What reason can anyone give me to not to prefer the annihilation of all mankind to a scratch on my finger?
I
have been trying to make capitalism look bad as bad as it really is. I
have argued that capitalism is war, and that those of us who do not own
capital suffer from it just as do civilian populations caught between
opposing armies, or as foot soldiers conscripted into armies fighting
for interests that are not our own. I've tried to show that capitalism
is the violent negation of democracy, for it is the interests of those
who own capital that determine how we live: their jobs, products,
services, manufactured culture, and propaganda shape our lives and our
minds.
Today I'd like to point to the ways in
which capital undermines the foundation of moral life. Well, what is
the foundation of moral life? What makes it possible for human beings
to recognize that they have responsibilities to each other and to their
communities? For example: What could possibly make anyone willing to
pay living wages to workers in Indonesia or Haiti if you canget them to
work for less? The 18th Century philosopher David Hume asks, What
reason can anyone give me to notto prefer the annihilation of all
mankind to a scratch on my finger? Hume is one of many philosophers who
argue that no such reason can be given. This means that the foundation
of ethics lies not in reason, but rather in our passions or our hearts.
For Hume it is part of our nature that we feel sympathy for each other,
and thissympathy counters our narrow self-interest. Other
philosophers have taken similar positions.
Josiah
Royce an American philosopher ofthe last century argued that you do not
really understand another person if youdo not understand her
aspirations, fears, and needs. But to understand someone's feelings is,
in part, to sharethem. And you cannot share an aspiration or a need
without wanting to see it fulfilled, nor can you share afear without
hoping that it will not come to pass. So the mere recognition of what
other human beings areinvolves us in wanting to see them live and
prosper.
The French-Jewish philosopher Emmanual
Levinás whose majorwork appeared in 1961 claims that ethics arises in
the experience of the faceof the other. The human facereveals its
capacity for suffering, a suffering we are capable of eitherinflicting
or opposing. So to lookinto the face of another human being is to see
the commandment, Thou shalt not kill.
Another
American philosopher, Nel Noddings, in her 1984 book Caring, argues
that the ethical commitment arises out of the caringresponse that most
of us feel towards those who, like children, are inneed. Most parents
encouragethis caring response in their children, with the result that
we grow up with aninterest in cultivating our own capacity to care for
others.
Now none of these philosophers are naive:
none of them thinks that sympathy, love, or caring determines all, or
even most, human behavior. The 20th century proves otherwise. What they
do offer, though, is the hopethat human beings have the capacity towant
the best for each other. So now we must ask, What forces are at work in
our world to block orcripple the ethical response? This question, of
course, brings me back to capitalism. But before I go there, I want to
acknowledge that capitalism is not the only thing that blocks our
ability to care. Exploitation and cruelty were around long before the
economic system of capitalism came to be, and the temptation to use and
abuse others will probably survive in any future society that might
supersede capitalism. Nevertheless, I want to claim, the putting the
world at the disposal of those with capital has done more damage to the
ethical life than any thing else.
To put it in
religiousterms, capital is the devil. To show why this is the case, let
me turn to capital's greatest critic, Karl Marx. Under capitalism, Marx
writes, everything in nature and everything that human beings are and
can do becomes an object: a resource for, or an obstacle, to the
expansion of production, the development of technology, the growth of
markets,and the circulation of money. For those who manage and live
from capital, nothing has value of its own. Mountain streams, clean
air, human lives all mean nothing in themselves, but are valuable only
if they can be used to turn a profit. If capital looks at (not into)
the human face, it sees there only eyes through which brand names and
advertising can enter and mouths that can demand and consume food,
drink, and tobacco products. If human faces express needs, then either
products can be manufactured to meet, or seem to meet, those needs, or
else, if the needs are incompatible with the growth of capital, then
the faces expressing them must be unrepresented or silenced.
Obviously
what capitalist enterprises do have consequences for the well being of
human beings and the planet we live on. Capital profits from the
production of food, shelter, and all the necessities of life. The
production of all these things uses human lives in the shape of labor,
as well as the resources of the earth. If we care about life, if we
see our obligations in each others faces, then we have to want all the
things capital does to be governed by that care, to be directed by
theethical concern for life. But feeding people is not the aim of the
food industry, or shelter the purpose of the housing industry. In
medicine, making profits is becoming a more important goal than caring
for sick people.
As capitalist enterprises these
activities aim single-mindedly at the accumulation of capital, and such
purposes as caring for the sick or feeding the hungry becomes a mere
means to an end, an instrument of corporate growth. Therefore ethics,
the overriding commitment to meeting human need, is left out of
deliberations about what the heavyweight institutions of our society
are going to do. Moral convictions are expressed in churches, in living
rooms, in letters to the editor, sometimes even by politicians and
widely read commentators, but almost always with an attitude of
resignation to the inevitable. People no longer say, "You can'tstop
progress," but only because they have learned not to call economic
growth progress. They still think they can't stop it. And they are
right as long as the production of all our needs and the organization
of our labor is carried out under private ownership. Only a minority
("idealists") can take seriously a way of thinking that counts for
nothing in real world decision making. Only when the end of capitalism
is on the table will ethics have a seat at the table.
Capitalism:
is an economic system in which wealth, and the means of producing
wealth, are privately owned and controlled rather than commonly,
publicly, or state-owned and controlled. Through capitalism, the land,
labor, and capital are owned, operated, and traded by private
individuals either singly or jointly, and investments, distribution,
income, production, pricing and supply of goods, commodities and
services are determined by voluntary private decision in a market
economy.A distinguishing feature of capitalism is that each person owns
his orher own labor and therefore is allowed to sell the use of it
toemployers. In a "capitalist state", private rightsproperty relations
are protected by the rule of law of a limited regulatory framework. In
the modern capitalist state, legislative though the state may provide
some public goods and infrastructure and action is confined to defining
and enforcing the basic rules of the market,Some consider laissez-faire
to be "pure capitalism." Laissez-faireminimizing or eliminating Because
all large economies today have a mixture of private and public
ownership and control, some feel that the term "mixed economies" more
precisely describes most contemporary economies. In the "capitalist
mixed economy", the state intervenes in market activity and provides
many services.state interference in economic affairs and the
competitive process,allowing the free play of supply and demand.
Laissez-faire capitalismhas never existed in practice. (French, "leave
to do (by itself)"), signifies During the last century, capitalism has
often been contrasted with centrally planned economies.
The
central axiom of capitalism is that the best allocation ofresources is
achieved through consumers having free choice, andproducers responding
accordingly to meet collective consumer demand.This contrasts with
planned economies in which the state directs whatshall be produced. A
consequence is the belief that privatizationof previously
state-provided services will tend to achieve a moreefficient delivery
thereof. Further implications are usually in favorof free trade, and
abolition of subsidies.Although individuals and groups must act
rationally in any society fortheir own good, the consequences of both
rational and irrationalactions are said to be more readily apparent in
a capitalist society.
Capitalistic economic practices
incrementally became institutionalized in England between the 16th and
19th centuries, although some features of capitalist organization
existed in the ancient world, and early aspects of merchant capitalism
flourished during the Late Middle Ages. Capitalism has been dominant in
the Western world since the end of feudalism.From Britain, it gradually
spread throughout Europe, across politicaland cultural frontiers. In
the 19th and 20th centuries, capitalismprovided the main, but not
exclusive, means of industrialization throughout much of the world.
