For this week’s set of posts, I will be delving into the polar opposite of Democratic Socialism, “Democratic Capitalism.” Similar to Democratic Socialism, I am convinced that Democratic Capitalism is basically a rhetorical device to insinuate that the Market/Mixed Economy and Fractional-Reserve Banking System should coexist within a Parliamentary Democracy as part of Neoliberalism for the benefit of Neoliberalism. The belief is that a Liberal Capitalist Parliamentary Democracy is only as strong economically and financially as when the Market/Mixed Economy and Fractional-Reserve Banking System are “lifting people out of poverty” (to paraphrase the Austrian School’s Ludwig von Mises). When the Market fails to let Civil Society become flushed with more Schuld than Kapital, that is when people begin to question the validity of Neoliberalism.
How would a Liberal Capitalist nation respond to the challenges of a world a half century after the Death of Bretton Woods? The Democratic Capitalist response is to make the Market more “equitable,” which entails figuring out how to ensure that a larger proportion of Civil Society receives the “greatest Quantity of Kapital for the least Quantity of Schuld.” Such rhetoric has around since the Cold War, the latter half of the Second World War, when it became apparent that Pinochet’s Chile, the Brazilian and South Korean Military Dictatorships, and Marco’s Philippines did not need Parliaments to have Market/Mixed Economies and Fractional-Reserve Banking Systems. As long as an Authoritarian had the support of the wealthy and the armed forces, they could stave off Social Liberalization and Political Liberalization whilst reaping the Kapital Accumulation of Economic Liberalization. Unfortunately, World History has shown that Economic Liberalization eventually leads to Social Liberalization before culminating in Political Liberalization.
Thus, Democratic Capitalism promotes the idea that the Liberal Capitalist nation should foster within the “Private Sector” and the “Public Sector,” the shared paradigm of Production for Profit and Production for Utility respectively, ethical and moral imperatives. The wealthy and privatized commercial firms should be implored by Civil Society to share more their Kapital without having to resort to the sort of Welfare Capitalism espoused by Democratic Socialism. Instead of “nationalizing” monopolies and privatized commercial banks, they should be subject to greater scrutiny by Parliament at the behest of a concerned Civil Society. Instead of cultivating Economic Socialization (which would yield some form of Pure Socialism), Private and Foreign Enterprises need to be implored to reinvest Kapital back into the Liberal Capitalist nation. And rather than expand the social safety net to prevent more people from entertaining Pure Socialism, people’s communities and religious congregations ought to be compelled to look after their most vulnerable.
Note that this is not a question of “State contra Market” or “Dictatorship contra Democracy” insofar as such notions are in final analysis Neoliberal propaganda. It would be gross overgeneralization of what is apparent here because Democratic Capitalism and Democratic Socialism have far more in common with each other than what it would seem at first. A more tenable conclusion is that those two are rhetorical devices whose definitions refer back to that aforementioned relationship between Production for Profit and Production for Utility. After all, the only variant of Neoliberalism that has succeeded in harnessing the capabilities of both Modes of Production was and continues to be Social-Democracy.
In my Treatises, I have argued that neither Democracy as a model of political governance is inherently Neoliberal nor should people be reduced to mere voters and consumers. There is more to political life than casting a ballot for the same parties in Parliament. There is also more to economic life than transferring resources between the buyer and seller in a transactional sale.
Categories: Uncategorized
The Fourth Estate 
Leave a comment