Capitalism: What is it, and what is it good for?
Capitalism: What is it, and what is it good for?
And what does that say about us?
OVERVIEW
"If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask… for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes." - Albert Einstein
This is one of those fifty-five minute questions I think, it really brings to the surface a few different issues that we all have to grapple with if we really care, such as:
What defines a human being and what constitutes human nature?
Is the essence of a human being inherently 'good' or desirable? If so, why?
If human beings are 'rational,' how should we define rationality, given our answers to the above?
Knowing human nature, can we resist or mold it towards a 'better' state? 'Better' by whose standards?
If we can't, what does our appeal to 'rationality' imply?
How does Capitalism fit with the big picture our answers to these questions paint?
The following will attempt to answer these questions step-by-step, culminating with some thinking on how Capitalism relates to them.
So far from what I have seen in this thread, most haven't been driving deeply enough into questions like the above, questions that necessarily come prior to anything we can say about the whether or not Capitalism is natural to human beings. (And so my coverage of Capitalism itself will come last of all).
RATIONALITY
I don't intend to try and exhaustively define what 'rationality' must mean. But a key part of it, if we're to consider it as a term with substance beyond emotional satisfaction, is that it must include free will. It must describe beings that can deliberate and come to the truth of questions, and choose not just outward actions, but also decide what they believe about propositions and ideas.
Rationality includes the ability to see that even though the stick appears crooked in the water, that it really is not. Rationality means that we can scrutinize our own perception of a situation to see if it is correct or not.
ALTRUISM
In the same vein as above, there is another word that needs defining. That word is altruism. What do we mean by this word? By and large it is a decrepit thing that I do not view as a valid synonym for what people sometimes mistakenly equate it with, love.
Consider its origin; coined by a French thinker named Auguste Comte, and the reason he needed the word is only because he couldn't lay legitimate claim on love.
"So altruism is not the same thing as love", you ask? No it is not, and here is some of why:
Altruism disguises the fact that it does not know what the human being is, (and therefore cannot say what would be beneficial for an individual soul, let alone a tribe or nation) by appealing to what I'm going to call a 'conceptual box' like the good of society and social cohesion.
The problem with these 'conceptual boxes' is that they're empty; they skip a step. They fail to establish the value of the individual souls that make-up those collectives. And this means they do not understand the collectives themselves. And so this being the case, what must unavoidably happen by having put this cart before the horse? The dehumanized mob, not understanding itself, eats everything it can before eating itself.
Altruism mindlessly dictates that the individual should give themselves up for the collective-other just because the other happens to be a collective. It ascribes a moral importance to a numerical value that it does not deserve. Empty boxes piled high are still empty, and likely denote a pile of garbage.
LOVE
To sharpen the edges of this thing I'm trying to bring into focus, let's juxtapose it besides love. And what love tells us about ourselves:
Love does not say to the individual that they must give themselves over to the collective. It does not - like altruism does - argue that outside and apparent from the collectives impersonal will, that they as individual persons have no value. Love serves as a bridge, starkly contrasting with the club that altruism wields. It is built on a truth, and that truth is the innate value of every human life. To do the right thing is to act in the knowledge of this value, both of the oneself and of the other that one is engaging with; whether the context is economic or not.
The detractors of altruism, frequently conflate it with love, but as we have just seen they are not the same thing. This leaves the detractors of altruism correct about its being wrong, but they are correct for the wrong reasons. And frequently they do even worse damage than altruism does to peoples self perception, in that they frequently condemn altruism by attacking the notion of free will and individual agency altogether, citing impersonal forces like animal lust as being the real cause of things. It’s the epistemological equivalent of suicide, really.
SELFISHNESS
In the same way that altruism is incorrectly conflated with love, so selfishness is equated with rational self interest. Problem being, selfishness is harmful to the self in the same way gluttony is. Why? The math can get complicated, but the basic principle is this: if we deny the innate value of our fellow human beings, we inevitably deny our own innate value as humans! And sans innate value, no value can be created out of thin air.
RECAP
Let's survey the ground we have just been over. In brief:
Love is not altruism, and altruism fails to comprehend the individual human being's essence and worth.
Rationality entails free will or it amounts to nothing.
The human being possesses rationality and thus free will, as well as an intrinsic value revealed through love.
RATIONAL SELF INTEREST
Keeping the above in view, let's turn our attention to this phrase rational self interest.
