Fetishism in Economics
by Fred E. Foldvary, Senior Editor, 5 December 2011
The thought of Karl Marx continues to resonate throughout the world and is never more prominent than in the use of the propaganda term “capitalism” by both advocates and opponents of economic freedom. The opposition to “capitalism” by the Occupy movements show that Marxist thought has penetrated deeply into global economic culture. Therefore it behooves us to understand Marxism in order to understand the global culture of economics, especially to know how Marxist culture blocks reforms to enhance prosperity and economic justice.
If you talk to Marxists, they will tell you that the concept of “fetish” is fundamental to the economic ideas of Marx and his followers. Fetishism is described in Das Kapital or Capital, Volume 1, Part I “Commodities and Money,” Chapter 1 on Commodities, Section 4 on “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof.”
Marx states that a commodity abounds in “metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.” An object such as a kitchen table does not merely serve some want to use, but can get transformed by the human mind into “something transcendent.” It can acquire a mystical character.
This commodity meaning of “fetish” is a different application of the concept from the meaning as a sexual attraction to things, such as feet and leather, that are not usually regarded as being sexual.
We can clearly see fetishism in religious objects, which to the believers, are not just physical statues or candle holders but have a metaphysical significance and even life. But there is a fetish also to non-religious things. Marx says, “the productions of the human brain appear as independent beings endowed with life... So it is in the world of commodities with the products of men’s hands. This I call the Fetishism which attaches to the products of labor.”
Objects with sentimental value acquire such a “life.” But to Marx, fetishism applies generally, and in private enterprise, fetishism reduces labor to a disrespected commodity. The whole economic system of private enterprise becomes a fetish -- something people think is holy and not to be disturbed.
The injustice and low wages of labor are rationalized away by this fetishism in economic thought. To Marx, the exchange value of commodities comes only from “the amount of labor bestowed” on objects. “Nature has no more to do with it, than it has in fixing the course of exchange.” Thus to Marxists, value comes from labor, and if the Worker is not paid that full value, he is exploited, and the Capitalist wrongly takes the surplus that should belong to Labor.
The concept of economic fetishism is a valuable addition to economic thought, but this has to be applied generally, including also to Marxist doctrine. It is understood in modern economics that labor is generally paid the contribution to output of the marginal worker, conceptually the last one to be hired, what economists call the “marginal product of labor.” Because of diminishing returns, the average product of labor is higher than the marginal product, and that is a surplus that by superficial appearance goes to the owner of the firm, the Capitalist. But Marx made a fetish out of “capital,” applying it even to the title of his major works. By denigrating nature, Marx also made a negative fetish out of nature.
In the analysis of the American economist and social philosopher Henry George, the surplus from production is ground rent. Suppose in some geographic region, the average product of labor is greater than the wage paid to workers. The existence of that surplus at that location makes the location valuable, and so entrepreneurs will bid up what they pay to be located there. They will keep bidding up the rent until the rent has soaked up all the surplus. Generally, what economists call the “producer surplus” is really land rent, and since landowners produce nothing, they are non-producers, and the surplus is better called the “non-producer surplus.”
Hence Marx is right that economists have fetishes. Most economists have made a fetish out of the producer surplus, imagining that it goes to the better producers rather than to non-productive landowners. This is what Mason Gaffney has called the “corruption of economics.” But Marxist economics falls to the same fetish in saying that nature is not involved in the course of exchange. In a market economy, each factor -- land, labor, and capital goods -- is paid its marginal contribution to output. There is no injustice in being paid what you contribute.
Karl Marx recognized that land rents grow not just out of soil but also from society. But rather than conclude logically that this rent should belong to society, Marx made a fetish out of labor and thought that the surplus is part of the economic wage. Marx did not understand that this surplus should be paid by the land titleholder for the use of land, in order to have efficient economic calculation. The rent is an implicit reality apart from any explicit payments by tenants to landlords or no explicit payments by owner-occupants. If that rent is not explicitly paid, not only does the landowner take what comes from society and nature, but the rent generates land value that becomes an object of speculation that creates the boom and bust sequence.
Some followers of Henry George also have fetishes. When they treat George’s thought as religion, then Saint George becomes a fetish. The concepts that all taxation comes from rent, that services have a different function than tangible goods, and that “interest” is the yield of capital goods, all fetishize George. Of course it is difficult to not have any fetishes.
The prime achievement of Marxism is the adoption of the fetish term “capitalism” even by those who defend private enterprise. By applying “capitalism” both to the mixed economy and to private enterprise, Marxists have turned a nonsense word into a brilliant fetish term used to blame economic freedom for the social problems that come from government intervention. Those opposed to economic freedom also make a fetish out of the state, endowing it with god-like qualities of omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence.
It is in human nature to create fetishes, but it is also in human nature to apply logic. There is nothing wrong with treating objects such as a photograph of a loved one or a special gift into a fetish, i.e. qualities that come from the mind, but we need to learn to apply unhampered logic when it comes to science, including the science of economics.
-- Fred Foldvary
Labels: CAPITALISM, ECONOMY, MARXISM
Read more...
Implosion of Contemporary Capitalism: Audacity, More Audacity in Formulating an Alternative to the Existing System.
by Dr. Samir Amin
Global Research, December 6, 2011
Socialist Project
The historical circumstances created by the implosion of contemporary capitalism requires the radical left, in the North as well as the South, to be bold in formulating its political alternative to the existing system. The purpose of this paper is to show why audacity is required and what it means.
Why Audacity?
1. Contemporary capitalism is a capitalism of generalized monopolies. By this I mean that monopolies are now no longer islands (albeit important) in a sea of other still relatively autonomous companies, but are an integrated system. Therefore, these monopolies now tightly control all the systems of production. Small and medium enterprises, and even the large corporations that are not strictly speaking oligopolies are locked in a network of control put in place by the monopolies. Their degree of autonomy has shrunk to the point that they are nothing more than subcontractors of the monopolies.
