Saturday, April 18 2009

The final statement from the Summit of the Americas is still to be drawn up, but we doubt that it will include measures to end capitalism and the “neo-liberal system”. These, however, were the main resolutions coming from the Fourth People’s Summit, a parallel meeting which is supposed to represent ordinary citizens, and which concluded last Thursday. But what do these supposed representatives of “the people” really mean by this?

Capitalism, at its simplest, is defined as a free-market system built on private ownership. So do the People’s Summit representatives want the abolition of property and the free market? Karl Marx, we recall, proposed something similar 160 years ago. But perhaps the spokespersons at this Summit haven’t been informed how that experiment turned out, and perhaps they do not know that even Marx recognised the power of the market. Be that as it may, what they are in essence calling for is the removal of the right of ownership. This doesn’t only mean that no one is allowed to own a business, but that citizens won’t even be able to own their homes. The State will provide, so the argument runs, for all. But, as history has proved beyond all reasonable doubt, such a system places the mass of ordinary people in a state of deprivation, results in political operatives becoming the new elite, and leads to atrocities. Capitalism, for all its shortcomings, has never had such consequences on any comparable scale.

This is partly because capitalism is the glove on a liberal hand. So it’s not surprising that the second part of the People’s Summit statement is a call for an end to the neo-liberal system. “Neo-liberal” is a favoured term of abuse by left-leaning ideologues, but they rarely, if ever, define what they mean by it. The confusion arises partially because the term “liberal” means something different in Britain and in the United States. In the former country, it means progressive but opposed to State power. In the latter, it means a preference for social expenditure financed by the government. Both these definitions are, of course, stereotypes, but in any case the People’s Summit spokespersons are dealers in stereotypes.

The key point, however, is that the liberal outlook starts with a presumption that the individual usually knows best what serves her interests and that, as far as is compatible with the rights of others, she should be allowed to exercise freedom of choice. But leftist politics has a different approach: that the rights of the individual must be suppressed for the greater good. This is a perspective which finds some sympathy in our society, as was shown by the lack of vehement protest over the suspension of citizens’ rights in order to host this very Summit of the Americas. But what has this perspective historically led to? The purges of Stalin, the millions of deaths under Chairman Mao, the atrocities of Pol Pot and, most recently, State collapse under Robert Mugabe.

Although the global financial crisis is the putative basis for these resolutions from the People’s Summit, their views would have been the same no matter what. But solutions to the world’s problems will not be found by returning to systems which have been tried and failed, but by fixing the defects which are inherent in capitalism. And no solutions will ever be found by denying individual rights.