Getting a Grip on “Supercapitalism.” Part four.
admin June 1st, 2008
When Frances Moore Lappé has a question about something she does her research, reaches out, and asks away.
Recently she did just that, writing directly to Robert B. Reich, in response to her read of his 2007 book, Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life. Reich wrote back at length, clearly glad to engage in the back-and-forth. Below is the fourth installment of their correspondence. Keep checking back for future installments and please: share your thoughts by leaving a comment!
4. FML: On page 50 and following you imply inexorable economic forces have undermined the democratic aspects of capitalism, giving corporations “no choice” but to behave in a narrowly self-interested survival mode. Why do you give no weight to the cultural factors (the relentless drip-drip-drip of right wing anti-government propaganda) and specific political forces? Examples: Allowing the minimum wage to lose value or NLRB rulings favoring business over unions, or subsidies of over one hundred billion dollars annually from federal, state and local governments to lure and retain corporate giants (squeezing out independents), to name a few of these non-exorable factors.
RR: To my mind, cultural and political factors have been overestimated in explaining what’s happened. Right-wing propaganda increased after Reagan entered the White House, but the trends I note started in the early 1970s, before the right became dominant. Moreover, right-wing propaganda about the economy has been a staple of American life since the 1920s. I don’t believe for a moment that technological and economic factors explain it all, but I believe we (that is, we on the left) have paid too little attention to them.
