In a book about anti-capitalism we are naturally enough going to hear all sorts of reasons why it is that we should be opposed to capitalism. Many of these arguments will differ in sometimes surprising and indeed conflicting ways; but one thing they will all have in common is that they know what they are against: ‘Capitalism’ – or, more likely, refinements of the same such as ‘neoliberal capitalism’, ‘transnational capitalism’, ‘economic globalisation’, ‘corporate capitalism’. Whilst anti-capitalist literature is replete with reasons why one should oppose capitalism, they are often less helpful on what capitalism is and how it differs from other forms of social organisation. They are often less than forthcoming, too, on why it is that capitalism is ‘hegemonic’, why it appears natural or normal to so many (as it does). Thus what the beginner to the subject might already have asked him or herself is how it is that anyone came to think that capitalism was worth defending in the first place. So, thinking in terms of how to initiate the beginner into the nature of anti-capitalism, it is as good a place as any to start with some brief thoughts on capitalism itself. In particular we need to think about how capitalism established itself as a dominant economic system, and one accepted as rational and desirable by many across both the developed and developing world.
First of all it will be helpful to think about the central term capitalism itself. What exactly is capitalism? There are two ways of answering this question. The first is to think of it in abstract terms, that is in terms of what it represents as a relationship between people. The second is to think in more historical terms, i.e. of how it is that capitalism came about, and how it developed into the system we see before us today. Why do we need two ways of thinking about the same object? The easy answer is that since the dawn of capitalism in the early modern period (roughly the seventeenth century onwards) capitalism has obviously changed a great deal. Indeed it has changed so much that it is remarkable to be talking about the same ‘thing’ at all, the world of the twenty-first century being radically different to that of even the nineteenth century, let alone the seventeenth. Yet economists and commentators still agree for the most part that there is a fundamental continuity between then and now. What then is the continuity? Fortunately there is little controversy over the matter. Capitalism is not in this sense a particularly contested term in itself. What is contested is whether it is just, rational or otherwise in the best interests of humanity. In abstract terms it is said that we have capitalism where we see the following:
• private ownership over the means of production: land, factories, businesses;
• paid employment or, to put it another way, ‘wage labour’;
• creation of goods – or the offering of services – for profit via a system of exchange, i.e. the market.
This is a pretty anodyne definition, which is to say that most of those who take some professional interest in the matter would regard it with a shrug of the shoulders. This is what is intended. We are looking for a base line here: something that can be agreed on, so that we can understand exactly what it is that pro-capitalists celebrate and anti-capitalists object to. Looking at the definition other questions will, however, arise. Beginners as well as cynics might think that capitalism looks in this view utterly basic to human experience. What other kinds of economic relations might there be?
There is some substance to the concern, the chief among these being the relationship between capitalism and the market, or ‘commodity production’. Hasn’t there always been a market, and thus capitalism? The market or commodity production is indeed much older than capitalism, and there are those who would insist that virtually every society known to us embraced some form of market exchange, whether that be the exchange of shark teeth, beetroot or gold pieces. This is actually a very important point in relation to questions raised in relation to anti-capitalism, and so the need for clarity here is acute. The point is that the market is not an invention of capitalism, nor does the market of itself lead to capitalism. Markets have existed alongside all manner of different economic regimes and different forms of ownership. The mere exchange of equivalents does not necessitate or make inevitable wage labour, which is in turn the key to understanding the distinctiveness of capitalist production. Nor is the market in this sense something new or confined to capitalist economies. Markets have existed for longer than human history itself, which is not to say that the market is inevitable or necessary to human life as such, only that markets frequently arise in the course of human interrelationships, and will probably go on doing so as long as people want to swap things. But the point is, the market is not capitalism, and capitalism is not the market. So what is?
Looking back at the definition what becomes apparent is that one of the distinctive features of capitalism is that it serves a particular kind of market, namely that for labour. In pre-capitalist times labour was sometimes bought, but more often than not it was procured by some other means, classically by the institution of slavery, and more recently by bondage, vassalage, or other arrangement that rendered individuals directly subservient to someone else. Through force of arms, conquest, or some other more or less violent process people were made subjects of a lord or noble. As a slave or serf a person had little or no control over his or her own life, but rather was a mere adjunct of an ‘estate’ to which he or she was personally tied. As feudalism and slavery were overthrown or displaced, so those who were liberated became ‘masterless’ men (and women), freed to try and procure a living for themselves, usually through selling their labour to someone who needed it for the factories, mines and workhouses that accompanied the process of industrialisation. Here, in short, we see a process by which the economic relation of feudalism, namely control over the person is transformed into the capitalist economic relation in which some people buy other people’s labour power. Whereas in the market place of Ancient Rome or of ante bellum America it was people who were bought and sold, in the capitalist market place it is our labour power that is bought and sold. But what is our labour power bought and sold for? Why do people need to buy and sell labour power?
~~Anti-Capitalism- A Beginner’s Guide -by- Simon Tormey
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