A poll revealed Americans' anti-capitalist streak... but the mainstream media won't discuss it that way
A Demand Progress poll offers good news for those who believe capitalism needs to slow down
Sometimes a political poll isn’t just a political poll, and the pollsters themselves don’t realize it.
If civilization is a figurative frog being slowly cooked alive in a pot of water — which happens, according to the old expression, because it doesn’t feel the temperature being gradually increased — sometimes a poll indicates that the frog is indeed feeling the heat.
Take the recent Demand Progress survey of 1,200 registered voters. They were asked if they prefer “abundance” politics, which argues that Americans should energize the economy by increasing production, or the “populist” approach that insists on reining in the super-rich and large corporations.
The former approach was described as arguing that “the big problem is 'bottlenecks' that make it harder to produce housing, expand energy production, or build new roads and bridges."
The latter approach was described as arguing “the big problem is that big corporations have way too much power over our economy and our government."
Once the tiny fraction of respondents who chose not to answer was discarded, the populists won by a 5-to-4 ratio: 55.6% to 43.5%
I strongly suspect that ratio would be even more favorable to the populist approach if the public thoroughly understood how unregulated capitalism is destroying our planet. From greenhouse gas emissions that overheat the planet to dangerous chemical pollution from plastics and pesticides, we are creating a world that future humans will regard as inferior to our own… assuming they are capable of surviving there at all.
Yet despite the success of conservatives in creation millions of people reflexively hostile to both scientific consensus and government regulation, a comfortable majority of American voters agree that the biggest problem facing our society is “the big problem is that big corporations have way too much power over our economy and our government."
This must never be a partisan observation. Democrats and Republicans are both beholden to wealthy special interest groups. As a result, they repeatedly prop up career politicians who vote based on the wants of the well-to-do rather than the needs of the vulnerable. You don’t need to be a scientist or journalist to appreciate the power imbalance thereby created.
My hope is that people of all ideological complexions will eventually unite out of the most basic form of self-interest that exists: Physical survival
“A new crisis is coming — the climate crisis — and it will accelerate inflation,” University of Tokyo philosophy professor Dr. Kohei Saito told me for Salon last year. “It will create a bigger economic inequality. And various natural disasters will also create a food shortage, which might lead to various kinds of conflicts. Geopolitical tension will increase, and so on.”
Rejecting the Green New Deal/abundance philosophy of pouring money into growing the economy for its own sake, Saito argues that “we need to learn from the experience of the pandemic — that capitalist society is driven for the sake of creating more profit, not necessarily able to provide what is necessary. Because what is necessary, like medicine and education and hospital masks and so on — are not necessarily profitable. Capitalism doesn't produce what is necessary unless it is profitable.”
He adds, “This gap creates disparities for us to tackle. My idea is basically degrowth is focusing on what is necessary rather than what is profitable. We should share more with the commonwealth like public transportation, the education system, the medical care system. These necessary things, essential goods, must be shared more equally instead of some rich people monopolizing all the wealth of the planet.”
Saito’s approach has been tried on the local level from Ecuador to Spain. I’m sure that there are pundits who will break down the political feasibility of implementing de-growth policies, pulling out statistics as to why this or that demographic or special interest group will object to given provisions.
The problem is that they are treating an existential crisis like a theoretical debate. Both the Axios article cited above and every other mainstream news outlet is framing this as a story about an internal war in the Democratic Party, between “abundance theory” advocates on the one hand and “populists” on the other.
In fact, the real struggle exists not just in a single American political party, but all over the planet. We are all frogs slowly boiling alive, and the internal civil war is between those who acknowledge the heat exists and those who don’t.
Back Seat Socialism
Column by Matthew Rozsa who is a professional journalist for more than 13 years. Currently he is writing a book for Beacon Press, "Neurosocialism," which argues that autistic people like the author struggle under capitalism, and explains how neurosocialism - the distinct anticapitalist perspective one develops by living as a neurodiverse individual - can be an important organizing principle for the left.
Twitter (X) @MatthewWRozsa