This system of generalized monopolies is the product of a new phase of centralization of capital in the countries of the Triad (the United States, Western and Central Europe, and Japan) that took place during the 1980s and 1990s.
The generalized monopolies now dominate the world economy. ‘Globalization’ is the name they have given to the set of demands by which they exert their control over the productive systems of the periphery of global capitalism (the world beyond the partners of the triad). It is nothing other than a new stage of imperialism.
2. The capitalism of generalized and globalized monopolies is a system that guarantees these monopolies a monopoly rent levied on the mass of surplus value (transformed into profits) that capital extracts from the exploitation of labour. To the extent that these monopolies are operating in the peripheries of the global system, monopoly rent is imperialist rent. The process of capital accumulation – that defines capitalism in all its successive historical forms – is therefore driven by the maximization of monopoly/imperialist rent seeking.
This shift in the centre of gravity of the accumulation of capital is the source of the continuous concentration of income and wealth to the benefit of the monopolies, largely monopolized by the oligarchies (‘plutocracies’) that govern oligopolistic groups at the expense of the remuneration of labour and even the remuneration of non-monopolistic capital.
3. This imbalance in continued growth is itself, in turn, the source of the financialization of the economic system. By this I mean that a growing portion of the surplus cannot be invested in the expansion and deepening of systems of production and therefore the ‘financial investment’ of this excessive surplus becomes the only option for continued accumulation under the control of the monopolies.
The implementation of specific systems by capital permits the financialization to operate in different ways:
1. the subjugation of the management of firms to the principle of ‘shareholder value’
2. the substitution of pension systems funded by capitalization (Pension Funds) by systems of pension distribution
3. the adoption of the principle of ‘flexible exchange rates’
4. the abandonment of the principle of central banks determining the interest rate – the price of ‘liquidity’ – and the transfer of this responsibility to the ‘market.’
Financialization has transferred the major responsibility for control of the reproduction of the system of accumulation to some 30 giant banks of the triad. What are euphemistically called ‘markets’ are nothing other than the places where the strategies of these actors who dominate the economic scene are deployed.
In turn this financialization, which is responsible for the growth of inequality in income distribution (and fortunes), generates the growing surplus on which it feeds. The ‘financial investments’ (or rather the investments in financial speculation) continue to grow at dizzying speeds, not commensurate with growth in GDP (which is therefore becoming largely fictitious) or with investment in real production.
The explosive growth of financial investment requires – and fuels – among other things debt in all its forms, especially sovereign debt. When the governments in power claim to be pursuing the goal of ‘debt reduction,’ they are deliberately lying. For the strategy of financialized monopolies requires the growth in debt (which they seek, rather than combat) as a way to absorb the surplus profit of monopolies. The austerity policies imposed ‘to reduce debt’ have indeed resulted (as intended) in increasing its volume.
4. It is this system – commonly called ‘neoliberal,’ the system of generalized monopoly capitalism, ‘globalized’ (imperialist) and financialized (of necessity for its own reproduction) – that is imploding before our eyes. This system, apparently unable to overcome its growing internal contradictions, is doomed to continue its wild ride.
The ‘crisis’ of the system is due to its own ‘success.’ Indeed so far the strategy deployed by monopolies has always produced the desired results: ‘austerity’ plans and the so-called social (in fact anti-social) downsizing plans that are still being imposed, in spite of resistance and struggles. To this day the initiative remains in the hands of the monopolies (‘the markets’) and their political servants (the governments that submit to the demands of the so-called ‘market’).
5. Under these conditions monopoly capital has openly declared war on workers and peoples. This declaration is formulated in the sentence ‘liberalism is not negotiable.’ Monopoly capital will definitely continue its wild ride and not slow down. The criticism of ‘regulation’ that I make below is grounded in this fact.
We are not living in a historical moment in which the search for a ‘social compromise’ is a possible option. There have been such moments in the past, such as the post-war social compromise between capital and labour specific to the social democratic state in the West, the actually existing socialism in the East, and the popular national projects of the South. But our present historical moment is not the same. So the conflict is between monopoly capital and workers and people who are invited to an unconditional surrender. Defensive strategies of resistance under these conditions are ineffective and bound to be eventually defeated. In the face of war declared by monopoly capital, workers and peoples must develop strategies that allow them to take the offensive.
The period of social war is necessarily accompanied by the proliferation of international political conflicts and military interventions of the imperialist powers of the triad. The strategy of ‘military control of the planet’ by the armed forces of the United States and its subordinate NATO allies is ultimately the only means by which the imperialist monopolies of the triad can expect to continue their domination over the peoples, nations and the states of the South.
Monopolies Declare War
Faced with this challenge of the war declared by the monopolies, what alternatives are being proposed?
First response: ‘market regulation’ (financial and otherwise). These are initiatives that monopolies and governments claim they are pursuing. In fact it is only empty rhetoric, designed to mislead public opinion. These initiatives cannot stop the mad rush for financial return that is the result of the logic of accumulation controlled by monopolies. They are therefore a false alternative.
Second response: a return to the post-war models. These responses feed a triple nostalgia: (i) the rebuilding of a true ‘social democracy’ in the West, (ii) the resurrection of ‘socialisms’ founded on the principles that governed those of the 20th century, (iii) the return to formulas of popular nationalism in the peripheries of the South. These nostalgias imagine it is possible to ‘roll back’ monopoly capitalism, forcing it to regress to what it was in 1945. But history never allows such returns to the past. Capitalism must be confronted as it is today, not as what we would have wished it to be by imagining the blocking of its evolution. However, these longings continue to haunt large segments of the left throughout the world.
