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April 13, 2003
REVIEWS: Myth of justice
Capitalism is the mantra of our industrial age. It is the lubricant that greases the economic juggernaut and keeps it rolling. But the quest for justice is as old as human existence on this planet; it is the highest attribute of a civilized society. Is it possible for capitalism and justice to thrive in harmony with each other? Can justice, which places society above self, prevail in competition with capitalism, which has self-interest as its bedrock? These are pressing and disturbing questions of our age.
The history of capitalism since the industrial revolution does not lend much cause for optimism. The industrial revolution soon spawned the search for external and far-flung sources of raw materials and consumer markets for finished industrial goods. That, in turn, spurred colonialism, in the 18th and 19th centuries, over vast tracts of the less-developed world with disastrous consequences.
Justice and equality for the colonized people were the first casualties of the colonial over-reach and unbridled greed of capitalism. Ruthless exploitation of the colonies, their raw materials and agricultural produce, and suppression of every form of human expression of liberty and justice was considered fair and legitimate in the interest of keeping the ‘mother country’s’ industry working and its economy vibrantly productive.
The colonial age and the tortuous experiences of the colonized do not interest those grappling with the still rampant conflict of interests and goals between capitalism and the ends of justice in their contemporary capitalist societies. But they do feel concerned about the phenomenal rise of global corporatism which is the most aggressive paradigm of capitalism with a reach more extensive, and intrusive, than historical colonialism.
John Isbister is one such observer of neo-capitalism who also feels concerned about the ineluctable need of ensuring that the rampant rise of capitalism with a global reach does not jeopardize the ends of justice.
Isbister is well equipped and qualified to undertake such a dispassionate study of this most challenging question of our age. A Canadian who studied history at Queen’s University as an undergraduate and later received a doctorate in economics from Princeton, Isbister has been teaching economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, for well over three decades. But he is not an ordinary professor; because of his grounding in history he takes a broadbased historical view of capitalism and its perennial conflict with the dictates of social justice and studies this compelling issue in a wider perspective.
Published by an avant garde American publisher, the Kumarian Press, which specializes in the publication of issue-oriented books, Capitalism and Justice takes the view that left to its own devices, capitalism does not produce social justice. It is anti-equality, freedom and efficiency. It spawns inequalities of both opportunities and outcomes.
This is a view at conflict with the philosophy of capitalism given currency by its high priests, like Milton Friedman, who peddle their conviction that capitalism creates individual freedom because it decentralizes economic power. That may be so, but this economic freedom empowers the producer and the capitalist far more than it does the consumer and the worker. The result is an ever-growing imbalance and disparity in the income levels of the rich and the poor.
What else, other than a yawning gap between the economic fortunes of the rich and the poor, explains that in an affluent country like US nearly 50 million people have little or inadequate medical insurance?
Isbister, not given to argumentation, reposes his faith in the dynamics of society to correct the imbalance. He also believes that the power of the government can also bridge the gap with socially correct measures like ‘affirmative action’, taxation, welfare and others of their ilk. But that could be a misplaced trust. The experience of the last few decades is to the contrary. Governments all over the world are divesting themselves of many of their obligations to their populace in the name of IMF and World Bank-induced ‘market opening’ and ‘privatization’ of basic public utilities.
Globalization, like the erstwhile colonialism, is triggering new challenges and complications for individual freedoms and justice. Isbister candidly exposes that “both between and within countries, the new globalization has seen the gap between the rich and the poor widen”. A robust and aggressive globalism is putting the poorer countries at a distinct disadvantage against global players. This is only adding to the burden of the people because their governments are whittling down the safety net of welfare for them.
Such an appalling situation is only compounding the misery and suffering of the poor. They find themselves not only at the receiving end of unjust and exploitative policies, foisted on their governments by the likes of IMF and WTO, but their own capacity, vis-a-vis their own governments, is being rapidly eroded. Is it any surprising, therefore, that in a global coffee market of $70 billion, the coffee- beans producers’ and farmers’ share is a piddling $10 billion?
Isbister, the academic, understands these compulsions and constraints better than others but the optimist in him still believes that the ‘unitarianism’ of humankind would gradually heal the rift and salve the festering wounds of imbalance. Optimism apart, that may be wishing too much.
Capitalism and Justice: Envisioning Social and Economic Fairness
By John Isbister
Kumarian Press, Inc, 1294 Blue Hills Avenue, Bloomfield, CT 06002, US. Tel: 860-243-2098
Email:
kpbooks@aol.com
ISBN 1-56549-122-X
272pp. $69.95
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