In my last post, I mentioned that intellectuals are most likely to hold a Marxist world view and espouse Socialism as the ideal economic system. Marx lived and wrote at the time when the dominant economic theory of Mercantilism was being replaced by a new theory that came to be called Capitalism.
In the world of Mercantilist economics, the entire wealth of the world was viewed as fixed. Therefore, if one person or nation became wealthier, the increase had to come from someone else's becoming poorer. The size of the economic pie was finite. Economics was a zero sum game.
In societies based on rank, status or caste, such as Europe through the mid-19th century, India, and some parts of Africa today, a person’s station in
life is fixed. He or she is born into a certain station and his position
in society is rigidly determined by the laws and customs which assign each
person either privileges and duties or disabilities. Exceptionally good luck, such as saving the King’s life,
may in rare cases raise someone into a higher rank. Very bad luck, like getting caught stealing
from a prominent person, can result in a person’s losing their status and being
assigned to an even lower class. But, as a rule, the conditions of the individual members
of a definite rank or class can only improve or decline with a change in the
conditions of the whole class.
In such societies, the individual is, primarily, not a citizen of a nation. He/she is a member of his or her class or estate. In coming into contact with a countryman belonging to
another rank, there is no sense of community. There is only the gulf that separates one from
the other person’s status.
In Europe during the late Middle Ages, the diversity
between classes was reflected not only in language, but also in dress. The aristocrats spoke French. The lower classes clung to their own native
language, broken into local dialects, which the upper classes couldn’t even
understand. The various ranks also dressed differently. No one could fail to recognize the rank of a
stranger.
The main criticism leveled against the 18th
century principle of equality under the law was that it abolished the
privileges of rank and dignity. It has, said the critics, atomized society, dissolving
the natural subdivisions into faceless masses. These masses are now supreme, and their materialism, their
desire for creature comforts, has superseded the respectable standards of days
gone by. Now, money is king.
Quite worthless people enjoy riches, while the meritorious and worthy go
empty-handed.
This criticism implies that, under the old ways, the aristocrats
were distinguished by their superior virtue and that they owed their rank and
their revenues to their moral and cultural superiority. While the progressive foes of Capitalism disagree with
regard to to this evaluation of the old standards, they fully agree with condemning the standards of Capitalistic society. As they see it, those who acquire wealth and prestige are
not those who deserve well from their fellow citizens, but frivolous, unworthy
people.
Now, nobody ever contended that under free-market Capitalism, those who do best are those who ought to be preferred. What the democracy of the market brings about is not
rewarding people according to their true merits, their inherent morality or
worth. What makes a person more or less wealthy is not the
evaluation of his contribution from any absolute principle of justice or
fairness, but an evaluation on the part of his fellow men, who apply the
yardstick of their own personal wants and desires. This is what the democracy of the market means. The consumer is king. The consumer wants to be satisfied.
Millions of people like to drink Pepsi. Millions like detective stories, mystery
movies, tabloid newspapers, football, whiskey, cigarettes, chewing gum, etc. The entrepreneurs who provide these things in the best and
cheapest way succeed in getting rich. What counts in the frame of the market is not academic or
moralistic judgments of value, but the valuation actually manifested by people
in buying or not buying.
To the grumbler who complains about the unfairness of the
market system only one piece of advice can be given. If you want to acquire wealth, then try to satisfy the
public by offering them something that is cheaper or which they like
better. Try to supersede Pepsi by mixing
another beverage. Equality under the law
gives you the power to challenge every millionaire. In a market not sabotaged by
government-imposed restrictions - it is exclusively your fault if you do not
outstrip the chocolate king, the movie star, the computer software writer, or
whoever.
But if, instead of the riches you might acquire by
engaging in providing commercial goods or services, you prefer the personal
satisfaction you might get from writing poetry or philosophy or music, you are
free to do so. Of course, you won’t make as much money as those who serve
the majority of consumers. Those who satisfy the wants of a smaller number of people
collect fewer votes - dollars - than those who satisfy the wants of many.
It’s important to realize that the opportunity to compete
for the prizes society has to allocate is a social institution. It can’t remove or even alleviate the innate handicaps
that nature has chosen to discriminate against many people. It cannot change the fact that many are born
sick or become disabled later in life. The biological equipment of people rigidly restricts the
fields in which they can serve. Danny Devito won’t
ever be able to compete with Michael Jordan in basketball.
