End what, exactly?

My second post musing on how to bring an end to capitalism.

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The first question everyone asks after they read the first post is “What do you mean by capitalism?”

American ideology, especially centrist and right wing ideology, demands a binary worldview. Your choices are unfettered free markets or Stalinist gulags. Reality is nuanced. (And free markets are mythical creatures.) Models for allocating power and resource exist across a spectrum. Anyone who tries to conflate socialism with authoritarianism is trying to sell you something. Usually literally.

The specific blueprint for replacing capitalism must come from the movement. And will probably take shape as multiple and varied experiments over decades.

But, for me, an initial analysis of what needs to ‘end’ starts with three, core cultural beliefs.

Economic Supremacy

“We need to balance economic growth against the environmental concerns.“

The hierarchy of global priorities will need to change. Economic growth, market performance, and related measures will need to run a distant 3rd, 4th, 5th to issues including environmental protection, human rights, health, work/life balance, equity, etc. Priorities that recognize we live in a fragile, connected system, where actions have consequences for everyone involved. This would most likely manifest as expanded market regulation and an emboldened conception of human rights.

Private Sector Cultural Dominance

Public sector leadership and service provision will need to be broadly legitimized and celebrated. Countless economic analyses demonstrate that this is and has always been the case. But an intentional, concerted, and winning effort has convinced most of us otherwise.

The American public sector is forced to genuflect–in policy, culture, and individual pride–to the superior intelligence, capability, and efficiency of the private sector. The private sector’s long dependence on public sector leadership, innovation, and financial support is intentionally hidden from view.

Risking your capital is seen as a superior moral good than risking your physical body through labor. Acumen in predicting market trends is rewarded more heavily than making things people need. Or helping people in need. Or advancing fundamental understanding. Or participating in public service and governance. Or…

Ending capitalism will not require swapping private sector dominance for public sector dominance. It also won’t require planned economies, the elimination of markets, or ignoring individual brilliance. But public sector leadership will need to be seen, culturally, as legitimate. A force for good.

Private Ownership of Natural Resources

Our conception of what constitutes ‘private property’ will need to evolve. Natural resources will need to be publicly owned and regulated, with the fruits of their exploitation taxed and reinvested. The right to extract and exploit natural resources would be allocated according to the holistic, reordered set of priorities described above. Market competition and individual profit incentives could serve as a, even the, primary means of putting the resources to use. And, finally, the proceeds from their exploitation would be taxed to facilitate large-scale investment in shared social and physical infrastructure. We will need to bookend the private market with the public interest.

I’m going to keep revisiting this post as we go. But this serves as a good starting point for what we mean by capitalism. And which pieces, specifically, need to end.