Carrol Cox wrote: > What if 19th-century capitalisdm in respect to the conditions of the > workers was _really_ the norm; that everything since WW 1 has been an > aberration, and what is happening over the last 4 decades is a gradual > decontitioning of workers from the fantasies of the 1950s/60s. Make them > used to bare subsistence in an uncertain world, and back it up with > repression, and capitalism goes merrily on its way.
I doubt that anyone in the power elite has been consciously pushing for the return of 19th century capitalism. Rather, the new Gilded Age -- and its replaying of the Panic of 1907 tape at high speed -- was the result of individual capitalist greed, orchestrated politically and backed ideologically by neoliberal economics. This organized avarice built on its success: for example, having severely undermined organized labor in the 1980s, the capitalists used their enhanced political powers -- and political parties -- to widen and deepen the implementation of their programs. Up until 2008 or so, it seemed to be working (at least for the greed-heads), with GDP and similar measures rising -- and more importantly to them, rising incomes and wealth for the economic elite. Since nothing succeeds like success, they want more. They even have a political movement -- the Teabaggers -- calling for more of the same even if it goes against their petty-bourgeois dreams. The problem is that this utopia (which is to my mind more of a dystopia) is that it really doesn't serve capital's collective and long-term interests well. Capital was more stable and profitable in the 1960s. Social democracy and (in the US) the warfare-welfare state is good for capital, even if individual wealth-accumulators don't think so. If the current surge of neoliberalism continues (and continues to push the Obamen away from dabbling with Keynesianism and New Deal ideas), we should expect another 2008 crisis -- though of course it will appear in a new, different, and unexpected form. On top of that, global warming and other dimensions of ecological disaster loom. The long-lost Golden Age of social democracy (self-styled socialists managing capitalism better than capitalists do) and the warfare-welfare state was the creation of (1) mass working-class struggle from below; (2) the destruction of some of the Right because of their association with Hitler; and (3) capitalism's political and military competition with the old USSR and the resulting wars. It's hard to see what forces will replace these in the future, though if they come they'll be in a new, different, and unexpected form. In their absence, it indeed looks like we're in for a return to a post-modern version of the 19th century, with the masses of the people being forced to pay the bill of global warming, etc. Even though that path is in many ways against the collective and long-term interests of the capitalist class. It's true, as Gene says, that the 19th century redux can only happen if people go along. That says (surprise, surprise!) that it's going to be a struggle... With luck, it will have a left-wing element rather than totally being a matter of scape-goating immigrant workers, "culture wars," and the like. One thing must be noted: any new social democracy will have to be global (or involve radical deglobalization). The old social democracy existed in a system of competing nation-states (chained at the wrist to their local capitalist classes), while today it seems that competition is much more between units of capital. Capital flight to low-wage and low-regulation areas was minimal in the days of yore, while now it's the new normal and has been for quite a long time. -- Jim Devine "All science would be superfluous if the form of appearance of things directly coincided with their essence." -- KM _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
