Paul Phillips wrote:
I would argue, as suggested below, that capitalism is not historically viable in the long run because it is dependent on growth. Here, I will quote Herman Daly at some length.
[...]
Sustainable development must be development without growth -- but with population control and wealth redistribution -- if it is to be a serious attack on poverty. Before ... sustainable development can get a fair hearing, we must first take the conceptual and political step of abandoning the thought-stopping slogan of sustainable growth."
[...]
My point to Julio, if capitalism is dependent on growth and is therefore unviable, where is its efficiency even in your terms (which I do not accept)?
I guess Paul is right. His way of looking at the historical viability of capitalism, growth, and efficiency is completely at odds with mine. I will answer telegraphically and let the chips fall where they may. The historical viability of a social structure (e.g. a set of relations of production) cannot be determined against some universal, given once and for all, absolute parameter. Historical viability is, well, historical. It evolves. A social structure that is viable under certain conditions, may not be viable under different conditions. Ultimately, the historical viability of a social structure resolves itself politically. Ultimately, it's people in historical contexts who determine with their actions whether a given social structure is viable or not. Re. growth: I don't think it is adequate to frame the struggle against capitalism as "anti-growth." I can argue this, at least, on two grounds. One, as propaganda, it sucks. Most of the direct producers in the world live in poor countries. And, for obvious reasons, the idea of limiting or reducing their consumption standards is not a very appealing vision of the future. It is no accident that the environmental movement is marginal in most poor countries. (Using anti-growth speech in addressing the masses of toilers in most parts of the world is tantamount to Bill Richardson addressing young black students at Howard University telling them that the way to deal with AIDS is "needles and condoms!" and "penetrating" the community with better outreach programs. "Needless? Penetrating who? Ouch! No, thanks. Hillary, Obama, or even Kucinich sound more reassuring.") Two, the "anti-growth" discourse doesn't amount to a serious critique of capitalism. It superficially criticizes capitalism, its outward symptoms. As far as I know, the diagnosis and prognosis are somewhat arbitrary and incoherent. Finally, this "anti-growth" discourse doesn't even touch the main form of ideological rationalization propping up capitalism and TINA -- i.e. economic theory! I'll say a word about the latter, since this is PEN-L. In economic theory, growth is the expansion of *wealth* (goods) over time. And wealth is not necessarily tangible or "material" stuff. Wealth is whatever, in the context, produces wellbeing. Therefore, growth according to this view is *entirely compatible* with an economy where people limit their demographic growth and produce less rather than more "material" stuff. Capital accumulation, as per the basic tenets of economic theory, is not inconsistent with environmental sustainability. The tenets of the standard economic theory of capitalism are not touched by this critique. The kind of critique that *demolishes* the pillars of economic theory and evaporates the TINA aura of capitalism states that the limit to capitalism, is not inherent to production in general, but to specific capitalist production. That the inherent limit of capitalism is the capital relation itself. That the limits that make capitalism historically not viable coincide with the very nature of the capital relation, with its essential character, i.e. the limit on surplus labor time imposed by the surplus value form, the limit on labor imposed by the wage form (its subordination to dead labor), the limit on human wealth imposed by the value form. Struggling against capitalism (and its ideological cover) under the notion that the ultimate limit of capital is not the environment, the population, or technology, but *the capital relation* itself, is not being pro-growth of stuff, it's being pro-growth of overall, universal human wellbeing. It's being in favor of the development of people as human beings. And it's the growth of people as human beings that capitalism cannot ensure and, in fact, precludes. This doesn't mean that the environment doesn't matter or that we should be passive as the rulers manage it irresponsibly. It doesn't promise the masses a socialist economy that bites bigger and bigger chunks of the planet only to vomit more and more mindless stuff. It is, in fact, a struggle in which the focus is on the development of the direct producers as makers of their history through their solidarity, collective unity, and struggle against capital (and oppression) in all forms. As Michael Lebowitz notes in the last chapters of his Beyond Capital, the class struggle conceived this way includes many of the fragmented fights we observe today that, ordinarily, people don't view as "class struggles." This view helps those fragmented struggles cohere. I don't see how one can envision the highly developed, conscious, educated global productive force that will emerge out of these struggles and revolutions as myopic in its interaction with nature. (Favor: If you buy Michael's book as a result of reading this, please let him know so that he can honor a commission deal he has with me.) Re. efficiency: I already explained my views.
