Contradictions of Capitalism

This article outlines the contradictions of authoritarian or capitalism, or the ways in which capitalists contradict their own values. As such, this article takes private property rights, markets and corporations for granted. Even if we as anarchists have our own critiques of these ideas.

General Contradictions

Property Rights

• Capitalists often assert their belief in private property rights, that it's morally unacceptable to violate these and steal from people or coerce them into things. Despite this, history is filled with examples of capitalists contradicting their own principles.
  • Capitalist countries like Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the United States regularly see corporations and the state working to violate the property rights of indigenous communities to make way for development and natural resource extraction. (Specific details are available on each countries page)
  • Wage theft is an epidemic in capitalist countries despite it being illegal in all of them.
    • A 2017 report by Middlesex University and Trust for London revealed that at least 2 million workers in Britain are losing an estimated £3 billion in unpaid holiday pay and wages per year. It suggested that withholding holiday pay, not paying wages and workers losing a couple of hours money per week are some of the deliberate strategies used by employers to improve their profits.
    • A 2012 study by the Iowa Policy Project calculated that dishonest employers defraud Iowa workers out of about $600 million annually in wages.

Australia

• The entire country is built on theft from over 250 indigenous nations that was violently destroyed by the British Empire with a systemic campaign of massacres and segregation. Even today, the special land rights given to indigenous people are frequently violated for the benefit of large corporations.
• A 2019 report put the annual figure for wage theft in Australia at more than $1.35 billion and estimated as much as 13% of the total workforce has been affected – more than a million people.

New Zealand

From 1984 to 1993, New Zealand rapidly shifted to a more capitalist society and away from social democracy. According to one political scientist "Between 1984 and 1993, New Zealand underwent radical economic reform, moving from what had probably been the most protected, regulated and state-dominated system of any capitalist democracy to an extreme position at the open, competitive and free-market end of the spectrum." with measures such as the following:

• Floating the New Zealand dollar.
• Removing all agricultural subsidies.
• Introducing GST (Goods and Services Tax).
• New banks were allowed.
• Reducing income and company tax.
• Removing controls on foreign exchange.
• Abolishing or reducing import tariffs.
• Corporatising many State owned enterprises such as the Post Office, Telecom and Air New Zealand to be more like private businesses. Some of these were later privatised.
• Disestablishing the NZ Forest Service and sold the forests.
• Abolishing price controls and interest rate control.
• Privatised state assets, such as New Zealand Steel.
• Enabling the Reserve Bank to autonomously pursue an inflation target.
• Improving the reporting and accountability for government expenditure.

The results over the next 15 years were catastrophic for the people of New Zealand:

• Approximately 76,000 manufacturing jobs were lost between 1987 and 1992 (New Zealand's population in 1992 was 3,532,000 people)
• The youth suicide rate grew sharply into one of the highest in the developed world
• Food bank use skyrocketed, with the amount of food banks in the country growing to 365
• There was a general increase in crime, especially violent crime
• The number of New Zealanders estimated to be living in poverty grew by at least 35% between 1989 and 1992 while child poverty doubled from 14% in 1982 to 29% in 1994.
• Those on low incomes failed to return to the 1984 standard of living until 1996; the lowest 30% did not recover their own 1980s living standards for twenty years.
• Between 1985 and 1992, New Zealand's economy grew by 4.7% during the same period in which the average OECD nation grew by 28.2%.
• From 1984 to 1993 inflation averaged 9% per year, New Zealand's credit rating dropped twice, and foreign debt quadrupled.
• Between 1986 and 1992, the unemployment rate rose from 3.6% to 11%.