Capitalism might be defined as the institutionalisation of the profit-motive. Anti-capitalist radicals too often focus almost exclusively on the struggle between capital and labor, to the neglect of the very serious struggles among capitalists themselves. These latter struggles account for a lot of what happens under capitalism. If a capitalist enterprise doesn't make a profit, it disappears, vanishes, goes out of existence. It either goes bankrupt or else is gobbled up by a larger, more profitable company. From the point of view of the corporation, the need to turn a profit, and as big a profit as possible, is absolute. It is the first requirement for survival. Turning a profit means expanding, finding new markets, making new products. This is necessary because of the pressures of other corporations, all of which are trying to do the same thing. We are living through one of the most intense periods of the concentration of capital (mergers or the big fish gobbling up the little fish) in the history of capitalism. These mergers have been triggered by pressures on the rate of profit throughout the world. This tendency to merge is inherent to the system, stemming from the competition among firms to stay profitable (and therefore to stay in existence), and, needless to say, from pressures from below, from the working class, which also puts a squeeze on profits. So corporations get bigger and bigger. The idea that we can go backward, to a capitalism made up of millions of small-scale proprietors, is completely unrealistic. Yet this assumption underlies much of populist protest and agitation. These populists do not direct their anger against capitalism itself, but only against giant corporations. The idea that any of these firms could, if they were only so inclined (that is, if only they were run by nicer people), start behaving in more generous and responsible ways, is a total illusion. Those advocating for 'socially responsible corporations' are acting rather naively, even irresponsibly. The one hundred or so giant corporations that produce the bulk of the world's coal, oil, and natural gas, the burning of which is warming the earth, are not just thieves and murderers but are rapidly becoming guilty of genocide, ecocide, and possibly even planetcide. It is not just that these companies have been producing these products in response to demand. It is that they have conspired to create the demand in the first place, and then conspired further to keep the world dependent on fossil fuels. These are enormously rich and powerful corporations, which spend millions in propaganda and in lobbying legislators the world over, to defeat efforts to deal with the problem of global warming.
Capitalism is a system of theft, Marx proving that profit came from unpaid wages (surplus-value) rather than from the sale of the product. Under capitalism there is no such thing as a fair day's pay; it is structurally impossible; the system is inherently unfair, being based on the siphoning off, through force, of part of the wealth created by the direct producers. Since capitalism is inherently a system of theft, and since capitalists, as a class, do regularly and systematically resort to lying, brutality, torture, oppression, murder, and war to defend their scam, capitalists are not merely greedy, they are outright criminals. Many progressives seek reforms and legislation to make corporations socially responsible. It is assumed that corporations could, if only they weren't so greedy, be more generous and responsible. This assumption, however, misjudges the nature of the beast. Corporations, by their very nature, are inherently irresponsible. They could not survive, for example, if they had to absorb all the external costs of their operations. They could not possibly make a profit. Being able to externalize many of the costs of production is almost a definition of capitalism, as a system of competing, profit-based, corporations, supported by nation-states. Nor could they survive very long if they raised wages very much, or spent money on safety because other corporations wouldn't and would, therefore, drive them out of business. We need to keep this struggle among capitalists in mind when looking at sweatshops, unsafe mines, and toxic workplaces, and not limit our criticisms to the cruelty and greed of capitalists, but direct it to the system itself. Even when we do see the occasional business that 'does right by its employees', as they like to claim, with 'decent' wages, pension plans, profit-sharing, sick leave, good vacations, maternity leave, grievance procedures, eight hour days, and so forth, we have to remember that this is still based on wage-slavery, on the expropriation of wealth from the direct producers, and is thus an unjust set up. Furthermore, such beneficial policies came into being originally in the context of a strong labor movement, which raised the standards for all workers, even those in nonunion workplaces. Now that unions are practically gone, benefits like these have been disappearing rapidly. In short, the campaign for 'socially responsible corporations' is ridiculous, totally reformist, and completely unable to solve the social and ecological crises that are overwhelming humanity.
