Sir, – Paul Gillespie raises some interesting points in his article (Opinion, October 8th) regarding a lack of any vociferous criticism of capitalism in the current volatile climate. Since Ronald Reagan began the deregulation of the financial industry in the 1980s, the corporate elite, mainly in the guise of the large financial houses, have steadfastly engaged in a campaign of wresting control of all social services from the public sphere.
They have succeeded to such an extent that the political elite have been rendered impotent as they realise that all our futures are tied to the current model of capitalism. They are left in a way with a Hobson’s choice that any fatal wound to the dysfunctional system will bankrupt their own future. Their effectivity has also been stymied by the massive lobbying culture that pervades the US political class and also the dumbing down of the mainstream media across the West.
A stark manifestation of this was the failure in any Western democracy to nationalise any failing bank in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 crash. Instead, what we saw was bailout after bailout until in a lot of cases nationalisation resulted anyway, but at an extortionate cost. Any talk of direct intervention by the state is treated in the corporate media as a threat to freedom and democracy.
The market has been constructed such that any collapse will impact all citizens and not just its guardians. The mainstream media has lost all independence as it has been usurped by corporate interests. It is interesting that at the vanguard of the Occupy Wall Street campaign are those who have nothing left to lose and have been freed from the shackles of the market.
The anti-globalisation campaign of 10 years ago gained momentum through the bursting of the dot.com bubble but petered out with the advent of the opium of cheap credit. There are not many bubble options left for the market to quell the rising tide of anger at the inequity of the current model. The real open debate and criticism of capitalism will take place online, the mainstream is being bypassed. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – It seems we need more criticism of capitalism as a solution to its excesses (Paul Gillespie, Opinion, October 8th). If only we look to history to see how its excesses could be curbed. The trouble is that the most famous critic of capitalism, Karl Marx, did what just this type of analysis is doing – making sense of human history in objective economic terms.
Supposedly, the laws of economics are broken, because the system is broken. However, there are no objective laws of human nature, particularly those that try to capture it in economic models. The truth is more prosaic; society is based on human need and greed, and politics is its management. No scientific model captures this. Only pragmatic tailored solutions work, leaving no room for dogma, which is the real scourge of society. – Yours, etc,