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24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 11. Capitalism

[society driven by private production and profit]

31 ideas
Time is money, ..credit is money, ..and money breeds more money [Franklin]
     Full Idea: Remember that time is money, …and that credit is money, …and that money can beget money.
     From: Benjamin Franklin (Advice to a Young Tradesman [1748], p.87-), quoted by Max Weber - The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 2
     A reaction: [snippets] A wonderful quotation rescued by Max Weber, showing that Franklin understood capitalism with crystal clarity, before it had even barely begun
Selfish profit-seeking increases collective wealth, so greed is good, and egoism is altruism [Smith,A, by Harari]
     Full Idea: Smith's claim that the selfish human urge to increase private profits is the basis for collective wealth is one of the most revolutionary ideas in human history. …Greed is good …and egoism is altruism.
     From: report of Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations [1776]) by Yuval Noah Harari - Sapiens: brief history of humankind 16 'Growing'
     A reaction: The central confrontation of political philosophy still seems to be Adam Smith v Karl Marx. Why can't there be altruistic non-greedy profit-seeking? Not 'I want profits' but 'we want profits'. Altruistic capitalists aim to create jobs.
Free markets lead to boom and bust, pointless middlemen, and alienated workers [Engels]
     Full Idea: Free markets inevitably lead to unemployment and ruined businesses, when the capitalist market is punctuated by a 'trade cycle' of boom and bust. .. There are speculating, swindling middlemen. ...and the nature of work is degrading and alienated.
     From: Friedrich Engels (Speeches in Elberfeld [1849]), quoted by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 5 'Arguments'
     A reaction: [compression of Wolff's summary] Wolff observes that middlemen are heroes to lovers of the market. The idea of alienation seems to be that everyone should be in charge of their own work. That may approach anarchy.
The handmill gives feudalism, the steam mill capitalism [Marx]
     Full Idea: The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam mill society with the industrial capitalist.
     From: Karl Marx (The Poverty of Philosophy [1847], p.202), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 7
     A reaction: If technology dictates social structure, then feudalism is still with us, in low-tech industries. What if the steam mill had been invented in 1300?
The essence of capitalism is the subordination of people to things [Marx, by Weil]
     Full Idea: Marx discovered a formula impossible to surpass when he said that the essence of capitalism lies in the subordination of subject to object, of man to thing.
     From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Simone Weil - Fragments: London 1943 p,155
     A reaction: I find this rather too vague to be a penetrating observation. I would suggest the obliteration of cooperation and community, in favour of competition. Winners and losers.
Capitalism changes the world, by socialising the idea of a commodity [Marx, by Bowie]
     Full Idea: In Marx's view the essential factor in capitalism is that the encroachment of the commodity form into society fundamentally changes the world.
     From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 6 'Historical'
     A reaction: The main point is that people and their labour become commodities. Haven't animals always been treated as commodities? Clearly slave were commodities, long before capitalism. Capitalism universalises it?
Marx thought capitalism was partly liberating, and could make labour and ownership more humane [Marx, by Bowie]
     Full Idea: Marx did not disapprove per se of capitalism. New divisions of labour and forms of ownership could transform individuals in modern societies, creating a more humane world with the means capitalism had liberated from feudalism.
     From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 11 'Metaphysics'
     A reaction: I'm guessing this might be early Marx, which has less to say about the 'scientific' inevitably of deep change, and the necessity for revolution. Nowadays we tinker with humane changes at the poorer end, while the rich run rampant.
Acquisition and low consumption lead to saving, investment, and increased wealth [Weber]
     Full Idea: If people are acquisitive but consumption is limited, the inevitable result is the accumulation of capital through the compulsion to save. The restraints on consumption naturally served to increase wealth by enabling the productive investment of capital.
     From: Max Weber (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism [1904], 5)
     A reaction: [compressed. He also quotes John Wesley saying this] In a nutshell, this is how the protestant ethic (esp. if puritan) drives capitalism. It also needs everyone to have a 'calling', and a rebellion against monasticism in favour of worldly work.
When asceticism emerged from the monasteries, it helped to drive the modern economy [Weber]
     Full Idea: When asceticism was carried out of the monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order.
     From: Max Weber (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism [1904], 5)
     A reaction: Since Max Weber's time I should think this is less and less true. If you hunt for ascetics in the modern world, they are probably dropped out, and pursuing green politics. Industrialists are obsessed with property and wine.
Capitalism is not unlimited greed, and may even be opposed to greed [Weber]
     Full Idea: Unlimited greed for gain is not in the least identical with capitalism, and is still less in its spirit. Capitalism may even be identical with the restraint, or at least a rational tempering, of this irrational impulse.
