Thursday, January 08, 2009
Rick Wolff on the Economic Crisis
'You can't have real political democracy without economic democracy underpinning it'.
Rick Wolff is a US socialist economist. He's also a passionate and pretty funny speaker. He waves his arms around, he has a winningly dry sense of humour and, best of all, he speaks with a heavy Noo Yawk accent like the wise guys in 'Goodfellas'. Unfortunately the picture quality isn't great and the camera shakes around quite a lot - nevertheless, the sound quality is good and I found it a really entertaining lecture.
Labels: Capitalism, Economics
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Oliver James: The Pathologies of Consumerism
There's an interesting interview with the psychologist Oliver James in Red Pepper. He talks about his new book, The Selfish Capitalist - the main thesis of which appears to be the idea that consumer capitalism (neo-liberalism?) makes us depressed, ill and generally demeans us.
"Selfish capitalism... [is] characterised, says James, by privatisation, insecure working conditions, the redistribution of taxes from poor to rich and the conviction that the market can meet almost every conceivable human need. So far, so depressingly familiar. But what James adds is the assertion that wherever this system spreads, mental anguish follows.
Stagnating real wages, the growth of short-term, service industry jobs, a workaholic culture, combine with intensified status competition for consumer goods (frequently new and more expensive versions of existing items) and the exaltation of the consumption habits of the rich, to create a toxic cocktail of limited economic means and unrealisable desire. Depression, anxiety, substance abuse and low impulse control ensue.
And you can actually measure it. English-speaking countries, the epicentre of selfish capitalism, exhibit levels of emotional distress twice as high as more sheltered continental Europe....
What James regards as his ‘most interesting claim’ is that selfish capitalism does not merely leave depression and anxiety in its wake, it also actively works to destroy anything that might improve the well-being of the population ‘It is absolutely critical for everybody to go around feeling miserable, filling the emptiness with commodities, dealing with misery by trying to give yourself short-term boosts with hamburgers or drink,’ he says.
The system is ‘akin to the biological notion of natural selection’. For it to work, we have to be unhappy. Materialism produces anxiety, and anxious people consume more. It loves divorce and separation, he claims. Besides legal fees, each partner has to buy or rent a new home and get a new set of electrical essentials (TV, DVD player) and furniture. Misery equals economic growth."
I read James' previous book, Affluenza, a year or so ago. In this book James makes similar kinds of claims to those above, but fills the book with a number of case studies - close observations of a number of individuals suffering from the 'Affluenza' illness - an empty materialistic acquisitiveness accompanied by 'status anxiety' and depression. It was quite interesting, but it left me a little cold because the subjects of James' study were all very rich yuppie-types - none of whom I felt much sympathy for. There was something rather grating about the implication in this book that the victims of 'Affluenza' are all upper-middle class. The political implications that James drew out in his book, I seem to remember, were fairly weak too. The answer, he suggested was to return to a more civilised form of social democratic capitalism - a return which could be brought about by a generalised change of heart in society. From the looks of the interview, James draws the same kind of hand-waving conclusions at the end of his new book, too. He seems to be banking on the idea that the political pendulum is due to swing back towards the left and fairly soon - something close to Polanyi's idea about the regular pattern of oscillation between 'free' marketisation and state intervention under capitalism.
I'm not at all convinced that there's very much 'space' for radical social democratic reformism under capitalism today. I hope there is, but my feeling is that there isn't. To this extent New Labourites are, in very broad terms, right to suggest that 'things have moved on' and that 'the world has changed'. I'm sure there's a lot of 'space' to the left of New Labour for social democratic type reform - but not as much as there was, say, in the 1940s and 1950s. Left-wing reforms would probably run up against certain structural constraints pretty quickly, it seems to me - the particular structural constraints of capitalism at a time where there isn't much slack in the system. Thatcherism/Blairism/Neo-liberalism are very often portrayed by the soft left wholly in terms of a successful ideological offensive. Neo-liberalism, that is, is seen to be a way of thinking - a successful hegemonic strategy in the battle of political and economic ideas. But neo-liberalism has solid material foundations. It's hard to explain why it's been quite so consistently successful in the battle of ideas across the world without reference to the material problems for which it provides some sort of partial solution. Intensified global competition over the past few decades has put constant, and constantly increasing, pressure on governments to do what it can to reduce relative labour costs and social spending. Any serious left-wing politics needs to recognise the material economic context in which neo-liberalism has sprung up. Thatcher and her heirs did not just win an argument which might, in principle have gone any conceivable way. It's not just air. Neo-liberalism won the argument (largely, but not wholly) because it mapped onto the material referrents of contemporary political and economic debate - an acute and growing crisis of profit for capital. (There might have been other solutions, or partial solutions, within capitalism, of course - a dirigist form of capitalism might have prevailed for example.)