If we look at world history over the course of the past several centuries, it is hard to miss the fact that democracy has been advancing. The notion that people have the right to rule themselves is a near universal idea at present, and it shows no signs of weakening. Democracy has not only extended itself geographically, but it has deepened internally. This extension of democracy to the economic realm is far from complete. Democratic rights in the work-place have rarely been granted without a fight. Economic Democracy is essentially off-limits under capitalism. Yet, economic democracy is far better positioned than capitalism to avoid ecological crises. We can aim for healthy, equitable, sustainable development, not the mindless consumption that fails to make people happy. Economic democracy can be a “no-growth economy,” whereas capitalism cannot be. Actually, “no-growth” is a misnomer. Productivity increases under economic democracy can be translated into ending poverty for once and for all, after which growth will be mostly in free time, not consumption without having to worry about provoking a over-production recession. We shall use the new-found bounty of nature quite differently than the way the rich use it today and will map out for ourselves a plan of life quite otherwise than theirs. What work there still remains to be done will be as widely shared as possible – three hour shifts, or a fifteen-hour week.
Most human communities throughout history have had to be in order to survive. They have had to provide a certain quantity of essential material things for themselves in order to live -- food, shelter, clothing, tools, and transportation. Needs are socially defined. An item which is considered unnecessary in one culture may be considered quite essential by the average person in another culture. Beyond bare necessities of nourishment and shelter from cold, human needs are almost completely culturally defined, and vary considerably, historically and across cultures. And why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't different peoples have different tastes and different ways of satisfying their needs? And why shouldn't our needs expand as we become richer? Why shouldn't we try to enrich our lives as much as we can?
However, we suffer 'culture of consumerism' a product of capitalism itself. Under the incessant drive to sell, sell, sell, corporations strive mightily to create needs and bring into being a demand for their products and services. Advertising is an enormous industry, incessantly pressuring us to buy. Many other social pressures also get us to buy commodities, such as status through conspicuous consumption. The average person is a victim of this consumerism run amok, not its cause. This might be called a false materialism, or a materialism that has run amok. We call it call 'commodification' or 'commercialism', or. We shop until we drop and they profit. It is capitalism which has promoted a whole set of irrational priorities. Some capitalists value profit more than life itself such as the tobacco industry. It's the profit-making system of capitalism functioning at its normal best. The normal way is profit-making, by exploiting wage-slaves and defending all the institutions needed to perpetuate this exploitation, through murder and war if need be. It is this system of exploitation that has to be undone.
Many of these needs we have might not be considered necessary in another society, but are essential in this one. We are locked into them. We have to have a car, for example, to commute to work and drive to a supermarket miles away (in the absence of work closer to home, public transportation, or corner grocery stores). We need our own home, in the absence of communal or cooperative housing. We need a refrigerator since much of the available food needs to be kept cold. We need machines to wash our clothes. We need to cook our food on. And so forth. Capitalism has rebuilt in a very haphazard and irrational way almost the entire human material world, and in the process has locked us into a multitude of needs which cannot be abolished just by wishing. We will have to change practically the entire social fabric and then re-define and rebuild what it means to live really well and enjoy a high-quality life. We have umpteen urgent material needs that are not being met -- the simple need for food, clothing, and shelter (for billions of people), the need for nutritious food (for most of us in the developed countries), the need for clean air and water, the need for an unpolluted environment, the need for meaningful work, the need for neighbors, the need for safe and nontoxic workplaces, the need for time to play the need for parks and green spaces. The list of our unmet material needs is long.
Capitalists have not only erected the social institutions they need, but have brought into being an entire cultural apparatus to support their practices, and even worse, have shaped our very personalities and character structures to fit the prerequisites of a profit driven system. The disappearance of all other values, leaving just commercial ones, is thus a result, not a cause. The privilege of the profit-makers is inherent to the system and deeply embedded. Private ownership of the means of production and distribution has to be abolished, as well as classes, and the state itself, and all of these replaced with cooperative, democratic social forms.
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