Capitalism and what has befallen us

Forgive me, but I have recently read two important books. From Generosity to Justice was written in 2023 by a Black American named D. Walker, the CEO of the Ford Foundation. What Went Wrong with Capitalism, published last year, was penned by R. Sharma, an Indian immigrant who is the chairman of the Rockefeller International group. As you have immediately gathered, both authors are dyed-in-the-wool capitalists. However, what they say in their books is—don't get angry, comrades—much more socialist than what the enthusiasts of that Hasta Siempre song, with its Commander Che Guevara refrain, have to say. And the socialism I am referring to is a socialism that respects humans as humans.

The author of From Generosity to Justice addresses the wealthy as follows: "When you help the needy, your main goal should not be to make a name for yourself in this world or to secure your distinguished place in the next. Instead, first investigate why the needy are needy and try to eliminate that cause."

Two striking examples are given in the book. The first concerns Harlem in New York, a famous neighborhood almost entirely inhabited by low-income Black residents. It turns out that for years, Harlem had no shopping malls. The underlying reason was the fear that such a mall would have few customers and would be frequently looted. However, in 1999, a support group that our author was part of at the time opened Harlem's first shopping mall. What followed is a complete success story. In a short time, seeing that nothing happened to the first mall, other organizations opened branches in Harlem, and the poverty of this poor region began to gradually decrease.

A very similar example comes again from New York, from a neighborhood called Brownsville, which is extremely poor and, as one might expect, is practically the national champion in terms of all kinds of crime rates. Our author, now at the head of the Ford Foundation, encouraged by the success in Harlem, supported the opening of a community food services center in Brownsville in 2017, consisting of two main initiatives. One of the initiatives was a training course that taught local residents cooking, kitchen economics, time management, and customer service for a reasonable fee. The main goal of this 40-week course, which could be taken for a reasonable fee, was to train quality personnel for the food industry. The second initiative was to provide the same local residents, who had never seen a restaurant until that date, with a restaurant and cafe that offered cheap and high-quality products to its customers. The author rightly recounts this with great pride. Both initiatives, just like the first mall example in Harlem, became very successful in a short time. The restaurant that was established gained such popularity that it soon began to attract customers from wealthier parts of the city. Furthermore, those who finished the cooking course became so sought after in the market that they began to be in demand in countries outside the US. It sounds like a fairy tale, doesn't it?

The second book I will mention is far from a fairy tale. According to the chairman of the Rockefeller International group, the end of capitalism, which he considers the main driving force of modern civilization, does not look very good. The main reason for this is easy money. As we observed in its most striking examples during the 2008 economic crisis and the COVID pandemic, the moment a country's economy hits a bottleneck, governments urgently provide abundant, low-interest loans to the country's wealthiest, or more accurately, to their banks and holdings. Meanwhile, there is hardly a penny given to smaller organizations in the same country. This easy money, on one hand, destroys free competition, which is the creed of the capitalist order, and on the other hand, it is the dominant cause of inflation that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. There is also a nice joke in the book about this easy money called the 3-6-3 rule: Borrow at 3 percent interest, lend at 6 percent interest, and let's meet at the golf club at 3 o'clock in the afternoon!

If viewed coolly, the prospect of a second Trump presidency in the US—whose impact on the world, let alone his own country, we cannot quite predict—makes the author of the book seem very right. In the final analysis, it is the gradual collapse of American capitalism that brought down Biden. In such an order, inevitably, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. I think the tragicomic part of the matter is that in this order, the famous invisible hand of capitalist theory, which advocates for humanity and observes balance, that clever and capable hand, is gradually disappearing, and humanity is about to fall into the hands of those as rich as Croesus, who are shoving their hands in our faces.

I was going to end my article by saying, "These two books, which I interpret as being written by gurus of capitalism who share the concern that capitalism is collapsing and will bring the world down with it, also reminded me of Shakespeare's famous line: 'Consumes itself to the very thing that feeds it.'" But then TÜSİAD's call for justice hit the agenda. I tried to read carefully what was said and how it was interpreted, and I found a significant omission in this quite bold call. Could it be that TÜSİAD also had no fault in what has befallen us?

And with my physician's mind, I chose to end my article as follows: The culprit for what has befallen us is neither Adam Smith nor Karl Marx. In fact, I cannot help but think that in our world, which is on the verge of going off the rails, they might have become quite good friends if they could come together today. In my opinion, for things to get back on track, it would be enough for humanity to follow the Ten Commandments, or even just two of them: do not steal and, as commanded in the original and not limited to testimony, do not lie.