Do we need an alternative to capitalism?

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm splitting this from the 'When Will It All Go Wrong For The Tories/ Johnson?' thread, as it seemed to merit its own discussion. Feel free to reply with your views to the question in the title.

That doesn't surprise me, although I'd have thought you might partially agree about the last point about no alternative being presented, I don't even think the current Labour party have a brilliant solution right now (although PR voting might enable more credible ideas from different parties to emerge that form a solution).

By 'solution' do you mean a whole new economic system? If so, I'd say that's not realistic. Society and the economy are hugely complex things. You can't just invent a new system from scratch, impose it on everyone, and expect it to work. (The obvious example of that was socialism/communism: Sounded great in theory, but as soon as it hit the real World...)

If on the other hand, by 'solution', you mean, tweaks to make capitalism work better, then I think you're right that we need more ideas. I would say the problem is though that, to the extent that people in Labour and the LibDems have been coming up with any ideas, they've generally come from a place of assuming that it's up to the Government to solve all our problems (often by handing out free money), rather than recognising and encouraging our own role in creating our own individual lives.

Classic socialism probably isn't the answer because I think an alternative needs to consider the environment better, which socialism arguably never considered (when talking about nationalised fossil fuel industries).

I would say that, more to the point, classic socialism isn't the answer because it requires a degree of centralised control that is neither workable nor compatible with basic human freedoms, and also because, human nature being what it is, if you take away the profit motive - the ability for people to earn more by producing more things - the inevitable result is that productivity falls (because people no longer have an incentive to be productive), and living standards therefore eventually collapse.

The bank crash in 2008 was arguably neoliberalism's failure, while the failure of anybody, both in the UK and abroad, to deliver a solution, other than bailing out bankers (who should have been jailed, like in Iceland) and inflating asset bubbles, created the rise of populism that saw extremes like Johnson and Corbyn rise to prominence, obviously one was more successful than the other.

Was it really such a big failure as to justify looking for a new system? Look at it another way: You have an economic system that is known to be able to generate living standards far in excess of any other known economic system. Even after the crash, capitalism was still giving average living standards that no other system could hope to match. So in what sense was that a failure? Of course you probably want to study the causes of the crash to see if any tweaks can sensibly be made to avoid a similar crash happening again, but is it really a failure if a system is producing a bit less than it was the previous year (but still way more than any other system could)?

As for, should have been jailed... Why? What laws were they knowingly breaking? Are you sure calling for the bankers to be jailed doesn't just amount to, looking for someone to scapegoat for economic problems?

 

[Bletchleyite]

The answer to me is left-of-centre social democracy. Basically, go back in time a bit. Accept things like nationalised basic infrastructure but also promote business, particularly small business. Build social housing so the private landlords are priced out, and stop flogging it off for cheap. It's all possible, look at Scandinavia for some ideas.

 

[Bevan Price]

The snag with capitalism as currently organised is that "growth" and "ever-increasing profits" are seen as "good."
In the long-term, though maybe not in our lifetimes, that attitude is unsustainable. There are only finite amounts of resources on Earth. Once they start to expire, or become unaffordable to access, the concept of unlimited growth will be a dead idea.

Amongst the consequences will be famine - even here in UK. With developers, often encouraged by politicians, wanting to build more and more houses on good quality farming land , there will come a time when we cannot produce enough food to feed ever-increasing populations. And please do not accuse me of being racist, but there may come a time when we have to be much more effective in stopping all nett immigration.

 

[Pinza-C55]

The answer to me is left-of-centre social democracy. Basically, go back in time a bit. Accept things like nationalised basic infrastructure but also promote business, particularly small business. Build social housing so the private landlords are priced out, and stop flogging it off for cheap. It's all possible, look at Scandinavia for some ideas.

Although I agree with nationalisation of utilities you have to face the fact that Labour were in power for 13 years and did not do that, and when they offered it to the UK electorate in 2019 they suffered a crushing defeat. It's never going to happen.

 

[Mikw]

We've kind of already got it. Everytime capitilsm crashes we have to inject huge sums of tax payers cash to keep things as stable as possible.

The worst excesses of socialism and capitlism are destructive. You need the best bits of both

 

[Bletchleyite]

Although I agree with nationalisation of utilities you have to face the fact that Labour were in power for 13 years and did not do that, and when they offered it to the UK electorate in 2019 they suffered a crushing defeat. It's never going to happen.

It wasn't the nationalisation of utilities that killed the appeal for Labour in 2019. It was two things. One was their refusal to take a position on the EU (so neither side trusted them), the other one was that Corbyn was never, ever going to win an election. If you read the policies most of them did make sense, but he just had the wrong persona - and it turns out was a nasty anti-Semite too.

