capitalism: uninspiring and soulless?
Teppo
Via A&L Daily — an interesting essay (from a right-of-center think tank) that wrestles with the matter of why capitalism does not seem to inspire, whereas socialism does.
Boring capitalism cannot hope to compete with [socialism's] moral certainty, self-righteous anger, and sheer bloody excitement. Where is the adrenalin in getting up every day, earning a living, raising a family, creating a home, and saving for the future? Where is the moral crusade in buying and selling, borrowing and lending, producing and consuming? The Encyclopedia Britannica describes ‘soul music’ as ‘characterised by intensity of feeling and earthiness.’ It is in this sense that capitalism is soulless, for although it fills people’s bellies, it struggles to engage their emotions.
We tend to base our judgments of others (and ourselves) on motives rather than outcomes. Saunders ignores the central point that the primary motivation for capitalism is self-interest while the primary motivation for socialism is altruistic. Capitalism, like all seven of the deadly sins, places the interest of the individual above that of the collectivity. Little wonder that those Aussie students thought that it wasn’t good for the soul.
Jay Livingston
January 23, 2008 at 1:04 pm
This seems to be a common view. Viviana Zelizer, in a nice Sociological Forum essay (1988), described this perspective as the “boundless market” critique of markets. (Also see Albert Hirschman’s great essay, “Rival Views of Market Society.”) Markets are thought to be destructive of social life, eroding moral, social, and cultural institutions. Zelizer’s own perspective is that markets are multiply embedded in social institutions. You can’t really disentangle people’s passions from their interests, the moral from the rational. Meaning informs most consumer decisions, and so it’s a mistake, according to the “multiple markets” view, to describe markets (or capitalism, more generally) as being soulless.
brayden
January 23, 2008 at 3:16 pm
It’s all in the framing. If “capitalism” is taken to mean business administration, wealth accumulation, finance — “bulls . . . bears . . . people from Connecticut!”, as Seinfeld once put it — then one can imagine young people’s eyes glazing over. But the opposite of socialism isn’t “capitalism,” that shopworn Marxist term, but “the free market” or “the voluntary society” or, simply, “liberalism.” The great evangelists for the free market, from the classical liberals and Bastiat to Hayek and Friedman, wrote about from coercion, individual autonomy, the rights of free association, and the like, not the mundane business of buying and selling. (Not that there’s anything _wrong_ with buying and selling.)
Leonard Rapping once took the pro-capitalist “new classical” macroeconomists (Lucas, Sargent) to task for framing their arguments in technical efficiency terms: “Many of the young and idealistic are attracted by the concepts of freedom and justice, not efficiency and abundance. Aside from their contributions to economic theory, Friedman and Hayek wrote powerful defenses of capitalism as a system that promotes liberal democracy and individual freedom. This attracted to their ideas many adherents outside of economics. The new classicals have no such agenda. They operate in the rarefied world of economic theory and mathematical exposition.”
My guess is that these Australian students have had some economics courses but have never read Bastiat, Mill, Hayek, Friedman, Rothbard, etc. etc. I take that as an indictment of their professors, not the market.
Peter Klein
January 23, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Sorry, “from coercion” in the first paragraph should read “freedom from coercion.”
Peter Klein
January 23, 2008 at 5:03 pm
I’m not sure what Brayden means by “this” — the first word in his post. But to clarify what I said: I don’t mean that I think capitalism is “bad for the soul.” I was trying to explain why the Aussie students might think so.
There’s also the question “whose soul?” The irony is that the altruistically motivated socialists — the good souls– have often wound up creating a soul-deadening environment for others, while the selfish capitalists (the bad souls) have often created a vibrant, soul-enhancing environment for others. But as I said, the students seem to be placing more weight on the soul’s motivation and intent than on its results.
Of course, that’s the way it looks from 2008. The soul-enhancing benefits of capitalism might have been harder to see in the late 19th century.
Jay Livingston
January 23, 2008 at 8:56 pm
HTM illiteracy — only the first “I” in the above is supposed to be in italics. I thought I put after it, but obviously I didn’t.
Jay Livingston
January 23, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Sorry Jay. By “This” I was referring to the quote from the A&L Daily article.
brayden
January 24, 2008 at 5:59 am