Political ideology and movement opposed to capitalism
This article is about the political movement opposed to capitalism. For arguments against capitalism, see
Criticism of capitalism
.
Anti-capitalism
is a
political ideology
and
movement
encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose
capitalism
.
History of movements
[
edit
]
Anti-capitalism was widespread among
workers
in the
United States
in the
1900s
and
1910s
, and
Colorado
was especially known as a center of anti-capitalist
labor movements
in that era.
[1]
Socialism
[
edit
]
Socialism advocates public or direct worker ownership and administration of the
means of production
and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals, with an
egalitarian
method of compensation.
[2]
[3]
- A theory or policy of social organisation which aims at or advocates the ownership and democratic control of the means of production, by workers or the community as a whole, and their administration or distribution in the interests of all.
- Socialists argue for a
worker cooperative
/community economy, or the
commanding heights of the economy
,
[4]
with democratic control by the people over the state, although there have been some undemocratic philosophies. "State" or "worker cooperative" ownership is in fundamental opposition to "private" ownership of
means of production
, which is a defining feature of capitalism. Most socialists argue that capitalism unfairly concentrates power, wealth and profit, among a small segment of society that controls
capital
and derives its wealth through
exploitation
.
Socialists argue that the accumulation of capital generates waste through
externalities
that require costly corrective regulatory measures. They also point out that this process generates wasteful industries and practices that exist only to generate sufficient demand for products to be sold at a profit (such as high-pressure advertisement); thereby creating rather than satisfying economic demand.
[5]
[6]
Socialists argue that capitalism consists of irrational activity, such as the purchasing of commodities only to sell at a later time when their price appreciates, rather than for consumption, even if the commodity cannot be sold at a profit to individuals in need; they argue that
making money
, or accumulation of capital, does not correspond to the satisfaction of demand.
[5]
Private ownership imposes constraints on planning, leading to inaccessible economic decisions that result in immoral production, unemployment and a tremendous waste of material resources during crisis of
overproduction
. According to socialists, private property in the means of production becomes obsolete when it concentrates into centralized, socialized institutions based on private appropriation of revenue (but based on cooperative work and internal planning in the allocation of inputs) until the role of the capitalist becomes redundant.
[7]
With no need for
capital accumulation
and a class of owners, private property in the means of production is perceived as being an outdated form of economic organization that should be replaced by a
free association
of individuals based on public or
common ownership
of these socialized assets.
[8]
Socialists view
private property
relations as limiting the potential of
productive forces
in the economy.
[9]
Early socialists (
Utopian socialists
and
Ricardian socialists
) criticized capitalism for concentrating
power
and
wealth
within a small segment of society,
[10]
and for not utilising available
technology
and resources to their maximum potential in the interests of the public.
[9]
Anarchism and libertarian socialism
[
edit
]
For the influential German
individualist anarchist
philosopher
Max Stirner
, "
private property
is a spook" which "lives by the grace of law" and it "becomes 'mine' only by the effect of the law". In other words, private property exists purely "through the protection of the State, through the State's grace." Recognising its need for state protection, Stirner argued that "[i]t need not make any difference to the 'good citizens' who protects them and their principles, whether an absolute King or a constitutional one, a republic if only they are protected. And what is their principle, whose protector they always 'love'? Not that of labour", rather it is "interest-bearing possession ... labouring capital, therefore ... labour certainly, yet little or none at all of one's own, but labour of capital and of the?subject labourers."
[12]
French anarchist
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
opposed government privilege that protects capitalist, banking and land interests, and the accumulation or acquisition of property (and any form of
coercion
that led to it) which he believed hampers competition and keeps wealth in the hands of the few. The Spanish individualist anarchist
Miguel Gimenez Igualada
saw:
[13]
capitalism [as] an effect of government; the disappearance of government means capitalism falls from its pedestal vertiginously...That which we call capitalism is not something else but a product of the State, within which the only thing that is being pushed forward is profit, good or badly acquired. And so to fight against capitalism is a pointless task, since be it State capitalism or Enterprise capitalism, as long as Government exists, exploiting capital will exist. The fight, but of consciousness, is against the State.
Within
anarchism
there emerged a critique of
wage slavery
, which refers to a situation perceived as quasi-
voluntary slavery
,
where a person's
livelihood
depends on
wages
, especially when the dependence is total and immediate.
[15]
[16]
It is a
negatively connoted
term used to draw an analogy between
slavery
and
wage labor
by focusing on similarities between owning and
renting
a person. The term
wage slavery
has been used to criticize
economic exploitation
and
social stratification
, with the former seen primarily as unequal bargaining power between labor and capital (particularly when workers are paid comparatively low wages, e.g. in
sweatshops
),
[17]
and the latter as a lack of
workers' self-management
, fulfilling job choices and leisure in an economy.