     From: Max Weber (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism [1904], Author's Intro)
     A reaction: The point is that profits have to be re-invested, rather than spent on pleasure. If we are stuck with capitalism we need a theory of Ethical Capitalism.
Modern western capitalism has free labour, business separate from household, and book-keeping [Weber]
     Full Idea: The modern Occident has developed a very different form of capitalism: the rational capitalist organisation of free labour …which needed two other factors: the separation of the business from the household, and the closely connected rational book-keeping.
     From: Max Weber (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism [1904], Author's Intro)
     A reaction: For small businesses the separation has to be maintained by a ruthless effort of imagination. Book-keeping is because the measure of loss and profit is the engine of the whole game. Labour had to be dragged free of family and community.
Men unite in pursuit of material things, and idealise greed as part of group loyalty [Russell]
     Full Idea: Men combine in groups to attain more strength in the scramble for material goods, and loyalty to the group spreads a halo of quasi-idealism round the central impulse of greed.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Political Ideals [1917], 1)
     A reaction: See the 'greed is good' speech in the film 'Wall Street'. This sounds like a description of the USA, but Russell was very much in England at this stage.
Marx showed that capitalist oppression, because of competition, is unstoppable [Weil]
     Full Idea: Marx gives a first-rate account of the mechanism of capitalist oppression; but so good is it that one finds it hard to visualise how this mechanism could cease to function. …The exploitation is the competitive need to expand as rapidly as possible.
     From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.39)
     A reaction: [Last bit compressed] This pinpoints the main motivation for desiring to overthrow capitalism. Resistance to that view is presumably the fear that an even worse oppression might replace it.
The capitalists neglect the people and the nation, and even their own interests [Weil]
     Full Idea: The capitalists have betrayed their calling by criminally neglecting not only the interests of the people, not only those of the nation, but even their own.
     From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Towns')
     A reaction: It is certainly true that the dedicated capitalist has little loyalty either to the people or to the nation. She doesn't spell out their failure of self-interest. I guess it produces a way of life they don't really want, deep down.
Once money is the main aim, society needs everyone to think wealth is possible [Weil]
     Full Idea: Money, once it becomes the goal of desires and efforts, cannot tolerate in its domain internal conditions in which it is impossible to be enriched.
     From: Simone Weil (The Work of a Free Person [1942], p.134)
     A reaction: The possibility for everyone that they might become rich seems basic to capitalism, even though it is utterly impossible. In theory we can all set up small successful businesses, but if they are good they nearly all get squeezed out.
We are currently extending capitalism to the whole of society [Deleuze]
     Full Idea: What characterises our situation is ….the extension of capitalism to the whole social body.
     From: Gilles Deleuze (Many Politics [1977], p.110)
     A reaction: This is driven by the naïve people who think all problems can be solved by market forces, and that to everything that goes bankrupt we should just say 'good riddance'.
Economic capitalist liberty naturally leads to democratic political liberty [Novak]
     Full Idea: The natural logic of capitalism leads to democracy. For economic liberties without political liberties are inherently unstable.
     From: Michael Novak (The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism [1982], p.15), quoted by David Conway - Capitalism and Community II
     A reaction: Not sure about 'inherently unstable'. Only in the sense that if you dish out economic liberties, people come to expect political liberties. China and Hong Kong are each currently facing this problem. Capitalist liberty can be highly restricted.
Anyone who thinks capitalism can improve their lives is endorsing capitalism [Lukes]
     Full Idea: Wage earners consent to capitalist organisation of society when they act as if they could improve their material conditions within the confines of capitalism.
     From: Steven Lukes (Power: a Radical View (2nd ed) [2005], Intro)
     A reaction: [He is citing Przeworski 1985] Not plausible as it stands. Does a prisoner who tries to improve their life within a hideous prison thereby endorse the prison system? In Auschwitz? Slaves can go along with the system for years, then suddenly rebel.
Capitalism may actually be the best way to foster community [Conway,D]
     Full Idea: Not only is there no good reason for supposing capitalism inimical to community, but there is reason to think it more conducive to community than the feasible alternatives to it.
     From: David Conway (Capitalism and Community [1996], I)
     A reaction: Conway is defending an obviously unorthodox view, while attacking the hopes of communitarians.
Capitalism is just the market, with optional limited government, and perhaps democracy [Conway,D]
     Full Idea: There are three types of capitalism: 1) the market - private ownership, labor contracts and profit, 2) limited government - the state provides goods the market cannot do, 3) limited government with democracy - with political freedom and elections.
     From: David Conway (Capitalism and Community [1996], II)
     A reaction: [compressed] I would have thought that capitalism is compatible with a fair degree of workplace democracy, which would make a fourth type.
