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financial crisis is the environmental crisis... [W]e can’t solve the former until we start solving the latter.” Our society has blurred a most fundamental fact: humans are completely dependent on the health of the natural world. In fact, we are part of the natural world, made of the same ingredients as the rest of life on Earth over which we have assumed dominion. But, having lost our connections to reality, we don’t fully grasp the predicament we are in. All of humanity is beginning to resemble the astronaut in space, spinning in our separate metal containments, millions of miles from the organic roots of our existence. We depend on nourishment that arrives from somewhere far away on ships or planes. We are disconnected from the sources of information we need, now brought to us only through processed images from distant places. We have no direct means of knowing right from wrong, or how to control our experience. One thing though is dead certain: we had better recognise this problem soon. Our horizons are not unlimited. There are boundaries to our aspirations. When we hear our political leaders renewing their race towards unlimited exponential growth, we realise they don’t know what they are talking about. They themselves are lost in an obsolete set of mental frameworks, a 30-centuries-long process to sublimate the most basic point of all: namely that all of our economic and social activity depends on Nature. We are not separate, and we are not in charge. Failing to grasp that fact while promoting ubiquitous economic strategies that remain unconscious of such realities may prove to be our most fatal flaw. People throughout the world are already deeply concerned and talking about the problems of the capitalist system. However, most of them are not acknowledging that that’s what they’re talking about. Not long ago, I attended a speech by a leading environmentalist friend articulating the depth of the depletion crises we now face. He brilliantly described the problems inherent to our system – social, political and environmental – and he spoke of the need for new economic paradigms that accept the limits of the Earth’s carrying capacities. This talk focused on the urgent need for a revised system of economic values to modify the ‘present system’, a term my friend used several times. But what ‘present system’ did he have in mind? Why not name it? Did he mean ‘infinite growth’ was the system? Are we worrying about a system called growth? There is no such system. The drive to destructive, never-ending growth is an intrinsic, fundamental expression, a subset of an economic system named capitalism. I’m all for naming the system. In November 2010, I heard a speech by Bill Moyers, who quoted Socrates saying this: “If you are going to remember a thing, you must first name it.” I like that a lot. Naming something diminishes its amorphousness and stimulates focus – what it is, and what it is not. On the other hand, Moyers didn’t name capitalism, either, though he did put a name on the system: ‘plutonomy’. That’s a good name for what’s going on now, but, like ‘growth’, plutonomy is a subset of capitalism; capitalism produces plutonomy. Another colleague, a leading liberal economist, recently said to me: “Jerry, I hope you’re not really going to write that book about capitalism. Nobody even knows what it is. It has so many forms; it defies single definitions. Anyway, if you critique capitalism per se, you’ll only marginalise all of us, as socialists, or worse.” On a previous occasion, during a conference called Is Capitalism Soon Over? which we had both attended, the same colleague said that if the assembled group of economists and activists took a public stand against capitalism, he might have to leave. And yet in reading his writings, I can find only the most blistering critiques of the unnamed system, and very little to suggest that large-scale, free-market capitalism, as we now know it, has any chance of surviving for much longer. Nonetheless, he is exactly right to ask, while we are discussing the ‘C’ word, what, exactly, are we talking about? Because this word is applied to many, many different iterations of similar economic practices. The standard definition of capitalism goes more or less this way: an economic system dominated by private [as opposed to community, or public, or state] ownership of capital, property, land, and the means of production and distribution. Some definitions add that the system requires freedom from regulation, freedom of movement (geographic mobility), and unfettered free markets. All of those encourage the continuous pursuit of financial self-interest, profits, growth and economic and political autonomy (aka ‘laissez-faire capitalism’ or ‘free-market fundamentalism’). American-style capitalism is probably the closest example in the world to the ideals of laissez-faire capitalism – the least government regulation or intervention of any developed nation – except for those times when governments provide helpful subsidies, privatisation schemes, military contracts, or other forms of supportive largesse to corporations. The whole system focuses on the primacy of corporate expansion and profit. 44 Resurgence & Ecologist Above: The End by Gerry Baptist November/December 2012
