One of the bigger lies on which capitalism relies
The essence of capitalism is discussed by many learned people. But, it is not all that complicated. In the end, capitalism is based on a lie about the nature of human beings. It requires people to accept as true something which is palpably false.
Capitalism defines us all as having one governing impulse. It sees women and men as economic individuals, first and last. Nothing but material gain is really important to us. Cheerleaders for capitalism assume that all individuals are happy to do whatever it takes to obtain what they need, to own for themselves the greatest amount of luxuries they can amass, preferably by taking as much advantage as they can from the work of others. They will compete fiercely with other people who are doing the same thing and try to exploit whatever cheap free resources on which they can get their hands. All these selfish activities will, in the aggregate, mean that a great deal of wealth will be generated and, in this way, the overall economy will benefit. This is the dogma that capitalists want to accept. If we do, capitalists make great gains for themselves.
By capitalism’s holding out that individuals are naturally selfish, the logic of capitalism says that it is for such self-interested individuals, and no one else, to determine how their assets and talents ought to be used. The allocation of the wealth produced should be based on individuals’ success or lack thereof. There should be as little government intervention as possible with this method of creating wealth. Indeed, governments should restrain themselves as much as politically possible from deciding how to use the nation’s assets and from yielding to the temptation to help out those who fail to compete effectively. They should not rescue those who have fallen by the wayside.
What is the Result?
The closer a society adheres to these ideas, the better it is for those who own most of the resources, the better it is for the wealthiest people in the land. But, this potential bonanza for capitalists is based on an unverified claim, namely, that all individuals are motivated by self-interest, and little else.
Capitalism is a system that is explicitly based on two ugly ingredients: greed and fear. The greed is to be the motivator for all of us to act as if our personal well-being was all that matters to us. We are to set out to outcompete all others. The fear we are to feel comes from the danger that others will outcompete us. That fear makes it easier for us to be mean to others, to exclude those deemed different and dangerous.
Much of what is repellent about capitalism is explained by this starting position. The result is that we are required to live in an ugly, anti-social world.
The evils generated by this big capitalist lie
The lie that the only thing which drives us is economic gain explains why, in a capitalist society there is no legal obligation on individuals to help others in need.
Say, a man walks past a pool of water, about 6 inches deep. He sees an infant, face-down, drowning in that puddle. He has just bought new shoes and does not want to get them wet and dirty. He walks on. The child drowns. Has he done something wrong? As a human being he has. He has acted villainously. Has he committed a legal wrong? No, he has not because as a capitalist he did what he is free to do: to be indifferent to all others.
Capitalist law does not tell us that we must rescue anyone in need of help unless we have a special relationship to the person in need. A parent, a police officer, a first responder has a duty to assist the stricken person. No one else does. Self-interest, rather than compassion and sharing, is what capitalist law promotes. Law feeds the lie: greed is natural and acceptable.
The acceptance of this pernicious lie explains why Barbara McDougall, a former Minister of Finance and loyal servant of capitalism, thought it appropriate to tell the public that “There is one underlying motive in business by all—it is greed. We support it wherever it happens.”
This lie explains why a chief executive at a corporation saw himself as justified, as well as legally entitled, to increase the price of a drug which only his firm produced by 5000%. The fact that this left people suffering from a deadly parasitic disease to die was a predictable and common outcome from giving the capitalist lie room to operate. The same is true of the manufacture of the EpiPen. The EpiPen has the capacity to save the lives of the many people who suffer anaphylaxis attacks. Over two years the company that owned the EpiPen raised the price of the EpiPen by 600%. The CEO’s pay packet increased by 671% to reach 18.9 million per year. Barbara McDougall would have been proud.
The lie explains why, when Amtrak had a terrible accident, causing the loss of many lives and interrupted railway services, airlines immediately hiked the cost of their flights enormously. Undoubtedly, they felt morally justified and knew they were legally entitled to do what they did. They were, in capitalist terms, satisfying their greed by taking advantage of the plight of others. How could anyone possibly fault that kind of ethical thinking?!
The lie explains why General Motors felt it had to close its Oshawa plant and leave the workers to the mercy of the labour markets. After all, as naturally greedy people they had to do what is best for themselves, not others. By “themselves” they meant their unseen shareholders who had never done a day’s work at General Motors. The lie justified GM to ignore the “others”, that is, the workers who had worked hard to ensure General Motors and its shareholders’ well-being.
The lie explains why Exxon, knowing about the dangers of its profit-chasing ,to the ecology in the early 1970s felt justified, and legally entitled, to look after its interests and hide the nasty news and set out to throw doubt on any external scientist who contended that the use of fossil fuels endangered our planet. The lie justified more lying.
Capitalists have created a moral fog.
The legitimation of selfishness, of this grand lie about human nature, even if it comes at the expense of others, of their physical and environmental well-being, allows the ceaseless drive to accumulate socially produced wealth to continue unabated. And so the material and social harms keep coming. The lie about the essential nature of human beings—as the above examples show us—has been rendered even more damaging by allowing non-human entities, corporations, to use it as the rationale for their anti-social behaviours. This is monstrous because by definition they have no natural characteristics.
It is a brutal system, one that denies everything that could be decent about human beings and a society.
What human beings are truly like
The assertion that women and men are first and foremost rational economic beings can only be made by people bent on deception. Centuries of historical records and our everyday experiences refute the idea that human beings are so limited, are so crudely simple and have no other redeeming traits and aspirations. If we actually treated our friends, families, lovers, neighbours, as capitalism says we would naturally do, that is, by seeking to outcompete them to feed our greed at their expense, we would not have sufficient cohesion to keep society together. So, we do not behave as though we want to be alone on an island, keeping its bounty for ourselves. Only the capitalists who seek to govern us and our thoughts do that, often literally as they hide in gated communities and on floating yachts. By contrast, most of us show kindness, generosity and respect to those around us. That is a common trait. More, our daily conduct reveals our shared awareness that we are to relate to each other through a web of rules and norms that emphasise the significance and efficiency of co-operation as opposed to the pursuit of self-obsessed satisfaction.
It was not until capitalism reached maturity that greed was taken off the list of worst of sins. Greed was seen by the great ethical, philosophy and religious leaders as a vice that impeded the attainment of human beings’ potential. Inasmuch as some people were inclined to be greedy, they were discouraged.
Altruism, mutual support and compassion were, and are, virtues that inhere in people and were and are encouraged. And they are far more natural than selfishness. Even some rich people like to give to charity, especially if they get a tax break and their name on plaque, but they do not want to be forced to share their wealth. Most people would pick the baby out of the water; most people would be horrified by anyone who did not. The widespread willingness of so many people to share what little they have with victims of natural disasters and wars while expecting no reward for such gestures, speaks to the falsity of the assertion that greed is the main and governing character trait of each and everyone of us and that we should just it let it have its head. Millions of Canadians are engaged in volunteer work on a regular basis. They are not seeking to advance themselves at the expense of others or their environments. A caring sensibility is what truly characterises most of us. Capitalism needs to have us repress these humane instincts.
It suits capitalists to sell us on an impoverished view of human nature. But, in our bones, we know that we are not just economic women and men; we are better than that; we know what we are like and that the logic of capitalism denies living fuller and more meaningful lives. We are not happy.
It is time to confront this big lie and dare to be happy.