1.6: Liberation Theory Part 2

Capitalism, Freedom, and the Good Life

Capitalism is an economic and political system that allows production to be organized for the purpose of creating wealth, rather than for meeting people's needs. It requires a political system to keep institutions in place that support profit making. Many people suppose capitalism to be natural and inevitable and they think that capitalism increases our freedom. This section shows the historical roots of capitalism, challenges its connection to freedom, and explores and ways to create a world beyone capitalism.

Note

The following is a short excerpt from Chapters 2 and 4 of the book Ideas for Action: Relevant Theory for Radical Change by Cynthia Kaufman.

In 2002, I was involved in a struggle in Oakland, California, where I lived, to protect the rights of tenants. For the previous decade, the economy in the Bay Area had been booming. Despite the collapse of the computer and internet-related industries, a lot of money had poured in, and many people who had lived here for generations were displaced by well-heeled newcomers. In Oakland, we had a moderate form of rent control. The landlord could raise our rent only about 3 percent a year, but whenever an apartment went vacant, he or she could raise it to whatever the market would bear. My landlord evicted one of my neighbors, then turned around and rented out the apartment for $600 more a month. African Americans were leaving the city at an alarming rate, many returning to the South.

The organization I worked with, Just Cause Oakland, passed an ordinance that made it illegal to evict people unless they had done something illegal or destructive. As I talked with people on the street about the issue, the tenants eagerly grabbed the petition out of my hands. They were angry and afraid of losing their place to live. But many people I gave the petition to felt differently. They rented out property, and they’d say, “It’s my property, shouldn’t I be able to do what I want?”

I found it difficult to counter those arguments in a way that made sense to property owners. Belief in the rights of property owners runs deep in this society. Many of the landlords claim that if tenants want more security they should buy their own homes. They also argue that rent control is the problem. If we were to just let the market work, there wouldn’t be such a difference between the rents people pay now and the amount a new tenant would pay. And they believe that if the market were able to do its work, then, somehow, there would be homes available at the prices people could pay.

This is Adam Smith’s theory of “the invisible hand of the market”: when markets are allowed to operate, resources appear where they are most needed as if put there by an invisible hand. In the housing market, this theory assumes that some landlords will always choose to rent their properties more cheaply than others.

Yet Smith himself knew that markets could accomplish only some social goals. Markets will not provide goods to people who have no money. They won’t make it profitable to provide decent homes for the poor, at least not when the wealth gap is as extreme as it currently is in the United States, when the wealthy are willing to pay incredible sums for center-city condominiums.

And markets will never promote forms of life that have nothing to do with buying and selling.

The reaction to Oakland’s anti-eviction petition was the clearest example of a class difference that I had seen in years. You could predict with incredible accuracy what viewpoint someone held by knowing which class position he or she occupied. The experience also reminded me of how intensely the dominant view of freedom is mixed up with capitalism.

For the landlords, the law we were trying to pass would indeed limit their freedom. To them, freedom means the ability to do what they want with what’s theirs. Landlords believe that the tenants are free to buy homes if they want. And if they can’t afford homes, they are free to get a job or go to school to get a better job so that they will be able to do so in the future.

One of the amazing things about the views of freedom that develop in a society dominated by capitalism is that those views focus on the freedoms of those with power. The freedom to live in your rented apartment without fear of eviction somehow doesn’t count. That’s because people thinking according to a capitalist logic associate freedom mostly with largely the freedom of property owners to dispose of their property as they please. This is supposedly fair because everyone has the right to own property. So we are all equal. This way of thinking hides the mechanisms that make it easy for some people to own property and harder for others. And it hides the ways that other sorts of freedoms are limited by this primacy of property.

Those of us brought up in a society dominated by capitalist logic are taught from an early age that capitalism equals freedom, that a free-market economy is the only way for society to produce wealth. We are surrounded by a dazzling array of efficient machines and cool products. We are told that capitalism allows anyone—with effort—to have everything he or she dreams of. And we are told that the alternatives involve poverty, stagnation, boredom, and a police state.

Capitalism has led to an unprecedented development of useful machines, technological abilities, and an endless supply of desirable consumer products. No one in the nineteenth century could have dreamed of the things we now take for granted, from smartphones to Botox, prosthetic limbs to chicken nuggets. The idea we are generally taught is that capitalism is the magic machine that has given us all of these things, and freedom, too. Capitalism means a free market—and, somehow, a free society.

