Capitalism

“If civilization is to go no further than this, it had better not have gone so far: if it does not aim at getting rid of this misery and giving some share in the happiness and dignity of life to all the people that it has created . . . it is simply an organized injustice, a mere instrument for oppression, so much the worse than that which has gone before it, as its pretensions are higher, its slavery subtler, its mastery harder to overthrow, because supported by such a dense mass of commonplace wellbeing and comfort.”

William Morris wrote this in 1880. It could, of course, been written by any of us today. I read this quote of Morris, a British writer and social critic, in The Essential E.P. Thompson, and I’ve also read about Morris, as well as other writers, who railed against what capitalism and the industrial revolution were doing to the people and culture of 18th and 19th century Britain, in Raymond Williams’ book The Country and the City. Historians Williams and Thompson take a look at how the notion of cultural materialism enhances—or detracts from —Marxist economic theory. This is a subject that any of us who were active in the 20th century’s sixties revolution of consciousness had to deal with, whether we were conversant with the terminology “cultural materialism” or just knew, in our guts, that while we were intent on smashing an economic system we also had to be intent on smashing racism, sexism, homophobia, and hierarchy.

Now that it’s the 21st century, it’s both helpful and painful to read the comments of Morris or Samuel Taylor Coleridge or D.H Lawrence, who lament the losses associated with capitalism—the cultivation of our humanity—and its emphasis—the “forcing of all human energy into a competition of mere acquisition.” It’s helpful, of course, because it binds us to these historical figures in a way that ensures a continuum of caring and activism. It’s painful in that we’re still, 200 years later, struggling against the same system that consigned the British laborer to the stultifying slums of London, the African slave to the plantations of American, and the Mexican peasant to las maquiladoras de la frontera.

The fact remains that neither Morris’ literary assault nor the Students for a Democratic Society’s physical assault on the imperial bastions of Britain and the U.S. have done much to rein in the “organized injustice” of capitalism. Its reach is now global, and threatens the last isolated societies that have somehow managed to maintain a semblance of communal or subsistence living. The one revolutionary society we have witnessed over the course of our lives – Cuba – will inevitably transition from its relative isolation and self-determination once Castro is gone. As soon as the U.S. lifts its embargo – which has caused enormous pain and suffering in that country – the exerted economic and political pressures may be too much for Cuba to withstand. Will its fate come down to a power struggle between the U.S. and Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela? It’s hard for most of us in this country to understand what is really happening in Venezuela; all we get are sound bites from the mainstream press and the occasional alternative reports that either glorify or criticize Chavez with a cynicism born of the history of too many Latino strongmen in too many countries with too many ties to empire.

So where does this leave us? The debate between revolutionary and evolutionary change that engaged us for so many years seems largely irrelevant. In his book After Theory Terry Eagleton reminds us “it is one thing to make a revolution, and another to sustain it. “ What is it about this country, established by revolution (elitist as it was) that created the notion of the rugged individualist, the mentality of “pulling oneself up by his or her bootstraps”, so pervasive and so ungovernable? In a pithy few sentences in Richard Russo’s Bridge of Sighs the mother says to her son, “You don’t identify with people worse off than you are. You make your deals, if you can, with those who have more, because you hope one day to have more yourself. Understand that, she claimed, and you understand America . . . “ Max Weber’s theory, of course, is that it’s the spillover of the individualistic Puritan ethic once the religious asceticism has escaped from the cage: “In the field of its highest development, in the United States, the pursuit of wealth, stripped of its religious and ethical meaning, tends to become associated with purely mundane passions, which often actually give it the character of sport,” i.e., competition. In his brilliant book Diary of A Bad Year, South African writer J.M. Coetzee, who now lives in Australia, reminds us that it is not just Americans who embrace this philosophy, it’s also true of Australians, who believe they live in a “no-class” society where “energy, hard work, and a belief in one’s self” make us all equal partners in the global market. “If we don’t compete, we will perish.” Americans still set the standard, however, and even European countries that many liberals look to as better models of how to achieve prosperity and enlightened social policies were part of the “coalition of the willing.”

I still believe there is a desire in humankind to live in societies that provide for everyone equally, but our lack of altruism, on any kind of organized level, and our admiration of the accumulation of money, which translates into success and power, are unabashed.
I find myself worrying about Malthusian disasters – mass starvation due to the complete loss of topsoil or the collapse of genetic diversity; global warming that melts the icebergs and raises the sea level whereby New York City and Los Angeles drop off into the ocean ¬– that leave those of us with access to clean water and land to grow food holding the proverbial bag. And it better not be a bag full of greed and competition and built-in obsolescence and material accumulation, or the cycle repeats itself again. I don’t really know if there is such a thing as progress (an upcoming blog called Progress/Enlightenment) but there has got to be a better way to ensure that all of us have access to our material, cultural, and spiritual needs.