a home and enter the propertied class will no longer be able to do so in the new economy. Those in the service industry and the working poor can not afford to even think about it.
The classes have become so separated by the work they do, the company they keep and the neighbourhoods they live in, that they more and more resemble a caste system - a caste system determined by birth and circumstance rather than any other merit or qualification.
This 'caste system' consists of six basic castes - four working castes and two non-working ones:
The caste you become a member of is primarily determined by the caste of your parents. Sometimes with luck and hard work, you can climb into a caste higher than your parents', but this is becoming more difficult everyday. By the time you are in your late twenties, your caste has been determined for life. Most of the mobility that exists after that is between castes three and four. Members of three are the only ones who can move up in the caste hierarchy within their own lifetimes. (Professional sportsmen, musicians and other performers are of course rare exceptions).
This possibility of upward movement, is the main reason that group three which consists of the intelligentsia of society, helping to form public opinion and initiating changes in society, remains loyal to the system. (The other reason is of course, that they may even be thrown out of the one they are in, as occurred in the McCarthy days.) They are busy trying hard to get into the managing group and dream of the wealth and prestige that they would acquire by moving into that apparent ruling class and eventually into the actual source of power which is that of the capitalists. This last dream is as realistic as the dream of a ghetto kid of becoming part of the NBA - it is possible but highly unlikely.
As for the other castes, the very things that would help them to move up - affirmative action, student loans, afforrdable colleges are constantly under attack, making the caste system ever more difficult to break out of. Instead there are things like school vouchers, regressive taxes (especially payroll taxes), crime and drug infested neighbourhoods that ensure that the next generation will remain in the same caste or fall even further if that is possible.
If you are reading this web page you are unlikely to be a capitalist. Capitalists get other people to read such stuff for them. You are probably in groups 1 through 4 and very likely in group 3.
It is not clear when in history the confusion between capitalism and democracy started. It has been suggested by some that there was a deliberate decision after World War II to use terms like the 'free world', the 'free market', 'free enterprise' in order to imply that all these were synonymous with freedom and a democratically elected government. This has become so pervasive in the US that many people very likely think that a capitalistic state means a democratic one. If they don't believe that, they are at least led to think that capitalism is a prerequisite for democracy. The truth is that capitalism manages quite well (maybe even better) under non-democratic governments.
All that capitalists want is that the state allows them to invest their wealth where they please and retain the additional the wealth generated from the labor of others. Whether the labor force (which is really most of the population) has a voice in the affairs of the state is besides the point. Capitalists and fascists are very comfortable bedfellows. Also to say that capitalism is a prerequisite for democracy, assumes that the only alternatives are failed ones like communism or state socialism. Other alternatives like employee owned and controlled corporations receive scant consideration if any.
Similar to the confusion about capitalism and democracy, is the myth that all capitalists (or at least most of them) are entrepreneurs - constantly starting new ventures, taking major risks, helping the economy to grow and generally raising the standard of everyone else. The truth is very few capitalists are entrepreneurs who start their own enterprises.
Most entrepreneurs are not very rich and usually start with just an idea and after sinking most of their savings in it, struggle to find funds from venture capitalists to make their idea into a business (in return handing these non-working partners a share in the new company). After the business becomes successful, the entrepreneur usually joins the ranks of the capitalists - any new ideas, products are usually thosse of his employees. His work hours are sometimes (not always) as long as before, but his income is disproportionate to his efforts and mostly from his equity in the company. If his former entrepreneurial spirit still exists, he may attempt to start another one with a fresh idea but usually prefers to expand his company by acquisitions. The capitalist is too comfortable to start a entirely new business, he would much rather acquire existing businesses or expand his business geographically or in similar fields (this principally through the efforts of his employees).
An excellent illustration is Steven Jobs. When he started Apple (in a garage), he was a entrepreneur not a capitalist. When he started Next Inc. with some of his wealth (mainly because he was removed from Apple), he tried a second time as entrepreneur/capitalist. However, when he bought Pixar(after Next failed to succeed) for ten million dollars (according to newspaper reports for 'a song'), he was being a pure capitalist. Most of the billion dollars he made when Pixar went public ( a several hundred percent profit), was 'unearned'.
The seasoned capitalist seldom puts all (or most of) his money in one risky venture. (The worker who risks the loss of a job when joining a new company is taking a far greater risk, since he has neither independent wealth to fall back on, nor the certainty of getting another job immediately, or even soon). The small business man who owns and operates a family run business is no capitalist, he is a worker like the rest of us, though he may be self-employed.
The idea that the capitalist is really an altruist who makes his wealth available to society out of the sheer generosity of his heart, is so laughable that ordinarily it would not even need to be refuted. But this relatively new myth has been so successfully propagated by the minions of the capitalist that it needs to be mentioned. The only motive the capitalist has or has ever had was the accumulation of more capital and perhaps the exercise of power.
