#BTColumn – Capitalism run amok

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

Dr. Derek Alleyne

Reading what could only be a boast by PM MAM in the weekend paper about the annexing of two members of the DLP to her team and contrasting it to the presence of Anthony Wood is typical of a child playing with toys.

It, however, took me back to an article in Social Europe by Karin Pettersson.

The author critiques a book “Anti-System Politics”, by the British political scientist Jonathan Hopkins, as it explains what makes system-critical political parties—on both the left and the right — grow.

Hopkins was clear in the view that capitalism carries within it the seeds of its own destruction, contending that democracy weakens since the market always wants more and in its unquenchable thirst takes increasingly larger chunks of society through the “extension of commodification”. Eventually, this leads to backlash.

Hopkins opines that “the economic and social earthquake of 2008 is often downplayed in a public discourse obsessed with ‘social media’, ‘culture wars’ and ‘immigration’.

Further, Hopkin identifies a process in which the 2008 financial crisis brought material deterioration for large groups of voters, leading to a loss of confidence in established parties. The result has been the growth of or the shift of existing parties to right-wing nationalist parties with power at all cost their mantra.

Hopkin contends that today we see how capital can change partners, promiscuously mating with authoritarian forces rather than liberal democrats.

Politicians such as Trump do not care about freedom and civil liberties: their goal is power for its own sake and to protect personal business interests and crony capitalists.

The departure of political actors from the Democratic Labour Party is not new, and I anticipate that as the economy continues to tighten more will head to the bed where the roses appear to be in bloom.

The recent boast of MAM that all big things come through her was not idle but a revelation that another apparent “Trumpian” missile has been let loose on the people
of Barbados.

Petterssen writes: “Democracy is not just the right to vote. What matters in the long run is justice, and justice can only be achieved through changes in the material conditions of people’s lives.

The real dividing line in politics cannot be between ‘evil’ and ‘good’, moral and immoral. What is needed to save democracy is to create new counterweights to today’s capitalism — which undermines it.”

The counterweights in Barbados used to be the trade unions, churches and other political parties, but trade unions are on their dying beds.

The churches are divided and confused by the changing moral and ethnic times as proponents of same-sex marriage imposed their views on a terrified populace. MAM is snatching any and everything from the other parties and most of all Barbadians so accustomed to party competition based on ideas, priority setting, ideological differences and character traits are bombarded everyday by the demagogic and sinister ploys that undermine values that were dear to a Christian society.

The Democratic Labour Party’s losses at the polls and from the membership are not their losses alone but they undermine the fabric of this society, the democratic principles that have guided us so far and make recovery from the hole into which this country has fallen so deep that fear has now become the Barbadian daily fare.

Dr. Derek Alleyne is a trade unionist, social commentator and member of the Democratic Labour Party.