Again the post-capitalism adage
Jun. 30th, 2016 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nairiporterAfter a long illness, the patient dies. This is how we could basically summarise the story of a British economics journalist about the end of a system that has dominated the world for more than a decade. The author claims that capitalism is at its death bed, and all treatment therapies, from Schaeuble's austerity to Draghi's currency devaluation policies, are doomed to fail. "Capitalism's long-term prospects are dire", former BBC and Channel 4 contributor Paul Mason argues.
Having observed the "dying patient", Mason characterises the current situation as "critical", and uses date from the OECD showing that growth in the major economies would remain slow for the next half a century, and income inequality would increase by 40% globally. He expects that the most pessimistic predictions about capitalism will come to be: that this system will no longer be able to generate prosperity even in the wealthiest countries; that the battles for redistributing the pie will increase, and political extremism will thrive; and automatisation of labor will destroy millions of jobs. He says any attempt by the socio-liberal elites to keep a life line to the patient and maintain order, would inevitably lead to dictatorship.
Mason does seem to have an alternative approach for saving the world, though: "We could start with saving globalisation by removing neo-liberalism. Then we should save the world by overcoming capitalism. That would spare us all sorts of inequalities and cataclysms".
He believes capitalism has become a gravedigger of itself, and the modern information technologies it helped create will be the ones to play its requiem. New movements like Open-Source, Open-Access and Open-Content, which have revolutionised the Internet, will soon make copyright obsolete, he also predicts. The new information technologies will provide free or almost free access to a number of everyday services, and people won't need to pay enormous amounts to buy a house or a car, as in the future they will be able to "print" them, using a 3D-printer.
"The most significant internal discrepancy of modern capitalism is the one between the inability to produce an abundance of goods for mass consumption and simultaneously having a system of monopolies, banks and governments that aim to preserve their control on political power and information. This is a war between the network and the hierarchy", he writes, and goes on to argue that these fundamental changes would not be a product of the working class, as the leftists of the 20th century had expected, but by "the educated individual who is connected in the network of information society in the era of computers". In this sense, planned economy and the current market are about to be substituted, and the era of "intelligent network structures" is at hand, he promises.
Mason also argues that the ability to have access to practically limitless goods wil undermine the current economic system and replace it with a new, more progressive one (no surprise he self-identifies as a "radical social-democrat". He believes people will be increasingly connecting between themselves in ever expanding networks, and be able to help each other. In this sense, he speaks of cooperative forms of production and exchange of goods and services, which will transform the character of the world economy. In a system where hired labour could become almost unnecessary, people will make a living out of a guaranteed base income, he believes.
Of course, all of this sounds too utopian for anyone who is familiar enough with the realities of today, and the peculiarities of human behaviour. Mason's ideas may radiate a lot of optimism, but in fact they do not sound particularly convincing. Most of all, due to the fact that the bulk of those claims and predictions rest upon rather questionable assertions. Take for example the claim that the principles of the so called "sharing economy" could somehow completely replace the current material production. And not least importantly, his ideas may sound rather far-fetched because he assumes that the people who benefit the most from the current economic order of the world would somehow refrain from putting a fight against these proposed revolutionary changes. Indeed, that would be the first case in human history when the ruling class would be benevolent enough to just stay passively, and observe the very process of its own decapitation. As we already know, that is not going to happen.
Having observed the "dying patient", Mason characterises the current situation as "critical", and uses date from the OECD showing that growth in the major economies would remain slow for the next half a century, and income inequality would increase by 40% globally. He expects that the most pessimistic predictions about capitalism will come to be: that this system will no longer be able to generate prosperity even in the wealthiest countries; that the battles for redistributing the pie will increase, and political extremism will thrive; and automatisation of labor will destroy millions of jobs. He says any attempt by the socio-liberal elites to keep a life line to the patient and maintain order, would inevitably lead to dictatorship.
Mason does seem to have an alternative approach for saving the world, though: "We could start with saving globalisation by removing neo-liberalism. Then we should save the world by overcoming capitalism. That would spare us all sorts of inequalities and cataclysms".
He believes capitalism has become a gravedigger of itself, and the modern information technologies it helped create will be the ones to play its requiem. New movements like Open-Source, Open-Access and Open-Content, which have revolutionised the Internet, will soon make copyright obsolete, he also predicts. The new information technologies will provide free or almost free access to a number of everyday services, and people won't need to pay enormous amounts to buy a house or a car, as in the future they will be able to "print" them, using a 3D-printer.
"The most significant internal discrepancy of modern capitalism is the one between the inability to produce an abundance of goods for mass consumption and simultaneously having a system of monopolies, banks and governments that aim to preserve their control on political power and information. This is a war between the network and the hierarchy", he writes, and goes on to argue that these fundamental changes would not be a product of the working class, as the leftists of the 20th century had expected, but by "the educated individual who is connected in the network of information society in the era of computers". In this sense, planned economy and the current market are about to be substituted, and the era of "intelligent network structures" is at hand, he promises.
Mason also argues that the ability to have access to practically limitless goods wil undermine the current economic system and replace it with a new, more progressive one (no surprise he self-identifies as a "radical social-democrat". He believes people will be increasingly connecting between themselves in ever expanding networks, and be able to help each other. In this sense, he speaks of cooperative forms of production and exchange of goods and services, which will transform the character of the world economy. In a system where hired labour could become almost unnecessary, people will make a living out of a guaranteed base income, he believes.
Of course, all of this sounds too utopian for anyone who is familiar enough with the realities of today, and the peculiarities of human behaviour. Mason's ideas may radiate a lot of optimism, but in fact they do not sound particularly convincing. Most of all, due to the fact that the bulk of those claims and predictions rest upon rather questionable assertions. Take for example the claim that the principles of the so called "sharing economy" could somehow completely replace the current material production. And not least importantly, his ideas may sound rather far-fetched because he assumes that the people who benefit the most from the current economic order of the world would somehow refrain from putting a fight against these proposed revolutionary changes. Indeed, that would be the first case in human history when the ruling class would be benevolent enough to just stay passively, and observe the very process of its own decapitation. As we already know, that is not going to happen.
