SOS Alternatives to Capitalism

175 Pages·2014·1.101 MB·English

by  Richard Swift

Financial collapse and crisis; disgust at bankers’ greed; S ‘Thoughtful and humane’ ‘Radically different’
the devastating effects of yawning inequality: all these and more .
O Barbara Garson, Cy Gonick,
have led to widespread dissatisfaction and disenchantment with
playwright and author Canadian Dimension
capitalism. people are crying out for an alternative but are .
S
continually told that one does not exist.
.

richard Swift proves this to be wrong with style and assurance. A
He examines the past shortcomings and present health of not one l
but many other paths to changing the world, including socialism, t
social democracy, anarchism, ecology and degrowth.
e
Combining the practical with the visionary, he shows that finding r
alternatives to capitalism is no longer an academic issue for the left
n
– it is an urgent planetary necessity.
A
t
‘S.O.S.: Alternatives to Capitalism makes a major contribution to
changing the parameters of political debate. It helps us move beyond i
v
the pseudo-alternatives of the political mainstream and begin to work
for the kind of change we can believe in without being delusional.’ e
John p Clark, professor of philosophy at loyola University, new Orleans, S
and author of the impossible Community
t
‘I came away from S.O.S. with the comforting sense that there was
O
an enjoyable world before capitalism and there can be one after.’

Barbara Garson, playwright and author of Down the Up escalator: How the 99% live
C
‘Richard Swift’s thoroughly researched and timely book takes a A
S
much-needed view of the alternatives that existed – and still exist
y
p
– beyond capitalism.’ m
i
Jaideep Hardikar, journalist and author of A village Awaits Doomsday to
n
‘Commendably judicious… With S.O.S.: Alternatives to Capitalism, A

H
Swift joins a growing strand of 21st-century literature that explores
l
radically different ways of organizing our economy and politics.’ il
il
Cy Gonick, founder and long-time editor of Canadian Dimension magazine S
m
CURRENT AFFAIRS/
ECONOMICS Richard
UK £9.99 / US $16.95 Swift
WORLD
cHanging
WORLD WORLD
An imprint of cHanging cHanging
New Internationalist
WORLD
cHanging
www.newint.org
Alternatives_to_Capitalism_Cover_final.indd 1 28/01/2014 12:15
‘Richard Swift’s S.O.S.: Alternatives to Capitalism makes a
major contribution to changing the parameters of political
debate. It helps us move beyond the pseudo-alternatives of the
political mainstream and begin to work for the kind of change
we can believe in without being delusional. We need serious
and widespread discussion of Swift’s central thesis that a
reinvigorated left politics focused on policies such as degrowth,
control of capital, and a guaranteed income can lead us toward
the overarching goal of a just, compassionate, ecologically sound
and democratically self-managed post-capitalist society.’
John P Clark, Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University,
New Orleans, and author of The Impossible Community.
‘Richard Swift knows that our planet and its people are in big
trouble. Hence his title S.O.S. Yet his examination of the causes
and the possible solutions is thoughtful, historical minded and
humane. I came away from S.O.S. with the comforting sense
that there was an enjoyable world before capitalism and there
can be one after.’
Barbara Garson, playwright and author of
Down the Up Escalator: How the 99% Live.
‘Where is the world headed? In the era of multiple crises that
have taken the planet by a storm, Richard Swift’s thoroughly
researched and timely book takes a much-needed view of the
alternatives that existed – and still exist – beyond capitalism.
The point that emerges through this book is singularly
important: that the survival of our planet is more important
than that of any one “ism”.’
Jaideep Hardikar, journalist and author of
A Village Awaits Doomsday.
‘Swift guides his reader through a troubling political history of
20th-century capitalism and its stunted alternatives. He then
explores ways out of our death trap known as business-as-
usual. A genuine invitation both to dream and to recover from
a nightmare.’
Federico Demaria, Research & Degrowth, Barcelona.

