The Editor, Sir:

Being anti-capitalist does not have to imply a negative attitude to big business. On a recent opinions page of The Gleaner of March 21, there were two articles on this theme which made for an interesting juxtaposition.

Hilary Robertson-Hickling suggested that just as imperial Rome lost its power, so too will capitalism (in its current neo-liberal, trickle-down, dis-equalising form) lose its pervasive influence. It is simply creating too much opposition, even now among previously comfortable middle-class Americans.

In apparent contrast, Delroy Chuck was batting for big business. He suggested tha our current system (capitalism) does indeed enrich the rich and impoverish the poor, it need not do so. It is not necessarily a zero-sum game.

So often we are presented with such apparently irreconcilable choices. We are told it is one or the other, and nothing else can apply.

Certainly the arrogance of those big-business interests that control the White House, creating enmities and wars that harm even themselves, looking for enlarged profits for shareholders at literally any price, makes most of us wary of 'big business'. And yet in Jamaica's case, for example, our big(ger) businesses do indeed create useful jobs directly, and many others indirectly. So to be against 'big business' per se could be to vote against theinterests of the erstwhile poor.

Hilary's column was not anti-big business. She was describing how capitalism as a system, which includes organisations like the WTO, is perverting the possibility of a more sane, more equitable, more peaceful and ultimately a better world for the majority. To be against a system is not to be necessarily against the profit-maximisers who perpetuate it, because they are trapped in it just as are workers and consumers. The short-term loss from bucking the system, for long-term gain, perpetuates the status quo.

When things are going well, big businesses can, and often do, treat their employees, and their customers, better than small, struggling businesses. In fact small co-operatives often succeed on the basis of the self-exploitation of those involved. But when things get tough for a privately owned business, all that matters is profit. Workers lose their jobs, their livelihoods - their families and communities suffer.

And things often do get tough. That is the logic of competitive capitalism. Not to say that healthy competition (as in sports) is not possible. But the neo-liberal version of capitalism shuns intervention, celebrating the supposed efficacy of brutal, unrestrained competition.

People and profit

Is there a more gentle, controlled version of capitalism that puts people first, a version which serves people rather than vice versa? Many see an inherent contradiction between people and profit. And so it must be unless ALL businesses are forced to comply with the same level of compassionate behaviour, limiting and/or compensating redundancy, allowing for a decent living wage, for child-care leave, adequate pensions, holidays, medical entitlements, etc., etc.

In theory, this could happen. But then it would not be capitalism. The profit motive would have to be so much tempered that it would cease to be the driving force. Whether we call the result social democracy, or what it implies, social-economic democracy, or some version of socialism, it is a different system from capitalism. But this necessary and inevitable end of capitalism does not have to mean the end of big business, just the end of unrestrained big business.

Is that OK with you, Delroy?

I am, etc.,

PAUL WARD

pgward@cwjamaica.com

Box 43

Kingston 7

Via Go-Jamaica