Confronting Capitalism: How the World Works and How to Change It - Vivek Chibber
Published in 2022 by Verso, London, UK, and New York, NY
176 pages
ISBN: 978-1-83876-270-3
For the vast majority of us, capitalism has been portrayed as the world's natural state. Most of us work long hours for meager wages, often arriving home too tired to do anything creative or fulfilling. While we are well aware of the general misery that defines our working lives, but are often resigned to the fact that “this is just the way the world works.” As Mark Fisher argued, capitalist realism -- "the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it” (Fisher, pg.2) -- has thoroughly embedded itself into our daily lives, foreclosing any possibility of change.
Yet, in the past few years, something has fundamentally shifted. While neoliberal, free-market orthodoxy has dominated our political and economic landscape over the past four decades, an increasing number of workers are beginning to organize themselves and challenge the hegemonic grip of capitalism over their lives. There is a growing awareness that capitalism is inherently exploitative, undemocratic, and incompatible with any form of environmental or economic sustainability. Yet, while many workers may know they are being taken advantage of at a gut-feeling level, many of us lack the vocabulary and framework to channel our discontent into a productive force for change. In his 2022 book, Confronting Capitalism: How the World Works and How to Change It, Vivek Chibber (Professor of Sociology at NYU) reveals the underlying anti-democratic dynamics of capitalism and how workers can organize to fight for change.
Overview:
Organized into four chapters, Confronting Capitalism introduces the reader to how capitalism functions and sustains itself, and what we can do to struggle against it. The First Chapter breaks down the structure and functioning of capitalism to its most basic parts. He discusses the grouping of individuals into social classes, as well as the competing interests these classes possess.
For example, most of us intuitively know that we are being treated unfairly in the workplace. We go into our jobs to tirelessly trade our time and labor in exchange for a flat wage. We create more value through our labor than what we are paid, and the company takes the surplus value of our labor in the form of profits. To maintain this profit, employers must pay the employee less than what their labor is worth. As such, there is a fundamental conflict at the heart of the capitalist exchange: the employer wants their employees to work as long as possible for as little money as possible, while the employee desires to work as little as possible for the highest compensation possible.
Since there is an unequal distribution of power between the employer and the worker, the laborer is forced to accept conditions that undermine their well-being. This is often not due to the capitalists’ greed, but rather because market pressures force them into this relationship of unequal exchange. While this system creates enormous wealth, it also distributes this wealth unevenly, enriching a small amount of people while immiserating the majority. As such, since there is little connection between effort and reward, capitalism systemically generates injustice. Since surplus value is only created through labor, workers have the power to disrupt the normal state of affairs by withholding their labor. While this is often combatted by capitalists by ensuring that there is always a reserve army of the labor who, due to their unemployment, are willing to work for meager wages and long hours, the only way for workers to claw back power from the capitalist class is to organize their actions to throw a wrench into the system.
In the Second Chapter, Chibber illustrates how capitalists utilize the power of the state to protect their interests. Typically, we would think that in a democracy, the political power lies in the hands of the majority. Since the working class comprises the majority of the population, then why does the government seem to serve the interests of the wealthy, rather than the common worker? Chibber shows how the concentration of wealth gathered into the hands of the few through economic exploitation translates into political power through lobbying, party-building, and the suppression of popular dissent, as capitalists utilize the mechanisms of the state to reinforce their power, despite their small numbers. As such, according to Chibber, “In capitalism, real power doesn’t reside in the state, it resides in the economy” (75). To counter this imbalance of state power, Chibber argues that there must be a cogent labor movement whose demands are channeled through a labor party, though he readily recognizes the limitations of this reformist approach.
The Third Chapter is primarily concerned with what kind of political struggle the Left should take. Rather than appealing to morality or ideology, Chibber insists that our response should center around organizing and mobilizing labor. He illustrates how the labor struggle gives us the power and political leverage to enact our moral and ideological beliefs (97). For Chibber, if the Left is to have any chance of success, it must place the labor struggle at the center of its progressive politics. At the same time, he also recognizes that it has been incredibly difficult to sustain a labor movement within the US due to the immense opposition it faces
Finally, in the Fourth Chapter, Chibber presents various ways labor has historically organized to combat capitalism, why they failed, and what we can do to build a better future for all people. He turns to the legacies of the Russian Revolution to learn from both its successes and failures in organizing and mobilizing workers as well as the strategy of overthrowing capitalism and the institutions it set up in its aftermath. Since Chibber views the state of capitalism as relatively stable, he argues that the revolutionary strategy of the October Revolution offers little in the way of lessons for leftists today. He writes, “Our strategic perspective has to downplay the centrality of revolutionary rupture and navigate a more gradualist approach. For the foreseeable future, left strategy has to revolve around building a movement to pressure the state, gain power within it, change the institutional structure of capital, and erode the structural power of capital--rather than vaulting over it” (147). He has harsh words for those on the Left who criticize this more gradualist approach rooted in appeals to Scandinavian social democracy, calling their critiques of reformists as “an instance of genuine stupidity”(148). He is also highly critical of planned economies, advocating for a vague form of market socialism that is democratically accountable and puts people before profits.
Commendations:
First and foremost, Confronting Capitalism is a clearly written and imminently accessible introduction to anticapitalist thought. Chibber clearly explains the basic mechanisms of capitalism, how it works, and who benefits from it. He meticulously builds his argument piece by piece to show how capitalism stratifies society into classes with competing interests, how it is incompatible with and often works to undermine democracy, and how organizing against it necessitates a combination of labor power and political mobilization. As such, this book serves as a readily accessible primer for those just beginning to dip their toes into anti-capitalist thought and praxis.