On topic for the Forum, a policy of renationalising the railway (not the half-assed GBR, actually renationalising it) would be extremely popular, and it could be evidenced by the successes of LNER and how nationalised Northern is a tiny little bit less rubbish than when Arriva had it. That would be a real vote-winner. Most of it is anyway; you just adopt a policy of vesting contracts in DOR as and when they expire, so it'd basically be free. Then once they all are, roll DOR into Network Rail, and then you've got BR back, basically for nothing.

(OK, you'd not have the rolling stock, but I don't doubt that if BR still existed it would still lease rolling stock, just as businesses generally lease rather than owning buildings).

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

The problem with capitalism is the runaway unfettered greed and short—termism that it encourages. If anyone hasn’t seen ‘The Big Short’ then I strongly recommend it, it’s an excellent movie, laying bare the behaviour of the US financial markets in an entertaining and easy to follow manner, in the run up to 2008.

I also agree / believe in public ownership of basic societal structures such as energy, education, basic communications such as mail and telephone, public transport, healthcare, eldercare, etc, and that there should be a ‘catch net‘ of basic state owned housing for those that the private sector spits out. I don’t believe state-subsidy should be freely available to everyone, only those who can’t support themselves, as the majority need the incentive to contribute.

(In the James SA Corey novels, there’s an interesting concept where Earth’s citizens must demonstrate their wilingness to work and contribute to society before they’re eligible for anything more than the most basic levels of state education and support etc.)

 

[Phil56]

Although I agree with nationalisation of utilities you have to face the fact that Labour were in power for 13 years and did not do that, and when they offered it to the UK electorate in 2019 they suffered a crushing defeat. It's never going to happen.

The 2019 GE election wasn't just about renationalisation of utilities! People may well have been in favour of that policy but unable to vote for Labour in 2019 for other reasons!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Jul 2022 ==

The answer to me is left-of-centre social democracy. Basically, go back in time a bit. Accept things like nationalised basic infrastructure but also promote business, particularly small business. Build social housing so the private landlords are priced out, and stop flogging it off for cheap. It's all possible, look at Scandinavia for some ideas.

I fully agree. I'd also like more "localism" in terms of business and government. We've gone too far towards centralisation, globalisation, etc. Let's get back to grass roots where you have local businesses - doesn't have to be tiny "one man band" types - we seem to have entirely lost regional businesses, i.e. small supermarket/dept store chains that have just several stores in a particular county or region - same applies to other types of business, i.e. wholesalers, manufacturers, service industries etc - they're now either huge national chains or tiny one man bands. We do indeed need to back track a few decades.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

we seem to have entirely lost regional businesses, i.e. small supermarket/dept store chains that have just several stores in a particular county or region - same applies to other types of business, i.e. wholesalers, manufacturers, service industries etc - they're now either huge national chains or tiny one man bands. We do indeed need to back track a few decades.

In the case of supermarkets, we already have an example of that: Booths, the regional supermarket chain that operates in NW England. It seems to do quite well, but from experience, its prices are always significantly higher than the national chains. Part of that may be to do with less bargaining power in negotiating with suppliers, but part is also likely to be, being smaller means fewer economies of scale than - say - Sainsburys or Tesco. So the question then becomes: If you want more small/regional chains instead of national ones: Would it still be worth it if it (plausibly) lead to higher prices? (And besides, how would you stop a regional chain from becoming a national chain, if it wanted to expand?)

 

[SynthD]

If you want informed voters to get what they want, it will usually result in social democracy. A system like the current capitalism that benefits few is not one worth continuing, and there is plenty of real world evidence of better ways to do it, like much of Western or Northern Europe.

Left of centre doesn’t need to mean back in time. Progressive, if that’s not a dirty word, has a lot of policies we need.

 

[Busaholic]

The answer to me is left-of-centre social democracy. Basically, go back in time a bit. Accept things like nationalised basic infrastructure but also promote business, particularly small business. Build social housing so the private landlords are priced out, and stop flogging it off for cheap. It's all possible, look at Scandinavia for some ideas.

I agree - the trouble is that arch-capitalists, arch-socialists and enthusiasts of control freakery at every level despise what might be called the pioneering liberal Scandinavian model, though much of it is fast disappearing there too unfortunately from what I read. The internet has a hell of a lot to answer for!

 

[Bevan Price]

It wasn't the nationalisation of utilities that killed the appeal for Labour in 2019. It was two things. One was their refusal to take a position on the EU (so neither side trusted them), the other one was that Corbyn was never, ever going to win an election. If you read the policies most of them did make sense, but he just had the wrong persona - and it turns out was a nasty anti-Semite too.