Capitalism breaks up extended families, and must then provide welfare for the lonely people [Conway,D]
     Full Idea: It is said that capitalism encourages the breakup of extended families, which creates the need for extensive state welfare for those indigent members of society who can no longer rely on their own family to take care of them.
     From: David Conway (Capitalism and Community [1996], V)
     A reaction: Conway does not accept this claim. It seems to simplistic to say that capitalism is the sole culprit. Any rise of mechanisation in agriculture would break up rural extended families.
Capitalism prefers representative democracy, which avoids community decision-making [Conway,D]
     Full Idea: By opting for representative rather than direct democracy, capitalism is said to preclude political community, for which the citizens of a state must possess a common will, which needs their direct participation in decisions.
     From: David Conway (Capitalism and Community [1996], V)
     A reaction: Conway does not accept this claim. I'm beginning to wonder whether the famous British electoral system is actually a capitalist conspiracy against the people.
Capitalism is anti-community, by only valuing individuals, and breaking up families [Conway,D]
     Full Idea: Communitarns say capitalism is inimical to family community, because it encourages an individualistic mentality which only values self-fulfilment, and because it demands labour mobility which is disruptive of families.
     From: David Conway (Capitalism and Community [1996], VI)
     A reaction: Chicken-and-egg with the first one. Small entrepreneurs are individualists who seek their own gain. It is big capitalism that sucks in the others. Traditional community is based on labour-intensive agriculture.
It is hard to imagine the end of capitalism [Fisher]
     Full Idea: It is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.
     From: Mark Fisher (Capitalist Realism [2009], 1)
     A reaction: His book addresses the question of whether complacently accepting capitalism is the right attitude. I read it because I am complacently resigned to living with capitalism. If we started again, would capitalism be a rational choice?
Fans of economic freedom claim that capitalism is self-correcting [Micklethwait/Wooldridge]
     Full Idea: The central laissez-faire conceit is that capitalism is a self-correcting mechanism.
     From: Micklethwait,J/Wooldridge,A (The Fourth Revolution [2014], 3)
     A reaction: This was Keynes's rather left-wing criticism of standard capitalist views. These resurfaced in the 1980s with mantras about the virtues of 'market forces'.
The progress of capitalism depends entirely on the new discoveries and gadgets of science [Harari]
     Full Idea: The history of capitalism is unintelligible without taking science into account. …The human economy has managed to keep on going only thanks to the fact that scientists come up with a new discovery or gadget every few years.
     From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 16 'Growing')
     A reaction: For example, the desperate but unconvincing attempts to persuade us of the novelty of new models of car. Built-in obsolescence is needed once a design becomes static.
The sacred command of capitalism is that profits must be used to increase production [Harari]
     Full Idea: In the new capitalist creed, the first and most sacred commandment is: The profits of production must be reinvested in increasing production.
     From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 16 'Growing')
     A reaction: In this sense, capitalism is less greedy than its predecessors. 17th century aristocratic monopolists simply spent the profits of their activities. See the gorgeous clothes then (and pyramids and palaces), and the quiet suits of capitalists.
The main rule of capitalism is that all other goods depend on economic growth [Harari]
     Full Idea: The principle tenet of capitalism is that economic growth is the supreme good, or at least a proxy for it, because justice, freedom, and even happiness all depend on economic growth.
     From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 16 'Growing')
     A reaction: In this respect, the main opponent of captitalism is green politics, rather than marxism.
In capitalism the rich invest, and the rest of us go shopping [Harari]
     Full Idea: The supreme commandment of the rich is 'invest!', and the supreme commandment of the rest of us is 'buy!'
     From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 17 'Age')
     A reaction: Hence not only do the rich get much richer, while most of us remain roughly where we were, but there is a huge gulf between the investors and the non-investors. Encouraging small investors is a step forward.
The economy has replaced medieval theocracy at the centre of our society [Berardi]
     Full Idea: The economy has progressively acquired the central place in the system of knowledge and research. Re-enacting the privilege of theocracy in the Middle Ages.
     From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], I 'Knowledge')
     A reaction: Illuminating. This is indeed how the economy is treated, centring on Gross National Product (no matter how distributed), and economic league tables. Is it even a quasi-religion?
Environmental disasters result not from capitalism, but from a general drive for growth [Gopnik]
     Full Idea: It is the drive for growth, not capitalism in particular, that makes environmental disasters happen. Those caused by the command economics of Eastern Europe were far greater than even the worst known in Western Europe.
     From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 3)
     A reaction: So the next question is whether you can have capitalism without a drive for growth. I would have thought not, given the role recycled profit plays in driving capitalism. Command economies are more easily swept away.