Western capitalism is dying and more people than in a long time are starting to question it. But if Reaganomics hadn't come along, if everything hadn't been deregulated, if taxes on the mega-rich had been kept at a smart level and most people were somewhat comfortable. Would capitalism be crumbling as it is now?

What if Reaganomics coming along and emphasising everything bad about capitalism ends up being the start of what causes everyone to lose faith in it?

  • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Reaganomics is a manifestation of the inherent contradictions within capitalism. Even by their own arguments it was always a temporary solution. Capitalism's constant trend toward monopoly ensures that the ideas of "personal responsibility" or "bootstrapping" will inevitably come up against immovable systemic opposition. People are finally starting to understand that this was never about increasing "economic freedom" (whatever that shit means, don't ask me, but they believe in it so I'm using the term) but about increasing the avenues of wealth extraction. It was dressed up in populist language about personal freedom, but a generation and a half later, all it has done is ensure we have less freedom within the marketplace (which in a capitalist system translates to less personal freedom: ie having to rent a small apartment rather than own a home, forcing you to take two jobs eroding you free time, having to put off having children for fear of financial ruin robbing you of expressing your own reproductive rights. The list goes on and on.)

    A gentler kind of capitalism could have staved off the worst of the current neoliberal excesses but the people in charge would still be the same people, and they would put pressure on the system to change to accommodate their interests. Those pressures are going nowhere, which is one of my fundamental breaking points with social democrats. The imperial legacy of the United States is rife with the stifling of democracy across the world. Those options were always on the table, and so the counterfactual to embrace is not whether or not they would curtail freedom and democracy (the real terms, not the USA shit versions) but when they would do it.

    There's definitely some merit to the idea that Reagan accelerated things, but I still think we'd be roughly in the same place at the same time anyway. The declining rate of profit forced their hand, and that force isn't going anywhere. An interesting counterfactual would be to imagine a less charismatic person being forced to make his reforms. Now that might have really ruffled some feathers. Still, regardless, I'm going to use this to laugh at Reaganites when the economy crashes for what, the fourth time in my lifetime? They don't know the real answers, so might as well make them question their Saint Ronald if for no other reason than causing them personal distress.

    • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      every time those barriers are put down capitalists gouge it out to make room for- you guessed it- more profit

      In short: if Reagan and Thatcher hadn't come along and fulfilled that role, someone else would have.

  • americandeathdrive [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    To some extent the shift towards neoliberal ideology and by extention economics was a nessesity due to a falling rate of profit due to a recovering Europe post ww2 as dead labor would build up again. I think fundamentaly the left as a project has had Critical issues with with providing workers with any real glimpse of a better future so they end up falling into reaction or getting gifted by suck dems. The problem extents into now better time then ever to start a unionization drive but workers are doing this without us. To more directly answer your question reagnoics and thatcherism had to happen to some extent when it did due to profit rates falling and capital literally needing to squeeze blood from stone.