There’s an ugly secret hiding in the dark heart of capitalism… and it’s us.
“Capitalism is dead.”
You might not have noticed. I hadn’t. Last time I looked it was still doing yoga-lates in the park.
But that’s the word on the street. Capitalism is dead. Now we’re just waiting for everyone to catch on.
Personally, I’m going to miss capitalism. He was always good for a laugh. And his tireless charity work went largely un-noticed. Sure, he ate a few babies in his time, but you can’t judge the older generations by the standards of today.
But walk down Brunswick street, and there are lines of hipsters with shovels, just looking for somewhere to dig capitalism’s grave.
(Finally the whole long beard / lumberjack jacket thing makes sense. They were just itching to get into a bit of physical labour.)
And this is Naomi Klein’s thesis. Capitalism may have worked wonders, but it’s destroying the planet and creating a massive schism between the 1% and the 99%. We’ve got droughts in California, obese kids in Australia, and more mobile phones than we have places to bury them.
And so now humanity faces a choice. It’s either capitalism or the planet. The free-market, or extinction.
But hang on to your shovels young hipsters. Let’s just wait a second. Is that really the choice we’re facing?
Now I don’t want to be a suffering denialist. I’m not out there saying everything’s perfect and reports of starving children in Africa are nothing but a UN-coordinated conspiracy.
Sure. The world’s F’d up. But it always has been. And it helps me sleep at night remembering that it’s a lot less F’d up than it used to be.
But there’s a logical pirouette there that says that the world is F’d up, therefore capitalism is the problem. My old mind doesn’t have the ankles for moves like that anymore.
Because there’s a test I like to call Giaan’s Rusty Razor. The Rusty Razor goes:
“The simplest solution is often that people are idiots.”
It’s an amazingly powerful idea. Many of the problems that have baffled philosophers through the centuries, simply come down to the fact that people are idiots.
Wars, famines, pop music – many of these things can be explained by garden-variety idiocy.
And so before we going pointing the finger at the abstract notion of ‘capitalism’, we need to rule out that the world isn’t F’d up simply because people are idiots.
And to me, it’s not clear that we can. Idiocy creates a lot of problems.
And I think the mistake here is to give a “system” too much agency. We tend to personify it. Capitalism is evil. Capitalism doesn’t value the planet. Capitalism secretly desires to sell your children into slavery and make you pay for doctors visits.
I see people do it with politics all the time. We complain that we have sound-byte politicians focused on short-term political cycles. But then we only pay attention to sound-bytes and have incredibly short memories, and no patience for long-term policies.
So our ‘leaders’ aren’t the problem here. We are.
“People will get the leaders they deserve.”
And so when I hear people complaining about the “excesses of capitalism”, I really hear people complaining about other people.
Our t-shirts are made in Asian sweat-shops because we don’t care where they’re made. We only care about price. Our corporations pollute the environment because the people running those corporations are greedy idiots… just like the rest of us. And we have a world that sifts the 1% from the 99% because we value the potential to get one-up on our neighbour more than we value equality.
We are idiots. Vain, selfish, jealous idiots.
Of course we can rise above our idiocy and into more refined expressions of humanity. But that takes work.
Oh, did I mention we’re lazy?
The way I see it, this is our fundamental nature. It doesn’t limit our potential to be awesome, but we also need to be realistic about what we’re working with.
And so when people are complaining about capitalism, it really seems to me that they’re complaining that capitalism hasn’t been able to contain the worst expressions of human nature.
And that might be true. But is it the role of an economic system to do that? If we’re writing up the job description for our economic system, are we saying:
Must be able to:
- Allocate resources relatively efficiently, provide for material improvements in the standard of living, eliminate famines; and
- Stop people from being greedy and selfish idiots, and help them live virtuous and fulfilling lives, full of volunteering and bake-sales.
I just don’t think it’s a reasonable thing to ask. Question 1 is incredibly difficult as it is, and we’ve been pretty lucky to stumble onto a system that’s gotten us this far, I reckon.
And number 2 is really a question about morality. And moral codes don’t come from economists. They definitely shouldn’t come from economists.
Morality comes from religion or philosophy.
And so when I look at the F’d up stuff going on in the world, I think these idiots need some morality. I don’t think they need a better economic system.
“It’s not his fault your honour. He was raised in a modern capitalist economy.”
If anything, capitalism is too effective. It seems like a problem because it’s awfully effective at helping greedy and selfish people express their greed and selfishness.
But the problem is with the people. It’s with us. And it’s about how we refine our expressions, and draw out our generosity, our charity and our caring natures.
