Capitalism is a system that is designed to fail with the cyclical economy, and it can fail when there is
too much growth and too many goods, causing deflation and depression which are part of the plan, but
some companies are “too big to fail” and are bailed out while the working class is ignored by the invisible
hand. Capitalism divides and conquers through its competitive nature that positions greed against greed,
but the odds are stacked against the working man who must weigh his individual merit against inherited
gifts, and while the American dream dares us struggle, the self made man is a dying breed, as you are
either born into the bourgeoisie or are bought by them. Capitalism has failed many times, and it has been
saved by its greatest adversary; capitalism might have won the Cold War, but it would have consumed
itself, had it not been saved by government regulations which seemed radical at the time. Vivek Chibber
argues that it's about time for revolutionary ideas in his short work, “If the basic structure of a capitalist
economy stands in the way of social justice, then it calls for deep and fundamental structural change,
perhaps to a new social system altogether…” (Confronting Capitalism, 135). If so, then what are the
alternatives? Skeptics would argue that there is no better alternative, and that socialism died with the
Soviet Union. But we cannot forget that laissez-faire failed too, and had it not been for socialist ideas, like
the 8-hour workday, social security, safety regulations, Keynesianism and the birth of the mixed
economy, then it would have failed for the last time. The truth is that capitalism can be reconciled with
the noble goals of socialism.
Before we ask ourselves what is wrong with capitalism, we first have to give credit to what it does
right. One of Communism’s biggest failures is the centralized planning, which happens to be capitalism’s
biggest strength, as Branko Milanovic highlights in his article,”The alignment of individual and systemic
objectives is a major success achieved by capitalism” (The Contours of the Post-cold War World, 4).
Milanovic is referring to the invisible hand which unites the social good with the private good with dollar
voting and a demand driven economy. However, an unregulated economy can experience negative
externalities, where profit motives diverge from the social interest, for instance a deal can be mutually
agreeable between two private parties while having an unforeseen and undesirable effect on a third party
that was not part of the handshake. We have policies like pollution taxes and cap and trade to manage
these problems, but some people will go a step further and propose that we remove some services from
the market altogether, arguing that for profit healthcare and education are morally bankrupt. However,
these efforts at reformation hit a roadblock because the system is rigged by the ruling class, as Chibber
argues in his essay, “...the problem in modern societies is that capitalism overwhelms democracy,
ensuring that the state is fundamentally biased toward capitalist interersts” (Confronting Capitalism, 57).
This adds a new meaning to dollar voting. This is supposed to be a free country but nothing is free, and
we work for cents on the dollar when it is divided at the end of day. It's bad enough that the bourgeoisie is
playing dirty, it's even worse that the working class is divided, as the tycon Jay Gould famously said, “I
can hire one half of the working class to kill the othe half.” The working class is constantly exploited and
taken for granted, but this is the death sentence of capitalism, as Erik Olin Wright puts it, “Capitalism
breeds anticapitalists’’ (How to be Anticapitalist, 5).
In short, a mixed economy can give us the best of both worlds, but the bourgeoisie are not willing to
play ball, and so the poor must take upon themselves to fight for fairness and equality,