Vox - Democracy is the Antidote to Capitalism
Sean Illing
This is an interview with Astra Taylor, who wrote a book called The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart.
What are the origins of the feeling of insecurity, as a forward-looking anxiety? The idea here is that the stripping away of common land rights for the peasants (the enclosure movement, in England's 17th century) created a new kind of economic insecurity and simultaneously created labor availability, but at the mercy of an employer. This kind of permanent insecurity is, Taylor argues, a fundamental feature of a market society-- not a society with markets, but a society governed by market exchange.
In the interview, Taylor offers little by way of a solution, but instead wants to highlight the fact that even "winning" in today's capitalistic economic system still does not do away with much of the insecurity; for instance: successful retirement is based on the vicissitudes of the stock market. Imagining a different dynamic, especially with power-sharing through democratic practice, appears to be her tentative prescription.
