Vivek Chibber - Confronting Capitalism: How the World Works and How to Change It

Confronting Capitalism

This eBook is licensed to , @gmail.com on 08/31/2022

The Jacobin series features short interrogations of politics, economics, and culture from a socialist perspective, as an avenue to radical political practice. The books offer critical analysis and en gagement with the history and ideas of the Left in an accessible format.

The series is a collaboration between Verso Books and Jacobin magazine, which is published quarterly in print and online at jacobinmag.com.

Other titles in this series available from Verso Books:

Four Futures by Peter Frase
Class War by Megan Erickson
Building the Commune by George Ciccariello-Maher
Peoples Republic of Walmart by Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski
Red State Revolt by Eric Blanc
Capital City by Samuel Stein
Without Apology by Jenny Brown
All-American Nativism by Daniel Denvir
A Planet to Win by Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni,
Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos
Toward Freedom by Tour F. Reed
Yesterdays Man by Branko Marcetic
The Panthers Cant Save Us Now by Cedric Johnson

This eBook is licensed to , @gmail.com on 08/31/2022

Confronting Capitalism

How the World Works
and How to Change It

VIVEK CHIBBER

This eBook is licensed to , @gmail.com on 08/31/2022

First published by Verso 2022
Vivek Chibber 2022

All rights reserved

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

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ISBN-13: 978-1-83976-270-3
ISBN-13: 978-1-83976-271-0 (US EBK)
ISBN-13: 978-1-83976-272-7 (UK EBK)

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A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

Typeset in Monotype Fournier by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

This eBook is licensed to , @gmail.com on 08/31/2022

To my darling Ananya

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CONTENTS

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Across the advanced capitalist world, something very significant has been unfolding over the past five years or sothe ideological legitimacy of the neoliberal model of capitalism has collapsed. After almost four decades of unchallenged hegemony, free market fundamentalism is under attack, not just among marginal left groupings, but in the political mainstream. Working people of all races and ages, who for years labored with the conviction that there is no alternative, as Margaret Thatcher famously put it, have issued a very clear warning that they are fed up with the untrammeled rule of capital. That frustration is being expressed in many and sundry ways, most typically inchoate, sometimes ugly, and overwhelmingly through electoral revolts rather than organized class struggle. But it is so pervasive that it feels like we are in a new political era.

Oddly, the political turn has been most sharply expressed in the unlikeliest of places, the United States. An early tremor could be felt in the Occupy movement in 2011, but the real catalyst was Bernie Sanderss historic runs for the Democratic Partys nomination for president in 2016 and 2020. Since his explosive entrance onto the national political stage, there has been an unmistakable revival of left anti-capitalist discourse, at a scale not witnessed in two generations. And even while his presidential runs are likely over, the thrust toward a social democratic turn in American politics has not abatedindeed, it has gathered steam. The largest left-wing organization in the United States today, the Democratic Socialists of America, is nearing one hundred thousand members, up from around less than ten thousand in 2015; there is an identifiable social democratic wing of the Democratic Party, still small by any reasonable standard, but its very existence is a significant step forward; within the Left, discussions are taking on issues of strategy and tactics, whereas just a few years ago they rarely rose above recondite debates around trivial philosophical hobbyhorses; and there is a small but unmistakable turn toward labor organizing.

This book is intended to contribute to the development of the incipient Left. One of the most glaring weaknesses of the current culture is the dearth of clear and simple introductions to the basic dynamics of capitalism. When the socialist movement was at its peak in the interwar years, intellectuals associated with Communist parties, socialist organizations and trade unions produced a rich corpus of pamphlets and short booklets intended to serve as pedagogical tools and organizing aids. This practice even carried over into the New Left, albeit less robustly. But by the 1980s it was a dying art. This was no doubt because of the processes I briefly examine in of this book, chief among which was not just the defeat of the organized Left, but more importantly, the complete takeover of radical discourse by the professional classesacademics and nonprofits. Radical theory became less concerned with disseminating and popularizing its advances, and turned inward, toward the professional concerns of those producing it. It became ever more abstruse, apolitical, and ultimately, pessimistic about the very possibility of political transformation.

The retreat into the academy wasnt all bad. There were some genuine advances in Marxist and other socialist theories over what had been inherited from the classical Left. But because the links to the working class had largely been severed, the new developments remained buried in specialized journals and scholarly monographs. One of the most pressing tasks now is not only to put theory back into the hands of organizers, but to ensure that it is as up to date as possibleand presented in a language that doesnt seem imported from 1870. I have also tried to keep to the essentials, so as not to get ensnared in Talmudic debates around sacred texts, and have also steered clear of more arcane analytical debates. Readers wishing to pursue the latter can consult the Guide to Further Reading at the end of the book.

After more than forty years of neoliberalism, the road back to sanity is going to be a long one. And it is by no means certain that we will achieve it. Even while free market fundamentalism is ideologically weakened, it is still a strong political force. For the latter to change, the Left will have to gather up its strength at a scale we have not seen since midcentury. At present, even as the socialist Left gains its ideological footing, it is in political disarray. It is my hope that this book, and other efforts like it, help advance the project of renewal.

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Introduction

For most Americans in the years leading up to the COVID pandemic, daily life was like an obstacle course. When the Pew Charitable Trust, one of the nations leading polling agencies, queried Americans on their sense of financial security in 2015, it found that 50 percent of those polled declared that they felt acutely insecure about their financial situation. An astounding 71 percent declared that they could not pay their bills, and 70 percent said they did not have enough saved to retire. The feeling of insecurity about their future weighs so heavily on the minds of Americans that a whopping 92 percent said that they would give up economic mobility in exchange for economic security. It is not that the respondents dont wish for mobilityrather, they view their situation as being so precarious that they would forego future economic gains for a sense of stability here and now.