Why We Cannot Ditch Capitalism

I have said that market capitalism and representative democracy have a fragile relationship. Without redistributive policies, forces within capitalism lead to ever increasing concentration of income and wealth in a small upper class and fail to produce an acceptable level of living for the bulk of the population. People lose faith in the political system and turn to demagogues like Donald Trump who put democracy in danger. 

If this is true, why shouldn't we get rid of market capitalism? If capitalism poses a danger to democracy, why not simply ditch the capitalism? Why go to a lot of trouble to make it less dangerous? The answer is that no one has really proposed an alternative to capitalism, although some people talk as if they had. 

"Socialist" Proposals are Really Proposals for Redistributive Policies Within Capitalism

Some politicians who call themselves “democratic socialists” have proposed that we create what they call a socialist society. However, when we examine their proposals, we find that they do not really propose eliminating capitalism at all. For example, Bernie Sanders ran for president on what he claimed was a democratic socialist platform, but his actual proposals were for things that I would call redistributive policies. He called for Medicare for All, free post-secondary education and the Green New Deal, but he left the fundamental capitalist structure of our economic system intact. There was nothing truly revolutionary in his proposals or in those of other democratic socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Nordic countries of Europe have been touted as "socialist," but when we look closely at them, we see that they are really capitalist countries with high tax rates and strong, redistributive policies.

Most Communist Countries Have Become Capitalist

In the early twentieth century, communism seemed to be a serious alternative to capitalism. Communist revolutions occurred in several countries, but those revolutions did not lead to democratic societies and did not produce levels of living for their peoples that were better than the levels of living enjoyed by the people of capitalist countries. In addition, several countries gained their independence under the banner of communism, but almost all of them have turned to capitalism to provide better lives for their peoples. The only exceptions are countries like North Korea that are notoriously poor and repressive.

We Are Stuck with Capitalism

We are stuck with capitalism because there is no alternative to it. The problem for us is not to replace capitalism but to make our capitalist society more humane. I say "more humane" rather than simply "humane" deliberately. We should not aim for a perfect society. Instead, we should look for ways to make our society better than it is now. For example, we will probably never produce a perfect health care system, but it wouldn't be hard to find ways to improve the one we have. We will never find a perfect solution to our housing problem, but we can probably find ways to make housing more affordable than it is now. We should take small steps because we will undoubtedly make mistakes, and we will need to be able to correct them.

Let's get busy! We can make a better world.