With its self-aggrandizing terminology of capital flows, derivatives and liquidity, capital shrouds itself in a glossy veneer of hypermodernity. Complex language is employed to reinforce the notion that neoliberal capitalism is the most advanced, forward thinking model of societal organisation available to us today. Conversely, explicitly anticapitalist ideologies are ridiculed as retrograde and regressive, depicted as belonging to naïve idealistic past, completely incompatible with the needs and demands of modern society. In line with this, anyone who dares to raise their head above the parapet and voice opposition to austerity is depicted as backwards and utopian. Anticapitalist discourses have to operate with an awareness of the state of play, and draw certain conclusions about the ways in which to frame our arguments given the prevailing attitudes of the majority.
It seems to me that anticapitalists are failing to understand the terrain of contestation in which they find themselves. Expending excessive amounts of energy in trying to illuminate people as to the inequalities that capitalism propagates is largely futile, it is in essence preaching to the converted. Those who are already ideologically opposed to capitalism will respond with fury to detailed outlines of the ways in which capital entrenches the divide between haves and have-nots, but for the majority this has little effect. This is not because people are unaware of the inequalities, in fact their everyday existence is permeated by such an awareness. The problem is that such rhetoric produces only a stock response of shrugs and sighs – “Yes, the world is unfair, but it has been ever thus…” and “Certainly it isn’t perfect, but would you rather have the tyranny of Stalin?”. Trying to explain that the possibilities for alternative forms of societal organisation don’t necessarily orientate towards authoritarian state control with power invested in the hands of a small cabal of bureaucrats generally falls upon deaf ears. As such, we arrive at something of an impasse.
How could we recalibrate our arguments to attack the central notion that neoliberal capitalism represents the cutting edge of modernity? A case needs to be made that the 21st century is one of contestation between different perspectives. The one propagated by neoliberalism’s adherents forms the primary orthodoxy of our times, and mocks all alternatives as belonging to an earlier era in which they were not able to gain the necessary political and social capital in which to radically transform society. Its antithesis should be grounded in the assertion that, in fact, it is capital ITSELF that is impeding our advancement, that its ideas are no more than a turbo-charged version of nineteenth century liberal capitalist doctrines, and that true novelty resides in the radical projects of democratic autonomy. Our argument should challenge the smug capitalist consensus of condescension that posits itself as the herald of change. We should, in effect, address capital as antiquated and outmoded, unfit for purpose for our present age and the challenges it will bring. Too much respect is given to the ideologues of capital, they should be ridiculed as dinosaurs unable to conceptualise the ways in which our burgeoning knowledge has outstripped them, and robbed them of all legitimacy.