Third response: the search for a ‘humanist’ consensus. I define this pious wish in the following way: the illusion that a consensus among fundamentally conflicting interests would be possible. Naïve ecology movements, among others, share this illusion.
Fourth response: the illusions of the past. These illusions invoke ‘specificity’ and ‘right to difference’ without bothering to understand their scope and meaning. The past has already answered the questions for the future. These ‘culturalisms’ can take many para-religious or ethnic forms. Theocracies and ethnocracies become convenient substitutes for the democratic social struggles that have been evacuated from their agenda.
Fifth response: priority of ‘personal freedom.’ The range of responses based on this priority, considered the exclusive ‘supreme value,’ includes in its ranks the diehards of ‘representative electoral democracy,’ which they equate with democracy itself. The formula separates the democratization of societies from social progress, and even tolerates a de facto association with social regression in order not to risk discrediting democracy, now reduced to the status of a tragic farce.
But there are even more dangerous forms of this position. I am referring here to some common ‘post modernist’ currents (such as Toni Negri in particular) who imagine that the individual has already become the subject of history, as if communism, which will allow the individual to be emancipated from alienation and actually become the subject of history, were already here!
It is clear that all of the responses above, including those of the right (such as the ‘regulations’ that do not affect private property monopolies) still find powerful echoes among a majority of the people on the left.
6. The war declared by the generalized monopoly capitalism of contemporary imperialism has nothing to fear from the false alternatives that I have just outlined.
So what is to be done?
This moment offers us the historic opportunity to go much further; it demands as the only effective response a bold and audacious radicalization in the formulation of alternatives capable of moving workers and peoples to take the offensive to defeat their adversary's strategy of war. These formulations, based on the analysis of actually existing contemporary capitalism, must directly confront the future that is to be built, and turn their back on the nostalgia for the past and illusions of identity or consensus.
Audacious Programs for the Radical Left
I will organize the following general proposals under three headings: (i) socialize the ownership of monopolies, (ii) de-financialize the management of the economy, (iii) de-globalize international relations.
Socialize the Ownership of Monopolies
The effectiveness of the alternative response necessarily requires the questioning of the very principle of private property of monopoly capital. Proposing to ‘regulate’ financial operations, to return markets to ‘transparency’ to allow ‘agent's expectations’ to be ‘rational’ and to define the terms of a consensus on these reforms without abolishing the private property of monopolies, is nothing other than throwing dust in the eyes of the naive public. Monopolies are asked to ‘manage’ reforms against their own interests, ignoring the fact that they retain a thousand and one ways to circumvent the objectives of such reforms.
The alternative social project should be to reverse the direction of the current social order (social disorder) produced by the strategies of monopolies, in order to ensure maximum and stabilised employment, and to ensure decent wages growing in parallel with the productivity of social labour. This objective is simply impossible without the expropriation of the power of monopolies.
The ‘software of economic theorists’ must be reconstructed (in the words of François Morin). The absurd and impossible economic theory of ‘expectations’ expels democracy from the management of economic decision-making. Audacity in this instance requires radical reform of education for the training not only of economists, but also of all those called to occupy management positions.
Monopolies are institutional bodies that must be managed according to the principles of democracy, in direct conflict with those who sanctify private property. Although the term ‘commons,’ imported from the Anglo-Saxon world, is itself ambiguous because always disconnected from the debate on the meaning of social conflicts (Anglo-Saxon language deliberately ignores the reality of social classes), the term could be invoked here specifically to call monopolies part of the ‘commons.’
The abolition of the private ownership of monopolies takes place through their nationalization. This first legal action is unavoidable. But audacity here means going beyond that step to propose plans for the socialization of the management of nationalized monopolies and the promotion of the democratic social struggles that are engaged on this long road.
I will give here a concrete example of what could be involved in plans of socialization.
‘Capitalist’ farmers (those of developed countries) like ‘peasant’ farmers (mostly in the South) are all prisoners of both the upstream monopolies that provide inputs and credit, and the downstream ones on which they depend for processing, transportation and marketing of their products. Therefore they have no real autonomy in their ‘decisions.’ In addition the productivity gains they make are siphoned off by the monopolies that have reduced producers to the status of ‘subcontractors.’ What possible alternative?
Public institutions working within a legal framework that would set the mode of governance must replace the monopolies. These would be constituted of representatives of: (i) farmers (the principle interests), (ii) upstream units (manufacturers of inputs, banks) and downstream (food industry, retail chains) and (iii) consumers, (iv) local authorities (interested in natural and social environment – schools, hospitals, urban planning and housing, transportation), (v) the State (citizens). Representatives of the components listed above would be self-selected according to procedures consistent with their own mode of socialized management, such as units of production of inputs that are themselves managed by directorates of workers directly employed by the units concerned as well as those who are employed by sub-contracting units and so on. These structures should be designed by formulas that associate management personnel with each of these levels, such as research centres for scientific, independent and appropriate technology. We could even conceive of a representation of capital providers (the ‘small shareholders’) inherited from the nationalization, if deemed useful.
We are therefore talking about institutional approaches that are more complex than the forms of ‘self-directed’ or ‘cooperative’ that we have known. Ways of working need to be invented that allow the exercise of genuine democracy in the management of the economy, based on open negotiation among all interested parties. A formula is required that systematically links the democratization of society with social progress, in contrast with the reality of capitalism which dissociates democracy, which is reduced to the formal management of politics, from social conditions abandoned to the ‘market’ dominated by what monopoly capital produces. Then and only then can we talk about true transparency of markets, regulated in institutionalized forms of socialized management.