But this requires taking a good look at our dark hearts. And it requires a fair amount of work.
And maybe that’s why nobody’s talking about it.
Much easier to shout angry slogans at abstract concepts.
Is capitalism the problem or is there something else that is stuffed?
Is greed good or have we lost our moral compass?
Your thoughts..?
Trevor Baret says
Great post Jon.
Love your work.
I have always believed in Capitalism, and I have also understood that Corporations are not necessarily bad – only if they are run by idiots or greedy people.
Unfortunately, the greedy ones get the headlines and the good ones don’t.
For example, how many people know what Elon Musk is doing for the planet and how he runs his corporations? Unless you are really interested in environment and renewable energy, you might not have ever heard his name – Oh yeah, that’s right, isn’t he the guy that started PayPal?
But we all know about the evil mining companies which are destroying the entire country side – well in fact they affect less than 1% of the land area in NSW – but they are destroying the entire planet all by themselves. It must be true, because it is on the news every night.
Bill Gates is very quiet about the billions of dollars he gives away to help people and the planet. Who ever knew that Steve Jobs also gave away fortunes to help people, while he was changing the world of computers and portable devices (leaving Microsoft floundering a long way behind).
Capitalism might have its faults – but they are mostly people…
I challenge anyone to show us a better system. Many have been tried and failed.
Look at what communism did to the people and the land in the USSR. Sure, it did come up with some great advances in science and medicine, but at a huge cost. The greatest thing about communism is that it didn’t listen to the limitations of Western Medicine as it is taught in the western world. It did, however, fail in every other respect. Largely because of the idiots in power.
I also like the concept of Giann’s Rusty Razor. Equally as useful for a wide range of subjects as Occam’s Razor.
For many years, I have borrowed from the Movie – The 6th Sense. Because everywhere I go “I see stupid people”.
Sadly, that is a simple fact of life on earth.
And you are right – it is not Capitalism – it is the idiots…
ron says
jon..a gentle reminder about the ‘fed’. its all about world control man. why is it that the citigroup bank of america..alias hk/shanghai banking corp…just transferred over 3 million ounces of gold and US$100bn cash. to the russian central bank..two days ago.? and why is hsbc bank (4th biggest in u.s.) almost bankrupt? as i have recently commented..our banks are inextricably tied to american banks..when they say s..t..we s..t! and our banks are run by crooks(banksters). the americans are doing war excercises in the black sea area..at russia’s back door..so to speak..no comment from the ‘western press’ of course. imagine the russians doing just that off rhode island or miami! this is not perhaps fitting for the reply you had in mind…but beware 9/11..2015 style. my thought is that if food prices skyrocket..where is the money for housing? i am planning like crazy lol…now most, if not all of your readers were born after 1950…so you would never ever know about hard times. my birthdate was 1938….my dad told me of the depression era…not nice…but many millionaires were made then. go figure. the world is awash with paper money…debit money..over US$500tn. and we are so lucky to have some of it…but when the proverbial s..t hits the fan soon, and money goes back offshore the banks will fall all over themselves saving their collective skins..and it will be cyprus all over again.(40% confiscation of funds in your account..maybe more!)..for the public(you and me) but a lot worse. in US already there are food riots and out of control mobs looting every day..but you won’t see it in the press man. in fact the last place i would put a cent is in good ol’ uncle sams pocket. just listen to joe hockey..and read between the lines..super funds..what a laugh! govt. borrowings will take place and the $2tn..will never be repaid in full…to you or anybody else. ..just doled out as pension….a cashless society is in vogue by the power brokers..just so they can control all your spending..imagine your credit card..tells the whole world where you are. with no cash available you will have a certain amount to spend..judged and controlled by big brother…creepy!!!!!!!!!!!! but we ostriches just bury our heads deeper in the sand. what to do? learn how to avoid government. 1984 + 31 =2015 in a christian society..i wonder if george orwell had that in mind..i know its sort of cryptic and mathematical…but who knows? anything is possible. take note, china and india are hoarding as much gold as they can..thousands of tons…whilst fort knox is holding 8,133 tons of gold plated tungston. some republican senators want fort knox gold holdings audited..no says the treasury its ok..we don’t want to waste 3-4 m US$ auditing 800bn US$ of gold!! says a lot i think. anyway. i have given you the clue. good luck!!
ron says
dear jon..interesting..just what have i been complaining about? australia is a great place its just stuffed up by idiots! like me and everybody else. maybe the indiginous people were the rightful inhabitants..we took it from them..like everywhere else..and ‘developed’ it to suit our way of life. as i was born here i don’t know where else to go..so i am stuck here with my lovely wife in a terribly upmarket suburb of perth, near the beautiful swan river.. ..yes oz is a great country. i guess the policy makers aren’t as fortunate as me..and you..they live mostly in canberra. cheers ron please excuse me..its 9.30 a.m. and i must have breakfast now..before i take my wife shopping.