James' curiously weak politics are highlighted at the end of the article. It seems that he has been in talks with the Cameroonians. He also remarks:
‘I’m not a political economist, I’m not a political philosopher, I’m not a political administrator, I’m not all at an expert on politics. My instinct is with George Orwell in that he wasn’t a member of any political party. I’m deeply, deeply sceptical. I don’t think I’d be doing anyone any favours if I was banging a drum and urging people to vote for someone or other. I’m more interested in influence than in power.’
It's as if James doesn't think that his critique of 'selfish capitalism' is at all political - as if politics is wholly synonymous with party politics and that anything beyond that is non-political. Strange.
Nevertheless James is an interesting writer and I'd like to get hold of his book when I can. He's not as good as Fromm though.
"Selfish capitalism... [is] characterised, says James, by privatisation, insecure working conditions, the redistribution of taxes from poor to rich and the conviction that the market can meet almost every conceivable human need. So far, so depressingly familiar. But what James adds is the assertion that wherever this system spreads, mental anguish follows.
Stagnating real wages, the growth of short-term, service industry jobs, a workaholic culture, combine with intensified status competition for consumer goods (frequently new and more expensive versions of existing items) and the exaltation of the consumption habits of the rich, to create a toxic cocktail of limited economic means and unrealisable desire. Depression, anxiety, substance abuse and low impulse control ensue.
And you can actually measure it. English-speaking countries, the epicentre of selfish capitalism, exhibit levels of emotional distress twice as high as more sheltered continental Europe....
What James regards as his ‘most interesting claim’ is that selfish capitalism does not merely leave depression and anxiety in its wake, it also actively works to destroy anything that might improve the well-being of the population ‘It is absolutely critical for everybody to go around feeling miserable, filling the emptiness with commodities, dealing with misery by trying to give yourself short-term boosts with hamburgers or drink,’ he says.
The system is ‘akin to the biological notion of natural selection’. For it to work, we have to be unhappy. Materialism produces anxiety, and anxious people consume more. It loves divorce and separation, he claims. Besides legal fees, each partner has to buy or rent a new home and get a new set of electrical essentials (TV, DVD player) and furniture. Misery equals economic growth."
I read James' previous book, Affluenza, a year or so ago. In this book James makes similar kinds of claims to those above, but fills the book with a number of case studies - close observations of a number of individuals suffering from the 'Affluenza' illness - an empty materialistic acquisitiveness accompanied by 'status anxiety' and depression. It was quite interesting, but it left me a little cold because the subjects of James' study were all very rich yuppie-types - none of whom I felt much sympathy for. There was something rather grating about the implication in this book that the victims of 'Affluenza' are all upper-middle class. The political implications that James drew out in his book, I seem to remember, were fairly weak too. The answer, he suggested was to return to a more civilised form of social democratic capitalism - a return which could be brought about by a generalised change of heart in society. From the looks of the interview, James draws the same kind of hand-waving conclusions at the end of his new book, too. He seems to be banking on the idea that the political pendulum is due to swing back towards the left and fairly soon - something close to Polanyi's idea about the regular pattern of oscillation between 'free' marketisation and state intervention under capitalism.
