6 Futile growth and mounting destruction
-
Costas Panayotakis
Abstract
Building on previous chapters’ discussion of capital’s destructive uses of the surplus, this chapter reformulates the contradiction underlying contemporary capitalism’s operation. This reformulation does not assume that capitalism is becoming an insuperable obstacle to further productive development. Instead, it argues that capitalism’s continuing development of the forces of production runs parallel to an equally rapidly development of its forces of destruction. The thrust of that system’s cost–benefit contradiction then consists in the long-term tendency of the benefits from productive development to decline even as the threats from the simultaneous development of capitalism’s destructive forces escalate. This contradiction creates the potential for a broad anti-capitalist coalition between all the social groups and social movements fighting against both the various manifestations of capitalist destruction and the various forms of injustice that capitalism helps to reproduce. At the same time, however, the social, economic, and geographic divisions that capitalism’s operation imposes on the different segments of the world population obstruct this anti-capitalist convergence. Thus, this chapter does more than just analyze the conditions that make it possible to envisage a democratic classless society capable of overcoming the multidimensional crisis we face. It also illuminates some of the obstacles that an anti-capitalist movement would need to overcome in order to turn such an alternative society into a reality.
Abstract
Building on previous chapters’ discussion of capital’s destructive uses of the surplus, this chapter reformulates the contradiction underlying contemporary capitalism’s operation. This reformulation does not assume that capitalism is becoming an insuperable obstacle to further productive development. Instead, it argues that capitalism’s continuing development of the forces of production runs parallel to an equally rapidly development of its forces of destruction. The thrust of that system’s cost–benefit contradiction then consists in the long-term tendency of the benefits from productive development to decline even as the threats from the simultaneous development of capitalism’s destructive forces escalate. This contradiction creates the potential for a broad anti-capitalist coalition between all the social groups and social movements fighting against both the various manifestations of capitalist destruction and the various forms of injustice that capitalism helps to reproduce. At the same time, however, the social, economic, and geographic divisions that capitalism’s operation imposes on the different segments of the world population obstruct this anti-capitalist convergence. Thus, this chapter does more than just analyze the conditions that make it possible to envisage a democratic classless society capable of overcoming the multidimensional crisis we face. It also illuminates some of the obstacles that an anti-capitalist movement would need to overcome in order to turn such an alternative society into a reality.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- Confronting the capitalist virus vi
- Introduction 1
- 1 Rethinking the surplus 8
- 2 Surplus and freedom 18
- 3 Capital’s real subsumption of consumption 33
- 4 Consumerism and capital’s use of science and technology to undercut democracy 54
- 5 Capitalism as a force of destruction 67
- 6 Futile growth and mounting destruction 90
- 7 The crisis of capitalist democracy and the continuing relevance of the communist ideal 99
- Conclusion 123
- References 132
- Index 152
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- Confronting the capitalist virus vi
- Introduction 1
- 1 Rethinking the surplus 8
- 2 Surplus and freedom 18
- 3 Capital’s real subsumption of consumption 33
- 4 Consumerism and capital’s use of science and technology to undercut democracy 54
- 5 Capitalism as a force of destruction 67
- 6 Futile growth and mounting destruction 90
- 7 The crisis of capitalist democracy and the continuing relevance of the communist ideal 99
- Conclusion 123
- References 132
- Index 152
