A Progressive’s Defense of Capitalism
This is a Pro-Capitalism article.
Written by someone who identifies as a progressive rather than a liberal — let alone conservative, in the American politico-sphere.
Written by someone who actually spent his childhood in the communist reign and calls a few card-carrying members of the Communist Party — ‘friends’.
Written by someone who likes Elizabeth Warren’s politics more than Joe Biden’s or Amy Klobuchar’s.
When I say Capitalism — I’m not talking about a staunch unregulated world controlled by profit and profit only. I’m not talking about an absolutely free market either. I’m not talking crony capitalism or rabid privatizations of public service endeavors by any means.
I am talking about capitalism in its moderate, responsible and balanced form.
Why am I fond of it?
To answer this question, I need to deep-dive into my political leanings. I am socially a (far-left)-progressive person who has a moderate fiscal stance.
With such a leaning, my political stances are clearly more influenced by my views of societal issues, than it is by fiscal policies. I care(d) for social justice movements of the past and present, and in my experience, capitalism played(still plays) a crucial and interesting role in social justice issues.
I grew up in the 34-year-long communist doctrine in the state of West Bengal, India. I’ve already explained in my other write-ups (mostly on Quora)that, while Marxist society is theoretically egalitarian in terms of cast, religion, sex, gender and sexual orientation, the practical implementation — as I experienced — was far from that utopia. Their anti-capitalist stance was strong, and not really beneficial for the economy of the state. But what alienated me from them, was their consistent misogyny and bigotry.
They used to demand that they were the flag-bearers of progressiveness, while very few steps were taken for women empowerment, LGBTQ rights were unheard of. We have had progressive leaders in India — but their progressiveness was not brain-child of communism or any other collectivistic ideologies for that matter. From center-right leaders like Jay Panda or Arun Jaitley to center-left leaders like Shashi Tharoor, Mahua Moitra, and Sachin Pilot, to hard-left political personnel like Kanhaiya Kumar — it is not too big a problem to list out socially progressive political leaders. But the ideological diversity among those leaders paints a clear picture that tolerance and acceptance have no clear correlation with communism, neither do they have any definite and direct conflict with capitalism.
This brings me to the next part of my analysis — the way capitalistic ventures have interacted with social justice movements in the past (and also, in the present).
It all began in 1993 in the dawn of the infamous Marlboro Friday[1] , which saw the death of the very, very traditional brand of power, masculinity and everything in between — that used to be presented by the tobacco company Marlboro before its stock crashed on that fateful day of April 2nd, 1993.
But, in a lot of ways, it also gave birth to an alternative brand-culture, which was more inclusive, more diverse, more egalitarian. That very capitalistic culture began selling Malcom X (controversial American human rights activist) baseball caps (originally by Roman apparels) like hotcakes; which, unsurprisingly are still available for purchase on Amazon.
The mass cultural shift led to an admittedly heteronormative portrayal of a lesbian couple on the Vanity Fair magazine cover (just 16 weeks after the Marlboro Friday).
It also began celebrating sex positivity, among women — which unequivocally was a staunchly feminist stance standing in the 90s. The following article (which celebrated sex-positivity like nothing else) was posted in the Esquire magazine only 7 months after the Marlboro Friday. In some ways, this acknowledgment was just as prolific as the one the world witnessed around the second world war that created millions[2] of jobs for women outside their homes.
Within one more year, Diesel came up with an advertisement that successfully infused the very traditional masculine aggression, with a very non-traditional expression of sexuality.
Why do these examples matter? Because, all of them were generated for profit, by profit-seeking capitalistic establishments. Vanity Fair, Esquire, Roman Apparels, Diesel — no one was promoting the message of inclusion for some hypothetical greater good, or social justice. They were simply in it for the money. Nothing more, nothing less. But, even though they were not promoting diversity for some ideologically pure reasons, the end-product was simply a more progressive and diverse culture. Unsurprisingly, the progress suffused from fashion and entertainment to technology, science, and engineering. In 2019, companies from eBay to UberEats, from GitHub to Quora — everyone celebrated the pride month with pride.
Is it just a fight for social justice? How do these highly technological companies benefit from such progressive social stances? The following article[3] archived by Intel summarizes it the best —
80 percent of LGBTQ employees spend energy on protecting themselves instead of applying their skill and passion toward creating innovative products and solutions in the workplace. I’m proud to be part of a company that places a high value on individual contributions. A place where LGBTQ employees know they can be themselves and provide value and encouragement to those coming up the success path behind us. We’re choosing to not only grow into our lives with integrity, but to do so joyfully — using all of our energy to solve amazing problems and create amazing experiences, rather than ‘covering’ who we are. And who wouldn’t find happiness in coming out to that?
Clearly, for the tech-world, it is not just about branding, not anymore. It is ultimately about unlocking their employees’ full potential. It is fundamentally about maximizing production, or optimizing the labor-force — both are, from an ideological standpoint staunchly capitalistic objectives.
But, that does not matter. To me, it really doesn’t.
I am thriving for societal progress and certain wings of capitalistic ventures are being able to provide me precisely that. I would be a fool not to embrace that.
There’s a reason social conservatives are sh*t-scared of this so-called ‘technocratic progressivism’. They know, down deep inside, that this is a battle social conservatism will lose, eventually — because that progressivism is stemming from something they’d loved and nurtured for a long time — the market.
The wave of capitalistic liberalism has traveled thousands of miles and found its place in India as well. I was pleasantly surprised to read that the completely make-in-India company TATA Steel has begun[4] acknowledging same-sex couples. They are even providing HR benefits for such couples (including a honeymoon package), a hugely progressive stance standing in a country as socially conservative as India. Interestingly, multiple MNCs[5][6] with operational branches in India have started similar policies. Prominent names among such companies would be Accenture, Sodexo India, SAP Labs, IBM India. India-based companies[7] like State Bank of India, Aditya Birla, Godrej have also begun giving medical benefits to same-sex couples. On the other hand, almost all major private and public establishments in India, today have separate women’s cells, and certain ‘protection in the workplace’-laws are in place[8]. Providing up to 26 weeks of paid maternity leave for women employees, is a compulsion to most of the companies, by law. All these, unequivocally, should be classified as progress.
That progress stemmed from capitalism.
Is that mass societal progress free of any further concerns?
No. Multiple scholars have discussed[9][10] on how capitalistic ventures will not be able to achieve absolute equality for women, ever. But, that hypothesis does not nullify the fact that capitalism has brought women this far, it has uplifted a lot of women from unemployment. Also, it is capitalism that accelerated the humanization of the queer people. We should at least accredit it for those.
I do.
Footnotes
[1] Marlboro Friday — Wikipedia
[3] Living our Intel Values as LGBTQ Employees — We Are Intel
[4] Tata Steel allows LGBTQ+ employees to declare partners, avail HR benefits
[5] Indian MNCs openly allying with the LGBT cause
[6] LGBT Issues Get a Push From India Firms a Year After Key Ruling
[7] India Inc offers medical cover to LGBTQ partners
[8] 5 workplace rights a woman must know
Originally Posted in Quora by the same Author.