The example may seem marginal in the developed capitalist countries because farmers there are a very small proportion of workers (3-7 per cent). However, this issue is central to the South where the rural population will remain significant for some time. Here access to land, which must be guaranteed for all (with the least possible inequality of access) is fundamental to principles advancing peasant agriculture (I refer here to my previous work on this question). ‘Peasant agriculture’ should not be understood as synonymous with ‘stagnant agriculture’ (or ‘traditional and folklorique’). The necessary progress of peasant agriculture does require some ‘modernization’ (although this term is a misnomer because it immediately suggests to many modernization through capitalism). More effective inputs, credits, and production and supply chains are necessary to improve the productivity of peasant labour. The formulas proposed here pursue the objective of enabling this modernization in ways and in a spirit that is ‘non-capitalist,’ that is to say grounded in a socialist perspective.
Obviously the specific example chosen here is one that needs to be institutionalized. The nationalization / socialization of the management of monopolies in the sectors of industry and transport, banks and other financial institutions should be imagined in the same spirit, while taking into account the specificities of their economic and social functions in the constitution of their directorates. Again these directorates should involve the workers in the company as well as those of subcontractors, representatives of upstream industries, banks, research institutions, consumers, and citizens.
The nationalization/socialization of monopolies addresses a fundamental need at the central axis of the challenge confronting workers and peoples under contemporary capitalism of generalized monopolies. It is the only way to stop the accumulation by dispossession that is driving the management of the economy by the monopolies.
The accumulation dominated by monopolies can indeed only reproduce itself if the area subject to ‘market management’ is constantly expanding. This is achieved by excessive privatization of public services (dispossession of citizens), and access to natural resources (dispossession of peoples). The extraction of profit of ‘independent’ economic units by the monopolies is even a dispossession (of capitalists!) by the financial oligarchy.
De-Financialization: A World Without Wall Street
Nationalization/socialization of monopolies would in and of itself abolish the principle of ‘shareholder value’ imposed by the strategy of accumulation in the service of monopoly rents. This objective is essential for any bold agenda to escape the ruts in which the management of today's economy is mired. Its implementation pulls the rug out from under the feet of the financialization of management of the economy. Are we returning to the famous ‘euthanasia of the rentier’ advocated by Keynes in his time? Not necessarily, and certainly not completely. Savings can be encouraged by financial reward, but on condition that their origin (household savings of workers, businesses, communities) and their conditions of earnings are precisely defined. The discourse on macroeconomic savings in conventional economic theory hides the organization of exclusive access to the capital market of the monopolies. The so-called ‘market driven remuneration’ is then nothing other than the means to guarantee the growth of monopoly rents.
Of course the nationalization/socialization of monopolies also applies to banks, at least the major ones. But the socialization of their intervention (‘credit policies’) has specific characteristics that require an appropriate design in the constitution of their directorates. Nationalization in the classical sense of the term implies only the substitution of the State for the boards of directors formed by private shareholders. This would permit, in principle, implementation of bank credit policies formulated by the State – which is no small thing. But it is certainly not sufficient when we consider that socialization requires the direct participation in the management of the bank by the relevant social partners. Here the ‘self-management’ of banks by their staff would not be appropriate. The staff concerned should certainly be involved in decisions about their working conditions, but little else, because it is not their place to determine the credit policies to be implemented.
If the directorates must deal with the conflicts of interest of those that provide loans (the banks) and those who receive them (the ‘enterprises’), the formula for the composition of directorates must be designed taking into account what the enterprises are and what they require. A restructuring of the banking system which has become overly centralized since the regulatory frameworks of the past two centuries were abandoned over the past four decades. There is a strong argument to justify the reconstruction of banking specialization according to the requirements of the recipients of their credit as well as their economic function (provision of short-term liquidity, contributing to the financing of investments in the medium and long term). We could then, for example, create an ‘agriculture bank’ (or a coordinated ensemble of agriculture banks) whose clientele is comprised not only of farmers and peasants but also those involved in the ‘upstream and downstream’ of agriculture described above. The bank's directorate would involve on the one hand the ‘bankers’ (staff officers of the bank – who would have been recruited by the directorate) and other clients (farmers or peasants, and other upstream and downstream entities).
We can imagine other sets of articulated banking systems, appropriate to various industrial sectors, in which the directorates would involve the industrial clients, centers of research and technology and services to ensure control of the ecological impact of the industry, thus ensuring minimal risk (while recognizing that no human action is completely without risk), and subject to transparent democratic debate.
The de-financialization of economic management would also require two sets of legislation. The first concerns the authority of a sovereign state to ban speculative fund (hedge funds) operations in its territory. The second concerns pension funds, which are now major operators in the financialization of the economic system. These funds were designed – first in the U.S. of course – to transfer to employees the risks normally incurred by capital, and which are the reasons invoked to justify capital's remuneration! So this is a scandalous arrangement, in clear contradiction even with the ideological defense of capitalism! But this ‘invention’ is an ideal instrument for the strategies of accumulation dominated by monopolies.
The abolition of pension funds is necessary for the benefit of distributive pension systems, which, by their very nature, require and allow democratic debate to determine the amounts and periods of assessment and the relationship between the amounts of pensions and remuneration paid. In a democracy that respects social rights, these pension systems are universally available to all workers. However, at a pinch, and so as not to prohibit what a group of individuals might desire to put in place, supplementary pension funds could be allowed.
All measures of de-financialization suggested here lead to an obvious conclusion: A world without Wall Street, to borrow the title of the book by François Morin, is possible and desirable.
In a world without Wall Street, the economy is still largely controlled by the ‘market.’ But these markets are for the first time truly transparent, regulated by democratic negotiation among genuine social partners (for the first time also they are no longer adversaries as they are necessarily under capitalism). It is the financial ‘market’ – opaque by nature and subjected to the requirements of management for the benefit of the monopolies – that is abolished. We could even explore whether it would be useful or not to shut down the stock exchanges, given that the rights to property, both in its private as well as social form, would be conducted ‘differently.’ We could even consider whether the stock exchange could be re-established to this new end. The symbol in any case – ‘a world without Wall Street’ – nevertheless retains its power.