Capital knows no loyalties (local or national), the goal of all businesses is the making of the highest profits at the lowest cost to the owner (the cost to the consumer or to the state which may be providing a subsidy is never an object). The environment, the community, the health and safety of workers are only considered when it is required by government regulations.
Even the charitable foundations created or donations made, are for tax purposes or to create an image of a philanthropist after having ruthlessly destroyed or dominated a particular section of the society or some industry (as the foundations created by the Rockefeller family). Of course, some capitalists are decent human beings, but the system promotes the rise of the most 'ruthless, cunning, avaricious, self-seeking, lacking in sympathy and compassion'.
The argument often made today is that corporate stocks are so widely held today, especially by middle class Americans, that the owners of American corporations are really ordinary citizens. This argument is often used when a capital gains tax cut is proposed, implying that the main beneficiaries are not the rich and powerful.
Though it is true that ownership of stock is now very common among ordinary men, the control of corporations is still in the hands capitalists and their hired management. The individual small stockholder rarely has much say in the business operations of the corporation. Sometimes he owns the stock through a mutual fund company, in which case he does not even control his ownership of the stock. Often he is the last one to know about adverse financial news and the one who loses the most. In any case the income he derives from the stock is never his primary source of income. He would gladly give up his stock earnings for higher wages or a more secure job.
The idea that capitalism is these days really the domain of the common man is really a red herring put forth by the capitalist caste who take great pains to maintain a low profile. In any case this ownership of stocks is limited to groups 3 and 4 and rarely reaches the rest.
The less said about this the better, since it always ruffles many nationalistic (or, as they would have you believe, patriotic) feathers. Suffice to say that though there was imperialism before capitalism, it never reached the rapacious zeal with which capitalists, these days, devour the natural resources of the weaker nation, exploit its labor at subsistence (or below) wages, destroy its traditional industries or agriculture base and impoverish and decimate any indigenous peoples (if they are any left), all with the help of the U.S. government.
The relationship between employer and employees is really no better than has always been between lord/serf in a feudal society, master/slave in ancient times (or America in the last century) or landlord/tenant farmer in an agricultural society. That the conditions of employees (at least in the US) is better today than serfs and slaves is no thanks to capitalism. Those are merely hard won gains made due to establishment of democratic institutions, won through struggles by social activists, civil rights workers and labor unions. (A quick review of employees' conditions in some non-democratic capitalist states like Guatemala can tell the difference).
However, be that as it may, the very relationship of employer-employee or owner-worker is dehumanizing, undemocratic, even unnatural. It is difficult to understand how people, who so easily accept democracy and political freedom, a natural human right, as important and necessary in society at large, see no harm in the autocratic and dictatorial way corporations or even smaller businesses are run. The idea is that if the worker does not like the way he is treated, he can always leave and work someplace else. As if getting another equivalent or better job is that easy for most workers.
However many Japanese-style workers councils an employer sets up, the very imperatives of capitalism - to make the highest return on the employers investment, will never allow the relationship between employer and employee to be anything other than that of a owner to a machine, a profit producing resource. In this sense, it is even worse than that of a lord and his serf, where there was a relationship that may have lasted generations, a relationship not easily broken by a change in market conditions. The only new freedom the modern employee has, is to leave and choose another master if he can find one. That is the freedom, as they say, to starve.
Any talk of the true nature of capitalists and the economic and social system they promote, is often dismissed as a fanciful conspiracy theory. Even liberal thinkers scoff at the idea that the U.S. economy (and in turn the world economy) is run by a relatively small group of owners essentially for their own benefit rather than that of the population at large. The idea that this same group also controls many of the branches of government (including the national security apparatus - NSA, CIA, FBI, the Pentagon) is of course dismissed as ridiculous. Though there are many conspiracy theories that are quite hard to swallow, the capitalist caste not so much controls the government and economy from the outside, but that they are invariable in leadership positions in everyone of these institutions.
The capitalists did not all meet in a large dark room to come up with a strategy to control the world. However, they all come from a similar background with similar goals and ideologies. With the use of their money and the power that goes with it, they have successfully marginalized any opposing points of view and ensured that the people with these views not only are not allowed to gain any significant position within these institutions, but that their views are rarely (if ever) heard via any form of mass media.
