Working for Radical Change Neither Inside Nor Outside of the Capitalist System

By Bob Gordh

I am a socialist. I hope and work for a radically different and better world than the one we have now. In this essay I will focus on the part of the world I know best, the USA. Like other socialists, I envision and strive for a country in which power, wealth, and above all, circumstances that support the enjoyment of a flourishing, fulfilling life are distributed MUCH, MUCH more evenly than they are now.

I should also say that I do not believe that the vast difference between what presently is and what someday should be can be traversed in a single, very temporally limited, ruptural event. I want revolutionary change, but I believe change of that magnitude can be accomplished, if at all, (and I make no predictions) only by moving through a series of steps and stages, steps and stages that cannot be wholly predicted in advance. I am not saying that progressive change must always be slow and gradual. Dramatic and momentous leaps forward will need to be part of the process. Moreover, I am not in favor of “evolution” as opposed to revolution. Evolution, at least in its Darwinian sense, is not an intentional, goal-directed process. The process I am advocating is very definitely intentional and goal-directed.

I am interested, then, in any and all possible steps that lead toward a socialist future. Does this mean that I advocate working within capitalism until it becomes possible to break out of it? Instead of answering this question, I want to question the question itself. I believe that the question presupposes a misleading metaphor in which capitalism is pictured as a kind of container or structure that one might be either inside of or outside of. I see capitalism not as a thing but as a kind of ongoing process. The process is structured for sure, but it is not a structure that one can stand either within or without. Nor is socialism such a structure.

I want to propose a different kind of conceptual framework that involves a series of conflicting polar opposites. Let us start with Left vs. Right. Then add Socialism vs. Capitalism. Then Public Good vs. Private Gain. Then Power With vs. Power Over. Plus Democracy vs. Autocracy. And very importantly, Anti-racism vs. Racism. Etc., etc. If we apply this kind of framework to the U.S., one important point that quickly becomes evident is that the U.S. is not completely capitalist. It is predominantly capitalist, to be sure, but by no means exclusively so. A very considerable quantity of time, energy, and money is devoted to promoting the public good, as opposed to private gain. And with some success. We have public libraries and a national postal system (though both are currently under attack from the right). We have public parks. The state of Vermont has single payer health insurance. The United Teachers of Los Angeles went on strike and won an 11% pay raise. We have some degree of democracy in state and national governance. The fascist ambitions of the MAGA Republicans throw into relief both how much democracy we lack and how much we still have. Electoral politics did save the right to abortion for women in Kansas. My intention here is not to assess the relative strengths of leftist and rightist forces in this country but simply to state that they both exist.

It might be objected that the ruling capitalist class only allows some people- power, some democracy, some attention to the general welfare, to prevent mass rebellion; but even if this is true, it only shows that the masses have some power to promote the public good. The task for socialists, it seems to me, is to build this power and to push this country to the left in every way possible. This entails neither working within capitalism nor working outside of capitalism. It entails working within a society that has both left and right aspects and constantly attempting to grow the left aspects and shrink the right ones. It entails working assiduously and strategically in every important area of life to push the needle to the left. One problem I see in the “structure” metaphor is that it subtly undermines the importance of the leftward work that is currently being done. It’s as if this work is just a kind of temporizing, as if the real work of building socialism will have to wait until we are “outside” of the present container. I want to say that we can build socialism now, alongside and in opposition to the current prevailingly capitalist regime.

So we must constantly push to the left. How far to the left? Would there be any such thing as moving too far to the left? My simple answer is “no,” but I need to add some explanation. There are certain ideals that are more associated with the left than with the right that could be pushed too far. For example, “horizontal” relationships are favored more by the left and “vertical” relationships by the right. However, as Rodrigo Nunes points out in his brilliant book, Neither Horizontal Nor Vertical: A Theory of Political Organization, it is literally impossible for any organization to be either exclusively horizontal or exclusively vertical. Suppose, that, a social justice organization is being formed. Its organizers should aim for a balance between horizontality and verticality that will best serve two leftist purposes ( between which there can be some tension): 1, that of promoting social justice within the organization and 2, that of promoting social justice in the world outside the organization. These organizers could make the mistake of overemphasizing horizontality in such a way as to diminish the organization’s ability to fulfill these purposes. However, I would not characterize this mistake as a matter of moving too far to the left, but rather as a misstep in the effort to achieve left goals. If the left means fairness, justice, equal concern for everyone’s well-being, the beloved community, then there is no such thing as being too far left.

A similar point can be made with regard to some (not all) putative charges that one is not far enough to the left. Take the dyad of inclusion and exclusion. Inclusion is more left, exclusion is more right. But that doesn’t mean that a group of activists who are discussing means of countering police terror are not far enough left if they exclude police persons from the meeting!

The most prominent leftist ideal of all, perhaps, is that of equality. This ideal too, though, could be pushed too far and should not be considered an absolute. In the first place, room must be made for the consideration that total equality in every area of life is simply impossible. Power cannot be distributed completely equally because some folks will inevitably be more leaderly than others. Opportunity cannot be distributed completely evenly because the situations people find themselves in are heterogeneous. A child growing up in Hawaii will have a better opportunity to become a surfer than a child growing up in Colorado — and the reverse for skiing.

