Is Capitalism Here to Stay?

On Sunday 29 January Chris Laidlaw interviewed Jonathan Porritt about environmentally sustainable capitalism (available until about 21/02/2006), on his 'Sunday Morning' programme on National Radio. He stated that
"any level-headed" person is going to accept that capitalism is here to stay.

I couldn't let that go. Here was my reply:

Good morning, Chris,

Thank you for the interview with Sir Jonathan Porritt. It was interesting.

I have to take issue though you statement that any level-headed person believes that capitalism is here to stay. Only nine years ago on National Radio Linda Skeggs interviewed Professor Immanuel Wallerstein from Binghampton University, New York. He is one who believes that capitalism is not sustainable for two main reasons:

1) Going to the ends of the earth for labor, it is exhausting the supply of workers who can be employed for minimal wages.

2) The costs to repair capitalist destruction of the environment are becoming prohibitive.

To say that capitalism is here to stay ignores history. Capitalism has only been around at least in the Western world, for about 500 years, for a shorter span elsewhere. It replaced feudalism and other systems because of the tools available to humankind made the old systems redundant.

I don't claim to be a level-headed person but I do claim that capitalism has outlived its usefulness and that if people could be persuaded to support, they could vote in a system based on voluntary access and free labour. Such a system would be worldwide and democratic. People would control the means of production and distribution to satisfy their self-defined needs.

Regards,
Warwick Taylor
Newtown