Clinging to an illusion of capitalistic benevolence dooms humanity to inevitable exploitation and extinction

We nevertheless cling to the illusion that the capitalist state can become a benevolent entity. National health programs, championed by activists like me, are components of a generous welfare state, as are public education, housing, livable wages, adequate food, transportation, and more.7 The modern welfare state took hold in several European countries after the Great Depression and further expanded after the Second World War, as an emerging Keynesian consensus encouraged high levels of government spending. These welfare states also became models for development in some countries of the global South. But the capitalist welfare state has always suffered from inherent contradictions. First, its services and programs remain vulnerable to cuts or elimination during economic crises, as the recent turn toward austerity in much of Europe has shown.8 Important public programs of the welfare state shrink or disappear as that other key function of the capitalist state—protecting the capitalist economic system—gears up to address the system’s recurrent crises. Second, these welfare services also contribute to a false consciousness and hegemonic beliefs about the capitalist state’s beneficent potentialities. This ideological impact has been called the state’s “legitimation function.”9 By providing helpful and even vital services, the capitalist welfare state legitimates the continuing inequality and exploitation inherent in the system.10 Many of us respond to the suffering we encounter everywhere by advocating for the expansion or, at least, the maintenance of the capitalist state’s welfare protections. We do so even though we understand that they remain perpetually vulnerable and legitimate a system that inherently causes exploitation, inequality, hunger, ill health, and early death. And we persist in advocating for the welfare state although we know that what people in the global South call “savage capitalism” has become weaker and more desperate amid deepening economic crises, a loss of political legitimacy, and environmental devastation that threatens the survival of humanity and other life forms.