I particularly appreciated Chibber’s attention toward the state and how, governments, far from meditating as a neutral party, serve the interests of the capitalist class. To continue funding themselves in the post-Cold War era, many Western governments placed the interests of the capitalist class above the common worker, giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among them and promoting the accumulation of capital within their borders. Yet, with the effects of globalization readily apparent, we see that these benefits have primarily been directed toward large multinational corporations, rather than lifting the material conditions of the average worker. Chibber rightly diagnoses the state’s role in perpetuating capitalist interests, as well as the importance of shifting power back into the hands of the working class.
I also appreciated Chibber’s scathing critique of the overly academic, insular trend of the contemporary Left that has severed itself from the realities of the working class. After the failed revolutions of the 1960s, the Left in America and Europe largely retreated to the universities and non-profit organizing, where theory became encumbered with postmodern navel-gazing and neoliberal elite capture, as the interests of the professional class were placed over and above the working class. Chibber rightly critiques the Left’s overreliance on academic theory at the expense of coalition building and mass mobilization, often relying more on moralizing and identity politics rather than addressing the working class’s material interests.
Accordingly, I agree with Chibber’s call for a stronger labor movement rooted in the daily concerns of the working class. Learning from the failures of the Soviet Union and central planning, Chibber advocates for a gradualist approach to change that places labor at the center of power, both in the economy and in the political realm. While I might disagree with Chibber’s gradualist approach, overreliance on electoralism as an effective strategy for the Left, and his ultimate goal of simply instituting a form of market-socialism, I still appreciate his realist attempt to nudge the goalposts of the status quo further to the Left, however modest they may be. This is most likely a strategy to palliate his target audience and gently transition moderates into more Leftist positions, recognizing that revolution, at least for the moment, is highly unlikely to occur, let alone effect substantive change.
Critique:
On the other hand, Confronting Capitalism falls victim to a few key weaknesses. First of all, while it may serve as a great introduction to anticapitalist thought, it offers little new insight or analysis for those who already possess a basic understanding of Marx’s critique. In his effort to be accessible, Chibber omits any hard data, preferring to zoom out and draw large generalizations that, while often correct, have little support within this text. He is often overly repetitive from chapter to chapter, which while aiding in content retention for new readers, will likely cause seasoned readers to skip sections.
Furthermore, Chibber’s analysis is narrowly American-centric in its analysis of the state and the plight of the contemporary worker. He pays little attention to imperialism’s role in the historical dominance of capitalism and its ongoing perpetuation, or how capitalism has embedded itself into the international neoliberal order via globalization, financialization, offshoring, and sanctions. Likewise, he does not attempt to connect contemporary capitalism to the climate crisis, which seems like a missed opportunity to draw audiences who might have ancillary concerns such as the environment into the fold. He also elides how popular media is utilized to manufacture consent and how any successful leftist movement must shift the narrative and confront an overwhelmingly reactionary and conservative media apparatus.
Finally, Chibber’s last chapter is also his most contentious. Using the shortcomings of the October Revolution and the resulting Soviet Union, Chibber denounces any form of revolutionary praxis as utterly foolish and naive. Instead, he suggests that we need stronger trade unions to move closer to Scandinavian social democracy, which he uncritically praises as an unfettered good. This ignores the historical and contemporary exploitation of the Global South that undergirds even these more “humane” social democratic nations and further illustrates the limitations of a gradualist approach to change. Chibber’s vitriol toward the more revolutionary wing of the Leftist movement seems displaced: not only is this a tiny fraction of the already meager Left in America, but he also risks completely alienating those to his political left that would otherwise be staunch allies in the anti-capitalist struggle.
Instead, Chibber offers the reader a strange mix of proposals for how capitalism should be gradually reformed to be more worker-centric, namely by shifting first toward social democracy and then to market socialism, following the example of the Nordic model. While I agree that we need to strengthen trade unions and not simply “wait for the revolution to come,” Chibber often hides behind the banner of “realism” to cover his overly-modest goals and his vague set of “non-reformist reforms” (148). While Chibber is ultimately attempting to sketch out what he sees as viable first steps to pushing back against the entrenched power of capitalism, we cannot be merely content to have market socialism as our end. We need not simply make capitalism more palatable, but instead dismantle it in favor of an economic system that puts the worker in control of the means of production. Socialism is not an end in itself, but rather a transitional state toward a greater end.
While it is true that the Left needs to make greater inroads with the working class while simultaneously working to achieve political power, these alone are not sufficient to overcome the vast obstacles that lie ahead in the timeframe we need to avoid catastrophe. While we need to gradually transition toward this end goal, I am not convinced that, given our current conditions, simply reforming our capitalist system to be more palatable to the Western working class will be enough. Instead, we need an international coalition of workers and laborers to fight against the forces of imperialism and globalized capitalism. While a grassroots revolutionary movement in America is extremely unlikely to occur, we can promote gradualist change within our borders while also supporting anti-imperialist movements abroad.
Conclusion:
Overall, Confronting Capitalism is an accessible and brief introduction to anti-capitalist politics. While those who are already familiar with the basic tenets of Marx’s critique of capitalism will find this volume too shallow and elementary, it serves as a great primer for anyone curious about an alternative to the neoliberal status quo in which we currently live. Its short length and freedom from academic jargon make it an ideal book to gift to a friend, coworker, or family member who might be wary of words such as “socialism” or “communism,” but are still unhappy with the current state of the world. This book serves as a fantastic first stop for budding Leftists, giving them the basic tools to communicate why capitalism isn’t working for the majority of people around the world, and what we can do about it. If you are already well-versed in Marxist theory and veer more toward revolutionary action over gradualist reforms, then you can easily skip this book. On the other hand, if you need a text to assign to students that covers the basic contemporary Marxist framework or know someone who simply doesn’t know where to start with Leftist theory, then this book is a great option.