De-financialization certainly does not mean the abolition of macroeconomic policy and in particular the macro management of credit. On the contrary it restores its efficiency by freeing it from its subjugation to the strategies of rent-seeking monopolies. The restoration of the powers of national central banks, no longer ‘independent’ but dependent on both the state and markets regulated by the democratic negotiation of social partners, gives the formulation of macro credit policy its effectiveness in the service of socialized management of the economy.
At the International Level: Delinking
I use here the term ‘delinking’ that I proposed half a century ago, a term that contemporary discourse appears to have substituted with the synonym ‘de-globalization.’ I have never conceptualized delinking as an autarkic retreat, but rather as a strategic reversal in the face of both internal and external forces in response to the unavoidable requirements of self-determined development. Delinking promotes the reconstruction of a globalization based on negotiation, rather than submission to the exclusive interests of the imperialist monopolies. It also makes possible the reduction of international inequalities.
Delinking is necessary because the measures advocated in the two previous sections can never really be implemented at the global scale, or even at a regional level (e.g. Europe). They can only be initiated in the context of states / nations with advanced radical social and political struggles, committed to a process of socialization of the management of their economy.
Imperialism, in the form that it took until just after the Second World War, had created the contrast between industrialised imperialist centers and dominated peripheries where industry was prohibited. The victories of national liberation movements began the process of the industrialization of the peripheries, through the implementation of delinking policies required for the option of self-reliant development. Associated with social reforms that were at times radical, these delinkings created the conditions for the eventual ‘emergence’ of those countries that had gone furthest in this direction – China leading the pack, of course.
But the imperialism of the current era, the imperialism of the Triad, forced to retreat and ‘adjust’ itself to the conditions of this new era, rebuilt itself on new foundations, based on ‘advantage’ by which it sought to hold on to the privilege of exclusivity that I have classified in five categories. The control of:
* technology
* access to natural resources of the planet
* global integration of the monetary and financial system
* systems of communication and information
* weapons of mass destruction.
The main form of delinking today is thus defined precisely by the challenge to these five privileges of contemporary imperialism. Emerging countries are engaged in delinking from these five privileges, with varying degrees of control and self-determination, of course. While earlier success over the past two decades in delinking enabled them to accelerate their development, in particular through industrial development within the globalized ‘liberal’ system using ‘capitalist’ means, this success has fueled delusions about the possibility of continuing on this path, that is to say, emerging as new ‘equal capitalist partners.’ The attempt to ‘co-opt’ the most prestigious of these countries with the creation of the G20 has encouraged these illusions.
But with the current ongoing implosion of the imperialist system (called ‘globalization’), these illusions are likely to dissipate. The conflict between the imperialist powers of the triad and emerging countries is already visible, and is expected to worsen. If they want to move forward, the societies of emerging countries will be forced to turn more toward self-reliant modes of development through national plans and by strengthening South-South cooperation.
Audacity, under such circumstances, involves engaging vigorously and coherently toward this end, bringing together the required measures of delinking with the desired advances in social progress.
The goal of this radicalization is threefold: the democratization of society; the consequent social progress achieved; and the taking of anti-imperialist positions. A commitment to this direction is possible, not only for societies in emerging countries, but also in the ‘abandoned’ or the ‘written-off’ of the global South. These countries had been effectively recolonized through the structural adjustment programs of the 1980s. Their peoples are now in open revolt, whether they have already scored victories (South America) or not (in the Arab world).
Audacity here means that the radical left in these societies must have the courage to take measure of the challenges they face and to support the continuation and radicalization of the necessary struggles that are in progress.
The delinking of the South prepares the way for the deconstruction of the imperialist system itself. This is particularly apparent in areas affected by the management of the global monetary and financial system, since it is the result of the hegemony of the dollar.
But beware: it is an illusion to expect to substitute for this system ‘another world monetary and financial system’ that is better balanced and favorable to the development of the peripheries. As always, the search of a ‘consensus’ over international reconstruction from above is mere wishful thinking akin to waiting for a miracle. What is on the agenda now is the deconstruction of the existing system - its implosion - and reconstruction of national alternative systems (for countries or continents or regions), as some projects in South America have already begun. Audacity here is to have the courage to move forward with the strongest determination possible, without too much worry about the reaction of imperialism.
This same problematique of delinking / dismantling is also of relevance to Europe, which is a subset of globalization dominated by monopolies. The European project was designed from the outset and built systematically to dispossess its peoples of their ability to exercise their democratic power. The European Union was established as a protectorate of the monopolies. With the implosion of the euro zone, its submission to the will of the monopolies has resulted in the abolishment of democracy which has been reduced to the status of farce and takes on extreme forms, namely focused only on the question: how are the ‘market’ (that is to say monopolies) and the ‘Rating Agencies’ (that is to say, again, the monopolies) reacting? That's the only question now posed. How the people might react is no longer given the slightest consideration.
It is thus obvious that here too there is no alternative to audacity: ‘disobeying’ the rules imposed by the "European Constitution" and the imaginary central bank of the euro. In other words, there is no alternative to deconstruct the institutions of Europe and the euro zone. This is the unavoidable prerequisite for the eventual reconstruction of ‘another Europe’ of peoples and nations.
In conclusion: Audacity, more audacity, always audacity.
What I mean by audacity is therefore:
1. For the radical left in the societies of the imperialist triad, the need for an engagement in the building of an alternative anti-monopoly social bloc.
2. For the radical left in the societies of the peripheries to engage in the building of an alternative anti-comprador social bloc.