I'm not at all convinced that there's very much 'space' for radical social democratic reformism under capitalism today. I hope there is, but my feeling is that there isn't. To this extent New Labourites are, in very broad terms, right to suggest that 'things have moved on' and that 'the world has changed'. I'm sure there's a lot of 'space' to the left of New Labour for social democratic type reform - but not as much as there was, say, in the 1940s and 1950s. Left-wing reforms would probably run up against certain structural constraints pretty quickly, it seems to me - the particular structural constraints of capitalism at a time where there isn't much slack in the system. Thatcherism/Blairism/Neo-liberalism are very often portrayed by the soft left wholly in terms of a successful ideological offensive. Neo-liberalism, that is, is seen to be a way of thinking - a successful hegemonic strategy in the battle of political and economic ideas. But neo-liberalism has solid material foundations. It's hard to explain why it's been quite so consistently successful in the battle of ideas across the world without reference to the material problems for which it provides some sort of partial solution. Intensified global competition over the past few decades has put constant, and constantly increasing, pressure on governments to do what it can to reduce relative labour costs and social spending. Any serious left-wing politics needs to recognise the material economic context in which neo-liberalism has sprung up. Thatcher and her heirs did not just win an argument which might, in principle have gone any conceivable way. It's not just air. Neo-liberalism won the argument (largely, but not wholly) because it mapped onto the material referrents of contemporary political and economic debate - an acute and growing crisis of profit for capital. (There might have been other solutions, or partial solutions, within capitalism, of course - a dirigist form of capitalism might have prevailed for example.)
James' curiously weak politics are highlighted at the end of the article. It seems that he has been in talks with the Cameroonians. He also remarks:
‘I’m not a political economist, I’m not a political philosopher, I’m not a political administrator, I’m not all at an expert on politics. My instinct is with George Orwell in that he wasn’t a member of any political party. I’m deeply, deeply sceptical. I don’t think I’d be doing anyone any favours if I was banging a drum and urging people to vote for someone or other. I’m more interested in influence than in power.’
It's as if James doesn't think that his critique of 'selfish capitalism' is at all political - as if politics is wholly synonymous with party politics and that anything beyond that is non-political. Strange.
Nevertheless James is an interesting writer and I'd like to get hold of his book when I can. He's not as good as Fromm though.
Labels: Capitalism, Oliver James
Monday, February 18, 2008
Elsewhere
I have a guest post up at The Daily (Maybe). It's a slightly turgid and overwritten piece focusing on the 'Credit Crunch' and media responses to it.
Labels: Capitalism, Economics, Spreading the Love
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Sharing the Blame - Masking the Reality
Just wanted to flag up Jeremy Seabrook's excellent recent Guardian article. He really puts his finger on something that has been nagging away at me for a while - something I couldn't articulate.
Whenever I see reports on environmental degradation on BBC News (or, I suppose, any other channel) I'm irritated by the tone of the report, which, inevitably suggests that we are all, somehow, to blame. The reporter almost always affects a kind of downbeat presenting style which implies a kind of representative penitence - as if he or she is speaking for us all and that we all ought to be blooming well disappointed with ourselves. The guilt, it is implied, is a collective, human guilt - 'oh', the reporter, seems to sigh, 'we flawed humans had better change our ways... dear, dear, yes we had'. I always think of 'orginal sin' when I see these reports - as if the media think that environmental degradation stems from humanity's in-built tendency to be bad. Of course, the attribution of guilt to humanity collectively - the attribution of guilt to our 'human nature' - effectively lets those who may be more guilty than others off the hook. In fact, I think it's unhelpful to point the finger at individuals - it's better to point to social structures, ways of living, ways of producing and consuming. It is these things that we should identify when we look around for something to blame (and change, one hopes) - and it is the reality that these things are to blame for environmental destruction that the media's attribution of guilt to 'human nature', effectively obscures.
Seabrook writes:
"The almost universal recognition of the potential disaster of climate change... ascribes the causes to "humanity". Human activity, mankind, man - these generalised entities have been the great reshapers of the planet and its fragile atmosphere. This dispersal of blame diffuses responsibility, and permits the culprits to embed themselves in the global population to escape the consequences of their actions.
....
An inclusive first person plural is always invoked when the world faces catastrophe. It is rarely in evidence when the "fruits" of wealth-creation are being distributed. We are all in this together. Both rich and poor are threatened. There is nowhere to hide from global warming. Every country must be "on board", on the far from agreeable voyage to a future land of sustainable harmony.
The "we" - the bogus unity invoked by privilege - masks the reality, namely, that the poor are going to pay disproportionately to put right wrongs of which they have never been beneficiaries.
....