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If government tries to initiate any kind of regulatory steps – an environmental law, for example, or regulations on the freedom of banks to invest depositors’ money in risky ventures, or taxes levied on profits – these will be met with cries against government powers, as they are seen to defy the primary freedoms and drives of the system. Another definition of a capitalist system comes from Yale University scholar Immanuel Wallerstein. In his book World-Systems Analysis, he cuts to the chase: “We are in a capitalist system only when the system gives priority to the endless accumulation of capital... Endless accumulation is a quite simple concept: it means that people and firms are accumulating capital in order to accumulate still more capital, a process that is continual and endless.” That’s the crux of the matter, I think: accumulating capital in order to accumulate still more capital... continual and endless. Or perhaps we should turn to the words of film director Oliver Stone: “Money never sleeps.” Large national and global corporations – especially those whose stock is publicly traded – are obliged to seek constant growth, constant profit expansion and the absolute primacy of short-term self-interest, no matter the social, political or environmental contexts or effects. Making profits for shareholders is the primary, if not the only, legal and practical obligation of corporate structure. If they do not succeed in that, businesses fail. On the other hand, small-market local businesses have the option to operate in far different ways. Private, small-scale, locally owned and oriented businesses that operate in single markets – especially those that are not listed by stock markets – are usually more directly involved in community life; their customers may also be personal friends or neighbours. Such businesses can set priorities and retain options that largescale capitalist enterprises cannot. For example, privately owned, small-market businesses can opt out of any legal imperatives to continuously expand; nor do they have to pay dividends to anonymous or dominant shareholders. This is also true of family or community-based businesses, as well as worker-owned and operated businesses, co-ops, and ‘not-for-profit’ corporations of various kinds. There are many international variations on the system. For example, there is considerable diversity of ‘state capitalist’ expression in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Japan, India, Vietnam, Venezuela and other places where countries permit capitalist enterprises to operate for private profit and to compete within domestic and international markets. But they permit this only within certain predefined spheres of activity, and not others, and with a high degree of central planning, regulation and control. In most of those cases, the state continues to operate the most crucial industries, such as energy, transportation, banking, education, security and others. Some of these countries describe themselves as socialist; others don’t. The financial crisis is the environmental crisis; we can’t solve the former until we star t solving the latter Small enterprises will usually continue to seek profits, i.e. the excess of income over expenses. But their smaller-scale and communityembedded ownership allows them at least the possibility to operate from entirely different hierarchies of value than their megacousins operating nationally or globally. They can more easily avoid the intrinsic pitfalls that derive from serving the hungers of large-scale, growth-oriented, stock Another set of variations on the theme are the mixed economies of Europe, especially northern Europe, where capitalism operates freely in most economic domains, but within a context of considerable state regulation, higher taxes, and the extensive provision by governments of free or very low-cost social services – lifetime healthcare, education, transportation, childcare, elder-care, guaranteed incomes, and assured worker benefits such as vacations, maternity leave, etc. Europeans call this ‘social democracy’. Republicans in the United States call it ‘socialism’. Then there is the crucial matter of scale. Most economists these days, the media at large and the general public do not make clear distinctions between large-scale domestic or global capitalism versus local, small-market capitalism. The former operates in diverse, far-flung markets and regions, with extensive infrastructures, gathering resources or engaging in production and distribution, wherever on Earth they can do so profitably, especially after the boost provided by corporate globalisation after World War II. Or else they franchise their activities broadly beyond their initial community. market-driven enterprises. This is not to say that smaller-scale businesses always behave morally or that they necessarily place the interests of community or Nature ahead of personal gain, but the smaller and more local the scale of the operation, the greater the opportunity for more pro-social, pro-community and proenvironmental values, and an acceptance of limits to growth. A family-run store, or a restaurant, or a local service business – even when it seeks a profit – is a very different entity from a national or global resource company or bank or manufacturer or hedge fund. They are structurally and functionally different from large-scale or global capitalism, with mostly different motivations and drives – not really even cousins. They should not both be called ‘capitalist’. I think the word ‘capitalism’ should not be used to cover nearly the territory it now does. If local entrepreneurs were the only ‘capitalists’ in the world, I would never have thought about this book. They are not the problem. This article is an edited extract from The Capitalism Papers: Fatal Flaws of an Obsolete System by Jerry Mander, published by Counterpoint, ISBN: 978 1582437170. Issue 275 Resurgence & Ecologist 45