Early ideas about capitalism and freedom

People didn’t always associate capitalism with freedom. When it was first coming into being in England in the seventeenth century, many people saw capitalism as taking away their freedoms. For them, members of the rising capitalist class were thieves. While many people worked as serfs under brutal conditions of feudalism during this time, peasants who lived outside of the feudal estates could be relatively self-sufficient. Those living on land known as the commons, which officially belonged to the king, were permitted to build cottages, gather firewood, hunt, and even farm. With the rise of capitalist agriculture, these common lands were increasingly fenced or otherwise enclosed by the aristocracy and entrepreneurs. Deprived of their farming and grazing land, the only option left to the poor was to sell their time for wages. Working for wages was an entirely new arrangement, and the formerly independent and largely self-sufficient laborers resented it tremendously.

According to David Mulder, “Vulnerable to fluctuations in price and wage, dependent on seasonal work, housed in rude one-room cottages, shunted to the fringes of the manor, landless wage laborers had no stable niche in the rural economy.”1 Gerrard Winstanley was one of the most renowned anticapitalists of this early period. He was a writer and organizer and a founder of the movement known as the Diggers. Winstanley had a vision of a society in which everyone had access to the resources each needed to have a decent life. He saw capitalism as taking away this access and forcing people to be even more dominated by the wealthy than they had been before. In 1648, Winstanley and a group of thirty to forty people decided to take back the land they believed to be rightly theirs. They occupied a piece of unused land called St. George’s Hill in the town of Cobham, building huts and planting crops. They intended to set up a communal society in which everyone would work the land and share what they produced. They hoped that the idea of “digging” would spread to all of England and that people would begin to see the error of private ownership.

Winstanley was a religious thinker and saw private property as sinful. “In the beginning, the great Creator Reason made the Earth to be a common treasury.” He believed that the wealthy landowners were only able to have their wealth by forcing others to work for them, and he thought that digging would undermine the whole system of capitalist wage labor. Winstanley addressed the landowning class when he wrote,

The power of enclosing land and owning property was brought into creation by your ancestors by the sword; which first did murder their fellow creatures, men, and after plunder or steal away their land, and left this land successively to you, their children. And therefore, though you did not kill or thieve, yet you hold that cursed thing in your hand by the power of the sword.

Just as the Diggers’ crops were beginning to bear fruit, English soldiers, supported by local landowners, went to St. George’s Hill and destroyed the encampment, injuring several, destroying the huts, and trampling on the crops. At the time of the Digger resistance to capitalism, there was a threeway battle going on in England between the old feudal aristocracy, the rising capitalist class, and the poor. In the English Civil War, the aristocracy had largely sided with the monarchy, while the rising capitalist class sided with the parliament. They wanted to overthrow the monarchy in favor of a parliamentary system that would act in their interests. In order to have the power to overthrow the monarchy, though, they needed the help of the poor.

Many poor people joined Oliver Cromwell’s pro-Parliament army because they were told that they were fighting for liberty and access to land for all. At every step of the way, though, the wealthier members of the movement ended up betraying the interests of the poor people’s organizations.5 

One of the most brilliant theorists of nascent capitalism was John Locke. Locke was born in 1632. He was trained as a medical doctor, but made his living for much of his adult life as assistant to the Earl of Shaftesbury—one of the important leaders of the English Parliament. He spent many years in France in exile because his ideas were seen as undermining the power of the monarchy. Locke is most famous for developing theories of natural rights and individual freedom.

And yet, he was an investor in the transatlantic slave trade and helped write the constitution for Carolina, a document that included slavery.6 As advisor to Shaftesbury, he advocated for the “enclosures,” which threw poor people in England off their land, and he advocated for the expropriation of the lands of indigenous peoples.

From around 1600 through 1850, many European thinkers were interested in ideas of freedom, democracy, individual rights, progress, and politics based on reason rather than traditional authority. This period, called the Enlightenment, has been seen as the birthplace of much that is good in the European tradition. Until very recently, social justice advocates have mostly seen their work as extending the values of the Enlightenment.

Yet anticolonial thinkers have long pointed out that there is a deep contradiction between Enlightenment values and the practices of the very thinkers who espoused them. Many of the same people who supported capitalism and Enlightenment ideas also supported colonialism and slavery. During the Enlightenment, Europe was engaged in some of the most brutal practices in its history: slavery and colonialism. The rise of capitalism in Europe also exacerbated brutal forms of inequality and poverty. As a result of the enclosures, large numbers of previously independent peasants were thrown off their land. Even with the increasing destitution, there remained a shortage of people willing to work under the conditions offered in the new factories. This is one of the reasons England developed the poor laws that effectively outlawed not working for a wage. Poor people were routinely picked up by the police for sleeping outdoors, for not having any obvious means of support, and for vagrancy. They were turned over to poor houses where they were forced to work.

