The Neoliberal Religion 46

'Capitalism's Ideological Crutches

Monday, 03 September 2012 09:31By Richard D Wolff, Truthout | Op-Ed

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(Image: Dollar on crutch via Shutterstock)Capitalism's crises have always threatened it. True, capitalism's defenders could fairly easily dismiss crises when they were shallow and short with limited suffering for the unemployed, bankrupt and their dependents and communities. Some said they were merely "bumps in the capitalist road" to growth and prosperity. Others saw crises as capitalism's way to "clean out inefficient firms" and thus prepare its next upswing. Such interpretations of capitalism - ideologies - have long served to counter criticisms of its instability, recurring cycles and the suffering they impose.

However, such ideologies arouse many more than the usual skeptics when - as in the 1930s and again since 2007 - capitalism's downturns cut deep and persist. Then capitalism's stark inefficiencies become too glaring as millions of unemployed workers alongside idled productive capacity yield massive waste and long-lasting social costs. Bailouts of large financial capitalists by the governments they control turn skeptics into critics. The critics then become mobilized into a real political opposition when subsequent government "austerity" policies shift the costs of crisis and bailouts onto the mass of people.

Capitalists and the rich remain determined now NOT to bear the costs of the bailouts or the crisis. Unlike in the 1930s, they don't see organized, determined and militant workers' movements to worry about today - nor any USSR positioned as an alternative to modern capitalism. So, they push austerity policies for governments everywhere. To sustain governments' austerity policies, capitalists and the rich lean on their ideological crutches to try to thwart political opposition,'

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11241-capitalisms-ideological-crutches