Which Side Are You On?

Couldn't be much clearer. An email from the local Democrats states: "We are capitalists!" Obviously the recent success of Democratic Socialists running for office has caused some consternation, along with the red-baiting that is now coming out of the White House and Republican headquarters. It always eventually comes down to this; we saw it with Bernie and AOC: how do you talk about capitalism. The local Dems want to insist there is a kinder, gentler capitalism that they are working to achieve. They are both liberal and "progressive". They want to separate political economy into two spheres, claiming they can make the system of liberal democratic capitalism work for everybody. That we can have a modern New Deal where everyone shares in the growth. But this is all a fantasy, as the last seventy years has shown. "Democratic" capitalism is an oxymoron. If you claim to be a capitalist you are claiming allegiance to a class and claiming you will work in the interests of that class. Simple and clear. So it is good they are so out front about where they stand. Now it is up to workers to decide where they stand. As the old John Sebastion song says: Did you ever have to make up your mind? Of course we know that when push comes to shove ( as it will) the Dems will hang the far left out to dry. It's always the damn radicals who spoin their dream of labor peace and the rising tide lifting all boats yada yada. The dream of government of, by and for The People. Of environmental laws that protect the environment. Of justice for all. Yada Yada. Along these same lines of acknowledging the unity of politcal economy, I wish Nate Hagens, who pilots the Great Simplification project, would acknowledge the Marxian critique of Capital when he describes what he calls the "Superorganism". Capital is a superorganism in the way it encompasses systems of law and governance and politics and cutural production along with the economic. He may simply have the same issue Michael Albert has, that it sends the wrong rhetorical signal or there is too much historical baggage with Marx. But we need to give credit where credit is due. Marx saw the catastrophe Nate describes 140 years ago. He predicted "the common ruin of the contending classes" and that the "metabolic rift" with the earth's natural systems would be our civilization's undoing. Capital's Achilles heel. I think Nate is doing great work but it wouldn't hurt to have someone on who could talk about Capital. Just sayin.