‘Outdated and unjust’: can we reform global capitalism?

John Cassidy’s 4,400-word essay, ‘Outdated and unjust’: can we reform global capitalism?, in the current The Guardian, is an excellent review of many contemporary critiques of capitalism. It would be interesting to know Cassidy’s take on several troubling issues not covered.

First, there is no such thing as a steady-state capitalism. Capitalism is a collection of individual enterprises, each struggling to survive. They are, by design, required to grow. And, each of them will subject the rest of us to as much pollution (external costs, as orthodox economists say) as possible, since not to do so would disadvantage them in the face of their competitors. Capitalism cannot be part of a solution to global warming and the exhaustion of the Earth. We need a new economy that is sustainable and equitable.

Second, the problems of global warming and the exhaustion of the Earth require a global response. There are presently 193 member states in the UN. Each of them, to one extent or another, determined to defend their own interests, however those might be determined and defined. The UN itself is toothless in the face of the 193 separate interests. The UN Charter clearly states that the UN can take no position on the internal affairs of a member state. As a species, we have long occupied every niche on the face of the Earth, but lack any mechanism for a unified approach to global threats to our existence.

Third, the timeline for action on global warming and the exhaustion of the Earth is not measured in centuries, perhaps a couple of decades at the most. For all of the cleverness of our species to have evolved human culture, none of our major institutions have emerged in less than hundreds of years. Most accounts of the development of the nation-state as a form of human organization trace its initial phases to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 in Europe. By the early 20th century, the nation-state had become sufficiently widespread as an organizational form to fuel two world wars. The nation-state has been evolving for more than 375 years. Capitalism has evolved for approximately 250 years, with its beginnings marked by the publication of Adam Smith’s ” Wealth of Nations ” in 1776¹. Even the most recent phase, neoliberal capitalism, has taken over fifty years to reach its current form.

Any discussion of the future of capitalism needs to wrestle with these issues