From How Will Capitalism End? Wolfgang Streeck. 2016. Kindle online sample. Section 1.
From introduction:
After years of ill health, capitalism is now in a critical condition.
Growth has given way to stagnation, INEQUALITY IS LEADING TO INSTABILITY, and confidence in the money economy has all but evaporated.
In How Will Capitalism End?, the acclaimed analyst of contemporary politics and economics Wolfgang Streeck argues the world is about to change.
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The marriage between democracy and capitalism, ill-suited partners brought together in the shadow of World War II, is coming to an end.
THE REGULATORY INSTITUTIONS THAT ONCE RESTRAINED THE FINANCIAL SECTOR’S EXCESSES HAVE COLLAPSED and, after the final victory of capitalism at the end of the Cold War, there is no political agency capable of rolling back the liberalization of the markets.
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Ours has become a world defined by declining growth, oligarchic rule, a shrinking public sphere, INSTITUTIONAL CORRUPTION AND INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY, AND NO CURE TO THESE ILLS IS AT HAND.
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From book sample:
CAPITALISM HAS ALWAYS BEEN AN IMPROBABLE SOCIAL FORMATION, full of conflicts and contradictions, therefore permanently unstable and in flux.
Capitalist society may be described in shorthand as a ‘progressive’ society in the sense of Adam Smith and the enlightenment.
It has coupled its progress to the continuous and unlimited production and accumulation of productive capital, effected through a conversion, by means of the invisible hand of the market and the visible hand of the state, of the private vice of material greed into a public benefit.
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CAPITALISM PROMISES INFINITE GROWTH OF COMMODIFIED MATERIAL WEALTH IN A FINITE WORLD, by conjoining itself with modern science and technology, making capitalist society the first industrial society, and through unending expansion of free, in the sense of contestable, risky markets, on the coat-tails of a hegemonic carrier state and its market-opening policies both domestically and internationally.
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As a version of industrial society, CAPITALIST SOCIETY IS DISTINGUISHED BY THE FACT ITS COLLECTIVE PRODUCTIVE CAPITAL IS ACCUMULATED IN THE HANDS OF A MINORITY of its members who enjoy the legal privilege, in the form of rights of private property, to dispose of such capital in any way they see fit, including letting it sit idle or transferring it abroad.
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One implication of this is the vast majority of the members of a capitalist society must work under the direction of the private owners of the tools they need to provide for themselves, and on terms set by those owners in line with their desire to maximize the rate of increase of their capital.
MOTIVATING NON-OWNERS TO DO SO , TO WORK HARD AND DILIGENTLY IN THE INTEREST OF THE OWNERS, REQUIRES ARTFUL DEVICES, STICKS AND CARROTS of the most diverse sorts that are never certain to function – that have to be continuously reinvented as capitalist progress continuously renders them obsolescent.
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The tensions and contradictions within the capitalist political-economic configuration make for AN EVER-PRESENT POSSIBILITY OF STRUCTURAL BREAKDOWN AND SOCIAL CRISIS.
Economic and social stability under modern capitalism must be secured on a background of systemic restlessness produced by competition and expansion, a difficult balancing act with a constantly uncertain outcome.
The success of capitalism is contingent on, among other things, the timely appearance of a new technological paradigm or the development of social needs and values complementing changing requirements of continued economic growth.
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For the vast majority of its members, A CAPITALIST SOCIETY MUST MANAGE TO CONVERT THEIR EVER-PRESENT FEAR OF BEING CUT OUT OF THE PRODUCTIVE PROCESS INTO ACCEPTANCE OF THE HIGHLY UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH and power generated by the capitalist economy and a belief in the legitimacy of capitalism as a social order.
For this, highly complicated and inevitably fragile institutional and ideological provisions are necessary.
The same holds true for the conversion of insecure workers, kept insecure to make them obedient workers, into confident consumers happily discharging their consumerist social obligations even in the face of the fundamental uncertainty of labor markets and employment.
(end of section 1)
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(own comments)
“Capitalism has always been an improbable social formation.”
Improbable because freedom is not the default, it is unnatural and must be fought for.
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“Capitalism promises infinite growth of commodified material wealth in a finite world.”
The world is not finite, there has yet to be the “population bomb” many philosophers have predicted.
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“Capitalist society is distinguished by the fact its collective productive capital is accumulated in the hands of a minority.”
This is true and natural, there are only a few movie superstars, a few sports superstars, and a few business superstars.
All superstars gain stardom and wealth by satisfying the needs and wants of the public, business superstars enable creation of All stars.
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“The tensions and contradictions within the capitalist political-economic configuration make for an ever-present possibility of structural breakdown and social crisis.”
Structural breakdown and social crisis (desired by Marxists) are caused by lack of freedom, including government-caused flaws in the free markets of capitalism, not because of too much freedom.
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“A capitalist society must manage to convert their ever-present fear of being cut out of the productive process into acceptance of the highly unequal distribution of wealth and power generated by the capitalist economy.
It’s better for us to be unequally rich, as capitalism has made us to the dismay of many, than to be equally poor, which is the unspoken but actual goal of socialism.
The Marxist mantra be “capitalism is inherently bad and the collective (government) must make everything good.”
The shortcomings of capitalism are being overcomed by its advancing (still too slow) maturity.
We must not be duped, stand around and hope for the best, blithely assuming “everybody wants happy,” but rather We must fight against dem misery-wuv socialists’ effort to throttle and end and throw tHAT out and replace it with zat.
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