Yes, I think one has to wonder - was the Tory election victory in 2019 due to love of Boris - or to public dislike / distrust of Jeremy Corbyn ? In other words, did a lot of extra people vote conservative just to ensure that Corbyn could not become PM ?
And how will they vote next time?

 

[SynthD]

One can wonder their way to vote counts and see that doesn’t pan out. The few Conservatives who went on bbc political shows this week were rightly interrupted and criticised for bringing up Corbyn when it’s not relevant.

 

[Cdd89]

One thing that prevents an alternative to capitalism from emerging on a large scale is that capitalism is not an ideology as such but rather the absence of other ideology/controls.

Accordingly, in a globalised world, it is and always will be the foundation for international trade; and any deviation from this is at the cost of international competitiveness.

 

[DarloRich]

yeah! Luxury automated communism for all! Kenny, get my gun, we are off to hunt some of the bourgeoisie!

Seriously: what IS the alternative? Personally I feel that we need a better managed approach to capitalism. It is our machine after all.

 

[Sorcerer]

In short, no. Capitalism for all it's flaws is still the best system amongst the ones that have been tried. That said, there is considerable need for improvements, and in fact perhaps pulling back on it a little might help. I refer to some of the ideas listed by @Bletchleyite such as nationalised industries while also promoting free enterprise where appropriate and social housing.

I would go further to argue that a land value tax might be worth implementing since it's very difficult to avoid; for example, Amazon can try to spin how much revenue they've earned on their tax returns, but they can't dispute how much land some of their warehouses take up and how much value they hold.

What most definitely needs to be realised though is that we can't expect any changes overnight because whether we like it or not, society at large is quite averse to such radical changes. Even capitalism itself evolved from mercantilism which in itself had it's foundations laid down by feudalism, so unless there's a revolution I don't expect to be seeing an end to capitalism by the end of the week.

 

[Pinza-C55]

The 2019 GE election wasn't just about renationalisation of utilities! People may well have been in favour of that policy but unable to vote for Labour in 2019 for other reasons!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Jul 2022 ==



I fully agree. I'd also like more "localism" in terms of business and government. We've gone too far towards centralisation, globalisation, etc. Let's get back to grass roots where you have local businesses - doesn't have to be tiny "one man band" types - we seem to have entirely lost regional businesses, i.e. small supermarket/dept store chains that have just several stores in a particular county or region - same applies to other types of business, i.e. wholesalers, manufacturers, service industries etc - they're now either huge national chains or tiny one man bands. We do indeed need to back track a few decades.

The 2019 GE election wasn't just about renationalisation of utilities!

I never said it was. It included renationalisation of utilities. Even if Labour had been pro Brexit, based on the actions of Blair Labour I didn't believe that Labour would do what they said. By the same token when Boris said they would reopen railways I didn't believe him. And the fact is that the one time before that in living memory (1983) when Labour has offered a Socialist manifesto (I voted Labour in 1983) it resulted in a crushing defeat. Your options are basically that you can have a Conservative government or a centrist Labour government which does nothing much different from the Conservatives.

 

[Yew]

(The obvious example of that was socialism/communism: Sounded great in theory, but as soon as it hit the real World...)

I think that as a planet, we're still yet to see what a communist system looks like in a real fully economically developed nation. Even Lenin considered that Russia was not industrially developed enough in 1905 to make such a system work in Russia. In latter years, the USSR was very busy trying to act as a peer of NATO, meaning that spending that could have been used to help their citizens, was going to defence as around 10-20% of GDP. (For reference the current NATO spending target is 2%).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jul 2022 ==

What most definitely needs to be realised though is that we can't expect any changes overnight because whether we like it or not, society at large is quite averse to such radical changes. Even capitalism itself evolved from mercantilism which in itself had it's foundations laid down by feudalism, so unless there's a revolution I don't expect to be seeing an end to capitalism by the end of the week.

Typically the term used here to refer to the transition from feudal lords to the existence of a class of capitalists is a "Bourgeois revolution".

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jul 2022 ==

Seriously: what IS the alternative? Personally I feel that we need a better managed approach to capitalism. It is our machine after all.

Unfortunately, the whole point of capitalism is that the machines are not ours.

I would personally lean towards a 1960's style model, key industries such as water, power, gas and rail being Nationalised (as realistically there are no efficient ways to have effective competition anyway). I don't think I'd look at national ownership of manufacturing, as it feels like that didn't work for British Layland, as politically it's difficult for such companies to take business risks and as such BL fell behind it's competitors.

I'd support a programme of encouraging jobs in more regional areas, as I feel that a lot the current housing issues aren't necessarily alack of housing, but a lack of housing in the right places. Regional manufacturing has shut down, and now the children of miners and factory workers have moved to the cities as there is less viable work at home.

