Capitalism and social animals

We are social animals. For most of the time we have been in existence we have lived in small groups of foragers in our home territories. The people outside the group are ‘them’ and those in the group are ‘us’. There is cooperation between us (we are familiar with each other) and competition with them (we are strangers to each other).

Them v us thinking is still common in the modern world in the form of racism, sexism, ageism, class, occupation, location, politics, religion, favorite football team and TV Soap etc. The difference between groups is marked by language, clothes, commodities and all manner of status symbols. As individuals we are conditioned into displaying the labels of our preferred ‘us’ and adopting its ‘grand world view’ and a host of its detailed ‘points of view’.

So why and how was I conditioned to being socialist rather than capitalist? Nature graced me with a tendency towards a particular type of personality and temperament (submissive introvert?) and it got switched on and off by specific social and environmental factors ie by nurture and epigenetics. Note that there is neural plasticity – ‘I’ can change.

I have lived and worked in six countries. The anonymity of modern, urban settings has allowed me to play many parts. But when I return to my tightly knit, natal, rural setting the imagined, watchful eye of the neighbor limits my range of possibilities.

Since the evolution of settled agriculture, division of labour has increased. Typically this has included a small group of people managing the use and distribution of common resources (the commons). These are the regulators and rulers (the elite – the 1%) who set themselves apart from the muddy boot farmers (the masses – the 99%). The elites normally developed a version of the God/King story through which they commandeer the wealth and conspicuously spend it. Monuments are popular eg the Pyramids and the London Eye.

Left to “the invisible hand” the wealth of nations is captured by the elite. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And with globalization the wealth is captured by the transnational corporations (TNC) which are democratically unaccountable to the masses. And today’s super-rich capitalist cliques operate an unsustainable system of profit making that can be labeled as neoliberal, free-market fundamentalism. This is capitalism and it calls for austere structural adjustment, deregulation, privatization, trade union bashing, buying off politicians, small government, tax avoidance, externalising the environmental damage they cause, and paying dividends to shareholders.

It was not all that long ago that those who advocated for the capitalist free market were ostracised as nutters and thus starved of funding and respect. But there has been a great reversal. Left leaning capitalism lite before Thatcher morphed into right leaning, full blooded capitalism during and after her. Care of the vulnerable, fairness in the use of resources, and stewardship of the environment were dropped from the new world view where unscrupulous greed is good and there is a single bottom line – profit for shareholders (and surreal bonuses for CEOs).

The situation today is that more and more power is being captured by the super-rich who are bent on unscrupulous profit making. This is justified by simple sound bites – “a rising tide floats all boats” and some of the wealth will “trickle down” from the rich to the poor.

In some places the exploitation and inequality created by the capitalist corporations is opposed by groups of activists who are severely punished. In other places the capitalists buy off the politicians and the academics, and control the media so that everyone comes to believe that there is no alternative to the neoliberal world view. This is elegant power. Chomsky calls it the manufacture of consent.

Before capitalism evolved in the 16^th century there was feudalism and the divine right of kings (and of the Pope in Europe). The peasants, craftspeople and merchants did the essential work of sustainably managing the ‘commons’ and the ruling elite creamed off the profits in the form of taxation.

Capitalism began to flourish with the enclosure and privatisation of the commons which could then be bought and sold on an open market. Agricultural improvements drove people off the land into towns and cities where they became wage slaves amongst the dark satanic mills of the industrial revolution.

There is no single accepted definition of capitalism. Here are some examples drawn from the internet:

• an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state for the greatest good of the greatest number.
• an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means.
• an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, characterized by the freedom of capitalists to operate or manage their property for profit in competitive conditions (Also called free enterprise, private enterprise.)
• an economic and political system characterized by a free market for goods and services and private control of production and consumption. (Compare socialism and communism.)

During the last few weeks the notion of ‘alternatives to capitalism’ is being highlighted - mainly as a reaction to the suffering caused by the neoliberal austerity measures. Responses range from thoughts about how to smooth the rough edges of unregulated profit maximisation by the private sector (ie capitalism lite) through to increasing public sector control and management of the commons (ie socialism).

There is no single accepted definition of socialism. Broadly speaking it is a social, political and economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and by co-operative management of the economy.

"Social ownership" may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership (achieved by nationalization), citizen ownership of equity, or any combination of these. There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them.

Classic and somewhat extreme alternatives to Neoliberal Capitalism include totalitarian Communism and Fascism, Socialism, Anarchism, and Libertarianism. More moderate systems include social democracy and various lite flavours of the above ie centre left and centre right.

BUT – the rich have power, money and therefore influence. They are thus well able to service their own exploitive and unfair agenda. Countervailing power can be exercised to supplement representative democracy with more participatory and special interest forms which enable subsidiarity to mutual and cooperative civil society organisations

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These last few days the theme that has captured my attention is alternatives to capitalism and the idea of post-capitalism.  Paul Mason had a video about it and it was the main topic in a recent copy of the New Internationalist magazine.

In my old fashioned way I have been herding other people’s cows. This calls for understanding what the other people are saying, recording it accurately, and thus staying true to the cumulative tradition.

My subjective problem is in getting my head round the fact that most of the rich and powerful people actually believe in Neoliberalism and the beneficence of the invisible hand in the free market.

I am conditioned into believing that some kind of social democratic middle way is best. Some stuff is managed better by the public sector and some by the private sector.

But human nature is not to be trusted. There is need for regulations and for checks and balances to ensure that exploitation and inequality are minimised.

It might be useful to recognise a three stage process:

PRE CAPITALISM --- CAPITALISM --- POST CAPITALISM

But that can be a project for another few days.