There are two answers to the question: yes and no. They are both arguments against the (capitalist) system. The “no” answer is the usual one cited as proof against the system, and we shall start with that, showing how it transmogrifies into a “yes” answer.

The growth of international trade that forms the centerpiece of the neoliberal strategy has not had the effect of enriching the majority, but has done the opposite, people are dying in their millions due to curable illnesses and starvation, there is no end to conflict among all classes, all the signs are pointing to war, companies have been swept by corruption and are collapsing, we are heading towards a depression of unseen proportions, new deadly diseases (such as AIDS) are growing, apparently out of control, motor traffic is congesting the world’s cities beyond normal tolerance, the oceans, land and atmosphere are being polluted more and more and the Earth’s resources are being depleted rapidly, while population climbs at record rates… And so it goes on. Anyone who tries to refute or disparage such arguments is dismissed at best as an optimistic fool, at worst as an agent of the system or even a catastrophist seeking the Earth and humanity’s destruction.

However, while not all of these arguments are quite true (capitalism –neo-liberalism –never sought to enrich the majority, only the minority, and in this it has been a great success; population certainly has grown very rapidly but its growth has been slowing since the 1960s and is expected to become negative by about 2040; the Earth’s resources, including petroleum, do not appear to be reaching depletion point¹) and although their interconnections are neglected (if population growth is out of control, how does the spread of deadly disease and hunger affect this), it would be worth considering how all these factors, rather than threatening it, actually contribute to the system².

Illness is not something anyone wants, and, in general, breakdown, dysfunction, collapse are anathema. However, we live today in a system of lethargic over-abundance, such that breakdown creates a stimulus to movement, to renewal. At a very microcosmic level, another ill person helps the doctor pay his bills. At a larger level, serious bad weather creates the need for repair and reconstruction. At a macroscopic level, wars help to regenerate the economy –despite their destructive consequences. Looked at coldly, i.e. from the capitalist point of view, various forms of destruction give an impetus to a system that has carefully avoided doing anything with science that would harm its continued existence and trajectory. For instance, If science were really applied to end hunger, people in dependent countries would become empowered much more to defend the sovereignty of their lands from transnational encroachments. If computer viruses were thoroughly dealt with, a lot of hi-tech soft-ware companies would go out of business. If a cheap, pollution-free substitute for oil were developed and put into effect, oligarchic power would be severely undermined. And if peace on Earth were declared, the armaments companies would lose their raison d’être.

Of course, the system hermeticizes itself against these ills, and does everything to ensure its own survival. Each of its many power centers protects itself against destruction. People often generalize about humanity, saying things like: “We’re all in this”, “nobody can escape”, “this is a threat to humanity”, etc. Cataclysmic phenomena, from the feasible through the entire imaginary gamut to the esoteric (Islamic terrorists, meteorites, extra terrestrials, satanic forces), are developed to make these sentiments ring true –Hollywood-style films are a particularly good example (there are so many titles that go back such a long way it hardly seems worth citing any of them, but a recent one immediately come to mind: “The Day After Tomorrow”).

It therefore stands to reason that the present system needs the conflict, decay and deterioration we see all around us. Moreover, its lethargic over-abundance serves as a pretext for those who seek greater control: destruction does not merely lead to renewed vigor but also to more extensive power. War is Janus-headed.

Our minds are continually filled and re-filled with arguments and facts that justify us in this belief that humanity is one and that together we face a devastating future –never mind our highly differentiated present and our highly differentiated opportunities. Indeed, the future has been seized by the system, and before we know it we are there just as we are today and as we were yesterday.

The system of today still uses the great watchword of “Change” –and plenty of people have seen through this now. If anyone doubts the system’s trajectory they are denounced as “reactionaries” who fear change³. If we had been Jews in Germany in 1933, we would certainly have feared the change that was about to sweep Central Europe. There is, therefore, nothing irrational or reactionary about fearing the system’s own changes, its own writhing movements as it forces the future into its own narrow shell. The system itself fears real change, but has effectively contrived to transform this into our fear of the “unknown” (the so-called “horror film”) and this is where we begin our argument against the system based upon its disfunctionality.