[18]
[20]
Libertarian socialists
believe if freedom is valued, then society must work towards a system in which individuals have the power to decide economic issues along with political issues. Libertarian socialists seek to replace unjustified authority with
direct democracy
, voluntary federation, and popular autonomy in all aspects of life,
[21]
including physical communities and economic enterprises. With the advent of the
Industrial Revolution
, thinkers such as
Proudhon
and
Marx
elaborated the comparison between wage labor and slavery in the context of a critique of societal property not intended for active personal use,
[23]
Luddites
emphasized the
dehumanization
brought about by machines, while later American anarchist
Emma Goldman
famously denounced wage slavery by saying: "The only difference is that you are hired slaves instead of block slaves."
Goldman believed that the economic system of capitalism was incompatible with human liberty. "The only demand that property recognizes," she wrote in
Anarchism and Other Essays
, "is its own gluttonous appetite for greater wealth, because wealth means power; the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade."
[24]
She also argued that capitalism dehumanized workers, "turning the producer into a mere particle of a machine, with less will and decision than his master of steel and iron."
[24]
Noam Chomsky
contends that there is little moral difference between chattel slavery and renting one's self to an owner or "wage slavery". He feels that it is an attack on personal integrity that undermines individual freedom. He holds that workers should own and control their workplace.
[25]
Many libertarian socialists argue that large-scale voluntary associations should manage industrial manufacture, while workers retain rights to the individual products of their labor.
[26]
As such, they see a distinction between the concepts of "private property" and "
personal possession
". Whereas "private property" grants an individual exclusive control over a thing whether it is in use or not, and regardless of its productive capacity, "possession" grants no rights to things that are not in use.
[27]
In addition to individualist anarchist
Benjamin Tucker
's "big four" monopolies (land, money, tariffs, and patents),
Kevin Carson
argues that the
state
has also transferred wealth to the wealthy by subsidizing organizational centralization, in the form of transportation and communication subsidies. He believes that Tucker overlooked this issue due to Tucker's focus on individual market transactions, whereas Carson also focuses on organizational issues. Carson holds that "capitalism, arising as a new class society directly from the old class society of the
Middle Ages
, was founded on an act of robbery as massive as the earlier
feudal
conquest of the land. It has been sustained to the present by continual state intervention to protect its system of privilege without which its survival is unimaginable."
[28]
Carson coined the
pejorative
term "vulgar libertarianism", a phrase that describes the use of a free market rhetoric in defense of
corporate capitalism
and
economic inequality
. According to Carson, the term is derived from the phrase "vulgar political economy", which
Karl Marx
described as an economic order that "deliberately becomes increasingly apologetic and makes strenuous attempts to talk out of existence the ideas which contain the contradictions [existing in economic life]."
Marxism
[
edit
]
Karl Marx
saw capitalism as a historical stage, once progressive but which would eventually stagnate due to internal contradictions and would eventually be followed by socialism. Marx claimed that capitalism was nothing more than a necessary stepping stone for the progression of man, which would then face a political revolution before embracing the
classless society
.
[30]
Contemporary anti-capitalism
[
edit
]
Inspired by Marxist thought, the
Frankfurt School
in Germany was established in 1923, with the purpose of analyzing the superstructure. Marx defined the superstructure as the
social stratification
and mores reflecting the economic base of capitalism. Through the 1930s, the Frankfurt School, led by thinkers such as
Herbert Marcuse
and
Max Horkheimer
created the philosophical movement of
critical theory
. Later, Critical theorist
Jurgen Habermas
noted that the universality of modern worldviews posed a threat to marginalized perspectives outside of western rationality. While Critical Theory emphasized the social issues stemming from capitalism with the intention towards liberating humanity, it did not directly offer an alternative economic model. Instead its analysis shifted attention to the reinforcement of existing power dynamics through statecraft and a complicit citizenry.
In turn, Critical Theory inspired postmodern philosophers such as
Michel Foucault
to conceptualize how we form identities through social interaction.
[31]
During the 1960s and 1970s the global political movement called the
New Left
explored what liberation entailed through social activism on behalf of these identities. Therefore, socialist identifying movements critical of capitalism extended their reach beyond purely economic considerations and became involved in anti-war and civil rights movements. Later this postmodern activism centered around identities regarding ethnicity, gender, orientation, and race would influence more direct anti-capitalist movements.
[32]
New critiques of capitalism also developed in accordance with modern concerns.
