Reich wrong on capitalism.

• Author: Fair-Schulz, Axel
• Position: Letter to the editor

No serious person can doubt the goodwill and intelligence of Robert Reich, as was evident in his November interview in The Progressive (by Christopher D. Cook). He makes many valid points about the need of the left to organize more strategically, especially given how far the American political spectrum has moved to the right.

Yet I'm perplexed at how Reich's otherwise lucid observations disintegrate when it comes to the subject matter of capitalism, which he frames as without alternatives.

As Reich surely knows, capitalism, as a mode of production, has not always existed, and it is far-fetched to say that while other types of socioeconomic formations have come and gone, our currently dominant capitalist system is here permanently.

It is equally far-fetched to categorically declare, as Reich does, that there "are no other isms in the world. There never really were." Robert Reich's normally clear thinking becomes strangely muddled and ahistorical here.

As Slavoj Zizek pointed out a while ago...