To efface the "footprint" of "mankind" upon the earth would require a contraction, or at least a different kind of economic activity, one which ensures a more modest use of, and more equitable distribution of, resources. This is the most frightening prospect the leaders of the rich world can imagine; even though it might guarantee a secure sufficiency to the hungry and wanting of earth and serve as cure for the excesses, addictions and violence of those who have more than enough.
This is indeed a pivotal moment. Decisions made now may well determine the fate of the earth and all its peoples. But to provide for the sustenance of the poor remains the most urgent priority. It is disingenuous to give way to lachrymose exaltations about the fate of humankind and our menaced habitat, while not addressing the cruelty of a world economy worth $60 trillion annually, which leaves hundreds of millions to expire in sight of global plenty, even while the rich look in vain for ever more expensive and marginal pleasures to augment their value-added discontents."
I read Seabrook's peice and thought 'Yes, that's exactly it. That's what it is'. This discourse of collective human guilt in relation to impending ecological disaster is, of course, only the latest manifestation of one of the central ideological props of liberalism/capitalism. Liberalism tends to obscure the material differences between people through the trumpeting of some abstract, formal and largely fictitious equality between 'citizens'. Class differences, actual inequalities of wealth and power, are surreptitiously removed from the political frame of reference. The attribution of guilt to humanity in terms of global warming and so on, function along the same lines. The poor, the starving, the disenfranchised are all equally as much to blame as SUV drivers, frequent flyers and etc since the ideological gendarmerie of capitalism have no desire to point the finger at the real culprits.
Whenever I see reports on environmental degradation on BBC News (or, I suppose, any other channel) I'm irritated by the tone of the report, which, inevitably suggests that we are all, somehow, to blame. The reporter almost always affects a kind of downbeat presenting style which implies a kind of representative penitence - as if he or she is speaking for us all and that we all ought to be blooming well disappointed with ourselves. The guilt, it is implied, is a collective, human guilt - 'oh', the reporter, seems to sigh, 'we flawed humans had better change our ways... dear, dear, yes we had'. I always think of 'orginal sin' when I see these reports - as if the media think that environmental degradation stems from humanity's in-built tendency to be bad. Of course, the attribution of guilt to humanity collectively - the attribution of guilt to our 'human nature' - effectively lets those who may be more guilty than others off the hook. In fact, I think it's unhelpful to point the finger at individuals - it's better to point to social structures, ways of living, ways of producing and consuming. It is these things that we should identify when we look around for something to blame (and change, one hopes) - and it is the reality that these things are to blame for environmental destruction that the media's attribution of guilt to 'human nature', effectively obscures.
Seabrook writes:
"The almost universal recognition of the potential disaster of climate change... ascribes the causes to "humanity". Human activity, mankind, man - these generalised entities have been the great reshapers of the planet and its fragile atmosphere. This dispersal of blame diffuses responsibility, and permits the culprits to embed themselves in the global population to escape the consequences of their actions.
....
An inclusive first person plural is always invoked when the world faces catastrophe. It is rarely in evidence when the "fruits" of wealth-creation are being distributed. We are all in this together. Both rich and poor are threatened. There is nowhere to hide from global warming. Every country must be "on board", on the far from agreeable voyage to a future land of sustainable harmony.
The "we" - the bogus unity invoked by privilege - masks the reality, namely, that the poor are going to pay disproportionately to put right wrongs of which they have never been beneficiaries.
....
To efface the "footprint" of "mankind" upon the earth would require a contraction, or at least a different kind of economic activity, one which ensures a more modest use of, and more equitable distribution of, resources. This is the most frightening prospect the leaders of the rich world can imagine; even though it might guarantee a secure sufficiency to the hungry and wanting of earth and serve as cure for the excesses, addictions and violence of those who have more than enough.
This is indeed a pivotal moment. Decisions made now may well determine the fate of the earth and all its peoples. But to provide for the sustenance of the poor remains the most urgent priority. It is disingenuous to give way to lachrymose exaltations about the fate of humankind and our menaced habitat, while not addressing the cruelty of a world economy worth $60 trillion annually, which leaves hundreds of millions to expire in sight of global plenty, even while the rich look in vain for ever more expensive and marginal pleasures to augment their value-added discontents."
