A lot of kin questions can be asked: Was medievalism eternal? Was despotic antiquity eternal? The answer is negative for all those, of course. There is no reason why capitalism would be more lasting than its predecessors. As a matter of fact, it is likely than capitalism will last a lot less than middle age and antiquity.
Capitalism has been taken as synonymous to liberty and freedom, especially during the Cold War, and that association has been taken as a guarantee of capitalism survival. After all, who doesn't want liberty and freedom? If people want it, it is likely that they will get it. However, survival of economic and social systems is not a moral problem.
Of course capitalism will not be eternal. Today we discuss the how and the when of capitalist ending, like Strecker, in his How Will Capitalism End?
But the microphysics of capitalism downfall is a very complex subject, and it is difficult to find lasting agreement among authors. Why? There are many factors involved, some legitimate, and others purposefully put just to muddle the waters. When people talk about industrial revolution and its second, third and fourth siblings, for example, it is likely that someone is running away from the subject. The truth is that present society would function under socialism or capitalism just because, so far, historical factors converge. So, the discussion between socialism and capitalism does not belong in the abstruse technicalities of new technologies and even dominant culture. It is a matter of organisation of the mode of production.
The engine of capitalism is profit, and profit is pursued whatever the cost. Since the Reagan era, profit could only be achieved by financializing the economy. And this means de-industrialization. It was not a choice, it was an existencial matter. But wealth is still material, and bits and bytes in a bank's computer are not wealth. It can evaporate in a sec.
So, the need for profit in the west, especially the US, could not escape the obvious contradiction in the change. Today the real wealth producers are elsewhere, and sooner or later the bill had to come. And come it did.
Contradiction in capitalism was closely studied by a certain German economist-philosopher. and the conclusion was that those contradictions, in their many forms, would end capitalism. So, capitalism would have to be changed into something capable to manage the economy and the social problems. Rosa Luxemburg, a German militant for socialism, proclaimed socialism or barbarism. Was she right?
To answer that question, a little thinking is needed. What are the options for post-capitalist society? Many Hollywood movies picture a post-apocalyptic scenario that can only be described as barbarism. That mirrors the post-capitalist scenario. And the great question here is: will people in those scenarios prefer socialism or barbarism? This question brings to light a simple fact: nobody likes revolutions, especially when they are violent. But in the face of barbarism the need for socialism is paramount. Just because
TINA - There Is No Alternative!!
People will chose the form of socialism most akin to their aspirations, and there is no automatic machine to determine socialist dogmas. On the contrary, dogmas of capitalism exausted the patience of everybody, and real freedom and liberty would be the words.
A society of free producers organized in accord with their own needs would produce whatever is necessary, according to necessity. Maybe this is not for this generation, but it is increasingly difficult to imagine that things could go to another path.
Most grocers would say 'my employees cannot make this business work'. And they are wrong. And the same applies to great concerns like Volkswagen and Ford. Sinking business should be normally inherited by a 'cooperative of workers'. It does not happen. But it is not so because there is a dam against workers control of production. This is ideological, and not technical.
Professor Richard Wolff has been arguing for decades for cooperatives, and he should be heard. People hear instead to Fox News, pure venom.
All the garbage set forth by ideological capitalism about socialism must be wiped out for the benefit of clear thinking, The human head was made to think, and not to separate the ears.
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