Skip to content

Capitalism not so popular especially in the United States

Marxist Analysis · 2011-03-26

Core Argument

The article argues that the 2008 financial crisis has produced a measurable and politically significant decline in popular support for capitalism, most dramatically in the United States. This is not merely a matter of transient dissatisfaction but a structural shift in consciousness driven by three decades of neoliberal assault — cuts, privatisation, and stagnant living standards — culminating in a crisis that exposed the system's inability to deliver even a tolerable existence for the majority. The central claim is that when the material basis for consent collapses, the ideological apparatuses of the ruling class — media, education, state — become insufficient to maintain hegemony. The sharpest drop in support among low-income Americans (from 76% to 44% in one year) is treated as a leading indicator of intensified class struggle, not a polling curiosity.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis operates within the Gramscian tradition of hegemony, though the term is not used explicitly. The argument rests on the proposition that bourgeois rule depends not only on coercion (state apparatus, police, military) but on consent — the active or passive acceptance by working people that capitalism is the best available system. This consent is not primarily ideological in origin but material: it is sustained by the system's capacity to deliver a reasonable standard of living. When that capacity fails, the ideological superstructure — media, education, political parties — loses its grip. This is a materialist theory of consciousness, not a voluntarist one.

The article also draws implicitly on Lenin's analysis of the revolutionary situation: the ruling class cannot rule in the old way, and the masses cannot live in the old way. The Arab revolutions and the mass movements in Europe and the US are presented as symptoms of a single conjuncture, not separate phenomena. The rejection of reformism is embedded in the framing: the crisis is not a malfunction to be corrected but an expression of the system's inherent limits.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was written in April 2011, at a specific moment of post-crisis ferment. The key conjunctural features are:

  • The Arab revolutions (Tunisia, Egypt) had just erupted, demonstrating that mass uprisings could topple seemingly stable regimes.
  • Mass movements in the advanced capitalist countries: 3.5 million on the streets in France against Sarkozy's austerity; repeated general strikes in Greece; the 26 March 2011 demonstration in Britain (500,000–800,000), described as the largest trade union-organised march in British history; the occupation of the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison.
  • The polling data: The GlobeScan poll cited by The Economist showed US support for the free market falling from 80% (2002) to 59% (2010), with the sharpest drop among those earning under $20,000 — from 76% to 44% in a single year.
  • The political response of the ruling class: Doug Miller of GlobeScan explicitly warned that "American business is close to losing its social contract with average American families" and called for "inspired leadership" to reverse the trend — a clear recognition that the crisis of consent was a strategic problem for capital.

The article correctly identifies that the crisis of legitimacy is uneven: support remains high in booming economies (China, Brazil, Germany) but predicts that a slowdown will produce similar shifts there.

Where the Argument Continues

This article is an early conjunctural snapshot. The argument about the crisis of bourgeois legitimacy and the turn to struggle is developed in subsequent IDOM material in several directions:

  • The Arab revolutions and their aftermath: IDOM produced extensive analysis of the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, the counter-revolution, and the lessons for Marxists.
  • The Occupy movement: The article predates Occupy Wall Street (September 2011) by five months. Later IDOM articles analyse Occupy as a further expression of the radicalisation identified here, but also critique its lack of clear anti-capitalist programme and working-class leadership.
  • The Greek experience: The rise of Syriza, the defeat of the 2015 referendum, and the lessons for the Marxist left are treated in multiple articles and Against the Current episodes.
  • The US conjuncture: The Bernie Sanders campaigns, the rise of the "socialist left" in the Democratic Party, and the limits of left-reformism are analysed in later material.

The article's closing line — "That is something we are working on!" — points to the RCI's strategic project of building a revolutionary Marxist current within the labour movement, a theme developed in the organisation's programme and in ongoing theoretical work on the united front and the transitional programme.

Connections

  • Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks: The theory of hegemony and the distinction between consent and coercion is the implicit framework.
  • Lenin, The State and Revolution: The analysis of the state as an instrument of class rule and the conditions for its overthrow.
  • Trotsky, The Transitional Programme: The strategic orientation toward building revolutionary leadership in periods of radicalisation.
  • IDOM articles on the 2008 crisis and its aftermath: The article sits within a broader corpus analysing the crisis as an expression of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and the overaccumulation of capital.
  • Against the Stream episodes on the US conjuncture: Later episodes develop the analysis of the radicalisation of American youth and workers, the limits of the Democratic Party, and the tasks of Marxists.

Key Quotes

  1. "The capitalist class does not hold onto power merely by controlling the state apparatus, the police, the army and the judiciary, the mass media and the education system. It also needs to keep a grip on the consciousness of millions of ordinary working people and make them believe that in spite of all its vices capitalism is the best of all possible socio-economic systems."

  2. "Workers can take quite a lot, so long as they can get on with paying the rent or the mortgage, putting enough food on the table for their families, having a decent education system, healthcare system and so on."

  3. "If such a situation is prolonged, if the calls for workers to make sacrifices is repeated over and over again, and if in the middle of all this the world is shaken by an almighty financial crisis which then leads to growing unemployment accompanied by increasing inflation, then all the means at the disposal of the capitalist class to convince people that their system is the best possible available are no longer sufficient, and things begin to change."

  4. "Capitalism's waning fortunes are starkly visible among Americans earning below $20,000. Their support for the free market has dropped from 76% to 44% in just one year."

  5. "Gone are the days when the USA was the country of the 'American Dream' where everyone was supposed to be able to become successful through hard work and effort. Reality has come home to the United States and no amount of 'inspired leadership' will solve this dilemma for the US bourgeoisie."