I'm not anti-capital, I'm anti-wanker*

[friend_of_tofu]

Of late, I've been thinking a lot in passing about how the concept of "anticapitalism" is used against social justice movements. Whether it's Louise Mensch on HIGNFY asking how the Occupy London protesters outside St Paul's can be anticapitalist if they're drinking Starbucks coffee, or claims that the Occupy Wall Street movement is a Jew-hating mob

Comments

[friend_of_tofu]

Yes, I'm broadly in agreement with this. In some ways, "anti-consumerist" or "anti-globalist" are useful shorthands that we ourselves use, as a neat description of where the core of our politics lie/s. In that sense, it's not so far from "left-wing" or "right-wing" as a way of getting a diverse range of viewpoint into the big (metaphorical) tent. The problem is that very general terms like that seem to lend themselves well to becoming simplistic boo-words as well. Which is why I loved that Occupy Wall Street poster so much: the woman who made it (assuming she was the author) had clearly thought about being dismissed as anti-capitalist, anti-corporate or similar, and decided to challenge that oversimplification. But it did also demonstrate that precision & complexity don't make for catchy slogans.

I can't fairly argue that the transfer of wealth from land to more liquid currencies was a Bad Thing in itself, because the development of mercantilism was directly responsible for ending some of the most restrictive class structures around the world. Being able to make money doesn't level the playing field, but it can at least get you into the game in the first place. And I come to this from an anarchist/left-libertarian background, so I've thought about this a lot over the years. It's not untrue to say that "capitalism" benefits minority groups, because it certainly does so more than feudalism (except for the minority group at the top of the feudal system, the monarch class, who obvs do reasonably well out of it, though they're still no more able to transgress class boundaries than the poorest). But social mobility on the basis of cleverness & competence isn't a solution in itself, because even a true meritocracy has an underclass.

I really like what you said in your comment btw; "Its a bit unfair to sell so hard to everyone at every opportunity and then expect people not to be greedy." and "we're actually having to work quite hard to ensure that most people don't feel as lucky as they are" are very astute observations. But I don't think it's solely about the having of shiny things (although that is a big deal), but more about having the shiny things in lieu of other things such as free time, personal choice, etc etc. I know people with solidly middle-class jobs & incomes who nevertheless feel completely trapped; they have no real say in what they do at work, but they can't afford to leave their work to do something more rewarding because of their financial commitments (this is definitely a thing I encounter all the time in London, and no wonder). Yes, they're far freer and luckier than indentured Indian workers in a Gulf state, but they still lack some key personal freedoms in some regards. Some of it, I agree, is directly influenced by patterns of consumption & cultural expectations, but I don't think there's no substance to their concerns. In fact, I think those restrictions are exactly how a status quo is maintained. Those who get more from the system are frequently reminded of how much more they have to lose by challenging it - see protests & arrests, etc.