When the steam engine was invented, it was declared that people would be swept off the carriages because of the unusual speed at which they were conveyed. When the Wright Brothers invented the airplane, it was attacked as impossible because it contradicted the principles of science. Today, science is again under attack –indeed, I would go so far as saying that Science faces an Inquisition. It takes a certain form which needs to be unraveled a little first. To begin with, despite the growth of education in the 20th century, very large numbers of us have not benefited, and so many of us fall easy prey to nonsensical ideas. Secondly, the popularization of unscientific theories has become a profitable business, given the demand for explanations, the control of science and our own ingenuousness. On top of this, the science status quo comes down against theories that question what have been established as axiomatic for its system. Science which means using the imagination and questioning everything, has been replaced by science which means sticking rigidly to set formulae and accepting what has been handed down from the past. Today, it is not the airplane that is pooh-poohed, but cold fusion –which holds the promise of efficient and pollution-free energy –and many other areas of science which bring into question the system of the petrol-driven engine, the centralization of electricity generation, and so on.

This is one reason why the system doesn’t work. It cannot/will not embrace development as it emerges regardless of the system’s will –of all the ideas and applications in the world that humanity develops and which can help humanity to develop further⁴. It might be argued here that the system never wanted to embrace humanity, but without our assent no system can function for long. The system retards human development, and yet human development still occurs in many ways, despite this retardation.

The system doesn’t work because it cannot entirely hide the future from us, cannot stop us from thinking in ways that contradict its existence, cannot justify its injustices and cannot stop committing more and worse injustices before our very eyes. It has become a system against humanity, whose beneficiaries have become dehumanized to such an extent that they actually lust after the torture and death of human beings.

About ten years ago, I remember talking to a neighbor who is a teacher about strikers at one of the largest car assembly plants here. I remember saying that although it was true that the trade unions are manipulative organizations, their members do not go on strike simply to serve the union chiefs who use them to their own advantage. Workers have cause to take such actions as strikes –low pay, intensified work schedules, bad conditions, and so on. The problem is that most of us are unaware of the initial causes of labor disputes, because the mass media hardly ever spells them out for us, or tells outright lies about them. She did not like that –it conflicted with her psychological and ideological armor –her ability to deprecate the actions of those who threatened her flower-filled hoped-for but still imaginary world. The other day, she began talking to me about the situation in the State schools. She told me that the situation was desperate –that so many people were being sacked from the administrative sections that those who were left simply could not do the work. The teachers were ready to take actions. I said that I supposed when they do take action most of us will not understand why and the mass media will blame the teachers. She agreed –but insisted that the teachers were being pushed into a very desperate position. Well, I said, this is always the way, isn’t it? When workers at car assembly plants take action, the media attacks them, and the general public is led to believe that the unions are manipulating the workers and so on. I saw her heart miss a beat. We carried on talking as if nothing had happened. I did not convince her, but she finds herself in an ever more contradictory position. Unconsciously, she finds her ideological supports collapsing around her and runs back to her kitchen to forget about “politics”.

If this is what people mean if they ever say that the system works, then they have taken a certain logic beyond the bounds of reason. While it is true that the complex Byzantine maze of connections the system has erected to protect itself does involve enormous amounts of deception and conspiracy, these exist because it incites opposition in people’s souls. And although this opposition is embedded within the system, it spells the system’s end. The system knows this and vigorously spells out its own death –seeking continuously to turn the fear of its own death into our fear of the future.

Notes

¹ This is not to say that pollution and waste do not exist or that their effects are negligible.

² Clearly the system works in ways that are revealed and ways that are not, or are at least concealed by popular beliefs. The defenders of the system would say that their system has brought jobs, wealth, growth, and civilization, among many other benefits, to humanity as a whole –as we note again below, things are turned on their head.

³ Everything is turned on its head, so that those who sought the future in the past have been turned into demons even by those who seek the future today.

⁴ Clearly, some developments are used to the extent that the system can and wants them (the competitive principle ensures that this will happen, but if, for example, a totally new form of transportation does away with the automobile, it will be repressed), some are threatened (cloning), some are ridiculed openly and/or are hidden away –and when rediscovered are re-hidden. A major project would be to discover the extent of this and the way that science has been retarded, oriented and designed to serve the existing order, obscuring its development and interconnections.