Political choice and the multiple “logics” of capital

Conclusion

The issue of whether one sees the constraints on domestic freedom of action as economic or political has important practical consequences. If one accepts the position that reforms such as the expansion of social welfare actually interfere with the fundamental logic of a capitalist order, it becomes very difficult to defend those reforms from conservative attack. One can argue that over the long term the only way to protect those reforms is through a break with the capitalist system, but this does not provide much strategic guidance in the short term. On the contrary, since the left is agreeing that these reforms contribute to the problems of the economy - inflation, slow growth, unemployment - it follows that the citizenry is acting rationally when it supports the right-wing attacks on the reforms. In a context in which the immediate transition to socialism is not possible, it follows that the best way to enhance the collective welfare is by trading off the reforms for the promise of faster economic growth.

This is, I would argue, what has happened in the past decade in the United States. While one can easily exaggerate the influence of leftist ideas, the wide dissemination of the accumulation versus legitimation perspective within academia and activist circles has had the effect of persuading key groups of the futility of resisting the Reaganite attacks on the all-too-limited American welfare state. The very notion that Reagan's policies were necessary for American capitalism had the effect of disempowering those who were in a position to resist those policies.

If, on the contrary, the left had stressed that the constraints are political and that there are multiple ways to make a capitalist economy work, the possibilities for effective resistance would have been greater. Rather than perceiving Reaganite policies as reflecting some economic necessity, it would have been possible to formulate alternative policies for responding to the economic problems. With such alternative frameworks, it might then be possible to build broader political alliances while also empowering the victims of the cutbacks to fight both to protect earlier gains and to win new concessions.

Because the struggle to protect the remnants of the welfare state continues, it is not too late to break the chains of the economistic fallacy. The costs are slight and the benefits could be enormous.