Anti-Capitalism After Reading Erik Olin Wright, Part II

The limits of economic democracy

More on Erik Olin Wright’s (‘EOW’) “How to Be an Anti-capitalist.” (‘AC’)

EOW proposes a variety of ways to fight, undermine, escape from, or otherwise worry Capitalism. They include forming cooperatives, supporting labor-managed firms, and promoting the inclusion of worker representatives on corporate boards (known in Germany as “co-determination”). All of this is for the sake of economic democracy, which EOW equates to socialism.

A problem in EOW’s methodology is that anti-capitalism is held to imply an alternative to capitalism, namely some kind of socialism. The problem is that in the context of the book, this tends to be set up as a static alternative, a new system. But societies don’t change systems like putting on a new suit of clothes. Improvements are usually founded on what some policy wonks call “salami tactics” — gradual advances (which we hope outstrip the inevitable reversals), one slice at a time. This requires programs that are elastic, that admit of incremental expansion. Medicare, Medicaid, and ‘ObamaCare’ are such programs.

For instance, Bernie is onto adding dental and vision care to Medicare. Bernie’s policy constraint is that he is in the U.S. Senate, so his reforms have to apply to the entire country, all at once. That’s a big lift. Easier would be expansions of Medicaid in a particular state.

Getting back to Economic Democracy, to begin with, most people in my experience are woefully unqualified to make economic decisions and uninterested besides. The voting franchise could not be too broad, but putting economic decision-making in the hands of regular folks to me has always been problematic. Perhaps my economics training makes me an elitist.

It doesn’t pay the average person to become educated in a field outside their immediate occupational concerns. It requires time and money, with which the average person is less endowed, and any individual’s impact by virtue of any expertise is likely to be minimal. So the emphasis on democratizing micro-management seems misplaced. Who really wants to put in a day’s work, even if only six hours, and then sit through a meeting. Just let me do my job and let me go home!

In a nutshell, EOW has no strategy for anti-capitalism. What he has is a bundle of tactics. All of them are benign but are not likely to be decisive. In politics, what matters most is focus and repetition. I see no focus in the EOW miscellany. Economic democracy is not a focus.

That brings to mind a conversation I had with an activist Democrat the other day, while helping to man a table for the Loudoun County Democratic Committee at the Leesburg Farmers’ Market. It was the question of appropriate priorities for liberals and the Left.

Of course Priority One is blocking Trump’s election and stifling the MAGA movement. But suppose political conditions in Congress are more propitious? What if the Democrats get workable majorities in the House and Senate, since they won’t have to dicker with the likes of Joe Manchin or Krysten Sinema, who will both be mercifully gone?

My preferred priorities start with building out the U.S. welfare state, which is very skinny by international standards.

The most urgent need for those with very low or no income is public support for a higher floor under standards of living. Thanks to the popularity of the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit, this is already on the table if things go well next month. A regulatory measure that would have a similar effect is an increase in the minimum wage, preferably indexed to inflation, and mandated employment-based benefits, such as paid family leave and paid vacations.

Next on my list is Medicare and Medicaid for more, if not for all, as discussed above. I feel like I need some beefing up in this field, so I bought a new book by Liran Einav and Amy Finkelstein, both heavy-weight professors at Stanford and MIT, respectively. I will report back on it after I’ve gotten through it.

I could also talk as I already have about expanding access to housing and higher education. As with Medicaid, these can both be pursued at the state level incrementally, though of course a big Federal action could be decisive.

The upshot is that for me, these priorities deserve the most political focus, contrary to EOW’s noodling around with co-ops and labor management of firms. My framework is consistent with Bernie Sanders’s impeccable political instincts. Though Bernie avows democratic socialism, in reality he neglects public ownership. It’s still worth talking about, but with the exception of actions relevant to climate change, it is a lower priority. The Left tends to ignore it, unlike Marx but like Bernie, focusing on the distribution of goods and services. That is also my priority, as noted above, but it betrays an intellectual short-sightedness and neglect of part of what Marx has to offer.

Economic democracy offers steps to public ownership of capital (“the means of production”), but there are more important steps that should come first.