CAPITALISM and socialism are the great global ideologies of our age. The word before ‘ism’ reflects the core logic running a system. So, under capitalism, the interests of private capital do so and subjugate all societal concerns. Private capital, profits, wage labour, etc — wrongly seen as capitalism’s core — have actually existed forever. But as American sociologist Karl Polyani reminds us, capitalism emerged in the 17th century when capital’s interests became dominant societally. Since then, it has given us efficiency and productivity, but also huge inequity, ecological damage and conflict.

Under socialism (a response to capital’s ugly hold), common social interests rightly serve as the dominant concern. Communist states, though, wrongly equating capitalism’s core with private capital, wage labour, etc, eradicate them, with poor results. Scandinavian states, seeing the sway of capitalist interests as the real problem, make social concerns paramount, but allow private capital to operate under them, with better results.

However, a few states (Pakistan, Thailand, Myanmar, Sudan, Egypt, etc.) follow a perverse third way where military interests subjugate both capital and social interests in six key spheres. Their specific........

© Dawn