False Holism

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

During the 1970s, the bourgeois propaganda that there existed 
"capital shortage" prepared the ideological ground for neoliberalism. 
According to the editors of _Monthly Review_, "Capital Shortage: Fact 
and Fancy," _Monthly Review_ 27.11 (April 1976), in the fall of 1974, 
the New York Stock Exchange issued a report that purportedly 
demonstrated that "while $4.7 trillion of capital will probably be 
needed during the coming decade, the expected supply of funds for 
investment from savings of business firms and individuals would 
amount to only $4.05 trillion, leaving an estimated capital gap of 
$650 billion" ("Capital Shortage: Fact and Fancy," p. 1).  Similar 
forecasts were published by academics, business journalists, 
corporate researchers, etc.  The conclusion that the propagandists of 
"capital shortage" were angling for was to curb wages & social 
programs for workers while reducing taxes for investors & 
corporations, allegedly to promote greater incentives for private 
savings and investment, thus closing the presumed gap.

In reality, capitalism doesn't exist for the purpose of meeting human 
needs; it exists merely for the purpose of M-C-M', in the process 
incidentally meeting some human needs while excluding others. 
Therefore, an exercise -- even an environmentalist exercise, not to 
mention bourgeois propaganda exercise -- of deriving "investment 
needs" from estimated future needs of "society" is *spurious under 
capitalism*, since "society" is -- pace environmentalists & bourgeois 
ideologues -- *not* a non-contradictory whole.  Capitalists make 
investments when they see opportunities for making profits; they 
don't when they don't -- needs of "society" be damned.

*****   The question, then, is how can corporate profits be 
increased.  One way of course is to increase sales with profit rates 
remaining stable.  But in a period like the present [the 70s] when 
sales decline or are sluggish on the upside, only higher profit 
_rates_ can be relied on.  To the capitalist class this can only mean 
a mix of the following: holding down workers' wages, still more 
intense exploitation of labor at the workplace, reduction of 
corporation taxes, direct or indirect government subsidies, and a 
free rein to raise prices.

The open avowal of such goals by capitalists and their spokespeople 
would, however, be impolitic and counterproductive, so what they do 
[consciously or unconsciously] is seek to generate a more receptive 
atmosphere among the masses of workers and consumers, stressing their 
supposed solicitude for social needs.  There isn't enough capital, 
they clamor, to get all the energy we need, to clean our air and 
water, and to raise labor productivity so that more can be sold at 
home and abroad, and hence more jobs can be created.  They say 
"capital shortage," but what they mean is "profit shortage" and/or 
insufficient government subsidies to underwrite risky investments and 
to pay for pollution control.  At the same time, to the extent that 
they convince people that there is indeed a capital shortage, this 
becomes an argument to reduce expenditures on public housing, health, 
and other urgent mass needs.  After all, since more capital is 
supposed to be required and since there are limits to the supply, 
there must be a contraction somewhere in the economy....

("Capital Shortage: Fact and Fancy," pp. 16-7)   *****

For environmentalists to buy into the idea of "capital shortage" is 
essentially to fall for the false idea that working-class incomes 
(wages + social programs) must be curbed for "the good of society" 
(in reality only a euphemism for the good of the bourgeoisie).  One 
of the chief ways in which ideology works is to pass off a particular 
interest (most often the interest of the bourgeoisie under 
capitalism) as if it were a universal interest.  In its promotion of 
asceticism, environmentalist holism can serve to give a green cover 
for the ideological sleight of hand that makes a particular interest 
appear a universal interest.  Socialists who have environmental 
concerns do well to avoid this trap of false holism.

Yoshie