The last part of Paul Mason’s Postcapitalism discusses how the transition out of capitalism might unfold, with special attention to the role of the state in facilitating change.
To review, Mason expects information technology to liberate people from the capitalist market economy. We will be liberated as workers because fewer hours of paid work will be required to produce the necessities of life. We will be liberated as consumers because goods and services will be more abundant and less expensive. We will be able to devote more of our time to voluntary activity and sharing.
A rough road
If this sounds too rosy and idealistic, readers should take a close look at Chapter 2, “Long Waves, Short Memories,” and Chapter 9, “The Rational Case for Panic.” Mason does not expect a smooth, leisurely and pleasant transition beyond capitalism, but something more tumultuous. As the historical material in the book makes clear, the history of capitalism is not just a story of steady progress through technological innovation and rising productivity. It is a story of periodic crises as the profitability of existing industries wanes and capital has to find new opportunities elsewhere. The transition now underway is especially difficult because it calls into question the viability of capitalism itself. As production becomes more knowledge-based, the means of production become harder to own and maintain as sources of private profit. Since the 1970s, capitalists have been counteracting the tendency for profits to fall by holding wages down in the developed countries and exploiting the cheap labor of poorer countries, but at the cost of increasing inequality and social resistance.
To make matters worse, new environmental and demographic conditions are delivering “external shocks” to the economic system. The prime example is climate change, a problem that Mason does not believe the market can solve on its own. When the price of fossil fuels goes up, energy companies take that as a signal “that it’s a good idea to invest in new and more expensive ways of finding carbon.” When the price goes down, consumers conclude that they can drive more or buy less fuel-efficient vehicles. However the market fluctuates, the price does not factor in the externalities, the true costs of environmental impacts on the global economy.
Another shock is the “demographic timebomb,” the addition of another two billion people to the planet by mid-century, most of them in poorer countries. In the richer countries, falling birth rates and rising longevity are creating rapidly aging populations. With fewer working-age people to support more retirees, workers are under pressure to generate enough wealth to save for their own long retirement as well as contribute to the support of today’s retirees through payroll taxes. Demographic change puts additional stress on the economy in several ways: requiring the financial system to deliver high investment returns for retirement accounts, increasing the demands on public spending for the elderly, and increasing the flow of migrants from rapidly growing poor countries to slower growing but aging rich countries.
The world cannot afford a leisurely transformation to the postcapitalist economy Mason foresees. The world needs a rapid deployment of new technologies to produce as much as we can, but do it in a cleaner, greener way that mitigates environmental damage. The potential benefits are enormous, but the task of getting from here to there is daunting.
Because of the urgency of the situation, Mason believes that a spontaneous process of increasing information-based activity is not enough. The process needs to become a conscious project, based on the insight that “a new route beyond capitalism has opened up, based on promoting and nurturing non-market production and exchange, and driven by information technology.” He calls it “Project Zero” because “its aims are a zero-carbon energy system; the production of machines, products and services with zero marginal costs; and the reduction of necessary labour time as close as possible to zero