The Coming Capitalist Consensus

[kentuck]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/24-6

<snip>
Not surprisingly, the swift unraveling of the global economy combined with the ascent to the U.S. presidency of an African-American liberal has left millions anticipating that the world is on the threshold of a new era. Some of President-elect Barack Obama’s new appointees – in particular ex-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers to lead the National Economic Council, New York Federal Reserve Board chief Tim Geithner to head Treasury, and former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk to serve as trade representative – have certainly elicited some skepticism. But the sense that the old neoliberal formulas are thoroughly discredited have convinced many that the new Democratic leadership in the world’s biggest economy will break with the market fundamentalist policies that have reigned since the early 1980s.

One important question, of course, is how decisive and definitive the break with neoliberalism will be. Other questions, however, go to the heart of capitalism itself. Will government ownership, intervention, and control be exercised simply to stabilize capitalism, after which control will be given back to the corporate elites? Are we going to see a second round of Keynesian capitalism, where the state and corporate elites along with labor work out a partnership based on industrial policy, growth, and high wages – though with a green dimension this time around? Or will we witness the beginnings of fundamental shifts in the ownership and control of the economy in a more popular direction? There are limits to reform in the system of global capitalism, but at no other time in the last half century have those limits seemed more fluid.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has already staked out one position. Declaring that “laissez-faire capitalism is dead,” he has created a strategic investment fund of 20 billion euros to promote technological innovation, keep advanced industries in French hands, and save jobs. “The day we don’t build trains, airplanes, automobiles, and ships, what will be left of the French economy?” he recently asked rhetorically. “Memories. I will not make France a simple tourist reserve.” This kind of aggressive industrial policy aimed partly at winning over the country’s traditional white working class can go hand-in-hand with the exclusionary anti-immigrant policies with which the French president has been associated.

Global Social Democracy

A new national Keynesianism along Sarkozyan lines, however, is not the only alternative available to global elites. Given the need for global legitimacy to promote their interests in a world where the balance of power is shifting towards the South, western elites might find more attractive an offshoot of European Social Democracy and New Deal liberalism that one might call “Global Social Democracy” or GSD.

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[Joe Chi Minh]

1. Pass.

[Hydra]

2. Capitalism doesn't work

And the sooner we trashbin it, the better.

[jtrockville]

3. Capitalism empowers a few, and impoverishes the masses.

So if that's your goal, then capitalism works.

[kentuck]

4. And they attempt to give the peons just enough to survive on...

and sometimes they fail to do that. That is what is happening now. They got too greedy once again.

[Orsino]

6. Any pure -ism is likely to fail.

Socialize protection of the masses, and otherwise regulate the moneyed, and we might turn out all right.

[Hydra]

7. The problem with most -isms is the people running them

Capitalism isn't one of those things- when it does what it's built to do, it's a disaster.

I used to be one of the people who thought regulated capitalism was an acceptable thing, but then I really looked at that idea- many medicines are deadly poisons except in extremely low doses, and that's not unlike regulated capitalism.

Why take poison at all?

[Orsino]

8. Life is fatal, too...

...but capitalism does spur growth and technological progress in ways that communism and socialism won't match. Some mix of these systems would seem to be the "best" balancing of protection versus stagnation.

We can't pretend to eliminate greed, but we could harness it.

[Hydra]

9. Growth isn't as important as advertised

In fact, we need to cut down growth, population and consumption. Capitalism doesn't do that.

Want technological progress? Free education, subsidized R&D and incentives for new and efficient technology or improvements on existing technology. Create a culture where innovation and forward thinking are encouraged. Capitalism really doesn't do that- it encourages shoddy products, shortcuts, devaluation of workers and their ideas, illegal behavior, sabotage of competitors and a culture where creating failures that are profitable for others is considered "good business."

Don't get me wrong- I enjoy things like a competitive market, diversity of products and good availability of such. I just don't think those positives are worth an entire system to achieve, especially when said system is based almost entirely on the exploitation of resources, human or otherwise.

We're a clever species. We can come up with something better than this.

[Orsino]

10. The key here is "competitive market."

That's something that capitalism gets us--but regulation and the social safety net will let us keep it.

So what I'm advocating for is not any one "entire system," but an intelligent, flexible mix.

[TheKentuckian]

5. A much more moderated version of capitalism may continue

at least as a transition. We don't really have a viable financial system to adopt. We've tried everything we've dreamed up to some degree or another worldwide and its all collapsed sooner or later. I guess we'll have to do some hybrid socialism/capitalist system and see were it takes us.