Is capitalism really for ever?
In a worst-case scenario, as I write this, we are faced with 2,865 more days of a Trump presidency. This possibility, this reality, got me thinking about what really matters over the next eight years rather than being distracted by the “scattergun” of the first 50 days (17 March).
It led me to one inexorable conclusion: what really matters is dealing with climate change to both minimise the damage already inevitable and transforming our economic system to increase the probability of long-term sustainability.
The key question then becomes: is there a form of capitalism that can meet this challenge? Is there a political leadership that can deliver such a reform of capitalism?
Failing this, do we need to imagine the replacement of capitalism with an economic order that does not have at its core the pursuit of unending growth based on the exploitation of nature along with the commodification of everything?
Just as slavery, and then feudalism, were replaced as our dominant economic systems, is it time for the 500-year triumph of capitalism to give way to a new economic era that is both better and truly sustainable? Or is capitalism really for ever?
Stewart Sweeney
Adelaide, South Australia
There is plenty of money
Matthew d’Ancona is right to point out that the UK’s “taxation system, employment laws and social entitlements are antique, designed for a world that is evaporating” (17 March). However, the question “where is this money going to come from?” perpetuates the myth that the government has a fixed pot of money that is filled up by our taxes and is then spent by the government, which periodically warns us that the pot is running out and that we need to endure “austerity”. This term is simply used to disguise the deliberate policy of low government spending by the Conservative party.
The reality is that a government that controls its currency does not have to make a profit like a private company. A government can borrow money almost indefinitely as long as institutions are willing to buy government bonds, which they almost always are, and it can also create money whenever it wants. Taxation is really just a mechanism for withdrawing money from the economy that the government has spent on our behalf. We should abandon this hang-up about a balanced budget.
Martin Mansell
Lochwinnoch, UK
Meaning of the hijab ban
Iman Amrani is correct in focusing on religion and human rights when discussing the European court of justice decision to allow the hijab to be banned in workplaces (24 May). Still, there are two more arguments to be made. One is by Marx, who analysed the capital-labour relationship, and one is feminism’s focus on male-female relationships.
On the management-labour relationship, the ruling shifts more power to those who already have it. It gives European human resource managers a free hand when inventing corporate policies, dress codes and so-called ethics guidelines, often camouflaged under the heading of corporate social responsibility.
Second, the ruling also influences the male-female relationship. Male managers are free to further regulate the female body. They will act under the hallucination of “I know what is good for you”, supported by the ruling. They will further damage what the philosopher Kant once called “self-determination” expressed in, for example, the right to decide how to dress.
As a consequence of all this, capital, management and men win. Women and self-determination lose.
Thomas Klikauer
Sydney, Australia
Our age is more depraved
Ian Jack (17 March) asks whether we live in a more depraved age now, or are simply more aware of it. I was off roaming for hours with siblings and friends as a child, and home for dinner. My children (now in their 30s) played for hours in the creek behind our house till I cooed them back. Would my grandchildren be allowed to do the same? I am sure not. What has changed?
The internet. There may have been the odd paedophile around when my childr en and I were young, but these days there is a great fear of paedophiles connected far and wide. A young girl’s first encounter with sex these days is often entirely compromised by the young boy’s consumption of online porn, not just the occasional grubby card the boys passed around when I was young. Add to that the violence of online games and the lack of companionable activity for children immersed in screens, and the increasingly polluted world they live in, and I would say yes – we do live in a more depraved world.
Gaynor McGrath
Armidale, NSW, Australia
Briefly
• I wish to offer two quotes about the man who was the sine qua non of the Northern Ireland peace process: Martin McGuinness (24 March): “If we were born where they were born, and we were taught what they were taught, we would believe what they believe” (Abraham Lincoln), and “Just because you have a past, doesn’t mean that you can’t have a future” (David Trimble).
Muiris de Bhulbh
Kilcock, Ireland
• Just after we learned that there is a word – lalochezia – for “relief derived from swearing” (Maslanka, 10 March), we find that the good citizens of Rochdale are to be punished for it (17 March).
Malcolm Faddy
Maleny, Queensland, Australia
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