Some Thoughts on Anti-capitalism

I have been engaged in an on and off discussion at work with a fellow teacher who identifies herself as an anti-capitalist. To her credit, she is very widely read on the subject, writes about it for a left wing magazine, and comes at it from a position of having studied political and economic theory. I haven't. But I've decided that from now on this isn't going to stop me from trying to articulate my views. Also, as this is my blog, she can't answer back. Or at least if she does, I can ignore her.

It is not that I am averse to being labelled; there are several '-ist' labels I will happily apply to myself, and may do so in future. But despite the sympathy I have with the movement, I fear that pinning myself to an anti-capitalist flag risks strangling the more necessarily nuanced debate regarding the ideal relationship between the public and private sectors in modern society. Some labels are useful, but I'm not sure this is one of them. I will try and outline some of this debate here, and in future blogs.

George Osborne remarked yesterday that business leaders need to "put their heads above the parapet" and make the free-market argument loud and clear, so as to "fight back" against all the "pressure groups, trade unions, charities and the like..." who are making the counter-argument. His assertion is drastically misguided, to say the least. But what I found interesting about the backlash from some of the major charities, is that they did not argue back in support of the anti-business argument, but rather with the claims that their charities are not anti-business in the first place. The importance of enterprise "is vital to tackling poverty around the world" argued Oxfam's head of UK campaigns and policy. "It is not anti-capitalist to say clean water, clean air and sustainable growth are good for everyone" says the executive director of Greenpeace, who are clearly as reluctant as myself to align themselves with the anti-capitalist movement.

Pro-business flag wavers for the centre-right will say things like, it can be useful for dealing with inefficiencies in systems, that it stimulates healthy competition and growth, that it fuels technological advancements that we could all potentially benefit from. That the profits delivered by the private sector can be used to fund welfare. I don't want to associate myself with this right of centre camp of pro-capitalists. But the things is I've now spent 16 years working in both private and public sector organisations, and I can see that the problem everyone on the left needs to deal with, is that they are, in some ways, kind of right.

The central thrust of my colleague's argument appears to be that the capitalist system, by definition, is predicated on the necessary pursuit of unsustainable growth, which can only ultimately lead to some form of destruction (environmental, social etc...). She argues that the only way of creating a sustainable environment, in the broadest sense, is to reject this notion of perpetual growth. But is there a chance that we might be innately wired to pursue progress in some form as a society? (As an aside, it might even make sense, on an evolutionary / biological level. Any species that eschewed societal progress and growth would surely soon be killed off by those that did?).

I don't know whether or not growth is inherently a good or bad thing. But what I can say is that from a purely personal point of view, I've seen enough to be able to say that the lack of growth in the latter can be equally if not more depressing than its pursuit in the former.

Furthermore, I can't help but feel that some people within the anti-capitalist movement may inevitably be in danger of taking for granted the myriad ways in which we have taken control of and shaped the world in which we live in a positive way. Schools and hospitals, for decades now, have been quietly, with almost no public recognition of the fact, getting better and better equipped with new technologies, improved buildings, better facilities. As a result, more children each year are getting a better education than they might otherwise have had (a controversial but in my opinion often overlooked fact to which I will return), and each year people are living longer (a fact which is not overlooked, but which people tend to see just as a problem, rather than the result of amazing advancements in the field of healthcare). Would we really be happy if we stopped this progress? Perhaps, but I doubt it. And could this progress ever really happen in a non-capitalist system? Maybe. I'm waiting for someone to show me somewhere where this has occurred.

It's all part of wanting more. Yes, it's destructive. Yes, we would be happier if this desire didn't exist. But, with the DNA we have, denied the freedom to pursue this want of more, I can't help feel that a wide, fundamental thirst might remain on some level unfulfilled. This is actually why Osborne is wrong to argue for the louder public support of business, in their opposition to "trade unions, pressure groups and charities". Businesses, left to their own devices, will naturally find ways of exploiting the myriad resources available to them in order to grow and thrive. A free market will naturally appeal to our innate desires for (for example) expanded choice and technological progress. The world of business simply does not need this type of public support in order to thrive in our society. Charities, on the other hand, do. Trade unions do. Pressure groups do. Businesses would continue to do just fine without their leaders 'sticking their heads above the parapet'. Charities, and the millions who depend on them, would inexorably suffer.

I believe this argument is important because it is dividing the left at a time when we need to be united. It risks driving an unhelpful wedge between my colleague, and the readers of her essays, and myself (and the millions of readers of this blog), at a time when we would be much better off united. In other words, if we were to accept that we are to live in a society based on capitalism, then what we can do, after that, is devote all our collective left of centre efforts to pursuing the ultimate goal of controlling and regulating as much of it as is feasibly possible, engineering for ourselves a capitalist society that is also one which is fair, non-destructive, and conducive to widespread happiness at every echelon of society. I will continue this later.