Can Capitalism ever change?
Can capitalism ever change? The answer is yes and no.
In one fundamental way capitalism cannot change. Capitalism cannot be anything but a class divided society in which a capitalist class minority in society exploits a working class majority. Workers produce more social wealth than they receive in wages and salaries. And the capitalist class live off the unearned income of rent, interest and profit.
Can the capitalist stop making money and accumulating capital? Can capitalism be changed to serve the needs of all society? Or are profit-making, class exploitation and destroying competitors so inherent and intrinsic to capitalism that to all intents and purposes capitalism and the profit system cannot change?
As per usual, the great and the not-so-good of world capitalism assembled in January this year for their yearly exclusive, invitation-only gathering at the luxury ski resort at Davos in Switzerland. Representatives of the capitalist class are worried by capitalism and the direction it is taking, both in terms of inequality and environmental degradation. But above all the need to seem to do something - anything - about climate change.
At Davos "Stakeholder capitalism" is the new buzz word. The idea of "stakeholder capitalism" is that commodity production and distribution changes capitalism from being primarily profit driven to become something inclusive of all society.
A believer that capitalism can fundamentally change is Professor Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum. In his address at Davos, he said:
"Generally speaking, we have three models to choose from. The first is "shareholder capitalism," embraced by most Western corporations, which holds that a corporation's primary goal should be to maximize its profits. The second model is "state capitalism," which entrusts the government with setting the direction of the economy, and has risen to prominence in many emerging markets, not least China. But, compared to these two options, the third has the most to recommend it. "Stakeholder capitalism," a model I first proposed a half-century ago, positions private corporations as trustees of society and is clearly the best response to today's social and environmental challenges." Davos"
https://www.thenational.ae/world/world-economic-forum-2019-davos-chief-klaus-schwab-sends-environmental-warning-in-opening-address-1.816483
Socialists would agree that "shareholder" capitalism and state capitalism have failed to meet the needs of all society. However "stakeholder" capitalism is a non-starter. Capitalism has to be about making profit and exploiting the working class, otherwise it is not capitalism. Professor Schwab is a utopian thinker erroneously believing that changing words can change reality.
It was Marx who got capitalism right. He wrote of the capitalist's need to maximise profits and increasing control over workers. In Marx's words:
"To accumulate, is to conquer the world of social wealth, to increase the mass of human beings exploited by him, and thus to extend both the direct and the indirect sway of the capitalist" (CAPITAL, Volume 1, Ch. XXIV, p. 592)
And Marx went on to conclude:
"Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets!...Accumulation for accumulation.s sake, production for production's sake" (CAPITAL, volume 1, Ch. XXIV, p. 595).
Marx showed that workers not only produce value that cover their wages and salaries but a surplus value. Labour is exploited in capitalism because the worker is paid the value of his or her labour-power and the employer gets the use value of this peculiar commodity. It is the exploitation of labour power in generating a surplus value which is the basis of capitalist profits. Under capitalism, workers can never be "stake-holders" only an exploited class.
The capitalist system drives the capitalist to make profit, accumulate capital and expand capital. Competition forces the capitalist to accumulate to survive. The law that governs life in a capitalist jungle is the law of "survival of the fittest". Profit-seeking and wage exploitation is not from choice but the result of the logic of the system. To not behave like a ruthless profit-seeking capitalist is to die.
What Professor Schwab ignores is the possibility of a fourth "model" and that is replacing capitalism in all its forms with a new social system based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution by all of society. This would be a truly all-inclusive society. Socialism would mean production for use, not profit, and so would be able to resolves the pressing problems caused by the profit system, from hunger, ill-health and homelessness, to crime war, climate change and environmental problems.
But as capitalism, like the proverbial Leopard, cannot change its spots, it will always be profit-driven, a system run in the interest of the investors, the capitalist class. However, capitalism can be changed in a revolutionary way. Capitalism can be replaced by socialism. And this involves the world's working class taking democratic and political action within a principled class'conscious socialist political movement: not to rely any longer on reforms and other quack cures for capitalism’s ills, but to tackle the task that confronts us all, to put an end to a system of class exploitation, by democratic class political action. Only by ending this class system can we build a world where all are equally able to thrive, and the natural world protected. That is something you will not be found being discussed at Davos.
Object and Declaration of Principles
Object
The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.
Declaration of Principles
THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN HOLDS:
1. That society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living (ie land, factories, railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced.
2. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle, between those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.
3.That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the working class from the domination of the master class, by the conversion into common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.
4. That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.
5. That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.
6. That as the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.
7. That as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.
8. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.