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The trouble with 'anti-capitalism'
...Why are the prevailing perceptions of the crisis so superficial and backward? In a nutshell, because ‘anti-capitalist’ values now predominate in Western societies. I put ‘anti-capitalist’ in quote marks because this critique is not in fact against capitalism or the market economy per se; it is really against any form of economy that seeks to promote dynamic growth and development. And it is the old left that has been at the forefront of promoting this perspective. Traditionally, the left has used a crisis to expose the limitations of the market, while the right has usually sought to defend the system. But in the past two decades the left has become anti-development, anti-consumption and misanthropic, which has had the effect of redirecting criticism away from the market itself, and towards blaming humanity in general....

...Finally, an underlying misanthropic viewpoint has also contributed to a distorted discussion of the crisis. Recent years have seen a return of the ideas of the population scaremonger Thomas Malthus and his notion of economic limits. This outlook is most clearly expressed by environmentalists, who see people’s impact on the world as one-sidedly destructive. The consequence of this outlook is to argue that there are too many people on the planet and we should stop procreating. For example, after reviewing a variety of possible individual acts that could help the environment, Lisa Hymas writes in Grist: ‘But even in aggregate, all of these moves don’t come close to the impact of not bringing new human beings – particularly new Americans – into the world.’

The stress on limits has been used to interpret the recession as coming about as the result of seeking to extend beyond natural boundaries. Moreover, this anti-human outlook has made it more readily accepted that ‘we only have ourselves to blame’. It also means that a crisis that has brought much pain and suffering can be perversely greeted as a welcome development, since austerity conditions will mean there are fewer people taking cheap flights, driving cars on vacations, and otherwise spoiling Earth.

The misanthropic emphasis on flawed humans is also expressed via conspiracy theories. Such theories hold that wicked individuals are colluding behind the scenes and that people cannot be trusted. Historically, conspiracy theories were the province of the reactionary right, but in recent times the left has adopted them in a variety of areas, including health (for example, vaccines) and terrorism (for example, the 9/11 ‘truth’).

A conspiracy of bankers is now one of the main explanations given for understanding the crisis. In the US, this has taken the form of bashing Goldman Sachs. Again, left-leaning commentators are taking the lead. Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi is the most rabidly anti-Goldman, and his description of the firm – ‘a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money’ – is now repeated ad nauseum by others. But a vampire squid was an image used by Nazis to describe Jewish financiers, and the description of Goldman as a ‘tribe’ is also an anti-Semitic trope. Taibbi may not be consciously anti-Semitic, but he is definitely conspiratorial. ...

...Liberals’ calls for greater state intervention may appear on the surface to be a return to older social-democratic ideas, but in fact they represent something new. The impulse behind them is different: whereas in the past, the state was said to be deployed as a vehicle to enhance growth, now the emphasis is on state control of the economy, trying to keep a lid on destabilising propensities of capitalism, especially in finance. In this way, this stress on state regulation is more akin to the idealisation of a static economy promoted by greens than prior notions of state intervention....