Galbraith on the New Capitalism

Extract

One of the fundamental problems that any critique of Capitalism must face is that such a critique should, if successful, isolate features of a capitalist society that are specifically ‘capitalist’ from, for example, general features of industrial societies. This problem is most acute in the case of the human implications of the system. After all, the quality of life of an industrial worker does not differ as greatly between the United States and the Soviet Union as ideology, official and unofficial, would have one imagine. Indeed an examination of numerous features of American and Soviet society reveals strong similarities in social organization, and the distribution of power and income. The existence of such similarities has sometimes led observers to conclude that a process of ‘convergence’ is taking place; that as the Soviet Union becomes increasingly industrialized and wealthy, and as technical change takes place in both countries, the systems continually produce similar solutions to similar problems.

In an extreme form such a view can become a kind of technological determinism. The vast and complex technology of our time determines for us power and social relationships and there is little we can do to change them. In such an extreme form this is akin to a rather crude Marxism, but one that logically applies the idea that the social structure is largely determined by the structure of production even to societies in which, officially, the means of production are in the hands of the people. However, even if one admits a larger role than this for political and social choice, there are clearly bounds on the social reforms and reorganizations that would be consistent with the continued working of the industrial system.