In Locke’s work, we can see all of the complexities and contradictions of a proslavery Enlightenment. In his Two Treatises of Government, Locke makes a powerful argument against the legitimacy of monarchy and feudalism. In the process of making that argument, he lays the foundation for a justification of capitalism, colonialism, and slavery. What is amazing about

Locke’s work is that he justifies these things all in the name of freedom. Locke constructs his argument by asking us to imagine we are in a “state of nature” in which people are “all equal and independent [and] no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”7

This state of nature is what philosophers call a “thought experiment.” Locke makes no claims that it ever existed, rather, that we can know our true state by imagining this possibility. Locke argues that this state of independence is our natural state. He wants us to think of ourselves as individuals first and as members of families and of society second. This undermines any sense of social solidarity and mutual obligation and challenges the idea that the world belongs to all of us to figure out how to use and share. In his justification for private property, Locke argues that although God gave us all the Earth to share, those who make the most of God’s gifts deserve them the most.

In England in this period, there were many landlords interested in “improving” their property—in making it more profitable. New agricultural techniques made this development possible, and new class relationships allowed these wealthy landowners to rise to political power. Locke was a part of that “improving” class.

In her book The Origin of Capitalism, Ellen Meiksins Wood points out that the word “improve” in English comes from a French root that meant doing something for profit.8 According to Locke, the indigenous people of the Americas did not have a right to their land because they were not generating excess for the market. The same could be said for the poor in England. The land belongs to those who can make the most profit from it or to the capitalist landlords.

Locke’s theory of natural rights is another aspect of his argument that helps support the domination inherent in capitalism. He claims that those with reason will all be in a state of nature with each other—meaning that they will all respect each other’s natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Some people, however, cannot be expected to use their reason to come to this conclusion. These people are like lions of the forest and cannot be trusted. Because of this, these people are in a state of war with the rest of humanity, and “reasonable” people can do whatever they want to protect themselves.9

It was this argument that Locke used to justify slavery. The idea that some people are rational and to be treated with respect, while others who think differently cannot be trusted, is a  fundamental part of the ideology of the Enlightenment.

Locke wants us to see society as an aggregation of independent, reasonable people, all with their own land, entering into contracts voluntarily, as all parties desire them. We are to see these independent people as meeting in an imagined state of nature. By asking us to think in this way, Locke is asking us to wish away history, and he is helping us develop the habit, very important as capitalism develops, of not seeing the complex realities of social relations.

Locke’s philosophy, by positing the state of nature, encourages us to look at people as if they had no history. According to his view, people chose to enter into and exit from contracts. In reality, people are often forced by circumstances and by the law into situations that they do not choose. This habit of making history invisible and supposing that we are all born free and equal is another important part of capitalist ideology. When people complain about inequality, we are told that everyone has the same chance to become wealthy and that wealth is based on our ability and desire to work hard. This leads to the idea that those with wealth should be able to do what they want with the wealth, without any obligations to others. Of course, those without wealth are also free to do what they want with their wealth, never mind that they don’t have any.

The vision of society as an aggregation of individuals with no history is, of course, a myth. Even in a society with a large capitalist sector, there are networks of relationships that bind us together. What is unusual about life in such a society is that these interconnections are erased by the dominant ways of thinking. We end up not seeing the social mechanisms that give some people more opportunity to succeed than others. And we end up not noticing the ways that we are all coerced to compete in a particular set of economic relations that we do not choose. Nor are we encouraged to see the ways in which people cooperate and help one another in all spheres of life.

An Enlightenment belief in progress might encourage us to think that Locke and his capitalist class made the world better by overthrowing feudalism. This view, however, would leave out the fact that at that time in England there was a far more radical alternative: that of the Diggers and many other radical anticapitalists.

According to the British historian Christopher Hill, There were, we may oversimplify, two revolutions in mid-seventeenth- century England. The one which succeeded established the sacred rights of property (abolition of feudal tenures, no arbitrary taxation), gave political power to the propertied (sovereignty of Parliament and common law, abolition of prerogative courts), and removed all impediments to the triumph of the ideology of the men of property—the protestant ethic. There was, however, another revolution, which never happened, though from time to time it threatened. This might have established communal property, a far wider democracy in political and legal institutions, might have disestablished the state church and rejected the protestant ethic. People who were a part of this second revolution knew full well the problems with capitalism; they saw members of the emerging capitalist class take their land.

Challenging Capitalism

There are many important things we can do to fight capitalism. Few of them are easy, and indeed some of them are huge tasks, but all of them are things that many organizations are doing right now, that can be built upon to develop significant challenges to the reproduction of capitalism. Some of the things we can do to challenge capitalism are to: 

1. Promote the use of alternative economic indicators 

If people are told every day in the news that the cause of their experience of poverty is a lack of economic growth, they will support progrowth policies. We need to help people distinguish what is good for social well-being from what is good for capitalist growth. One important way to wean people off growth is to promote the use of better economic indicators. Sometimes growth leads to more jobs, and sometimes it doesn’t. But increases in wellbeing are always good. If we measure an economy based on quantitative measures of things associated with well-being, such as literacy, happiness, and longevity, then we will be able to figure out which policies are good for our economy, and distinguish them from policies that increase capitalist activity, which may or may not improve well-being.