I read Seabrook's peice and thought 'Yes, that's exactly it. That's what it is'. This discourse of collective human guilt in relation to impending ecological disaster is, of course, only the latest manifestation of one of the central ideological props of liberalism/capitalism. Liberalism tends to obscure the material differences between people through the trumpeting of some abstract, formal and largely fictitious equality between 'citizens'. Class differences, actual inequalities of wealth and power, are surreptitiously removed from the political frame of reference. The attribution of guilt to humanity in terms of global warming and so on, function along the same lines. The poor, the starving, the disenfranchised are all equally as much to blame as SUV drivers, frequent flyers and etc since the ideological gendarmerie of capitalism have no desire to point the finger at the real culprits.
Labels: Capitalism, Ecology, Jeremy Seabrook
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Capitalism and the Ecological Crisis
When I attended the Socialist Register session on ecological crisis at the Historical Materialism conference recently I carted along with me a certain prejudice. I expected to be told that capitalism could find no solution to this crisis - but I was wrong. As I reported in a previous post at least one speaker, Daniel Buck, suggested that capitalism might well find a 'solution' to the fossil fuel pollution/global warming crisis under the pressure of looming catastrophe. As far as I remember, none of the other speakers claimed that capitalism was completely unable to dig itself out of the hole it has dug itself into. It may seem strange, but I found this deeply disappointing. The notion that capitalism is driving us to disaster and that the very logic of this system prevents us from finding a solution while we remain within its confines has become akind of anchor - the anchor in fact - which keeps me at least loosely tied to the idea that a complete alternative to capitalism is both necessary and possible. It is possible simply because it is necessary (if you see what I mean). Without this thought at the back of my head - the assumption that sooner or later humanity is going to be forced out of sheer necessity to throw off the sick (and sickening) system that we currently live under if it wants to survive - I'm afraid that capitalism must stretch on and on into the endless future.
That's why I want to get this sorted out asap. If anyone knows of any good books from a left perspective which come to a firm conclusion on this matter I'd like to know of them. Can you, dear reader, recommend one?
While I'm on the subject, the Socialist Register has put three new essays online (at least two of them are from the current edition of the journal). They are excellent. One of them at least (by Barbara Harriss-White with Elinor Harriss) comes to the firm conclusion that capitalism cannot fix the problem it has created - so let's cut to the conclusion - one that I find (perversely) pleasing and a source of hope:
Capitalism is not fixing the environment. It is not able to, either in theory or in historical practice. [ftnote*] Market-driven politics has ensured that renewable energy remains far from the point where it might start to form any kind of technological base, either for an alternative model of capitalist development (in the UK or in an engagement with large developing countries which are about to enter a highly polluting phase of industrialisation...), or for the remoralised and equitable allocations argued for by Altvater. In energy, there is no sign of the politics able to generate a new kind of social, non-market regulation of money and nature. Sustainable capitalism is a fiction and the politics of renewable energy are merely a reflection of the fiction.
* Not in theory because of the logic and thermodynamics of capitalist growth; not in practice because of its path dependence; and because of the contradiction between the pace of physical system dynamics and that of the global economy.
That's why I want to get this sorted out asap. If anyone knows of any good books from a left perspective which come to a firm conclusion on this matter I'd like to know of them. Can you, dear reader, recommend one?
While I'm on the subject, the Socialist Register has put three new essays online (at least two of them are from the current edition of the journal). They are excellent. One of them at least (by Barbara Harriss-White with Elinor Harriss) comes to the firm conclusion that capitalism cannot fix the problem it has created - so let's cut to the conclusion - one that I find (perversely) pleasing and a source of hope:
Capitalism is not fixing the environment. It is not able to, either in theory or in historical practice. [ftnote*] Market-driven politics has ensured that renewable energy remains far from the point where it might start to form any kind of technological base, either for an alternative model of capitalist development (in the UK or in an engagement with large developing countries which are about to enter a highly polluting phase of industrialisation...), or for the remoralised and equitable allocations argued for by Altvater. In energy, there is no sign of the politics able to generate a new kind of social, non-market regulation of money and nature. Sustainable capitalism is a fiction and the politics of renewable energy are merely a reflection of the fiction.
* Not in theory because of the logic and thermodynamics of capitalist growth; not in practice because of its path dependence; and because of the contradiction between the pace of physical system dynamics and that of the global economy.
Labels: Capitalism, Ecology
