CAPITALIST SYSTEMIC POVERTY

P. GREANVILLE—The rise of the capitalist mode of production is intimately linked to the spread of the industrial revolution and the modern methods of socialized production, but the time may have come to try to separate the fruits of each. Capitalism’s defenders are understandably eager to credit capitalism as the major, it not exclusive reason for today’s affluence, such as it exists. Accordingly they have fetishistically invested private property with magic qualities it doesn’t possess. Their position may be boiled down to the notion that society’s optimal use of resources can only be secured through the subjection of science and industrialism to the regime of private property. In their eyes, entrepreneurial self-seeking is the best engine for invention, exertion, and abundance. While this may be true of some very specific cases, it is hardly true with respect to the modern mega-corporation, typical of mature capitalism, wherein private ownership is retained by a relatively small circle of speculators or absentee owners, frequently several generations removed from the actual day to day management and production of the firm.

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