Editor's Note: Gregory Esteven, the interviewee here, is a contributing writer for Political Affairs.
PA: Recently PA carried online an article by you entitled 'How the Left Saved Capitalism.' Since it is such a provocative title, could you begin by explaining what you mean by it?
GREGORY ESTEVEN: I have been doing a lot of thinking about the classic question of why the socialist revolution didn't take off in the Western capitalist countries as predicted by the early proponents of Marxism. What I am saying in my article, basically, is that it is not enough to just look back at the obvious failures of the Left to explain this situation. I suggest that it is possible that the successes of the Left and progressive forces, the labor movement, Marxist parties, etc., helped preserve capitalism from its own contradictions. This is because, by nature, capitalism needs contradictions such as inequality, because the ultimate logic of the system is to generate profit – but if those contradictions become too great, the system itself is jeopardized. We saw this in the Great Depression, and in today's economic crisis we are seeing something like that again, although maybe on a smaller scale. Hopefully it won't get to the point of the Depression of the 1930s.
Marx and Engels were writing at a time when capitalism was in its most inhuman phase, when most workers did not have even the basic rights that we in the core countries take for granted now, such as the right to organize, bans on child labor, and things like that – and in their day the gap between the rich and the poor was very, very stark. However, by the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the Left, and I think organized labor in particular, were winning many battles, battles which greatly reduced some of capitalism's worst contradictions and perhaps lessened the pressing need for revolution that Marx and Engel's saw. In other words, capitalism became somewhat reformed. I think that these victories were quite significant and greatly lessened the plight of workers, so we should not take them lightly.
This reform trend continued for a while, with the birth of the New Deal in the United States and the welfare state in Europe. Thus, we had what amounted to a sort of 'capitalism with a human face.' Wealth was being distributed more equally among the population, because there were all these high-paying union jobs, particularly in manufacturing, as well as decent pensions, benefits, quality public education and increased access to healthcare. That is why I think it is safe to say that the Left temporarily saved capitalism from its own self-destructive contradictions, by lessening those contradictions somewhat. I don't think I am putting forward a new idea here. I think this is really implicit in a lot of analysis. For instance, in PA's recent print edition, there was an article by Norman Markowitz where he talks about the New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. I think that essentially he was emphasizing some of the same things I am talking about here.
PA: A couple of questions occur to me from what you are saying. One is – just to clarify – you're not arguing that the Left, the organized labor movement, and the civil rights movement should have sat on their hands and not done what they did? You're not trying to suggest that, are you?
ESTEVEN: Absolutely not! I think the worst thing we could imagine would be to just let capitalism self-destruct – and when it did there would be no movement to take its place, providing the initiative and the organizational strength to create a society that is more just. We need to have these constant struggles for democracy and equality, which broadly speaking we can call left and progressive. Obviously I am partisan, and I think that we should be fighting for socialism – but how long that will actually take to achieve is uncertain. In the meantime, many of the fights we engage in do lessen some of the problems of capitalism and help it assume a more human face to some extent, but there is no question that we have to keep fighting against it.
PA: The second question that arises is that if capitalism relies on inequalities and contradictions you are describing here, and if the Left has helped assuage some of those contradictions, don't we still cause capitalism problems, in that it needs inequality, as you said, in order to maximize profits and expand and grow. Don't the left and progressive movements, and the movement for socialism, even though we have helped to preserve capitalism, if you are right, still push it along on its contradictory path?
ESTEVEN: I think that is accurate. The question for me is how resilient is capitalism in the long run? We need to keep putting pressure on it, but it has shown that it can make minimal adjustments that help it preserve itself. But these reforms go against the logic of capitalism, which is about accumulating wealth in fewer and fewer hands – and this does not end. What I am arguing basically is that the logic of capitalism was somewhat minimized during a certain period of time in the early-to-mid 20th century. Over the past few decades, however, we have seen capitalism revert back to an older stage. I think we are now seeing the end of capitalism with a human face: the logic of amelioration may have run its course.
PA: In your article you note that in the era of globalization, capitalism has taken on a new kind of structure, where those actions that saved it before, spearheaded by the organized labor movement, cannot do the same thing for capitalism now, unless some more fundamental change happens.
ESTEVEN: That's right. I am putting forward the idea that in the late 1970s and early 1980s certain people came to power – Reagan in the United States and Thatcher in Britain, and others elsewhere. Reagan and Thatcher were pushing a very specific neoliberal agenda. What I wonder about all this is whether it represents a fundamental shift in the world capitalist system, or was it just the agenda of a few, so that we can now return to a more social-democratic kind of mindset once those people are out of power. However, the 'capitalism with a human face' that we associate with the pre-neoliberal period was associated with more autonomous national economies that were able to protect workers from blows from foreign markets, providing greater stability and other benefits. Neoliberal globalization is associated with the exact opposite. This is the age of trade deregulation, 'lean and mean' business models and rising inequality. If workers demand living wages and benefits here, corporations can just outsource their jobs. This greatly undermines the gains of the past and subverts new ones. Therefore, I think there is a good chance that this sort of Keynesian logic of amelioration has reached its limit with the advent of the global economy.
PA: In other words, not only does capitalism become more globalized, but the Left and progressive movements also have to take on a more global character?
ESTEVEN: Absolutely. The lesson that we are drawing from today's trend of growing inequality and market liberalization, is that we really do need a new internationalism or a renewed internationalism – I'm not saying that it ever went away entirely. But I think today that it is even more evident that this is what we need – a renewed internationalism of the left and labor, because in the past, as I was saying earlier, national economies were relatively autonomous compared to what they are like today. It was once true, in a sense, that workers in one country might not have the same interests as workers in another country, but now when, for instance, speculation on the stock market in New York has almost real-time consequences for workers around the planet – or when you lose your job here today and a sweatshop is set up in another country tomorrow – I think this really demonstrates how thoroughly connected workers are in this new global system. That is why I think Marx's vision really comes into its own today. Marx is not irrelevant today – I say the exact opposite – it is really today that Marxism is proven to be correct.