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financial crisis is the environmental crisis... [W]e can’t solve the former until we start solving the latter.”

Our society has blurred a most fundamental fact: humans are completely dependent on the health of the natural world. In fact, we are part of the natural world, made of the same ingredients as the rest of life on Earth over which we have assumed dominion. But, having lost our connections to reality, we don’t fully grasp the predicament we are in.

All of humanity is beginning to resemble the astronaut in space, spinning in our separate metal containments, millions of miles from the organic roots of our existence. We depend on nourishment that arrives from somewhere far away on ships or planes. We are disconnected from the sources of information we need, now brought to us only through processed images from distant places. We have no direct means of knowing right from wrong, or how to control our experience.

One thing though is dead certain: we had better recognise this problem soon. Our horizons are not unlimited. There are boundaries to our aspirations. When we hear our political leaders renewing their race towards unlimited exponential growth, we realise they don’t know what they are talking about. They themselves are lost in an obsolete set of mental frameworks, a 30-centuries-long process to sublimate the most basic point of all: namely that all of our economic and social activity depends on Nature. We are not separate, and we are not in charge. Failing to grasp that fact while promoting ubiquitous economic strategies that remain unconscious of such realities may prove to be our most fatal flaw.

People throughout the world are already deeply concerned and talking about the problems of the capitalist system. However, most of them are not acknowledging that that’s what they’re talking about. Not long ago, I attended a speech by a leading environmentalist friend articulating the depth of the depletion crises we now face. He brilliantly described the problems inherent to our system – social, political and environmental – and he spoke of the need for new economic paradigms that accept the limits of the Earth’s carrying capacities.

This talk focused on the urgent need for a revised system of economic values to modify the ‘present system’, a term my friend used several times. But what ‘present system’ did he have in mind? Why not name it? Did he mean ‘infinite growth’ was the system? Are we worrying about a system called growth? There is no such system. The drive to destructive, never-ending growth is an intrinsic,

fundamental expression, a subset of an economic system named capitalism. I’m all for naming the system.

In November 2010, I heard a speech by Bill Moyers, who quoted Socrates saying this: “If you are going to remember a thing, you must first name it.” I like that a lot. Naming something diminishes its amorphousness and stimulates focus – what it is, and what it is not. On the other hand, Moyers didn’t name capitalism, either, though he did put a name on the system: ‘plutonomy’. That’s a good name for what’s going on now, but, like ‘growth’, plutonomy is a subset of capitalism; capitalism produces plutonomy.

Another colleague, a leading liberal economist, recently said to me: “Jerry, I hope you’re not really going to write that book about capitalism. Nobody even knows what it is. It has so many forms; it defies single definitions. Anyway, if you critique capitalism per se, you’ll only marginalise all of us, as socialists, or worse.”

On a previous occasion, during a conference called Is Capitalism

Soon Over? which we had both attended, the same colleague said that if the assembled group of economists and activists took a public stand against capitalism, he might have to leave. And yet in reading his writings, I can find only the most blistering critiques of the unnamed system, and very little to suggest that large-scale, free-market capitalism, as we now know it, has any chance of surviving for much longer. Nonetheless, he is exactly right to ask, while we are discussing the ‘C’ word, what, exactly, are we talking about? Because this word is applied to many, many different iterations of similar economic practices.

The standard definition of capitalism goes more or less this way: an economic system dominated by private [as opposed to community, or public, or state] ownership of capital, property, land, and the means of production and distribution. Some definitions add that the system requires freedom from regulation, freedom of movement (geographic mobility), and unfettered free markets. All of those encourage the continuous pursuit of financial self-interest, profits, growth and economic and political autonomy (aka ‘laissez-faire capitalism’ or ‘free-market fundamentalism’).

American-style capitalism is probably the closest example in the world to the ideals of laissez-faire capitalism – the least government regulation or intervention of any developed nation – except for those times when governments provide helpful subsidies, privatisation schemes, military contracts, or other forms of supportive largesse to corporations. The whole system focuses on the primacy of corporate expansion and profit.

44 Resurgence & Ecologist

Above: The End by Gerry Baptist

November/December 2012

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