Anti-globalization
and
alter-globalization
oppose what they view as the sweeping
neoliberal
and pro-corporate capitalism that spread internationally in the wake of the Soviet Union's fall. They are particularly critical of international financial institutions and regulations such as the
IMF
,
WTO
, and
free trade agreements
. In response, they promote the autonomy of sovereign people and the importance of environmental concerns as priorities over international market participation. Notable examples of contemporary anti-globalist movements include Mexico's
EZLN
. The
World Social Forum
, began in 2002, is an annual international event dedicated to countering capitalist globalization through networking of attending organizations.
[33]
According to historian
Gary Gerstle
, the ideological space for anti-capitalism in the United States shrank significantly with the end of the
Cold War
and the globalization of capitalism, forcing the left to "redefine their radicalism in alternative terms" by heavily focusing on multiculturalism and partisan culture war issues, which "turned out to be those that the capitalist system could more, rather than less, easily manage."
Late philosopher
Mark Fisher
referred to this phenomenon as
capitalist realism
: "the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it."
See also
[
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]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Andrews, Thomas G.
(2008).
Killing for Coal: America's Deadliest Labor War
. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press
. p. 6.
ISBN
978-0-674-03101-2
.
- ^
Newman, Michael
. (2005)
Socialism: A Very Short Introduction
, Oxford University Press,
ISBN
0-19-280431-6
- ^
"Socialism". Oxford English Dictionary.
- ^
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.
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- ^
a
b
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- ^
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- ^
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http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm
, "The bourgeoisie demonstrated to be a superfluous class. All its social functions are now performed by salaried employees."
- ^
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- ^
a
b
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- ^
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, "Main" summary: "Socialists complain that capitalism necessarily leads to unfair and exploitative concentrations of wealth and power in the hands of the relative few who emerge victorious from free-market competition?people who then use their wealth and power to reinforce their dominance in society."
- ^
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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.
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[Anarchism]
(PDF)
(in Spanish). Archived from
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(PDF)
on 2017-01-31
. Retrieved
2014-03-31
.
el capitalismo es solo el efecto del gobierno; desaparecido el gobierno, el capitalismo cae de su pedestal vertiginosamente...Lo que llamamos capitalismo no es otra cosa que el producto del Estado, dentro del cual lo unico que se cultiva es la ganancia, bien o mal habida. Luchar, pues, contra el capitalismo es tarea inutil, porque sea Capitalismo de Estado o Capitalismo de Empresa, mientras el Gobierno exista, existira el capital que explota. La lucha, pero de conciencias, es contra el Estado.
[capitalism [as] an effect of government; the disappearance of government means capitalism falls from its pedestal vertiginously...That which we call capitalism is not something else but a product of the State, within which the only thing that is being pushed forward is profit, good or badly acquired. And so to fight against capitalism is a pointless task, since be it State capitalism or Enterprise capitalism, as long as Government exists, exploiting capital will exist. The fight, but of consciousness, is against the State.]
- ^
"wage slave"
.
merriam-webster.com
. Retrieved
4 March
2013
.
- ^
"wage slave"
.
dictionary.com
. Retrieved
4 March
2013
.
- ^
Sandel 1996
, p.
184
.
- ^
"Conversation with Noam Chomsky"
. Globetrotter.berkeley.edu. p. 2. Archived from
the original
on 2019-09-19
. Retrieved
2010-06-28
.
- ^
"The Bolsheviks and Workers Control, 1917?1921: The State and Counter-revolution"
.
Spunk Library
. Retrieved
4 March
2013
.
- ^
Harrington, Austin, et al.
Encyclopedia of Social Theory
Routledge (2006) p. 50
- ^
Marx 1969
,
Chapter VII
- ^
a
b
Goldman, Emma.
Anarchism and Other Essays
. 3rd ed. 1917. New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1969., p. 54.
- ^
"Conversation with Noam Chomsky, p. 2 of 5"
. Globetrotter.berkeley.edu. Archived from
the original
on September 19, 2019
. Retrieved
August 16,
2011
.
- ^
Lindemann, Albert S.
(1983).
A History of European Socialism
.
Yale University Press
. p. 160.
- ^
Ely, Richard
; et al. (1914).
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. The Macmillan Company.
- ^
Richman, Sheldon,
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Archived
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,
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(March 2011)
- ^
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.
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.
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.
- ^
Farred, Grant (2000). "Endgame Identity? Mapping the New Left Roots of Identity Politics".
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.
Bibliography
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edit
]
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(1992).
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(PDF)
. Cambridge, MA:
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
- Fisher, Mark
(2009).
Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?
.
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.
ISBN
978-1846943171
.
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(2022).
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.
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.
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978-0197519646
.
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.
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.
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. Routledge.
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.
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.
Further reading
[
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]
External links
[
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]