Nonviolence versus Capitalism

them, with workers becoming employees and cooperative members becoming consumers. Some anti-establishment rock groups become commercial successes, with their iconoclastic fashions and angry lyrics a selling point.

Alternatives do not need to be “somewhere else,” namely in another country. There are small islands of noncapitalist practice and belief in the middle of every capitalist society. Public parks and libraries are based on sharing resources rather than buying and selling. Taking care of a friend’s children is cooperative rather than individualistic and competitive.

The implication of these and other examples is that a nonviolence strategy needs to both build alternatives and to inhibit the power of the capitalist system to smash or coopt alternatives.

Other systems of domination

Besides capitalism, there are various other systems of domination, including:

• patriarchy;

• the state;

• bureaucracy;

• the military;

• racial domination;

• domination of nature.

(Note that to call something a “system of domination” is to put a label on a complex, ever-changing set of relationships between people and between people and nature. Any such label is bound to be a simplification and can be misleading if it suggests rigidity and permanence. It can be useful if it captures important regularities in relationships.)

The relation between these systems is a matter of some debate. Some argue that one particular system is fundamental, with the others being subsidiary or derivative. Of special interest here is the view, common among Marxists, that class domination is fundamental, with other systems of domination being secondary. The implication is that the central struggle should be against capitalism, with other issues being given second billing until “after the revolution.” Needless to say, this view is not well received by those whose personal concerns are focussed on one of the other areas.

From the point of view of a strategy of nonviolent action, a final resolution of this issue is not essential, since the same methods — namely nonviolent action — can be used directly against all the systems of domination. (In contrast, while armed struggle may be used against the capitalist state, it is never advised as a method to challenge patriarchy.) It is useful, in this context, to outline some of the connections between capitalism and these other systems of domination.

Patriarchy. There was collective domination of men over women long before capitalism arrived on the scene. What has happened is that these two autonomous systems of power have largely accommodated each other, each changing in the process. [24] It is a commonplace observation that most wealthy owners and top managers are men. In some societies, women are formally excluded from high level jobs in business; in others there are psychological and structural barriers including those associated with parental expectations, educational opportunities, job discrimination, expectations for child rearing, sexual harassment and a male executive style. Individual men may be sexist, to be sure, but the main effect comes from the system of expectations, roles and behaviours that prevents or discourages women from succeeding as big-time capitalists.

Down the job hierarchy, male domination is entrenched in many occupations, for example in civil engineering and driving tractors. However, this can change with time and vary from country to country. For example, when typewriters were first introduced, typing was a male occupation. Later it became stereotypically female. Now, with the introduction of personal computers, most users do their own typing. Most job differentiation by sex has little to do with different capabilities and much more to do with advantages for bosses and for men.[25] Bosses, by catering for men’s interest in having preferment over women for prize jobs, maintain men’s willingness to accept subordination to other men.

One way to interpret this is to say that men have used their power as men to prevent women from gaining equality within capitalism. There are some exceptions, especially in the case of inherited wealth. The liberal feminist push for equal opportunity has made significant inroads into male domination in business, though there is a long way to go.

If women gained equality within corporations, would this be a threat to capitalism? Not really, unless women brought different values and behaved differently from men in equivalent positions. All the evidence suggests that women do not behave all that differently: they are much more likely to adapt to the business ethos than to change it.

There is nothing about the system of capitalism that requires men to be in charge. Women can own property and run businesses and in general keep the system going just as well as men. The exception would be if having women in charge was so unacceptable to men that capitalism itself came under attack by men. If capitalism became a uniquely nonsexist system in a sea of male domination, then it could be vulnerable. But this is far from the case. By accommodating women’s demands no faster — and often considerably slower — than other sectors of society, capitalism is in a sort of equilibrium or accommodation with patriarchy.

In principle, the expansion of capitalist relations is a threat to male domination. If women can do an equal or better job, then there is more profit to be made by hiring them and promoting them. A full expansion of the market to child rearing would involve massive expansion of paid child care, with most mothers in the paid workforce. Capitalism thus provides some pressures to undermine patriarchy, but again the outcome in practice is more like an accommodation.

The relations between capitalism and patriarchy are thus complex and variable, sometimes mutually reinforcing and sometimes destabilising. (There are important social and cultural dimensions to patriarchy as well as the economic dimension that is emphasised here.)

The state. One definition of the state is that it is a set of social institutions based on a monopoly within a territory over what is considered the legitimate use of force. Legitimate use of force is by police against violent criminals and by troops against invaders. Private militias would be illegitimate use of force, unless sponsored by the state itself. Who decides what is legitimate use of force? The state itself. However, feminists have pointed out that this definition is incorrect, since violence by men against women, especially husbands against wives, has long been treated as legal in most countries. This is violence that the state considers “legitimate” but which it does not control itself.

The key point here is that the state claims a monopoly over collectively organised violence that underpins capitalism.[26] This is one of the crucial areas that needs to be addressed in a nonviolence strategy against capitalism, as discussed above.

Marxists have often treated the state as an agent for the ruling class, as in the phrase the “capitalist state.” While it is certainly true that the state serves capitalists in various ways, the state can have its own interests and dynamics, not all of which are supportive of capitalists and capitalism.

One key issue, of special interest to nonviolent activists, is war.[27] Wars are primarily engagements between military forces on behalf of states — corporations do not run wars directly, though mercenary operations and other nonstate groups are playing an increasing role.[28]

Many Marxists, though, claim that wars are driven by capitalist interests.[29] The idea is that states engage in war to protect markets. The best example is the Gulf war in 1990-1991, in which the US government organised the military effort to defend Saudi Arabia and drive Iraqi troops out of Kuwait, which can be seen as ensuring access to oil in the interests of US-based oil companies.

However, the claim that capitalist interests are the driving force behind war looks much thinner in other cases, such as US involvement in the war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, [30] US and Australian government support for the 1975 Indonesian military invasion and occupation of East Timor, and NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 to drive Serbian troops out of Kosova. There are natural resources in Vietnam, East Timor and Kosova, but there is little evidence that expected profits from these were big enough to