Over time, the promotion of selfishness as a virtue not only changes the way we look at ourselves, it influences the way we relate to each other and to the planet itself. Instead of citizens who define themselves in relation to common goods, we are reduced, under the selfish orientation of capitalism, to aggregates of self-interested atomistic individuals encouraged to believe that we can continue a lifetime of limitless consumption. Those who are entirely left out of the consumer game - the increasing numbers of homeless, stateless refugees, destitute and imprisoned whose day-to-day life is taken up by the fight for mere survival - are the necessary residue of a global capitalist system. . . . Despite some indications to the contrary, Hobbes theory of human nature is unambiguously presupposed in Locke, Smith and Ricardos elaboration of capitalist political economy. All are essentially in agreement with the idea that we are by nature selfish creatures. Perhaps it is only in this sense we can be said to be equals - we are all equally selfish. However, such a presupposition, by any objective measure, is simply false. We know today, from abundant empirical, sociological, psychological, genetic, archaeological and anthropological evidence, that Hobbes theory of human nature as intrinsically selfish is deeply flawed. We are not naturally selfish - though we can, indeed, learn to be so. In other words, within a capitalist system it can become trueover over the course of time that an elite few will be chiefly oriented by greed, narcissism or selfishness - and some of the latter not so very far from the squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinners! Dickens describes Mr. Scrooge as in A Christmas Carol. Of course, today the latter are no longer viewed as sinners. The real problem is that in our present world they are the glorified masters of our economies and governments. They are continuously praised, deferred to, considered above the laws of the land and allowed to live in a world of unabashed opulence entirely walled off from the rabble of mankind. Succinctly put, in capitalism, the greedy of the world have discovered their ideal legitimating cover: the promotion of a self-serving economics that turns the vice of selfishness into the highest virtue human beings can realize! History aside, from our own contemporary perspective, we can get a sense of really existing capitalism by virtue of the following thought-experiment, which reveals the latter in its unadorned state. Imagine that we were able, right now, to ask the 7 or so billion people living on the planet whether they would choose an economic system that would inevitably lead to massive wealth and income inequalities, that would severely limit equal opportunity, that would force whole populations to live under perpetual economic austerity, that would erode any possibility of meaningful and democratic political participation, that would devastate the health of the planet and the human body while externalizing the costs of such destruction onto everyone, with the exception of a very privileged few. Now . . . how many people do you think would actually opt for such an arrangement? Honest answer: Almost no one! The only people who would agree to such a set of conditions would be an infinitesimally small group whose present privileged economic status would be protected and furthered by maintaining the status quo. The fact is that though there are many manifestations of the capitalist system, the intentional logic of capitalism always was, and still is, the same: to protect and perpetuate the power, status and privilege of the few, while impoverishing everyone else.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 01:05:48 +0000
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