It is difficult to see any other economic system other than capitalism; it is the lingua franca, and as such every other system is measured against it and inevitably, since the only currently functioning system is capitalism, found wanting. Other options include various shades of socialism, and communism.
The latter is a strange one, mainly because we can't point to a working model. This is down to two reasons: firstly, capitalist states have undermined practically every attempt to test communism, and secondly, those attempts that went ahead produced, in the overwhelming majority of cases, a standard of human suffering unachievable even under the bootheels of Nazism. If communism is to be of any use at all, it needs to be rebuilt as a theorem.
A crude analogy: a man builds a shelf for his books. When he places the books on the shelf, the shelf falls down. The man frowns, builds the shelf again, replaces the books, and it falls down again. 'Strange,' he mutters, 'that's the second time that shelf fell down.' So, he rebuilds it a third time, using the same design. He places the same books in the same place, and the shelf collapses once again. 'Hmm,' he ponders, 'perhaps I should try building it in another country.'
I'll admit quite freely that much of Michael Hardt's column in the Guardian, 'Reclaim the common in communism', sailed over my head. I get the feeling it was supposed to; Marxists tend to forget that the only people who understand the terms they use are capitalist economists and students of Marx. The former will ignore it, the latter will probably agree with it already. This sort of preaching to the converted is partly why no viable alternatives to running our economy presented themselves after the financial crisis swallowed our civilisation. It offers nothing practical (but then, neither does this blog) but manages to massage the egos of intellectuals who understand the terms and arguments whilst simultaneously ignoring the millions of people who might actually be suffering under capitalism to such a degree that they might consider some sort of Egypt-style revolt. Why on earth not popularise Marxism? Why not take it to the street, if you genuinely think it has merit? Why lock it up inside universities and coffee shops? Perhaps the intoxicating thrill of feeling like an exile in one's own country, member of a reclusive revolutionary cabal, is too great.
How communism is supposed to succeed without becoming accessible to the layperson is the question.
However there is one more pressing concern for neocommunists. If they are to reclaim the terms and the arguments, if they are to capitalise (no pun intended) on the current economic situation, they must engage with the monsters in the attic: Stalin, Mao, et al.
The economic crisis has been a dance of seven veils. The last veil was torn away when Labour gave billions of pounds of our money to the very banks who had crippled the economy in the first place. And what did we see? A beautiful naked nymph? Sadly not; we saw capitalism for what it truly is – or rather, what it has become – in the twenty first century, and what it shall remain if it is not changed.
We did not see a system in which people earn money by working, pay taxes for the upkeep of the NHS and other bodies, and then spend the rest on luxuries. Nor did we see a system that enables, in the right cirumstances, individuals to switch careers, transform their lives, or take a sabbatical, using their savings to fund the purchase of musical instruments, art supplies or to simply travel the world. No, we did not see the pretty side of capitalism (and yes, there is an underclass that has never seen this pretty side; there was also an underclass in every socialist state, and every capitalist state. The presence of an underclass is not evidence of utter failure, merely partial failure; one could callously argue that every system will inevitably have an underclass. This does not mean such a weakness should be accepted, or even expected. The propagation of an underclass should always be warred against).
We saw what capitalism has become in the hands of its most extreme adherents (just as we saw what communism became in Romania, for instance). We saw the gaping flaw in the model that allows banks to invest speculative, non-existent funds (what I previously referred to as phantasmal money) in get-rich-or-die-tryin' schemes. Failure to foresee the problem inherent in allowing banks to gamble the nation's money led to the current fracas, in which certain banks are still parasitic, and the necessary boom and bust mechanic has become more pronounced, with the bust feeling positively cataclysmic.