It will take time to make progress in building these blocs, but it could well accelerate if the radical left takes on movement with determination and engages in making progress on the long road of socialism. It is therefore necessary to propose strategies not ‘out of the crisis of capitalism,’ but ‘out of capitalism in crisis’ to borrow from the title of one of my recent works.
We are in a crucial period in history. The only legitimacy of capitalism is to have created the conditions for passing on to socialism, understood as a higher stage of civilization. Capitalism is now an obsolete system, its continuation leading only to barbarism. No other capitalism is possible. The outcome of a clash of civilizations is, as always, uncertain. Either the radical left will succeed through the audacity of its initiatives to make revolutionary advances, or the counter-revolution will win. There is no effective compromise between these two responses to the challenge.
All the strategies of the non-radical left are in fact non-strategies, they are merely day-to-day adjustments to the vicissitudes of the imploding system. And if the powers that be want, like le Guépard, to ‘change everything so that nothing changes,’ the candidates of the left believe it is possible to ‘change life without touching the power of monopolies’! The non-radical left will not stop the triumph of capitalist barbarism. They have already lost the battle for lack of wanting to take it on.
Audacity is what is necessary to bring about the autumn of capitalism that will be announced by the implosion of its system and by the birth of an authentic spring of the people, a spring that is possible. •
Samir Amin is director of the Third World Forum. A selection of his books is available from Pambazuka Press.
Samir Amin is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Samir Amin
Labels: CAPITALISM, COMMUNISM, NEOCOLONIALISM
Read more...
Tracing history of capitalist deceit
A Fine Madness; By Mashingaidze Gomo, With a Preface By Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Oxfordshire, Ayebia Clarke Publishing Limited, 2010. 174 Pages
ISBN: 978-0-9562401-4-9 (Paperback)
MASHINGAIDZE Gomo’s
A Fine Madness is a book with a difference. It is a book whose value is found on every page from cover to cover. It is a book that you do not want to put down once you start reading.
However, the reader has to be fully conversant with
the history of the Democratic Republic of Congo soon after independence from Belgium in 1960.
The name of Patrice Lumumba automatically comes to mind. That nationalist who became the first elected Prime Minister of the Republic of Congo in June 1960. His government did not last more than 10 weeks as it was deposed in a coup that enjoyed the support of the former colonial power as well as the United States.
Herein lies the continued desire by the US to have a grip and influence on the vast central African country.
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who wrote the preface to the 35-part book, gives an apt comment on how difficult it is to ignore Congolese history.
He notes: "A Fine Madness is really a collage of verse and prose narrative, memories, images, thoughts and characters against the background of the 1988 Congo war following the death of the Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and the Senior Kabila coming to power.
"Kabila, a Lumumbaist was a long time foe of the Mobutu dictatorship." (p1)
Kabila himself is challenged by rebels with the backing of the West, which is suspicious of Kabila’s links with Lumumba and his leanings towards Marxism and Maoism. In a way, it is things that happened years back that determine the contemporary politics of the Great Lakes region in general and the DRC in particular.
Ngugi continues; "The poet-narrator would seem part of the Zimbabwean forces operating from and around Boende, in the Congo.
From the air and on the ground he is able to observe and contemplate the chaos in the Congo, which in his eyes also becomes the story of an Africa that has seen so much blood and tragedy." (p1) What is sickening about all this is the fact that these conflicts are not authored in Africa but have their roots in the corridors of power in Western capitals.
Memory Chirere, an academic with the University of Zimbabwe says of the book: " A Fine Madness is charmed, mad and maddening prose poetry in which an armed man snoops into Africa’s history of deprivation and strife to do the painful arithmetic.
Meanwhile, the Congo civil war rages on like a monstrous fire, eating and allowing brother and sister to get eaten by the syphilis of the West’s relentless desire to plunder . . . But . . . Africa is a stubborn hope."
The author therefore seems to be able to identify the general African problem, which the continent has been trying to shake off. Africa goes through a long period of slavery, is forced to leap into the pit of colonial subjugation and lands in continued capitalist domination in the post-colonial nation.
He writes: "And they talked about legendary white explorers who discovered an Africa that was dark and chaotic and inhabited by savage black people who needed the light of Western civilisation, democracy and Christianity/ And we read about famous white men of the cloth who facilitated dispossession and forced labour of poor African people" (p39)
The title that Gomo chooses for his book is in itself reflective of his concerns. There is an element of paradox in A Fine Madness. How can madness be fine? The author uses his first hand experience in the DRC conflict to explore the themes of horror, loneliness of war, the beauty of resistance, peace among others. Resistance, in the writer’s opinion, brings peace. He alludes to the resistance that Nehanda and her contemporaries put up against British occupation during the last decade of the 19th century.
A Fine Madness is unique in terms of style. The poet in Gomo can not be hidden and true, just as things happen spontaneously in real life, so is Gomo’s style of capturing human experiences.
The writer himself says of his style; "This is some form of artistic rebellion. There is no form book in telling of our experiences. You do it in the way you feel and hence you can not follow prescriptions.
One of the major concerns of the writer is to show the world that soldiers are also human. They have feelings and can cry.
They can also love like any other human being. This explains the presence of Tinyarei in the book, a woman to which the poet-narrator is so much attracted. Gomo wishes women do not sell their beauty to propagate European commerce. "They have accused Tinyarei of sitting on money and insisted that she should invest herself in European fashion magazines.
They have insisted to me that Tinyarei should be walking the streets of London and Paris, signing contracts that shackle her to European . . ." (pp4-5) The perception that soldiers don’t think and are tools of dictators is also demystified in A Fine Madness.
