Democracy and Capitalism

I awoke this morning to the Today Program interviewing a woman about a new branch of China's most successful business school opening in London. I was too sleepy to hear who the interviewer was or the name of the interviewee but what he was 'trying to get at' was what was an understanding of what was distinctly Chinese about the school. Because, he said, in the West there is an understanding that democracy and capitalism are linked.

Really? Try telling that to the people who just got evicted from their tented home. The Occupy Movement from all I can tell practise a far greater degree of participative democracy within their community than most of us experience through the parliamentary process.

The Chinese must also be thoroughly fed up with our obsession with how they are different from us. It's no way to build a friendship, recognising our common humanity would be a better place to start. Before people get jumpy, I am in no way defending human rights abuses, but I think in relation to China the West definitely needs to take the log out of its own eye.

To me capitalism is the major thing standing in the way of real democracy. Our version of capitalism puts the generation of wealth as the bottom line, not the generation of wellbeing. That's why we measure GDP. But this means nothing if you don't know how it’s distributed. Butan measures gross national happiness. True democracy puts people before profits.

Our version of capitalism is based on the free market which necessitates competition. It pits people, companies, cultures and nations against each other, fundamentally contradictory to true participative democracy. I'm fed up of hearing that ‘competition brings excellence'. I believe it can motivate it but excellence comes through work and creativity - some of our image bearing qualities. The other thing that motivates excellence and transformative action is collaboration - often better in my experience. Surely that is more in line with the kind of democracy we want.

Our competitive capitalism also means that power accumulates not with who we vote for but who we buy from and as we don't all have the same purchasing power we don't all have the same vote.

I'm not sure I like the idea of communist capitalism any more than the version we have but I'm pretty sure there is a groundswell of disillusionment with our current paradigms of both democracy and capitalism. Indeed there is an audible outcry, so long as you’re listening. The problem is most people of power and vast sections of the media aren't.

Enough talk about 'bad' or greedy capitalism it’s time for a complete reworking of our economic and democratic systems a thorough critique of all these discourses and an offering of a real and viable alternative.

About a year ago I was on the bus and a man had a badge saying ‘March for the alternative’. I asked what the alternative was he said it’s a march! It was a good march and some great voices raised some great points and those voices are still rising.

So this is just my little contribution to de-constructing the construct that democracy = capitalism.

But thanks to the Today programme for irritating me out of bed!