The New Iron Curtain

Can capitalism be remade? Undoubtedly, but first we must dispose of its most frequent apologia that not all business is bad, not all corporations are pariahs little interested in democracy’s struggles and the decline of labour. I believe that’s true, but that’s now beside the point. That’s like saying a few bad apples in politics shouldn’t cause us to question governing elites, or that a disengaged citizenry is really nothing to worry about. The reality is that capitalism is now losing the confidence of even its own consumers in increasing numbers. The issue is no longer about making corrections for the corporate barons of greed because it is now the very system of free markets and capitalism themselves that are suspect.Richard Edelman is the President and CEO of the Edelman firm – the world’s largest public relations organization. He recently took it upon himself to conduct a massive survey involving thousands of respondents of how average people viewed the business and corporate world. The findings? A full 84% felt that modern businesses had to demonstrate an honest and transparent relationship with people and their communities. Surveying all the data, Edelman concluded perfunctorily, “Today’s corporations have huge trust issues.”Those responding felt that capitalism was no longer responsive to societal needs and that is was growing increasingly detached from the lives of average people. This is something clearly more grassroots than the more comprehensive complaint of the 99% to 1% that has currently caught worldwide attention. This is happening where people live. For a long time they maintained their confidence in market forces, even as citizens began expressing their doubts regarding government, military intervention, religion and even democracy itself. It has become us versus them even in the streets of our communities.Welcome to the age of the new Iron Curtain. The phrase, originally used by Winston Churchill to describe the Soviet threat, was fitting because it implied secrecy, detached leaders, and, most threateningly, the penchant for aggressive domination. In such a world enemies are more easily conceived and opposition more readily supported. We have reached the stage that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn titled “savage capitalism” – that ultimate place of recognition that would mark the beginning of our own human recovery. Elite capitalist forces have not yet come to terms with the reality that their number is up. It will just take time to bring them to a state of consciousness.In all of their efforts to undermine our confidence in government, these forces are quickly getting to the position where, because of their overwhelming greed, citizens will soon enough start calling on the very governments they once chastised to rescue them from the savage realities of modern life. And at that moment capitalism will have overplayed its hand. Developments in the Electro Motive situation in London drive this point home, as citizens and workers alike are calling on government to intervene by legislative means. Ironically, the very refusal of government MPs to hearken to the cry of their constituents in this matter will eventually cause them to share in a kind of collateral damage with the fall of the rapacious corporate barons.For the last two decades capitalist forces have hidden behind free trade agreements, complexities of legal language, democratic cover from supporting political parties, and the byzantine nature of their own networks. The self-destructive tendencies of capitalism arrived with the large corporation and became magnified through their international reach. Power is situated directly in the grasp of managers, with stockholders themselves too dispersed and removed for their votes to mean much – if indeed they vote at all. Increasingly it becomes more and more like the remote political structure so many bemoan today. As early as the 1940s, according to John Kenneth Galbraith in his Culture of Contentment, distinguished liberal and conservative scholars alike were attempting to alert captains of industry to what they called the “euthanasia of stockholder power." Their voices went unheard.At some point in the not too distant past Western democracies firmly favoured free markets for all sorts of reasons – goods aplenty, high standards of living (disposable income), and the lure of mesmerizing advertisements. But inversely the market is favouring democracy less and less, seeking out totalitarian environments where they can supposedly produce their goods more inexpensively – providing citizens in affluent nations one more reason to house animosity against a market they now believe has raced out of control.As capitalism has increasingly encroached on the democratic and public space, citizens are slowly awakening to the reality the privileges they once held in common – jobs, self-determination, healthcare, education, even a cleaner environment – are falling into decline even as the amount of capital itself grows exponentially with each passing year.This is where we arrive at our modern crucible between democracy and capitalism. Put in its simplest terms: as long as markets could produce enough to permit a critical mass of citizens and companies to increase their respective yields each year there was maintained a rough equilibrium. But what happens when the amounts of capital increase dramatically but the benefits accrue to a small but privileged portion of the population? That is what we have at present and that reality is about to bring about civic unrest.The Great Recession and the sheer greed  practiced by the 1% effectively ripped open the iron curtain and laid bare the moral bankruptcy of numerous capitalist practices. We will now increasingly press for reform of our present economic system, and in that awakening will be capitalism’s ultimate salvation and sustainable prosperity.  More to follow.