2. Develop social safety nets 

In countries without strong national health care systems, and other systems of benefits, a full-time job in the formal economy becomes the required path to secure existence. In countries such as Bhutan, where there are strong social bonds that allow people to care for one another, full-time employment is not necessary to obtain this security. Similarly, in strongly social democratic countries, such as Sweden, or socialist countries such as Cuba, it isn’t either, because the state takes care of those things. There are a variety of paths to a social safety net, but lessening the economic dependency trap of capitalism requires that they be developed in some way. 

3. Reduce work time 

Struggles for shorter workdays can have huge benefits. The move in the industrialized countries to the eight-hour day led to huge improvements in well-being. France’s move in 2000 to a thirty-five-hour workweek, without a reduction in pay, was a major advance. Shorter accepted workdays have a variety of great benefits. The individual spends less time working in alienated labor, and so has a better life. Also, employers can hire someone else for the other hours, and so shortening the workday can lead to less unemployment. This is especially important in countries with high rates of youth unemployment, because older people have the “good jobs.” And generally, the more hours people work, the larger their carbon footprint.

4. Develop community capital 

A community that is under resourced will go to great lengths to entice companies to locate there, even if the company offers very little to the community. The mere hope of jobs and maybe a small amount of tax revenue is often enough. But what if governments or local communities were to have their own capital to invest in socially useful projects? In contrast to finance capital that is always looking for a short-term return, or venture capital that is looking for the next big thing to generate profits, the more resources we have in patient capital, that comes from communities and from taxes, the more can be invested in the solidarity economy. 

5. Wean ourselves from consumer culture 

Given the billions of dollars spent on advertising and on commercial media that promotes a high consumption lifestyle, it isn’t surprising that many people think that the path to happiness is in ever-higher levels of consumption. High levels of social solidarity and connection are far more important for happiness than high levels of consumption. Above a fairly low level of material culture, money does not contribute to happiness. People need a sense of security, access to food and other basic needs, and a sense of community. Some level of material wealth is needed for those things, but much of what we spend our time producing and consuming does not have any positive impact on our well-being. Working to challenge the cultural forces that lead people to believe consumption is the path to happiness is an important part of a move beyond capitalism. 

6. Promote equality 

If the United States currently had completely equal levels of personal wealth, every family of four would make $200,000 per year. If that family were to work half time, they could have $100,000 per year. Similarly, if worker productivity grows by 3 percent per year, then every twenty-five years, we could cut our work time in half, if the benefits of those productivity gains were to go to workers. That means full-time workers could all make their present salary while working twenty-hour weeks. Policies that promote equality include progressive taxation as well as labor struggles to have a larger percentage of profits go to workers. 

7. Challenge ruling-class actions 

There is no way we can build a solidarity economy on a planet whose atmosphere has been destroyed by the fossil fuel industry. Similarly we cannot build a solidarity economy that is based on things such as worker-owned cooperatives, as long as procapitalist forces are able to manipulate governments to worldwide to support policies that favor transnational corporations and free trade agreements that make small-scale production uncompetitive. 

Conclusion

As we build the new we must to continue to challenge the old. As long as growth and employment rates are the measures of a healthy economy, our environmental interests will be at war with our economic interests and what is good for capital will be seen to be the same as what is good for people. We need to wean ourselves off the belief that GDP and more work are crucial to improving people’s well-being. But we must also transform society such that building solidarity projects can be a real way for people to meet their needs. There are social movements working in all of the areas needed to lessen the economic dependency trap of capitalism. If we see the ways that our work is linked, we are more likely to build solidarity between our movements. And if we have a clear sense of a path forward, we can be more optimistic that our work can add up to real lasting change. If we attend to the context in which small scale change takes place, and engage in large-scale struggles even as we build that small-scale change, we can build broad-based support for a real transition away from capitalism.

 

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Reading Response Question

Please reflect on this reading by writing a short response to these questions. Your answer can include personal experience, and the writing does not need to be formal or polished. You are welcome to write as little as a sentence and as much as a paragraph. Think of it like journaling. 

1. What was meaningful to you in this reading?
2. How do you think capitalism has impacted your life?
3. Do you think capitalism increases or decreases your freedom?
4. What do you think of the suggestions for ways to challenge capitalism?

Attributions

• Adapted from "Ideas for Action: Relevant Theory for Radical Change, 2nd Ed” by Cynthia Kaufman is copyrighted. It has been reproduced with permission from the author and publisher.