Visions of a new world (I): But what's wrong with capitalism?

Note: Please first read this short piece on exercising non-binary thinking.

It is abundantly clear by now, to many of us, that capitalism creates massive inequality and doesn't work to ensure that the broadest possible amount of people have their basic needs met.

In the US, for example - the richest country in the world, currently a late-stage neoliberal capitalist society – we have billionaires. People with millions of millions! People with so much more than they need, we can't even wrap our brains around it.

And we have millions of people living on the streets. 

Millions of people without access to health care, many of whom suffer greatly and actually die for economic reasons, because they can't afford medical care and/or healthy living conditions. 

Entire cities permanently without unpolluted water to drink. 

There are hungry people. In the richest country in the world.

This system never worked to meet the needs of the vast majority.

This is why so many of us are screaming from the rooftops that it is time for this system to die.

But I realize it's easy for me to name neoliberal capitalism as the problem and staunchly claim that it must be displaced as the world's governing paradigm because, for the last two decades, I've been in the world of progressive/leftist organizations, many of which spend extensive brain power deeply engaging in and analyzing both political/economic theory and real-world evidence. I've had the privilege of translating and being fortuitously educated by many brilliant works of anti-capitalist critique over the years.

I'm late to recognize that most people haven't had this privilege.

So before I keep writing about 'necessary change' and the need for us to imagine something that doesn't exist yet, I want to offer some resources for those who want to have more in-depth grounding in why so many of us claim capitalism “doesn't work” -- including how it was built upon land theft and slavery, how to this day it continues to be dependent on unpaid domestic and care-giving labor, and how unsustainable and destructive a system it actually is.

Most importantly, though: we need to take a long, scrutinizing look at capitalism's underlying values – and those of any other system, existing or not, that we might look to replace it with.

Capitalism values individualism, materialism/consumerism, hierarchy, competition, efficiency, exploitation, and profit/capital above all else.

Two points to consider here:

1. Capitalist values are in direct conflict with: caring for the well-being of others on the personal, societal, and global level; equality; cooperation and collaboration; family and community; interdependence; protecting the vulnerable; quality over quantity; love and joy and (non-commercial) creativity as vital to human prosperity.
   Why have we bought into the belief that we can't have a society built upon these values, instead of treating them as secondary, or worse, an idealistic fantasy?
   
   
2. Humans come in many different kinds! Our diversity is the strength of our species – truly.
   Let's take personality types. Capitalism rewards only one kind of person: the kind with ingenuity, shrewdness, competitiveness, big ambition (let alone, the capacity to disengage from emotional needs -- their own and others'). Let's pretend for a second that it isn't only those born without economic/class privilege that have to stand out in this way.
   
   Do we truly believe that people whose bodies or minds are not designed for high productivity – or who feel fulfilled as caretakers, or artists whose work is inherently inefficient, or those not interested in leading, perhaps more adept for academic or manual or physical labor, or those who prefer simpler lives – don't deserve to have a home, food, healthcare, and leisure time?

If you were to write out your true personal values – how well would they match up with neoliberal capitalist values?

A few resources to start with (please go find more / this might get updated)

- A very basic primer: "Problems of capitalism"

- This short article from The Guardian.

“Exploitation is not a bug in capitalism, it is a feature.”

-An easy-to-read critique from an environmental, contemporary perspective:
“ScientistsWarn the UN of Capitalism's Imminent Demise”, by Nafeez Ahmed (2018).

- A brief discussion of why "Colonialism is Inseparable from Capitalism" (L'Humanité)

- "In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation," Matthew Desmond, New York Times Magazine:

"Those searching for reasons the American economy is uniquely severe and unbridled have found answers in many places (religion, politics, culture). But recently, historians have pointed persuasively to the gnatty fields of Georgia and Alabama, to the cotton houses and slave auction blocks, as the birthplace of America’s low-road approach to capitalism."

- "How Slavery Became America's First Big Business," a conversation with historian Edward E. Baptist.

- Even Forbes has published about "The Clear Connection Between Slavery and American Capitalism."

- This whole chapter by Cynthia Kaufman, “Capitalism and Class,” from Ideas for Action: Relevant Theory for Radical Change.(Thanks MJ for pointing me to this.)

- This dense but excellent chapter of feminist theory by Marianella Dalla Costa, an Italian feminist who wrote this in the 70s.

“It is often asserted that, within the definition of wage labour, women in domestic labour are not productive. In fact precisely the opposite is true if one thinks of the enormous quantity of social services which capitalist organization transforms into privatized activity, putting them on the backs of housewives. Domestic labour is not essentially “feminine work”; a woman doesn’t fulfill herself more or get less exhausted than a man from washing and cleaning. These are social services inasmuch as they serve the reproduction of labour power. And capital, precisely by instituting its family structure, has “liberated” the man from these functions so that he is completely “free” for direct exploitation; so that he is free to “earn” enough for a woman to reproduce him as labour power.* It has made men wage slaves, then, to the degree that it has succeeded in allocating these services to women in the family, and by the same process controlled the flow of women onto the labour market. In Italy women are still necessary in the home and capital still needs this form of the family. At the present level of development in Europe generally, in Italy in particular, capital still prefers to import its labour powerin the form of millions of men from underdeveloped areaswhile at the same time consigning women to the home.”