 

[Phil56]

I'd support a programme of encouraging jobs in more regional areas, as I feel that a lot the current housing issues aren't necessarily alack of housing, but a lack of housing in the right places. Regional manufacturing has shut down, and now the children of miners and factory workers have moved to the cities as there is less viable work at home.

Definitely. But it's not just mines and factory workers. When I started work in our nearby town in the 80s, there were lots of "white collar" office jobs. There were numerous banks, all of whom had "back office" workers, we had a regional office of a national pensions company, we had a regional office of a top 10 accountancy firm, numerous estate agents, stockbroker offices, etc., again all with back office staff.

Now, there's literally none of that. The few banks we have only have front counter staff - you have to have a phone consultation if you need to speak to a "manager" about anything counter staff can't do. Regional offices of national firms have all gone in our town. Basically if you want a half decent "white collar" job that doesn't involve front counter work, then you have to travel an hour or two to the nearest city.

That causes the "brain drain", especially given how most able youngsters now go off to Uni - they simply never come back to work in their home town as there are no decent jobs for them. Except for public sector such as teachers, doctors/nurses, social services, etc. The private sector has basically centralised itself in London and a handful of other large cities.

 

[SynthD]

Regional offices of national firms have all gone in our town. Basically if you want a half decent "white collar" job that doesn't involve front counter work, then you have to travel an hour or two to the nearest city.

Was some of that done to stop a town only having one or two white collar employers? Zero is worse, but it’s no longer the company’s problem.

 

[Cloud Strife]

I would personally lean towards a 1960's style model, key industries such as water, power, gas and rail being Nationalised (as realistically there are no efficient ways to have effective competition anyway). I don't think I'd look at national ownership of manufacturing, as it feels like that didn't work for British Layland, as politically it's difficult for such companies to take business risks and as such BL fell behind it's competitors.

You can have competition to a certain degree. For instance, let's take power as an example.

The government owns the power generation facilities (because they can buy raw materials in bulk, such as gas or uranium) and the grid. Private companies can compete to buy power on a yearly basis, and they take on the commercial risk of buying, marketing and selling power to clients.

You have a single 'energy provider of last resort' that remains under government control, who take over contracts from consumers and businesses if needs be. You include a clause in every contract that the price of power will be set at a 'revenue-netural' amount if the contract is transferred, but that this amount will be set according to the spot price rate. So, let's say that Power Company A goes bust. The state-owned Power Company B takes over the contracts, and supplies electricity at the spot price + a certain percentage. Consumers can transfer away from this company at any time, and the company will not sign any new contracts and will not compete on the open market.

This way, you have continuity of supply, but you encourage new power companies to come in and take those clients.

There is a government monopoly on generation and transmission, but not on selling. With renewables, you can launch public tenders for the supply of xx amount of power in yy location, encouraging private companies to build windfarms/solar farms in exchange for a guaranteed concession period with a guaranteed price.

Rail should simply have public franchises where a private operator operates a route/routes with the rolling stock, infrastructure and stations owned by a state-owned company. The state provides the infrastructure, the company provides the service for a set amount, and job done. It works in Germany with regional routes without any real problem.

 

[TwoYellas]

The current race to be the new PM has had me thinking that democracy needs always improving. As the contestants have often left me despondent. In terms of capital - ism, seems to me this basically means money - ism and therefore an awful lot can go wrong. Of course there is a place for capital but not neoliberalism and greed at the expense of people. And in terms of leadership, I think there should be serious checks and balances and accountability measures in telling the truth, and then carrying out those policies (unless there are acceptable reasons not to).

The press should also reasonably tell the truth. And on issues requiring say referendums, the likely advantages/disadvantages should be presented. I'm not talking about chaos and revolution or anything silly like that. Just democratic reforms.

I realise what I say is slightly utopian - but we've got to start somewhere.

 

[Yew]

The current race to be the new PM has had me thinking that democracy needs always improving. As the contestants have often left me despondent.

I agree, I almost see some parallels to Rome before Ceasers coup. We have a political class more interested in making money and protecting their donors, than the wellbeing of the people. I think we're a way off any unrest, but this path could eventually lead to it.

In terms of capital - ism, seems to me this basically means money - ism and therefore an awful lot can go wrong.

Not really, I'm not aware of any communist systems who seek to abolish the idea of money. Typically the 'capital' in capitalism refers to a class of people who primarily make their income through leveraging their money. Either through loans, ownership of businesses, or other assets. If we want to go down classical Marxist definitions, it would be a class who extract surplus value from others through the ownership of the means of production.