4 oct

Is there a crisis in capitalism? This question is real to me, but the answer isn’t obvious. I mean, there is no obvious yes or no. There is a bit of yes and a bit of no. I should get my head straight about these subtleties. Taking all these months of were partly used to do this. It is shocking and humbling to realize how much time in a campervan is being used for simple things as fixing a leak, fixing a non-working heater… All those things that you don’t want to think about, but have to think about if you do not have a daily job to excuse yourself.
Reading about Fred Goodwin the crisis in capitalism might seem obvious. Firms are getting too large, their focus gets too short-sighted, the money that pours in (at good times) is too tempting, the sense of responsibility is too vague.
Not that it is a cosy business environment. One-up-men-ship seems to be the most respected business attitude. In good times the elbows are a lot sharper than when rough times hit.
All these things, adding up to a whole lot of humbug, are the ingredients that create a crisis. But is it also a crisis of capitalism?

I remember the time when I was studying economics in Tilburg. One of the excurricular classes I followed was a kind of introduction in Marxist economics. For me it was part of rebellion against a too scholarly kind of education – not my only rebellion, I never read more novels in my life than then – but for some others this was serious stuff. I remember once asking in this group if people would be able to kill other people in order to establish the ideal socialist state. I mean, nobody wanted a new Soviet Union, although this was before the collapse, but an ideal socialist state was welcome, wasn’t it. I had no illusions myself, but this was not too long after the Baader Meinhof days, and the environment was not that much different, so I liked to test my comrades. There were some vague answers, but the question was too extreme and I wasn’t trusted really, having defended capitalism too often before.

In an ideal world, with humans that do not behave like humans, socialism is the ultimate answer. But people are not tended to be right, good and virtuous, they tend to be selfish and are always tempted by, here is the crucial word, vices. In that kind of world you want a system that is not based on the goodness of people (communism) but on their mean selfish side, which is capitalism. You just have to keep the selfish side in tune.

But then, the capitalism of the end of the 19th century, is not the same as the capitalism at beginning of the 21st. And the capitalism at the beginning of the 21st century in the US is not the same ast the capitalism at the beginning of the 21 st century in the Uk, or the Netherlands, or France as we are finding out.

But a crisis it is.

How to define it then? I am struggling to find an answer, don’t have it yet. But it has had to do something with the appalling distribution of money these days. I mean, the distribution of money is never right, but it is clear that it has gone worse in recent times.
I like to refer back to the thirties, and fifties of the last century. My grandfather was head of a primary school in a small village in Brabant, the better part of what is sometimes referred to as Holland. He and his family lived in one of the most handsome houses that I have ever seen, with lots of craftsmanship in the details. He discussed the affairs of the village weekly at a game of bridge with the mayor, the priest and the notary, if I remember it well. Mark the fact that there is no banker, real estate agent or builder involved in these discussions. And no democracy either, that most superior political system – in Churchill’s words – but still not totally satisfactory, and probably not as good as the cardsclub of my grandfather, but scale is a problem here.
Plato preferred a society were wise men ruled. Capitalism has created a society were money is the most determining factor to distribute power. And it has gone to people that tend to be narrow-minded, short-sighted and egoistic, in casu the banker, the builder and the real estate agent.
That is not right. It is no reason to throw the capitalistic system down the drain, but it has to change, and it has to change drastically.