Welfare for a Humane Future: Moving Beyond the Welfare State of Racial Capitalism

Welfare for people in need always contains profound contradictions. Under capitalism, the welfare state reinforces exploitation and discrimination, yet working people have fought for welfare, which protects against the worst excesses of capitalism. Given the important benefits that welfare can provide, we need to consider the components of a post-capitalist welfare system, one that actually meets the needs of working people. A post-capitalist welfare system puts into practice the values of love, care, solidarity, and cooperation. Such principles are incompatible with the values of racial capitalism. So we work for a post-capitalist alternative. We trace the emphasis on love as a source of revolutionary motivation to key works by Karl Marx, Che Guevara, leaders of Back Lives Matter, and others trying to move beyond racial capitalism. A transformed welfare system depends on communities whose collective values nurture care and wellbeing. Communal institutions that provide welfare services are key. We analyse the eventual failures of historical utopian communities and also some strengths and limitations of communal institutions that have implemented welfare systems in 'actually existing' socialist countries. A transformation of values depends on a bottom-up aspiration, not imposed by a state apparatus. We examine three examples of communal governance linked to development of post-capitalist welfare systems: the Rojava revolution in northern Syria, the Bolivarian revolutionary process in Venezuela, and Cooperation Jackson in Mississippi. These examples provide illuminating details about the contrasting theoretical underpinnings, practical implementation of community-based institutions and governance, strengths and limitations of these approaches, and concrete details of welfare systems that move beyond racial capitalism and the capitalist welfare state. These examples all include the creation of 'solidarity economies' linked to community-based welfare systems that foster mutual aid and reject the inherently exploitative characteristics of racial capitalism. Local assemblies become the most direct means of confronting the capitalist state, usually at the level of the municipality. A transitional platform for post-capitalist welfare includes four key components: democratic control over public funds, community-based cooperatives and mutual aid, expanded access to housing, and promotion of community wellbeing. Within our communities today, existing institutions and organizations provide spaces relatively free from capitalist values. Institutions and organizations that emphasize justice and resistance often provide mutual aid that forms the basis of a post-capitalist welfare system. We explain what mutual aid actually entails, demonstrating the fundamental concepts and goals associated with it and what type of mutual aid these institutions and organizations can implement. Focusing on housing, health, and income maintenance, we analyse important examples of mutual aid and cooperative organizations that now provide these services. Such organizations allow those who use and support the services to exert influence over their management. Improved access to housing in Cooperation Jackson and similar efforts involving community land trusts, as well as cooperative housing schemes in Britain, show achievements fostered in post-capitalist systems. Community-based health initiatives in multiple countries and social contexts show the feasibility and advantages of providing such services outside public or private insurance programs. A post-capitalist welfare system is community-based and controlled by the community rather than the state. Communities establish welfare institutions based on mutual aid and cooperatives to help build a society rooted in love, care, solidarity, and dignity. As the creators of Cooperation Jackson advise, now is the time for 'building the future in the present.'

About the Author :
David Matthews is a lecturer and course director for the undergraduate program in Health and Social Care at Bangor University, Wales. His writings focus on welfare, the welfare state, and welfare-related social policy issues such as health, mental health, housing, and disability.Growing up in a working-class family who relied upon the welfare system as both a means of support and to provide opportunities, David is acutely aware of the necessity of welfare to improve people's lives, and the need to develop a system that meets the real needs of working people. A new book, The Class Struggle and Welfare: Social Policy under Capitalism, is forthcoming from Monthly Review Press early in 2025. Howard Waitzkin is a distinguished professor emeritus of health sciences and sociology at the University New Mexico, USA, and practices internal medicine part time in rural areas. Partly reflecting his upbringing in a low-income, working-class family, he has been active in struggles to expand access for health and welfare services in the United States and Latin America. He is the author of Rinky-Dink Revolution (2020) and Social Medicine and the Coming Transformation (with Alina Pérez and Matthew Anderson, 2021) among other books and co-edits the pamphlet/manifesto series, "Moving Beyond Capitalism - Now!"