"And today’s African soldier is a man who has studied the concepts for which he fights/ and he knows Zimbabwe’s history has to be told by the spirits of the First Chimurenga who know that lessons of intolerance can be learnt from invading . . . has to be told by the descendants of the beheaded who know that no lessons on human rights and tolerance can be taken from a European community whose collective conscience is so hostile . . . " (p41)
The writer transports himself in memory from Boende in the DRC back home on several occasions. The actual geographical locations mentioned in the book, Bokungu, Goma, Manono, Mbandaka, Kinshasa, Kabalo among others, together with the names of fighter aircraft, the Alhouette III, Casa, M135 gunship all help render the narrative unparalleled authenticity.
The writer is talking about war. He brings the experiences close so the reader sees for himself that war is not good. It does not only affect the soldiers who are at the battlefront but families down the line.
The happenings around Club Fulangenge bear testimony to this. "And there were more such children around . . . some seated, some dancing around, watching their mother catching men . . . their bottoms being pinched and slapped randomly by armed men" (p31) Among the other consequences of war are the destruction of infrastructure as power and water supplies are cut plunging people into darkness and disease.
Related consequences down the line should also be highlighted. As mostly men troop to the battlefront, women and children are left at the mercy of invader forces. These are real issues like has been happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Gomo rightly identifies poverty as one of the major problems facing the continent of Africa. "Poverty wears the moral fabric of a society to a threadbare see-through clock through which the attractive valuables of a nation are spied on and made liable to exploitation . . . Poverty creates pimps and prostitutes/ Poverty sustains slavery/ Poverty erodes self-confidence to create a complex of inferiority and inadequacy and a sense of hopelessness" (p32).
Central in a Fine Madness is the role Western capital plays in fomenting conflicts in African countries. The DRC is not unique in this.
Renamo, the Mozambique rebel movement, enjoyed the support of apartheid South Africa, Savimbi’s Unita actually maintained chaos in Angola so that US planes could continue to fly in and plunder that country’s resources especially diamonds. Gomo writes: "armoured cars, helicopters, armed men, commandos, paratroopers and hired guns crawling into gigantic aircrafts to be airlifted to the borders of human dignity/ to the place of the skull/ To the weeping place? To prop up and hold an African civilisation together, where it was coming apart, dismantled by the insolent champions of Western civilisation . . . What was at stake was a birthright/ An African birthright!" (p17).
For Gomo, resistance breeds hope. The early resistance against colonial rule lost against imperial might. However, it is the battle that was lost but the war raged on as in later years nationalists were to draw on Nehanda’s inspiration to continue with the fight. "He talked about how most of the early fighters had been captured and executed but kept on coming, until the myopic Rhodesians had so much on their hands that they lost all initiative. (p25)
Mashingaidze Gomo was born in 1964 in colonial Rhodesia. He lived through the euphoria of independence and joined the Air Force of Zimbabwe in 1984 as an aircraft engines technician, joining 7 Squadron as an Alouette helicopter technician and gunner which saw him involved in Zimbabwean campaigns to prop up the Frelimo government in Mozambique, as well as the DRC conflict in 1998.
He completed a BA in English and Communication Studies with the Zimbabwe Open University and after retiring from AFZ, he pursued a degree in Fine Arts with the Chinhoyi University of Technology.
This is evidence that Gomo is an artist at heart. The publication of A Fine Madness, he says marks the beginning of a long road as an artist.
This book is a must-read for those who seek to correct the misconceptions peddled by Western media on the various conflicts on the continent in general and the DRC in particular.
edmore.zvinonzwa *** zimpapers.co.zw
Labels: BOOK, CAPITALISM, COLONIALISM, DRC, NEOCOLONIALISM, ZIMBABWE
Read more...
Davos 2010: Sarkozy calls for revamp of capitalism
By BBC NEWS
Thu 28 Jan. 2010, 10:20 CAT
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called for a fundamental rethink of capitalism in the aftermath of the financial crisis. "We need deep profound change," he said in his keynote speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
His comments came as bankers and regulators clashed over proposals to break up banks that threaten the whole financial system. President Sarkozy said he wished to restore a "moral dimension" to free trade.
"Were we not to change, we would be showing tremendous irresponsibility," he told the bankers and politicians that gather annually in the Swiss alpine resort.
Bank reforms
France has supported forcing banks to hold more capital and curbing bonus payments in global negotiations over the past year on how to reform the system to prevent future crises.
US President Barack Obama has proposed curbing the size of banks, preventing key financial institutions from owning hedge funds and barring them from proprietary trading - investing to make a profit for themselves rather than on behalf of customers.
Bankers in Davos were less than pleased with the ideas.
Earlier on Wednesday, Barclays boss Bob Diamond said he had "seen no evidence ... to suggest that shrinking banks and making banks smaller and narrower is the answer."
Other bankers, like Jacob Frenkel of JPMorgan Chase, have said they were worried about "bad regulation".
'Moral dimension'
President Sarkozy told the delegation - to scattered applause - that governments and companies in the world economy could not pretend it was business as usual.
"We are not asking ourselves what we will replace capitalism with, but what kind of capitalism we want?" he said.
"We must re-engineer capitalism to restore its moral dimension, its conscience," he said. "By placing free trade above all else, what we have is a weakening of democracy.
While saying that those who ran companies that made money deserved to be compensated well, President Sarkozy hit out at huge bank bonuses that have caused public outcry in the US and UK.
"There are remuneration packages that will no longer be tolerated because they bear no relation to merit," he said.
Earlier in Davos, legendary investor George Soros backed President Obama's proposed reforms to limit the size of banks and told journalists that Wall Street bankers who opposed the plans were "tone-deaf".
Labels: CAPITALISM, DAVOS, NEOLIBERALISM, SARKOZY
Read more...
