Richard D. Wolff: Why capitalism is in constant conflict with democracy
The capitalist
economic system has always had a big problem with politics in societies with
universal suffrage. Anticipating that, most capitalists opposed and long
resisted extending suffrage beyond the rich who possessed capital. Only mass
pressures from below forced repeated extensions of voting rights until
universal suffrage was achieved - at least legally. To this day, capitalists
develop and apply all sorts of legal and illegal mechanisms to limit and
constrain suffrage.
Among those committed to conserving capitalism, fear of
universal suffrage runs deep. Trump and his Republicans exemplify and act on
that fear as the 2020 election looms. The problem arises
from capitalism’s basic nature. The capitalists who own and operate business
enterprises - employers as a group - comprise a small social minority. In contrast,
employees and their families are the social majority. The employer minority
clearly dominates the micro-economy inside each enterprise. In capitalist
corporations, the major shareholders and the board of directors they select
make all the key decisions including distribution of the enterprise’s net
revenues.
Their decisions
allocate large portions of those net revenues to themselves as shareholders’
dividends and top managers’ executive pay packages. Their incomes and wealth
thus accumulate faster than the social averages. In privately held capitalist
enterprises their owners and top managers behave similarly and enjoy a similar
set of privileges. Unequally distributed income and wealth in modern societies
flow chiefly from the internal organization of capitalist enterprises. The
owners and their top managers then use their disproportionate wealth to shape
and control the macro-economy and the politics interwoven with it. However, universal
suffrage makes it possible for employees to undo capitalism’s underlying
economic inequalities by political means when, for example, majorities win
elections....
https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/why-capitalism-is-in-constant-conflict-with-democracy/
