In his recent op-ed, published today in the Montreal Gazette about the BP oil spill, New York Times editorialist David Brooks argues that the current global political struggle today is between ‘democratic capitalism’ and ’state capitalism’. Democratic capitalism, Brooks explains, allows private companies to exploit and manage important resources like oil with the state playing a marginal, regulatory role. State capitalism (like that practiced in China, Venezuela, Iran, etc…) keeps wealth creation firmly in the control of governement and directs it according to the political needs of the State. Why is this discussion of democratic versus state capitalism important and how is it relevant to Quebec?
Because today our democratic capitalist system is in peril because we don’t trust each other to manage it properly anymore. To give an international example: if a society places the huge responsibility of managing oil resources in the hands of private companies like BP, who then decide to spend a measly $20 million annually on safety research and development for their offshore oil wells while reaping $289 billion in profit every year, we start to ask ourselves if perhaps we need more central control of the oil industry. This, in my opinion, would be the wrong course of action but not surprising given BP’s betrayal of our trust.
To take a local example: if we start to doubt the Quebec government’s capacity to act independently of private construction contractors because of allegations of collusion, we start to ask ourselves if perhaps democracy doesn’t work to regulate capitalism, but merely is worn as a political mask to disguise cronyism and institutionalized self-interest.
Today, I feel we are going down the wrong road if we are indeed starting to question democratic capitalism. Instead, we should be questioning our own personal moral decay and our inability to create trusting and lasting relationships with each other. Our systems are only as good as the people who participate in them. A system cannot change without people changing. Are we really ready to start censoring our democracies and hyper-regulating our economy after all the sacrifices, revolutions and wars we have suffered through in order to establish Western liberal society?
Why can’t we, instead, just start taking a closer look at the human behavior that has made us so undeserving of our current political-economic system?
Why can’t we grow to trust each other again? Maybe we never did…
Pleased to see this clarification on the two types of capitalism; it is another way of understanding the process that becomes more evident especially after the oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, and is exemplified by Obama sitting across the table from a squint-eyed BP executive. I wonder if the US government will get the money it has asked for…
…Or we COULD question democratic capitalism too! After all, it’s only been around in its current form for a few decades. There is no saying that maybe a better system cannot be found. But yes, to make any improvements at all, it will take an engaged citizenry to make it happen.