S.O.S.
Alternatives
to Capitalism
RiChARd Swift
About the author
Richard Swift is a journalist/activist who works in print and
radio. He was for more than two decades an editor of the New
Internationalist magazine. He has written a number of books on
themes as diverse as mosquitoes and street gangs. His current
interests include forms of radical democracy and ecological
degrowth alternatives. He lives in Montreal, Quebec.
Acknowledgements
To my editor Chris Brazier who makes the words that merely
walk start to run. To my comrades in Montreal and Toronto
and so many other places. To those close to me who continue
to put up with me. And to the sages who are no longer with
us, particularly André Gorz, EP Thompson, Daniel Singer and
Kurt Vonnegut.
S.O.S.
Alternatives
to Capitalism
RiChARd Swift
WORLD
changing
S.O.S.: Alternatives to Capitalism
First published in 2014 by
New Internationalist Publications Ltd
55 Rectory Road
Oxford OX4 1BW, UK
newint.org
© Richard Swift
The right of Richard Swift to be identified as the author of
this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by
any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission
in writing of the Publisher.
Cover design: Andrew Kokotka
Design: Juha Sorsa
Imprint editor: Chris Brazier
Printed by T J International Limited, Cornwall, UK
who hold environmental accreditation ISO 14001.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available
from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-1-78026-170-6
Contents
Foreword by Cy Gonick 4
Introduction: A sad and beautiful world in peril 9
1 Sources of hope: life before capitalism 15
2 Capitalism: a system of reckless resilience 22
3 State socialism 35
4 The anarchist impulse 50
5 The eco-divide 63
6 The utopia debate 74
7 Rebuilding the alternatives Southern-style 85
8 The democratic emergency 109
9 The autonomous rupture 120
10 What should we stand for? 140
Index 163
foreword
‘What is not possible, however, is to even think about transforming
the world without a utopia, without a project.’
Paulo Freire
In these times the search for alternatives to capitalism is
imperative. The world’s economy is in total disarray, having
emerged from a very deep recession only to suffer what appears
to be a prolonged stagnation in which governments cannot
determine which is most perilous: spiraling public debt, looming
deflation or dangerous new asset bubbles. Public policies lurch
wildly to counter one, then the other of these alleged threats,
while ignoring the fast disappearance of stable employment that
pays a living wage and its replacement by precarious employment,
or no employment at all. The rush to cut back public services and
pensions and attack unions in desperate waves of austerity only
exacerbates the underlying economic crisis.
And there is a still more urgent environmental crisis facing us.
As Naomi Klein recently declared at the founding convention
of Canada’s largest private sector union, Unifor: ‘Our current
economic model is not only waging war on workers, on communities,
on public services and social safety nets. It’s waging war on the life-
support systems of the planet itself – the conditions for life on earth.’
In his exploration of alternatives to capitalism, Richard Swift
4
Foreword
sees no solution in state socialism, whether of the communist or
social democratic variety, as both impose socialism from above.
Echoing a view first expounded by the late Robert Heilbroner,
he argues that ‘state communism was not really an alternative to
capitalism at all but merely a transitional form of it which allowed
certain large “backward” societies hitherto blocked in their
developmental path, to move towards their own peculiar model
of autocratic capitalism’. As for the social democratic variety, it
long ago abandoned any hope of replacing capitalism in favor of
the attempt to moderate its most predatory aspects. Only very
occasionally, as in the case of Allende’s Chile in the early 1970s,
has capitalism found it necessary to engage in military exercises
to destroy elected social democratic governments since, as Swift
notes, the ‘tame Center-Left proved sufficiently accommodating
to the needs of capital’.
As examples of evolving real-world alternatives to capitalism
Swift applauds elements of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution
initiated by the late Hugo Chávez, in particular the vast
expansion of co-operative enterprises and the devolving of power
to local community councils; he also casts an approving eye on
Brazil’s experience with participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre
and elsewhere. At the same time, he warns of the tensions in
Venezuela and other manifestations of Latin America’s ‘21st-
century socialism’, pointing out the contradictions between
reforms from below and the bureaucratic machinery that breeds
personal corruption and impedes democratic initiatives.
One of the finest chapters of SOS: Alternatives to Capitalism
is devoted to tracing the legacy of anarchism from Proudhon
and Bakunin through the Sixties New Left and its notion of
participatory democracy to the anti-globalization, autonomous
and Occupy movements. As Swift points out, there is a perennial
tension within anarchism. On the one side are those who
advocate the forcible overthrow of power through acts of mass
defiance. On the other are those who promote building spaces
and practices of self-rule within the fissures of the capitalist
5