Laissez-Faire Capitalism Should Be as Dead as Soviet Communism
Arianna Huffington
Posted December 22, 2008 | 02:47 PM
The collapse of Communism as a political system sounded the death knell for Marxism as an ideology. But while laissez-faire capitalism has been a monumental failure in practice, and soundly defeated at the polls, the ideology is still alive and kicking.
The only place you can find an American Marxist these days is teaching a college linguistic theory class. But you can find all manner of free market fundamentalists still on the Senate floor or in Governor's mansions or showing up on TV trying to peddle the deregulation snake oil.
Take Sen. John Ensign, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who went on Face the Nation and, with a straight face, said of the economic meltdown: "Unfortunately, it was allowed to be portrayed that this was a result of deregulation, when in fact it was a result of overregulation."
Or Gov. Mark Sanford, who told Joe Scarborough he was against bailing out the auto industry because it would "threaten the very market-based system that has created the wealth that this country has enjoyed."
If a politician announced he was running on a platform of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" he would be laughed off the stage. That is also the correct response to anyone who continues to make the case that markets do best when left alone.
It's time to drive the final nail into the coffin of laissez-faire capitalism by treating it like the discredited ideology it inarguably is. If not, the Dr. Frankensteins of the right will surely try to revive the monster and send it marauding through our economy once again.
We've only just begun to bury the financially dead, and the free market fundamentalists are already looking to deflect the blame.
In a comprehensive piece on what led to the mortgage crisis and the subsequent financial meltdown, the New York Times shows how the Bush administration's devotion to unregulated markets was a primary cause of our economy to ruin. But the otherwise fascinating piece puts too much focus on the "mistakes" the Bush team made by not paying attention to the warning signs popping up all around them.
"There is no question we did not recognize the severity of the problems," claimed Al Hubbard, Bush's former chief economic adviser. "Had we, we would have attacked them."
But the mistake wasn't in not recognizing the "severity of the problems" -- the mistake was the ideology that led to the problems. Communism didn't fail because Soviet leaders didn't execute it well enough. Same with free market fundamentalism. In fact, Bush and his team did a bang-up job executing a defective theory. The problem wasn't just the bathwater; the baby itself is rotten to the core.
William Seidman, the longtime GOP economic advisor who oversaw the S&L bailout in 1991, cuts to the chase: "This administration made decisions that allowed the free market to operate as a barroom brawl instead of a prize fight. To make the market work well, you have to have a lot of rules."
Even Alan Greenspan, whose owl-eyed visage would adorn a Mount Rushmore of unregulated capitalists, has begun to see the light, telling a House committee in October that he "made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."
But most Republicans are still refusing to see what's right in front of them. Especially Bush, our CEO president, who lays the blame not on the failures of the marketplace but on past administrations and corporate greed. "Wall Street got drunk," he says. Maybe so, but who made the last 8 years Happy Hour, and kept serving up the drinks?
Last week, Ben Smith reported that the GOP was launching "a new, in-house think tank aimed at reviving the party's policy heft." In a private memo explaining the think tank, RNC chairman Mike Duncan wrote: "We must show how our ideology can be applied to solve problems." But, of course, it's that very ideology that's causing the problems. It's like the old horror movie cliché: "We've traced the call -- it's coming from inside the house!"
We've got to do everything we can to make sure there will be no sequels to this political horror. The blame shifters cannot be allowed to make their case without the truth being pointed out at every turn. It's time to relegate free market fundamentalists to the same standing as Marxist ideologues: intellectual curiosities occasionally trotted out as relics of a failed philosophy.
Labels: ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, CAPITALISM, NEOLIBERALISM
Read more...
Chavez condemns capitalism
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Monday May 19, 2008 [04:00]
CAPITALISM is a huge machine that creates misery, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said. And leaders of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean have noted the need to implement ambitious and timely policies to tackle poverty, global warming and high food prices.
The declaration of the 5th EU-Latin America and the Caribbean (VEU-LAC) called for upholding of sovereign equality of all states, respect of territorial integrity and political independence, refraining in international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter.
President Chavez, while in Lima, Peru last Friday, said it was hard to struggle against poverty and hunger through capitalism because neo-liberalism was like a tide that everyday produced misery and poverty.
“We have a formula to struggle against poverty, that is socialism,” he said. “We do not aspire that all the people follow the socialist proposal. However, it is necessary to make a huge effort to avoid the misfortunes caused by capitalism.”
President Chavez also said there was a lot of inequality in the world.
He said it was absurd that a few 100 families in the world had capital that was higher than that of two billion people on earth.
“What they do with all that money while millions of people have not even a cent to afford a piece of bread in several places of the world nobody knows,” said President Chavez, according to the Venezuelan news agency ABN.
And leaders of the VEU-LAC reaffirmed the decision to uphold resolution of disputes by peaceful means and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law.
“We firmly reject all coercive measures of unilateral character with extra-territorial effect that are contrary to international law and the commonly accepted rules of free trade,” the leaders stated. “We agree that this type of practice poses a serious threat to multilateralism. We reaffirm our well-known positions on the application of the extra-territorial provisions of the Helms-Burton Act.” The US uses the Helms-Burton Act in its perpetuation of economic and financial sanctions against Cuba.
The summit agreed to cooperate, in the framework of international law, on matters of security inter alia, illicit drugs and weapons trafficking, organised crime and terrorism, including hostage taking.
The leaders reiterated their commitment to policies for the eradication of hunger and the fight against poverty.
According to the Lima Declaration, the leaders from 66 countries were convinced that in the medium to longer-term, a lasting answer to the current crisis required coordinated actions from the international community with a view to strengthening agricultural capacities and rural development in order to meet a growing demand.
The summit that closed on Saturday agreed that trade was an engine for growth, sustainable development and poverty reduction.
Labels: CAPITALISM, CHAVEZ
Read more...