We saw that capitalism had ceased to be a system of individualism, in which those fortunate enough, or skilled enough, or well connected enough, or diligent enough, could prosper (it's more meritocratic than any other system, if that's any salve against its worst excesses); that it had ceased to be a system that encouraged work and individual responsibility. We saw that it had become a means for the new aristocracy of political class to retain their position above we wretches and plebs, a mechanism that enabled those at fault for the collapse to retain their fortunes whilst libraries closed. We saw a system that had evolved into a means to ensure that the poor remained so, the rich remained so. A system that strives, through the intervention and complicity of the new aristocrats in the governing class, to maintain as the status quo a system that does not even work.
So we must look elsewhere for guidance, for ideas. Of course, we look to the long dead like Marx, and we find lots of good ideas. We also find, bound to the name, memories of famines, secret police, torture, mutilation and devastation. We find nation-sized Dachaus and Belsens. We also find the inability of communists to explain how their system can be so easily hi-jacked by psychopaths.
Like any religious system, communism lends itself to abominably cruel and mindless totalitarian despotism not through any specific rule of process, but through the lack of a safety valve. Had Stalin's grim misadventure been a one-off, we could have argued that communism deserved the chance to be tried again; like the man building the shelf, we would have seen it fail again. It is not good enough to fight to regain control of the terms and the arguments. Communists, if they are to be any good to the nation whatsoever, need to demonstrate a willingness not to escape the shadows of Mao and Stalin, but to confront and explain them. When this happens, the people who – llike me, and possibly, like you – cannot help but think of communism in terms of the fact that more people died in its name than in the name of any other system, religious or secular, ancient or modern, will have to take notice. Fix the gene in communism's DNA that enables the most astonishing cruelty, and you make it a viable option; admit that it has a propensity for producing savages, and you can begin to remove that propensity by amending its mechanisms and processes.
Likewise, capitalism. There must be a way to salvage the good from the system whilst limiting the influence of the bad. For instance, what I have termed Ethical Capitalism, and which is a germ of an idea at present, and might become something bigger.
Imagine if companies had to syphon off a percentage of profits by law to fund libraries, women's refuges, homeless shelters, etcetera. Imagine if, by law, companies had to hand a percentage of profits over to schools and hospitals, perhaps even universities. One argument would be that companies would be forced to cut back on their services, to raise their prices, to slash the workforce. Not so; it would force the companies to provide a better service, under the capitalism ball-game of market competition. For instance, a company loses 25% of its after-tax profits to a particular committee (not the treasury, for goodness' sake, and not the government) that oversees distribution to the areas of the community that need the money. This means that the company is still profitable. It might not be able t grow as fast as it would like, but that is the high street's gain, not the consumer's loss. Those companies seeking to send their money abroad to escape this mechanism would be kindly told to either participate, or face legal action. If certain businessmen wish to leave such a nation as this, then let them. He (or she) who is not willing to participate in repairing the damage done through ethical and constructive means is of little value going forward. Let them flee to Monaco, or whereever the rich go these days to forget about the good things they could be doing with their ludicrous wealth.
This would not be such a problem for long anyway; once the world sees how well the system works in Britain, it will no doubt be adopted by every sensible government. It will reek of socialism to various American unthinkers, but their criticism will serve as praise, as it always does; when the neocons attack an idea, it stands to reaso that the idea is a wholesome one.
One example of how the capitalist system can be rescued from the hyperwealthy and the new political aristocracy, then. There are many more, I am sure. I fail to see the sense in abandoning wholesale the current system, but I also fail to see how, when something has utterly failed, and failed repeatedly, it should continue to be utilised without recourse to the drawing board. Fix it, don't abandon it.
So my message to communists and capitalists alike is the same: there is good in your system, but it has produced unspeakable vileness time and again. Work out why, and put safeguards in place to stop it from happening again. Then and only then, will we have a system to put to the public, an alternative to the current stupidity. Utopia does not just have to be an unattainable dream. The hyperwealthy have built their utopia around us; Cameron, Clegg and the rest of the new political aristocracy are living in their paradise right now. Why should the rest of us feel that our dreams can never be realised?
Perhaps we just need to tinker with our machines, and then turn them loose.
