Human rights: Food for an alienating thought ‘HR in the neoliberal phase of Capitalism’
[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader is about the overpowering influence of Capitalism (including on HR) and about the pretension of conventional economists that support it. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
The mutable but enduring force of Capitalism
1. The global chain of production is the life-blood of Capitalism. Disrupting it will certainly get media and government attention. While critically targeting the economy seems to be a more powerful tactic than mounting anti-capitalist public demonstrations, the latter remains the more consistent moral strategy when the goal is to change the government’s staunch adherence to the capitalist system. (Susan Rosenthal)
2. Several are the basic myths supporting Capitalism. One of these myths is that Capitalism has created prosperity and reduced poverty. Capitalism is a system geared toward wealth growth, but wealth creation is not exclusive to Capitalism. The idea that only Capitalism creates wealth or that it does so more than other systems is a myth. The myth here is a common and grossly misused fallacy. [Actually, the fastest economic growth (as measured by GDP) in the 20th century was that achieved by the USSR. And second, the fastest growth in wealth in the 21st century so far is that of the People’s Republic of China]. To credit Capitalism with reducing poverty is another myth. Poverty has been reduced by the struggle of the poor against the systemically reproduction of poverty by Capitalism and capitalists. (Richard Wolff)
3. Back in 1869, Thomas Joseph Dunning (English trade unionist, 1799-1873) wrote: “Capital shuns no-profit just as Nature abhors a vacuum”. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain profit of 10 percent will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 percent profit will produce eagerness; 50 percent positive audacity; 100 percent will make it ready to trample on all human laws; with a 300 percent outlook for profit, there is not a crime at which it will scruple, not a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit it will freely encourage both. (S. Rosenthal) …wither human rights (HR).
4. Violence has been used by state and non-state actors as a tool to uphold Capitalism. The violent exercise of power (physical, institutional, economic*, political and/or psychological) by non-state actors (often in collusion with the state) ensures their economic benefits under the capitalist system at the expense of the rights of the working classes and others rendered poor.
*: Prices are not determined by the markets, but by the power of the big companies belonging to the ruling class. As a consequence, the purchasing power of the working class does not increase, but continues to decline. (Vicente Navarro).
5. We know the traditional nation-state is facing a crisis of legitimacy; this is leaving room for the prevailing uneven power relations to be contested by non-state actors particularly corporations that share similar interests in accumulating wealth through the use of violence. (Escr-net) [Add to this the role of philanthropies…].
Neoliberalism, the current underpinning of Capitalism, has become so pervasive that it can seem unavoidable, like a natural law
6. How can you fight something if you do not know it exists? To George Monbiot (British journalist and activist), neoliberalism is an ideology that preys on every aspect of our lives –but for most people it has no name. Adopted by a wealthy elite, it has played a profound role in transforming our economics, politics, environment: from soaring inequality and HR violations to the rise of modern-day demagogues (such as Viktor Orban, Narendra Modi, Javier Milei and Donald Trump), and to our ever more frequent ecological crises and environmental disasters. The case can (must?) be made for an alternative system worth fighting for.
7. Solutions implemented by the neoliberal model are deeply unjust, irrational, aberrant and destructive of the highest values, dignity and rights of human beings. So, carrying out an economic campaign against neoliberalism may appear as an audacity, but not so for us activists –only for those who passively adopt the prevailing model without questioning and criticizing it. (Louis Casado)
In closing
—Neoliberalism is always changing, adapting. It usually shifts one piece at a time, always striving to maintain balance, ‘stability’ and, most of all, control by its masters. This, much more so, because neoliberalism is much less comfortable managing relatively sudden and widespread shifts –which is exactly what is happening now. (George Friedman)
8. The evidence suggests that empires often react to periods of their own decline by over-extending their coping mechanisms.** Empire confers special advantages that translate into extraordinary profits for firms located in the country that dominates the empire. However, when decline leads leaders to deny its existence, it can become self-accelerating. In empires’ early years, leaders and those led by them may repress those among them who stress or merely even mention the decline. Social problems may likewise be denied, minimized, or, if admitted, blamed on convenient scapegoats –immigrants, foreign powers, or ethnic minorities– rather than linked to imperial decline. (R. Wolff) But can we say there is now no more room for denial…? If so, what is changing? Furthermore, is this telling us something about an urgent call to action? Food for thought.
**: There are simply too many power centers in the world of empires today –the United States, the EU, China, Russia, India, the African Union (?), BRICS, etc., but too much diversity to enable any other hegemon to replace the Northern-led world order. After centuries of Northern dominance, we have arrived to a world beyond hegemony. (Jeffrey Sachs)
Postscript/Marginalia
The pretension of economists to believe that they hold the keys to knowledge
—Warning: Economics is not a science; it is a tool to justify the accumulation of wealth… My readings have convinced me of the need to deepen my knowledge of economics (a discipline that is in crisis and that I dare not call a ‘science’). (Louis Casado)
Economic development and ending poverty as seen by a conventional economist: Nations achieve prosperity by investing in four priorities. Most important is investing in people, through quality education*** and health care. The next is infrastructure, such as electricity, safe water, digital networks, and public transport. The third is natural capital, protecting nature. The fourth is business investment. In all four, mobilizing the funds to invest at the scale and speed required is key. (Jeffrey Sachs) [Mind you: Sachs here, does not consider poverty as a HR issue].
***: A system weighted in favor of those with a college education is a form of class system, even if Americans do not like to talk about it in those terms.
On the bench of the accused, this economic (pseudo) ‘science’ has made and continues to create havoc, because it has claimed to guide politicians –when it should have stayed in the laboratories a long time ago. The result: the rich continue to get richer and the poor poorer. (Marie-Claude Jacquot)
We must unmask those who are posing as ‘experts’, but are salesmen of unbearable elixirs and potions.**** This is because they produce useful arguments for the status-quo, enshrining an economic model that favors a handful of privileged people in exchange for the violation of the most essential rights of the vast majority.
****: I understand these as a merchandise of dubious quality, destined to convince the unwary of the inevitability of the system that condemns them to instability, submission, and obedience.
You want examples?
–It is impossible to define a correct ‘law of supply and demand’ that leads to a unique equilibrium.
-For more than twenty years, it has been known that the competition-based model is in a total impasse and we will never get out of it.
–Competition has virtues that can be destructive. [Competition and profit, one is war and the other is the booty. (Pierre Joseph Proudhon, 1809-1965)]
–A ‘market equilibrium’ does not allow to increase the welfare of one agent without decreasing the welfare of another.
–Equilibrium in a free market system is a chimera.
Another potion with which economists vaccinate us is growth. Because growth should generate employment, thus favoring the poorest sectors of the country. But companies are not there to create jobs, but wealth. It is much easier to sell the potion of ‘growth equals employment’ —…and let us all pray!
Another elixir is the neoliberal precept that the State is inefficient; the state is inept; the state is poop. That is what our neoliberals tell us, comfortably installed in some ministerial office or, failing that, in some luxurious office of some international public organization.
So, why do they put so much effort in controlling the state? Answer: because the state is very efficient when it comes to transferring public resources to the private sector. They add: The state should not intervene in the economy –except to transfer resources to the private sector. (Little does it matter that the greatest advances in science and technology have come from activities in which the public sector has played an essential, if not irreplaceable role). “To the private sector the benefits, and to the state the risks”. Amen.
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
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