A regular contributor shares some thoughts on how capitalism has shaped our culture – and left it lacking direction and purpose.
Capitalism is a system that incidentally and deliberately eradicates alternatives to itself. Some of this is due to its economic efficiency, but it also deliberately seeks to eliminates any alternatives, for instance last year David Cameron promised to make life more difficult for travellers and squatters, two of the few alternative lifestyles that still exist in the margins of capitalist Britain and the globalisation of the last 20-30 years has been a globalising of capitalism (is it coincidence that both Iraq and Libya had versions of (totalitarian) socialism?). One of the effects of this erasing of alternatives is that capitalism is able to represent itself as ‘natural’ rather than one option among several. If you listen to political debate in the mainstream media it is normally between two positions within a narrow capitalist perspective, the bickering of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Rarely is a non-capitalist perspective heard- capitalism in the cultural mainstream is now a ‘given’.
One of the hallmarks of late capitalism/postmodernity is the death of the meta-narrative, the big ideological stories of meaning and purpose, the belief that society/humanity is on a journey, that we were somewhere, are somewhere and are on the way to somewhere better. Obviously this demise was not always a bad thing, some meta-narratives justified oppression, imperialism, the nation and the status quo. However the lack of meta-narratives, of a sense of purpose has led to a cultural cynicism that is not due to a sense that things could be better, from an alternative vision but is the result of a realisation of the true nature of capitalist politics/economics and a lack of hope/idealism, like watching an extended version of ‘Have I got news for you’, good at ‘attacking’ the powerful but from within the same camp! Like some early punk 21st century mainstream cynicism wants to ‘Destroy’ what ‘is’ without having a clue what it wants to create. For many in the industrialised world late capitalism is experienced as a moribund purposeless ever open shopping mall. Late capitalism has no past, present or future, no direction, it is a competitive system where entities seek to maximise their profits/advantages and defeat rivals, all activity is geared to these two goals. Capitalist culture is the tarted up result of market forces and the commodification of all things, it cannot help but be bereft of meaning, and over arching purpose, it has no idea where it is going, it recycles/repackages the past, stages continual ‘events’ and generally tries to self anesthetise. For every mainstream film trying to communicate hope and vision, like ‘V for Vendetta’ or that is angry, like ‘Syriana’ there are a hundred that reaffirm that there is no alternative to the big status quo and to relax/improve your own life/wait for a hero. In this late capitalist culture where objects are ascribed magical life changing qualities and people are reduced to consumers and commodities people spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need and the ideal woman is a pole dancing ‘Barbie’, an objectified commodity. For many the late capitalist/postmodern experience is one of alienation, from themselves, their work, those around them. Forced to live in competition with their fellow workers they feel vulnerable, insecure, precarious, unfulfilled by their roles of producer/consumer- no wonder that mental health problems continue to rise.
It is into this situation that Anarchists have to speak, ‘yes’ we need to fight for workers rights, wages, pensions and against government cuts but remember this is all within the capitalist system. Fighting for the best deal for the poor and hard pressed within the existing system is important but simultaneously we must be reminding people that what they are experiencing doesn’t have to be, that capitalism is a system, an economic/political/ social construct maintained by the elite and that there are alternatives worth working towards. We need to remind people that a non-capitalist world/model is possible. Anarchists need to be aware of and address the felt needs of people many of who know intuitively that they are living in a purposeless, sterile wasteland decorated with shiny technological baubles but who have never heard that something else is possible. We need to be organising and communicating in a way that alerts people to the possibility of living life based on community, co-operation, egalitarianism, so that even if they don’t see the end of capitalism they will have an alternative model for their own lives.
Capitalism is a social world and like all social worlds it needs maintaining, it is not stable and inviolate, it will have an end, we live in the time before that end but by our lives we can offer glimmers of what could be, an anarchist alternative that offers people community, meaning and value.