Capitalists ‘ critics frequently refer to it as political or as supporting politics. Some have stretched language so far as to actually correspond socialism with politics, using the words interchangeably. It is merely untrue and never was, no matter how many times it has been repeated.
However, it is much more accurate to say that capitalism and democracy are opposites. To understand why, you need only to consider socialism as a production system where employees form relationships with employers and where only a select few people are the manager, with the majority of people simply carrying out their duties. That partnership is no political, it is authoritarian.
When you cross the threshold into a workplace ( e. g., a factory, an office, or a store ), you leave whatever democracy might exist outside. You enter a place of employment that does not allow politics. Are the majority—the employees—making the decisions that affect their life? An unambiguous zero is the response.
Whoever runs the enterprise in a capitalist system ( owner]s ] or a board of directors ) makes all the key decisions: what the enterprise produces, what technology it uses, where production takes place, and what to do with enterprise profits.
The staff are not permitted to make those choices, but they are expected to bear the consequences, which are profoundly impacted. The employees must either accept the consequences of their employers ‘ actions or leave their jobs to pursue a different ( most likely undemocratic ) career.
The firm is an ruler within a bourgeois business, like a ruler in a monarchy. Over the past few decades, kings were generally “overthrown” and replaced by official, political “democracies”. But princes remained. They only changed their names and addresses. They transitioned from government political positions to economical ones within bourgeois organizations.
Alternatively of kings, they are called managers or owners or CEOs. There they sit, atop the bourgeois business, exercising several king-like power, unaccountable to those over whom they reign.
For decades, politics has been a part of bourgeois society. Several other institutions in cultures where bourgeois enterprises prevail – state agencies, universities and colleges, religions, and charities – are extremely authoritarian. Their domestic working relationships frequently resemble those of bourgeois companies ‘ employers. These organizations make an effort to “operate in a gentlemanly fashion.”
The anti-democratic organization of capitalist firms also informs employees that their bosses do n’t genuinely want or need their input. Therefore, most employees abandon their positions in which they are useless in relation to the CEO at work. They also have high expectations for their interactions with political figures, the government’s rivals of Directors.
Citizens are taught to assume and take the same things about running their personal areas because of their inability to attend in running their workplaces. Businesses get to be the most powerful political figures ( and vice versa ) in part because they are used to being “in demand.” Political parties and government bureaucracies are unilaterally run while maintaining their political status as political mirrors of capitalist organizations.
In bourgeois offices, where they are governed by their employers, most individuals work at least eight days per week for five or more days. The unfair reality of the bourgeois office leaves its complicated, multilayered impacts on all who collaborate it, part-time and full-time.
Mankind’s problem with democracy – that the two generally contradict one another – shapes many people’s lives. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the Walton family ( descendants of Walmart’s founder ), along with a handful of other major shareholders, decide how to spend hundreds of billions.
The choices of a few hundred entrepreneurs bring economic growth, companies, and enterprises to some regions and direct to the economic collapse of various regions. The several billion people who are affected by those paying decisions are not permitted to participate in their creation. These uncountable people lack the economic and social authority that only a select, illiberal, and blatantly rich majority of people possess. That is the reverse of politics.
Companies as a class, usually led by major owners and the CEOs they enrich, even use their wealth to buy ( they would prefer to suggest “donate” to ) political parties, individuals, and activities. The wealthy have always understood that a non-wealthy lot vote could cause humanity’s wealth inequality because it is possible to have general or even common suffrage.
The wealthy then seek power over the country’s existing politics systems to prevent them from gaining a majority in favor of the employer minority.
The huge deficits appropriated by “big business” employers—usually corporations—allow them to praise their upper-level professionals richly. These executives, essentially even “employees”, use commercial wealth and power to influence politics. Their main objectives are to imitate the bourgeois method and the advantages it offers. The democratic system is more dependent on its own money than it is on the votes of the people, according to businessmen and their top employees.
How does socialism make the richest and most powerful political parties and individuals dependent on donations from the wealthy and companies? Lawmakers must spend a lot of money to succeed in expensive activities that involve dominating the press. They find ready contributors by supporting policies that advantage socialism as a whole, or more specific industries, regions, and enterprises.
Often, the contributors find the officials. Companies hire lobbyists—people who work full time, all year round, to control the individuals that get elected. Employers receive funding for” think tanks” to produce and publish reports on all current social issues. The purpose of those studies is to increase investor interest in the sponsors ‘ goals. Companies and those they favor design the democratic system in these and other methods.
Most workers lack superior power and wealth. To organize, combine, and organize employees in such a way that their numbers can exceed their current levels of power, a large organization is required to activate, combine, and mobilize them. That happens often and with tremendous issues.
Also, in the US, the political structure has been shaped over the years to keep only two major parties. Both of them fervently and violently aid and assistance capitalism.
They work together to prevent any anti-capitalist social group from emerging and from becoming popular. Political parties are not included in the US’s commitment to give its people the most freedom of choice, which it repeatedly reiterates.
We all have an equal say in the decisions that make us, and politics is about that. That is not what we currently have. There is a very different level of influence than that of the Rockefeller community or George Soros when you go to the polls once or twice a month. When they want to control citizens, they use their money. That’s no politics.
Politics in socialism is unethical because it threatens the minority’s wealth inequality with a majority voting. With or without proper institutions of democracy ( such as votes with universal suffrage ), capitalism affects real democracy because businesses control creation, surplus value, and that surplus value’s distributions.
For mankind’s leaders, politics is what they say, never what they do.
Richard D. Wolff is visiting professor in the New School University’s Graduate Program in International Affairs and professor of economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Wolff’s regular present, “Economic Update”, is syndicated by more than 100 television channels and goes to millions via various TV systems and YouTube. His most recent book is” Democracy at Work is Understanding Capitalism” ( 2024 ), which responds to requests from readers of his earlier books:” Understanding Socialism” and” Understanding Marxism”.
Independent Media Institute initially published this article, which is now republished with authority.