Steven Hambly says
Nice work, very funny.
Clive says
Nature has two concepts. Survival and reproduction. In nature selfishness is a key element of survival so to take that away means we won’t survive. However since we consider ourselves, wrongly or rightly as civilized, we need and often do have a sense of balance in managing our selfishness for survival. We now believe that mankind is the most important living thing on the planet. With 7 billion people and about 1500 tigers in the wild the balance seems out of kilter. We need nature for our survival but have become so self centered as human beings that nothing else seems to matter to us. Nature will have the last laugh when we exterminate our way of living and ultimately ourselves due to the cancer like tendency of overpopulation. Global warming, destruction of the habitat and with it flora and flora will be our ultimate undoing all fundamentally caused by overpopulation. We know all this but do nothing about it. The current trend of political correctness adds to the problem. It rules that it is cruel to even suggest that people have less children. However what could be more cruel than bringing hoards of children into a poverty stricken, filthy environment brought on by overcrowding and seeing them starve in the process. Pop stars run around the world raising money to eliminate poverty. They are treating the symptoms not the cause. Poverty will never be eliminated with overpopulation. Solution, wars?
Pandemics? Mass starvation? Forced sterilization? Of course not, these are the things that are very cruel. Far better to have a policy of enlightenment encouraging people to have less children. In this day and age no parents need to have 15 children. It’s hard on the woman mostly. Men are generally the more selfish ones in this regard. So long as they can enjoy themselves they don’t seem to care. For every bit of deserving aid handed out there should be a commensurate policy of encouraging sensible family planning. We now have a whole range of contraceptives available allowing people to fornicate as much as they like without bringing unwanted children into the world whom they are unable to care for. So what’s so cruel or politically incorrect about that? In their own best interests and those on the rest of the planet it will be a far better policy to adopt than the misguided notions which seem to prevail at the moment in what appears to be well intentioned politically correct circles. In a century or so when the number of people on the planet overwhelm everything else we will look back and wonder how we could have been so wrong in the interests of trying to be so right.
Steven Hambly says
Correct
Steven Hambly says
One of my university lecturers recommended that we eat our babies. This was 1992 and we had not even hit 6 billion people at the time.
Chris says
Well done, I have read your piece on capitalism and still believe that social responsibility and financial success can be a good marriage .
First start with gratitude for what we have (which is a result of someone’s efforts). Even if you don’t accept a Christian philosophy, you must recognise that you have been blessed with a good brain and a healthy body. Consider this : ‘our’ earth provides more than we need, everything we require to have a good life is here. It is only through ignorance that we fail or perish. As Time goes on we continue to discover that even medications in the form of healing herbs and spices are here on this earth provided for us .
In conclusion we only have to look at all the lessons in stories from our history, of how putting away a little each day for the future will insure our survival and the survival of future generations. Mother used to say “everything in moderation”. Sure enjoy it, savour it, but reserve it as a treat ! Self discipline and self control prevent waste and consumerism. I read recently how I guy fixed his toaster, how insignificant you might say.
With a little bit of physical effort he was able to restore an appliance, which saved more landfill or scrap metal, saved money, time and perhaps petrol, and gave him the huge satisfaction of being a DIY man. his comment was “I got more of a “buzz” (an unintentional pun –
remove plug first) from fixing that toaster than watching any TV show : cause I did it !
…….. All He had to do was to clean the crumbs away from the electromagnet which holds the lever down to cook toast !
Let us consider introducing a new subject at high school level ” financial management made easy” or are we afraid of our kids not doing the”hard yards” and being able to retire earlier than us ! SMILE
Regards, and thanks for the opportunity, Chris
ron says
hi jon, ron again ..i just finished reading an email from my friends at the ‘sovereign society’. apparently the usa is almost in lockdown mode and economically bankrupt..meaning passports are being ever increasingly difficult to obtain..its almost exactly what is happening here…our economy is basically running on our greatest economic activity…house swapping! i don’t know if you aware of what happened with the NAB, Westpac and CBA in 2008. it was revealed in late 2010 that they had borrowed AU$4,5B, AU$1.9B and AU$700m respectively from usa tarp money..remember TARP? US$700b went to all banks that were in trouble..and wow..here is the local ‘strong’ banks …they admitted it when it was discovered and the ASX turned a ‘blind eye’ to it when advised! too long ago now they said:-) so crime now has a chronological aspect to it. in any other business the directors would be charged with criminal activity by not advising the ASX of their borrowings. share values..omg! hmm..and as you well know when governments lend money to banks etc in tough times the public pay for it with increased taxes etc. so now we have the scenario of the public of good ole usa paying for our borrowings. really? how come? or is our country, banks included, just puppets of you know who? i think and i think. darn it my wife is saying hurry up! bye for now
Nathan says
Well said.
