'S.O.S. Alternatives to Capitalism’. By Richard Swift. New Internationalist. 2014. £9.99
Swift surveys the various movements and schools of thought which, over the years, have seen themselves as being anti-capitalist: reformist Social Democracy (which he recognises has come to accept capitalism), Russian, Chinese, etc state capitalism (which he calls ‘state socialism’), anarchism (whose anti-election dogma he criticises), Green parties (which he sees as going the way of Social Democracy), ‘ecosocialism’ (with which he identifies), the ‘commons’ movement, and the Italian ‘autonomists’.
His treatment is readable and perceptive, even if open to challenge on some points. He would probably classify us as old-fashioned Marxist ‘technological optimists’ and ‘economic determinists’. He himself is the opposite, seeing capitalism’s built-in drive to ‘growth’ as leading to ecological disaster in the fairly near future.
He opposes not only ‘growth’ in the capitalist sense of capital accumulation but also any increase in overall productive activity; in fact he wants a decrease in this – ‘degrowth’ – in order to save the planet. This may or may not be necessary in the long run but in the short run, to eliminate world hunger, ill-health and shanty towns, the production of useful things will surely need to be increased.
In any event, society won’t be able to control the amount and kind of production as long as productive resources are owned and controlled by a minority. Replacing this by the common ownership of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources under various forms of democratic control is an essential first step before anything lasting and constructive can be done.
Swift makes the valid point that it is not enough to criticise capitalism but that its critics must put forward a realistic alternative. But it is disappointing to find him advocating, in the concluding chapter, a form of that contradiction in terms ‘market socialism’ and ‘putting financial capital at the service of people, and providing a universal basic income’. Both are impossible reforms to capitalism and would be meaningless in a world where the Earth’s resources had become the common heritage of all.
Adam Buick
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