Confronting Capitalism by Vivek Chibber

Author:Vivek Chibber
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso Books

The Limits to Reforms

How far can class organizing and class pressure go in democratizing the state? Can it fully neutralize the power of capital? While we have seen tremendous progress in the countries with the most organized working classes, there are real limits to democracy in a capitalist system. Remember that as long as investment remains in private hands, the state simply has to prioritize those interests. And private control over investment is the very definition of capitalism. Even the most radical socialist parties, even the most powerful union movements, have to bend to this. As long as governing parties choose to respect the rights and prerogatives of those who own the means of production—capitalists, bankers, agribusinesses, financiers—they have to also respect their private and social power. And even when labor manages to chip away at this power by deepening political and economic democracy, the fact remains that they can’t equalize the influence of ordinary people and the wealthy—because respecting private property means respecting the greater say that the wealthy have over economic decisions.

This is what it means, after all, when we say that in capitalism real power doesn’t reside in the state but in the economy. We can democratize the state and through it substantially weaken the arbitrary power that capitalists have over the economic decisions that affect everyone’s lives—regarding investment, employment, wages, work time, and so forth. And we can also loosen their grip over politics. But as long as we are in a capitalist system, the state will have to respect the structural power of capital. And as long as it does that, there will be a limit to democratization. For real democracy to be possible, we would have to open up those decisions to a much greater degree of social debate and decision-making. But the level of social control over the economy needed to achieve real democracy is simply not possible in capitalism. The implication is clear-cut—while a mobilized and organized labor movement can substantially democratize social life and demand concessions from the state, capitalism imposes real limits on how far political power can be equalized between the rich and the poor. To truly enable full participation in the decisions that affect us all, it will be necessary to go beyond capitalism.

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