Those who still have difficulty believing in the power and reach of capitalists without the existence of a national or international conspiracy should try thinking of some analogies - for instance there is no denying the existence of racism in this country, even though all racists are not part of a single conspiracy. The racists in the country did not all come together in some sinister,dark room. However, even if the racists have different individual targets (some hate Jews, other hate Arabs, many hate blacks), their outlook on life and how it should be is amazingly similar. Similarly, though capitalists may have different individual goals (those in the trucking business like low gas prices, those in the oil business like high ones), they are of a kindred spirit, and have pretty much the same idea of how the spoils of this world should be divided. Of course, just like organizations that cater to racists, there is no dearth of networking groups where members of the capitalist class can meet and discuss issues - the Business Council, the Committee for Economic Development, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission to name a few.
Whenever someone mentions an alternative to capitalism, Americans seem to only see communism with a party boss ruling an inefficient, sluggish workforce making unneeded low quality products, ready to send anyone who raises his head to some distant concentration camp. Regardless of whether this scenario was ever true in former communist Russia, this is hardly the only alternative that has ever been proposed. Systems like anarchism (this is really not as bad as it made out to be by both capitalists and communists) are rarely presented to ordinary people. Collectivism also does not automatically imply a totalitarian state with state ownership of all property. As mentioned before, lack of capitalism also need not lead to loss of democracy.
Any way, the last thing this country needs is another "ism" to compete with capitalism or the other well known "isms". Naming such a system invariably leads to the use of code-words etc to discredit it by vested interests in the status quo. It goes without saying, of course, that the principles of democracy (which, as stated before, are independent of capitalism) like free, fair and regular elections, freedom of expression and movement, right to private property etc etc should be preserved under any such system.
The simplest (may be even simplistic) way to see the difference between capitalism, communism and a better alternative would be to put it in the same terms in which communism (as the Marxist ideal rather than the Stalinist abomination) is usually thought of:
To achieve the first part we need to ensure the following:
To achieve the second part we need:
As can be seen the most important part of this is the idea of making the work-place a democratic one where all workers (including managers some of whom are often the hardest workers of all) participate in all aspects of the enterprise (especially financial ones).
This kind of 'corporate' structure does not mean a business run by committees of workers any more than democracy means a nation ruled by committees of lay citizens. Democracy in the work-place means 'management' is answerable to employees before anyone else (board of directors, major shareholders or any other absentee owners). To ensure this, employees need to be able to control compensation for management as well as change(demote) managers if a significant majority sees need for such a step. Managers will be appointed by upper management and be able to direct and discipline individual workers as before. However, workers as a group will now evaluate, reward or remove individual managers. Major decisions like sale of the business (change in the same absentee owners) should be decided directly by the employees (by referendum where the employees have an option to buy the business at a substantial discount).
All the above steps can be taken by passing appropriate legislation, but none of it can be successful without solidarity among the different types of workers. Solidarity between mental workers and manual workers has always been lacking in the US. Professional employees have been only too happy to benefit from the struggles of blue collar unions (like the 40 hour work-week, paid health insurance etc), but have always looked upon unionized labor with disdain and a sense of superiority. These mental workers (group 3) have to recognize that they are in same boat as the skilled manual workers (group 2) and need to work together to achieve common goals. Both groups of course, have to feel the same way about unskilled workers (group 4), the most neglected and unrepresented workers of all..
This does not really address the special problems of children, the elderly, the disabled and minorities. But only when the needs of the majority of the population (the work-force) are met in a fair and equitable fashion, will this majority be willing to consider the special needs of those even less fortunate.
For further discussion on this alternative please go here
.... still under construction...
.... still under construction...
.... still under construction...
Here are answers to a few of the comments I have received over the last few months regarding this web page:
This reader has probably not been as successful as the two men he cites (successful men can afford to be far more polite). I did not mean to suggest that corporate executives do not work hard. In fact many of them very likely put in far more hours of work than most of their employees (in the developed countries). However, most of them, especially in the U.S,. are compensated far out of proportion to their actual efforts. But these two examples of successful men offer an interesting contrast. Bill Gates as the CEO of Microsoft no doubt deserves to be well compensated, but nothing he has done can be worth the billions he has made personally.
Is the success of a product like MS Word due to Mr Gates or the designers, implementors and marketers of that software? The credit for Microsoft's software goes as much to good products as to its monopolistic and heavy handed marketing (to PC makers), and the lock it has on the operating system market. The original DOS was never developed by Bill Gates or his company. He managed to acquire it from someone else exactly around the same time that IBM was in a hurry to find one. How much the timing of his acquisition of this product and his ability to sell it to IBM and retain control over it, has to do with his business acumen and how much it has to do with his mother's contacts with IBM's top brass is anybody's guess. For all we know, Bill may have been more of a mama's boy rather than the boy genius he is made out to be. As far as his vision for putting a computer on every desktop is concerned, many others have had the same vision before he did, they just did not have the Big Blue machine behind them to get them started. In any case, how much vision does it take to decide to create a user interface as good as the Macintosh (unsuccessfully), a word processor better than WordPerfect (successfully), a spreadsheet better than Lotus (successfully??), a compiler better than Borland (maybe), a Web browser better than Netscape (the jury is still out) and buying the ones he could not beat (PowerPoint) ? Bill Gates certainly deserves to earn millions for his accomplishments. But billions? Most of Bill Gates' wealth is definitely 'unearned'.