Because selfishness cannot but lead to self disrespect for the reason given above, it leaves us all wondering what it possibly could mean now that that incorrect meaning attributed to it has been removed from the running.
The dark horse definition is the one that the reality of love as well as the reality of free will provides us.
CAPITALISM
So if it is in the nature of the human being to be rational, and that love is the rational thing to do because it is a response to the truth of innate human value... where does this leave Capitalism?
Just like we've defined every other big term we've come across, we have to define Capitalism before we can answer this question:
In its primary sense, Capitalism is merely a tool, which in and of itself is neither moral nor immoral. It can be used well, or it can be used greedily. It can be used cruelly or it can be used charitably. It can be used wisely or it can be used stupidly.
"The goal of all rational entrepreneurship must be to satisfy the needs of consumers, not to ignore them! Discovering and fulfilling the needs of customers is the essence of market capitalism. Imagine how far a TV manufacturer would get if he decides to build TVs that only tune into his five favorite channels, the consumer be damned. It wouldn’t be long before he would be on the road to bankruptcy." - Mark Skousen
Now taking all of the above together, can we say that the fentanyl dealer or the slave trader is as good a capitalist as a doctor working to cure cancer or even roadwork crews?
No we cannot, because Capitalism is a tool that has to have firm purchase underneath it if it to be leveraged to accomplish anything! The solid ground is in part located on the dignity of a human person, which is what justifies the whole idea of private property and the individuals prerogative to discover as best they can how they ought to order their own needs and communicate those needs to the market.
Capitalism as being only an instrument is one piece of ultimately answering the question "are humans naturally capitalist"?
"OK GUTENBERG, PROVE IT"
I don't feel the need to argue that free will exist (And free will is important, most other economic systems seem underpinned by an assumption that it is either illusory or insignificant). I tend to roll my eyes at its deniers who are invalidating anything they might say against its existence, since per them I wouldn't be free to think other than I do, anyway. Nor would they be free to “think” (if we can call mechanism.. “thinking”) anything. Kill free will and you kill truth. On the other hand, I do not err in the opposite extreme, which is where some say human freedom is limitless. Rather, our freedom is to be exercised in regard to our most fundamental beingness and our teleology. Freedom is the fruit of a tree that bears it, our nature. A thorough coverage of how to cross the divide between is and ought is beyond the scope of this answer, but it would be the next step to take for those who want to research the implications of this argument overall.
As for rationality and how I have outlined it, it makes no sense outside the context of free will.
Altruism is a bit stickier, but again it is not the same thing as love, I say it is anti-love. Consider the acts of selflessness displayed by parents towards their children. A mother or father may sacrifice their own comfort, time, resources, or even their life, for the sake of their children's well-being. This can be seen in simple everyday tasks (giving up their own time for the child's activities) to extreme circumstances (a parent risking their life to save their child from danger). This is is not describable or even justifiable by altruism, as it is not done with an impersonal collective in mind, but rather, with a deep personal connection and understanding of the inherent value of the child. This good state-of-affairs cannot be accounted for by biology alone, plenty of parents have murdered their own children.
CONCLUSION
Viewing Capitalism as only a tool, we can reformulate the question like so, "is it the right tool for the job?" Is it a tool that best fits respecting innate human value, human free will and rationality, and human responsibility towards their own persons and all other persons?
Yes. And it is our tool, we are not the tool of it anymore than the we are the tool of the hammer. Which is not to say it isn't possible to hit your hand with the hammer, rather than the nail.
Greed is not good, and beyond that, greed is not something innate in Capitalism but rather in many people who use Capitalism as an instrument; these sort, like the glutton, ought to put the spoon down!
Even so, like many well designed tools Capitalism comes with some safety features built into its logic, one of which is to redirect greed to unselfish ends as much as possible.
Ultimately those who wield the tool are who matter. Self control and self respect disallow greed and demand that we acknowledge the value of others in intrinsic and fundamental terms rather than in egoist-utilitarian platitudes. The market is made for man, and not man for the market. The bathwater is for the babe and not the babe for the bath. How could anyone who claims to respect a system that is founded on an honest understanding of value, reject the most fundamental values in existence, that of the human soul?
Value is more than the work of mens hands.
Authors notes:
If you have made it this far dear reader, bless you. I added this section to the post to point out that the above was originally written and posted here.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you found something to think about. We are a puzzle, and puzzles have a point.