Richard B says
Couple of quotes seem to sum it up:
Jeremiah 10:23 “..it is not in man that walkers to direct his steps”.
Jeremiah 7:29″…the heart of man is desperately wicked: who can know it…”
Walt Kelly, POGO Cartoon 1970’s “We have met the enemy; and He is Us”.
Meg Howe says
Is it capitalism or usury that’s the problem here? Our money supply is created through debt, but the interest isn’t. That interest has to come from somewhere… A bit like musical chairs, someone or something has to miss out, be it the environment or the 99% or third world people. The need to find the interest drives many of our ills… including the “growth at all costs” economic model, and our throw-away culture.
Kathy says
Have to agree with you Jon and the comments as well. There is nothing wrong with the capitalist system, as long as we have a true capitalist system in place, not the crony capitalism that exists today.
In order for it to work properly you also need creative destruction and no interference from authorities, which is how we progress. Unfortunately we have neither of these things. It’s in the government’s interest (and that’s pretty much all governments around the world, not just ours) and our large lumbering giant industries to keep the status quo and to not allow innovation to replace old and tired products and systems.
This goes hand in hand with the general “dumbing down” of the populace to keep them compliant and happy by providing panem et circences (bread and circuses) by promising more and more with less and less.
Then when the cupboards are bare and they try to introduce co payments for doctor’s visits, the populace gets annoyed because they want everything provided to them, but they don’t want to pay for it.
I’m a huge fan of true capitalism that’s free from interference from meddling governments and lobbyists for vested interests.
I’m also of the opinion that people are stupid, but that’s only because it’s in the government’s and media’s interest keep us that way and drip feed us Game of Kardashians and things like that while the real important issues and stuff that will affect us, such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (why are there not more people outraged and up in arms about this!) are kept as quiet as possible.
Tristram Morgan says
Capitalism is a fundamentally flawed system because it relies on growth to be sustainable, and that means growth of capital (i.e. the interest that we have to produce out of thin air, as per Meg Howe’s comment below) and growth of consumption, which our planet is unable to sustain with a population of over 7.3 billion and counting (rapidly!). Whilst the accumulation of money remains our measure of success and progress, we are doomed to self-destruction as a species. An economic model does you no good when the air is unbreathable, food system contaminated and water supplies insufficient – it may sound gloomy but it’s where we are inevitably headed unless we change our priorities. Money only gets you the things you want if the things you want are frivolous and/or for sale. Capitalism may not be the biggest cause of our problems, but it relies on our pursuit of values which work against us in the long term.
Ian McAdam says
I agree with Tristram in a way. Capitalism is fine to a point, but it’s economics that’s causing the real problem. Economists and economies must have economic growth to to make sense, but it’s the wrong thinking, because it’s the economic growth that’s stuffing the planet with ever increasing demand on the environment and resources. They must change the economic rationale to allow capitalism to survive.
What happens to economics when the resources run out?
Guest says
Capitalism in today’s format is completely flawed or rather crooked. It is great for the 1% mostly living in the west, where morality varies according to the individual and it is purely defined by selfishness. I would call it “My Morality” which in most cases is based on human laws without any regard to the Divine Law that has been put into the hearts of every child right at the time she or he is born. I have heard from someone working in the sourcing department of a big supermarket chain in a western country that a business shirt we buy from this supermarket at $60 actually costs them between $2 to $7 at the source in an Asian country. Imagine the huge difference between the profit made by the western supermarket and the profit/wages earned by the manufacturers and his workers. The worker in the Asian country sweats the whole day to produce a shirt, where as the salesperson of the western supermarket sells it in a cosy environment to make such a huge profit. The western mind developed on the “My Morality” will justify it saying “Oh! what if I don’t give this business to the Asian country; where will they even make that small profit”. This western principle applies not in just buying shirts but even in buying satellite launch services. Therefore, until the basis of the morality of the western world (I am not saying all, but the majority who are in the business of buying and selling) changes from the current version of human law to that of the Divine Law, the capitalism will remain crooked as it is today until the 99% rises to parity with the 1%, which is bound to happen some day in the future with China and India growing the way they are now.