So, how do we go from oatmeal cookies to the abolition of capitalism? Since we're limited in what we can create through our own efforts, we need a system that can take on a life of its own, which can expand and develop under its own power. Looking back at successful movements of the past, it's clear that people will join up when they feel their interests will be advanced. The civil rights movement expanded because black people could see clearly that it would benefit them. The anti-war protest picked up steam as long as large numbers of young men were subject to the draft. When Nixon removed the draft, the movement virtually disappeared. In order to mount an anti-capitalist movement, we must provide a concrete example of socialism in action. When people find that they are materially better off in our alternative economy than they are in the current system, then they will join. I hate to steal a line from a terrible movie, but-- "If we build it, they will come."
On the inside our new commons would be a non-market economy. But its growth would derive from its trade with the capitalist economy. So, externally, it would function as a network of collectively owned companies which compete in the marketplace and steal business from corporations. The profit derived from these companies would enable us to accumulate the capital necessary to grow and diversify. It's a kind of alchemy, as capitalist wealth is transmuted, within the commons, into public capital. In other words, it's a tax. The state won't properly tax corporations, so we create a new "state" to pick up the slack. The bigger we get, the more taxing our influence on corporations becomes.
Capitalism is supposed to be all about efficiency. But it's a very peculiar kind of efficiency. As Ehrenreich shows in "Maid to Order," (with echoes of Braverman) the capitalist approach to house-cleaning exemplifies Taylorist "efficiency." The work is divided into four tasks, with one worker assigned to each task. The order of tasks (always proceeding from left to right) and the method of work is pre-determined, so the worker is not free to make any decisions.
***It's not easy for anyone with extensive cleaning experience-- and I include myself in this category-- to accept this loss of autonomy. But I came to love the system: First, because if you hadn't always been traveling rigorously from left to right it would have been easy to lose your way in some of the larger houses and omit or redo a room. Second, some of the houses were already clean when we started, at least by any normal standards, thanks probably to a housekeeper who kept things up between our visits; but the absence of visible dirt did not mean there was less work to do, for no surface could ever be neglected, so it was important to have "the system" to remind you of where you had been and what you had already "cleaned." No doubt the biggest advantage of the system, though, is that it helps you achieve the speed demanded by the company, which allots only so many minutes per house. After a week or two on the job, I found myself moving robotlike from surface to surface, grateful to have been relieved of the thinking process.
The irony, which I was often exhausted enough to derive a certain malicious satisfaction from, is that "the system" is not very sanitary. When I saw the training videos on "Kitchens" and "Bathrooms," I was at first baffled, and it took me several minutes to realize why: There is no water, or almost no water, involved. I had been taught to clean by my mother, a compulsive housekeeper who employed water so hot you needed rubber gloves to get into it and in such Niagaralike quantities that most microbes were probably crushed by the force of it before the soap suds had a chance to rupture their cell walls. But germs are never mentioned in the videos provided by The Maids. Our antagonists existed entirely in the visible world-- soap scum, dust, counter crud, dog hair, stains, and smears-- and were attacked by damp rag or, in hardcore cases, by a scouring pad. We scrubbed only to remove impurities that might be detectable to a customer by hand or by eye; otherwise our only job was to wipe. Nothing was ever said, in the videos or in person, about the possibility or transporting bacteria, by rag or by hand, from bathroom to kitchen or even from one house to the next.***
The efficiency of this system is only efficiency in profitability. Not only is the cleaning itself incredibly inefficient, it actually promotes the unsanitary effects that cleaning is supposed to remove. The system ensures that you clean everything even when everything is already clean, and that you don't have to think while you're doing it. If the point is to provide the illusion of service for the maximum number of customers, then this system is perfect. But if you're trying to meet an actual need, like keeping your house sanitary, then you're better off *actually* cleaning what is *actually* dirty, and using your brain while you're at it. Now, if you were to start a cleaning company with this as your mode of operation, you would probably go out of business. Your service would be more expensive, and most people wouldn't notice the difference. But if we build an economy in which this is how we clean house (and manufacture products), then this economy would be more efficient than the capitalist system. In the trade between the two economies, socialism would come out on top. To the extent that our production is based on efficiency of *work*, we will draw in wealth at the expense of the capitalist economy, whose production is based on efficiency of *exploitation*.
Capitalism is all about waste. It's about wasting your intelligence in a mindless job so you can earn money to waste on things you wouldn't need if you didn't have to work all day at a mindless job. The capitalist entrepreneur must function within this system. Survival is a question of getting people to waste their money on you instead of your competitor. That's why we have to step back from the system and form our own economy, within which genuine efficiency becomes a virtue rather than a liability. As a whole, our economy could then outproduce the current system. If we're not wasting our money, we won't need so much of it to survive. The idea is to raise our standard of living at the same time that we're *reducing* our wages. That's what makes us competitive.
Our advantages are skill and thrift. The capitalist advantage is exploitation. To the extent that we can get the government to legislate constraints on corporate exploitation of labor and the environment, we can neutralize the capitalist advantage. So, this is not a question of either/or. An economic and social base will give us political leverage that we can use toward progressive ends. This, in turn, will make us more competitive and stimulate further growth, and so on, right on up to the revolution.
Ted