monopoly capitalism 2

I recently wrote about monopoly capitalism and its growth. This time I want to describe serious concerns about the relationship between politics and capitalism. It was triggered by a recent radio interview with Barclays Bank chief executive. The CE sounded exactly like a politician facing hostile questions, you know the kind of thing: avoiding the question, answering the question he wanted to answer rather than the one asked, stressing successes and ignoring failures. The usual. This set me thinking about how much the way in which major business executives deal with the public and the media has coalesced with the behaviour of politicians. In short they sound the same! In the past, where large scale private enterprises have begun to dominate and manipulate markets, there has been a political reaction. Political institutions - legislatures, parties, executives - have intervened to reduce market domination and market failure which operate against the interests of consumers and workers. Methods have included outright nationalisation (largely in the 1940s, 50s and 60s), regulation, legislation to prevent manipulation, breaking up monopolies, consumer protection, workers' rights, promoting genuine competition etc. In recent years, however, political institutions have shown themselves extremely reluctant to intervene, and where they have intervened, it has been largely weak and ineffective. I don't want to be too alarming or messianic but we may be sleepwalking into an Orwellian nightmare, or at least a version of one. Orwell pointed out the dangers of totalitarianism. His fear was that the state would become so powerful it would control all aspects of life, including language, history, philosophy and, ultimately, knowledge. What we face now is not so much the power of the state as the power of monopoly capitalism. Perhaps (dystopia warning here) we are reaching a tipping point where political institutions will NO LONGER BE ABLE TO CONTROL MONOPOLY CAPITALISM as they have in the past. Democracy, popular sentiment, voting power, call it what you will, may no longer operate as an automatic stabiliser. Why has this come about? I can offer a number of theories : 1 There are growing signs of political atrophy in western systems - the USA, France, Italy, Greece and now the UK are all examples. the destination of these systems may well be Russia, the difference being it has taken us hundreds of years to reach this point, Russia has done it in twenty-five years. 2. The decline and virtual disappearance of left wing parties offering an alternative discourse. 3. The lack of any serious intellectual challenge to the Hayek-Friedman -Fukayama agenda that accepts the inevitable ascendancy of market capitalism. 4. The increase in social, economic and cultural links between politician and the business community, rendering them reluctant to challenge monopoly power. At the very least this results in cultural reluctance to take action, at its worst it is corrupt. 5. Hardly an original thought, but, of course, large businesses have simply become larger and therefore inevitably more powerful. Is there a hope of avoiding capitalist totalitarianism? It probably lies with the web. The web has bothy created more competition in some markets, but also provides a springboard for popular political action that can replace impotent political institutions. We could also look towards the EU for hope. Certainly Maastricht was a step in the right direction, but the EU has become so discredited that it has lost credibility. We are not yet beyond the point of no return (as proposed by Orwell), and we may not reach it in my lifetime, but younger generations need to take action very quickly if they are to avoid it. Rawls suggested the possibility of a market capitalist system allied with social justice and liberty. There is a need for a new Rawls and we need him or her damn quick.