market vs capitalism

What is it about the 'market' that the traditional Left has been against in recent times? If one adopts Fernand Braudel's distinction between 'the market' and 'capitalism, in which the former involves "transparent exchanges" and the latter "unequal exchanges", it becomes unclear why it is the former that has been such a constant focus for political attack in Britain, and not the latter. Perhaps being anti-capitalist seems too radical, too implausible, whereas being anti-market might appear more moderate or democratic. And yet it is capitalism that is unwieldy, destructive and rooted in complicated illusions, not markets which exist merely as places in which strangers might meet and objects might move.

I was reminded of this at the weekend at the Barbican's In the Face of History exhibition, when I came across some stunning Woflgang Tillmans photographs taken from an exhibition of his called 'Markt' (see one of the photos here.) The photos are of a semi-legal Polish marketplace in which people gathered during the last years of communism to buy and sell random and somewhat pitiful objects - a sheet is laid down on the ground and maybe a single shoe, a pencil and a raw sausage placed on it for potential purchasers to inspect. It looks not dissimilar to the street market where Bethnall Green road meets Shoreditch, which is (or was last time I looked.. ) full of amateur traders displaying their wares of used video tapes, bicycle saddles, broken cutlery.  This is the market as public space, individualistic for sure, but more in the spirit of Walter Benjamin than Hayek or Friedman. What's more, the market can subvert in interesting ways - as eBay briefly showed with the Live8 fiasco - whereas capitalism can create and destroy, but never democratises, beyond its initial act of disempowering the aristocracy.

And yet mostly, the distinction between the market and capitalism is made in the sickly tones of petit bourgeois conservatism. Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's latest plan is to take on Tescos through his own chain of food stores. He argues (about Axminster) that "the only place you can buy fresh fruit and veg on a daily basis is in the two supermarkets, which are Tesco and the Co-op. There is a sweet little market every Thursday and a wonderful farm shop a few miles outside town, but I feel that small producers like that should be represented in the middle of town on a daily basis". What is the nature of this 'should' - aesthetic or political? I suspect the former, and Fresh and Wild type enterprises tend to internalise this aesthetic in their absurd prices, leaving Tescos as the more genuinely democratic option. At least Tescos pass on some of their  And that, as any inhabitant of a gentrifying neighbourhood can tell you, is where we're gradually heading: markets for those who can afford it, capitalism for everyone else.

Comments

[Phil E]

What is it about the 'market' that the traditional Left has been against in recent times?

Probably the fact that the institutions of the 'free market' are founded on capital accumulation and the extraction of value from wage labour; to put it another way, 'market' implies 'labour market'. As somebody (Raymond Williams?) said, the market sounds friendly and empowering when you think of it in terms of apples and herring - but as a worker you're the herring, not the buyer.

[Will Davies]

Ah, yes, that is indeed the answer... or at least, the Marxist answer. Good point.

I guess I was thinking more in terms of the social democratic left, or the general cultural critique of the market as a soul-less place which destroys community, alienates us, knows the price of everything and the value of nothing etc. Because the modernist response might well be: good, give me New York over Axminister any day of the week.

[Simon]

The problem with the general cultural critique is that that's all it is - a critique that doesn't lead anywhere. I suppose that this critique is probably part of a hangover from postwar radicalism, which saw the rise of the community society as a source of false consciousness, or part of a society of spectacle that deflected the working classes from realising their revolutionary destiny.

Apart from being deeply patronising, it's a critique that ignores the obvious benefits and pleasures of the market - increasing opportunity for self-creation, the fact that shopping can be (whisper it) fun, the fact that 'the market' appears to be a very effective form of wealth creation (but not distribution). Those have to be weighed against the market's undoubted negatives.

I've yet to see a coherent leftist plan for an alternative to the market. But I wonder if the market isn't creating that alternative itself. The rise of pro-am producers, social production, knowlede work and collborative lifestyles, combined with a concern for authenticity and values, could point the way towards some sort of return to knowledge-based cottage industry. At least, the think tank work in sometimes feels a bit like that.

Perhaps too optimistic and petit bourgeois - and certainly it raises the question of what happens to the people who are outside the cottages - can we include them in mutual support mechanisms based around knowledge work (what about a return to paternalism with knowledge firms voluntarily supporting the cleaners?

[William]

> sickly tones of petit bourgeois conservatism

Indeed, Fearnley Whittingstall is
- posh
- double barrelled
But there's nothing sickly about him. He radiates health, energy, enthusiasm, passion about the origin and quality of food. There's an earthy courage in how he goes about his work which is the antithesis of the bullying supermarket buyer.

What leads you to complain about his voice being heard? What would concern you about him offering other produce in competition with Tesco?

[Will Davies]

Apologies - as a posh person myself, my comment was not some piece of inverted snobbery. 'Petit bourgeois' is a specific social category of business people who attempt to conserve some pre-capitalist idyll, but still seek to become reasonably wealthy. The reason this often appears sickly is that it has a strong element of NIMBYism. Rather like the New Urbanist movement (Poundbury etc), it turns its back on the reality of the industrial age in order to create miniature zones of peace and harmony, which must by virtue of their scale remain exclusive. I guess I'm lumping him together with that sort of thing - maybe I've got the wrong end of the stick with him, as I don't know a great deal about his philosophy.