Actually I did not mean to attack Mr Gates (Lord knows there is enough of that on the net). He is hardly the worst of the capitalists. He is merely using a unjust and corrupt economic system. But his building a vast fortune off the products developed by his employees and outsiders, offers a sharp contrast to the other person mentioned - Howard Stern who is the product himself. (For the fortunate few who have not heard about Howard - he is a trashy, obnoxious host of a radio and TV talk-show). Unlike Bill Gates, Howard makes money by selling himself and most of his money is undoubtedly 'earned', as long as he pays his employees reasonably and does not abuse them (unless you count shaving an employee's head on national TV and ridiculing him, for a laugh). Incidentally, I do not like Howard Stern or have much respect for him, while I have a great deal of respect for Bill Gates.
I do believe workers should share in the profits (in a far more substantial manner than today's profit sharing plans), so shareholders may get less than today (on the other hand with executive salaries and perks under control, they may get more). As far as management collusion with employees is concerned, the same oversight actions that the board of directors and top management perform today would continue. The only difference would be that management can be dismissed and rewarded from below as well as above (though appointed always from above). Shareholders will continue to invest in such a business for the same reason that they do today, that it gives them a reasonable return. Of course, the new rules of workers sharing profits should apply to all businesses (here and abroad). If there is no other place to invest (except speculative ones like real estate), I am sure capital for business will not dry up. People with money are not about to just keep it in their mattresses. That will get them nothing.
I consider a worker's loss of his job (through a layoff) to be a worker's participation in the company's losses. (Layoffs in cases where the business is losing money can be a quite justifiable). Obviously, only the laid off workers participate on behalf of the whole workforce. Besides, since the loss can be deducted from future profits for tax purposes, the entire society is participating in the losses.
I think many capitalist are decent people too. But the need to make the highest
profits at any (legally allowed) cost to employees and the community, can
corrupt the best of them. However, there are a few demons,
Charles Hurwitz
the president and CEO of the MAXXAM corporation
Jim Bob Moffet of Freeport
McMoran to name a couple. Some capitalists exploit workers, some destroy
lives, some destroy communities
and others
devastate
the environment. These two manage to do all of the above. Of course,
the main problem are not individual capitalists, but the system in which
they operate and the nature of the modern corporation, which allows a group
of executives to operate in the same way as these individuals without much
personal responsibility or liability. Most major trans-national corporations
belong in this category.
By saying that capitalism 'works', I assume this reader means it delivers the greatest amount of good to the vast majority of the people. Though capitalism has done well for the U.S., other western and a few far eastern capitalistic countries, it has hardly been of benefit to a majority of the human population (on a world-wide basis). For one thing. there has always been a minority of people in the 'prosperous' countries who have lived in a deprived state. For another, the prosperity of the rest of their populations has mainly been bought by depleting the natural resources of their own lands and exploiting the people and resources of the 'third' world. Everyone knows (I hope), the way colonialism subjugated and exploited foreign lands, but few understand the nature of neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism ('Year 501, the Conquest continues ...' by Noam Chomsky is an excellent source of hard information and analysis). To repeat, capitalism has never been good for the majority of humanity.
With the globalization of the economies of the world, the third world is finally coming home. The ability of capital to flow freely to all parts of the world is exporting jobs to the places were exploitation of workers is the highest. Tariff free imports of the cheap products made by these workers is destroying any manufacturing plants that still hold out at home. The effects of depletion of natural resources, the devastation of environments can no longer be contained within national boundaries. The answer is not to restrict free trade (though flow of capital needs to be controlled), but to address the root cause of this situation, the imperatives of capitalism and the nature of the modern trans-national corporation.
The fact that no other system besides capitalism has worked, is mainly because no other system except socialism (by which, I mean state ownership of businesses) has been tried. Employee ownership and control of business has never been attempted and consideration of it has been drowned out by the battle between capitalism and communism. The corporate-controlled media has played its part in suppressing any such debate. When people talk about privatization, they never mean handing over ownership and control to the employees, but always to a group of investors who are only interested in the rate of return, never the well being of the employees or the community. (Actually, I believe in joint ownership by investors and employees of the business, with control by both the parties over management, which is the ultimate steward of the business).
Date of first composition: January 27, 1996
Date of most recent revision: May 13, 1997
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