Equality of income or material support (whatever form that may take) could more plausibly be stipulated, but should it be? Suppose that at a certain stage of its development a socialist society needed some pay differentials as motivators. That price might be worth paying. This decision could be made in a democratic way by future worker-owners of the means of production. Or suppose that strict material equality could only be obtained through heavy surveillance and monitoring. That price might not be worth paying. Differentials in material pay might even be used in creative ways to produce greater freedom. Person A chooses to work 8 hours a day and can afford a 6 room house. Person B chooses to work 4 hours per day (at the same pay rate) and can only afford a 3 room house but also enjoys a lot more leisure time than Person A does. The two might be roughly equal in overall life satisfaction. This subject is obviously extremely complex, but at least one more important point must not be omitted: Different folks have different needs, with medical needs being a dramatic example. In a just society, unequal amounts of resources must surely be allotted to support patients with very different medical needs.

None of this is meant to suggest that equality should not be a very important value for those of us on the left. Leftists should have a powerful bias toward equality. The burden of proof should rest with inequality and should not be too readily considered met. “Equity” can be a useful term that covers both justified equality and justified inequality. I fear, though, that those who are not far enough to the left tend to be too ready to describe as “equitable” situations that contain far too much unjustifiable inequality.

There are any number of domains, or areas of life, in which it is vitally important to the common good to move policies and procedures to the left. These include politics, governance, laws; public safety; the military; policing, the courts, carceral institutions, (with a goal of abolishing and replacing these with institutions dedicated not to punishment but to accountability, restoration and healing); housing; the environment; education, entertainment, the media, communications technology; public opinion itself (i.e. hearts and minds); health and medicine (universal healthcare would represent one very significant step to the left); infrastructure; finance and credit; manufacturing; commerce; agriculture; the service economy, and on and on.

Of course, there is considerable intersection and linkage among these various categories. Often progress in one area will catalyze progress in others. Still, it is not to be expected, even if this country is ready, or close to ready, to move to the left in a number of the areas just mentioned, that progress in all areas would occur at the same rate. That is one reason for the unpredictability, referred to above, of how steps and stages leading in the direction of an egalitarian future might unfold.

I subscribe to the belief that capitalism and racism are inextricably intertwined. It is not merely capitalism but racial capitalism that we are facing. I believe, therefore, that a considerable part of the push for greater justice within each of the domains listed above will be a push for racial justice. Also, I share with many others the goals of countering patriarchy and hetero-normativity and ableism.

If socialism is defined in terms of social ownership of the means of production and capitalism in terms of private ownership of the same, corporate America would seem, quite rightly, a particularly hostile terrain in which to fight for movement to the left. Even here, though, pushing to the left can have significant efficacy. Let us pause for a moment to interrogate the concept of ownership itself. Owning something is not as simple as holding something in my hand. The former is a simple physical relation. The latter is a social and legal construct that confers certain rights on the owner. For instance, if I own a wallet, and someone takes it from me without my permission, I have a right to insist that it be returned to me. I have a right, then, to some measure of control over that which I own. However, this right is never absolute and its extent depends on the laws, ordinances, and even customs of the society in which I live. For this reason, the meaning and nature of ownership can be pushed to the left or the right. In society A, factory owners are required to mitigate pollution, pay their workers a certain minimum wage, avoid interference with efforts to unionize, refrain from racial or gender discrimination in hiring, and pay much higher taxes than they would have to in society B. In society B, factory owners are allowed to pollute the environment with impunity, pay their workers as little as they like, fire workers who try to unionize, discriminate with impunity along lines of “race” and gender, and pay much lower taxes than they would have to in society A. I want to say that although in both societies ownership of the means of production is “private,” it is not quite so private in society A as in society B. What private ownership means in society A is further to the left than what it means in society B.

That said, I also believe that the kind of radically (albeit not absolutely) egalitarian world socialists are aiming for will fall far short of being robustly realized unless private ownership ultimately gives way to social ownership in a decisive and categorical way. Only then would the U.S. become predominantly socialist rather than predominantly capitalist. How this momentous shift might happen and what the process might look like, I do not claim to know. I do believe that if this shift indeed ever happens, the further the country has moved to the left in the domains cited above before the shift happens, the better things will go before, during and after the shift.

What should the world on the other side of the shift look like and how should it work? What system of governance would be best? Should there be a constitution with a bill of rights? If so, what should these rights be? How should central, regional and local decision making be coordinated? Would markets still play a role? What should education look like? How should opponents of the shift be dealt with ? Etc., etc. There is room and need for an abundance of thoughtful and openminded discussion and debate among people of good will in search of the most beneficial possible answers to these questions.

One further note:

I am preaching to the choir in this essay. I am sure that some who read it will disagree with me to a lesser or greater degree about some things I am saying, but I am writing for folks who are at least not affronted by such words as “socialist” and “left.” Which words should be used for which audiences is a complex and tricky issue that I shall not try to address in this essay.