In the same manner, the class of those who have the
ability to think for themselves is separated by an unbridgeable gulf from the
class of those who can’t. In a society based on caste, the individual can credit
fate to the conditions of life beyond his or her control. He is a slave because the supernatural powers that
determine what people will become have assigned him to his rank. It’s not his doing or a result of any mistakes he made
and, therefore, there is no reason for him to be ashamed of his humble station
in life.
His wife can’t find fault.
If she were to complain to him: “Why aren’t you a duke? If you were a duke, I would be a duchess,” he
would simply reply: “If I had been born the son of a duke, I wouldn’t have
married you, a slave girl, but I would have married the daughter of a another
duke. Your not being a duchess is your
own fault; why weren’t you more clever in choosing your parents?”
It’s another thing entirely under Capitalism. Here everybody’s station in life depends on
their own doing, the choices they make. Everybody whose ambitions have not been gratified knows very
well that they have missed chances, or made mistakes, and that they have tried and been found wanting by their fellowman. If his wife criticizes him: “Why do you make only $150 dollars a
week? If you were as smart as our next
door neighbor, Joe, you’d be a foreman by now and I would enjoy a better life,”
he becomes conscious of his own inferiority and feels humiliated.
The much maligned unfairness of Capitalism consists in
the fact that it handles everybody according to their contribution to the well-being
of their fellowman, as judged by their fellowman.
The dominance of the principle “to each according to his
accomplishment” rather than the Marxist principle “to each according to his
need”, doesn’t allow any excuse for personal shortcomings.
Everybody knows very well that there are people like
herself who succeeded where she herself failed.
Everybody knows that many of those whom she envies are
self-made people who started from the same point that she started from. Worse than that, she knows that everyone else in her
circle of friends knows it too.
What makes many feel unhappy under Capitalism is the fact
that the economic system grants to each the opportunity to attain the most desirable
positions. Of course, these can only be
attained by a few.
Whatever a man may have gained for himself, it is mostly a
fraction of what his ambition has motivated him to win. Right before his eyes, there are people who have succeeded
where he has failed. There are those who have outstripped him and against whom
he nurtures, at least subconsciously, a feeling of resentment.
This is the attitude of the tramp against the person with
a regular job, the factory hand against the foreman, the middle-manager against
the vice-president, the vice-president against the company’s president, the
person who makes $50,000 a year against the millionaire and so on. Everyone’s sense of self-assurance and self-worth is undermined by the
sight of those who have given proof of greater ability. It’s human nature for everyone to overrate their own worth
and what they consider their just rewards.
This suffering from frustrated ambition is peculiar to
people who live in a free society. It’s
not caused by the freedom everyone has to compete, but by the fact that, in such
a society, the inequality of people with regard to intellectual abilities, will
power, motivation, and energy become clearly visible. The gulf between what a person is and achieves, and what
they think of their own abilities and achievements, is starkly revealed. Day-dreams and demands for a fair world which would
treat them according to their real worth are the refuge of all those
afflicted by their lack of self-knowledge.
Therefore, it’s no wonder that the very success of
economic and political freedom under Capitalism in the United States, reduced its
appeal to later thinkers. The narrowly limited government of the late 19th century possessed little concentrated power that endangered the ordinary
person. The other side of that coin was that it also possessed
little power that would enable good people to do good. And, in an imperfect world there were, and are, still many
evils.
In fact, the very progress of society made the evils that
were left seem worse. This was the milieu in which Marx lived and wrote. It was society on the cusp, transitioning from Mercantilism to Capitalism. Marx saw poverty and naturally concluded that it must be the result of ill gotten gains on the part of the bourgeoisie. But, Marx was nothing but a clerk who came in in the middle of the movie. He saw the factories of the Industrial Revolution in the hands of private owners, while those who worked in those factories struggled for their very survival. Never did he consider the risks involved in building the factories, inventing and building the machines, or any of the other a priori
requirements that made the whole thing run.Listening to Marx and his labor theory of value, people took the favorable developments for granted. They forgot the danger to freedom from a strong government. Instead, they were attracted by the good that a stronger government could accomplish—if only the government was in the right people’s hands.
These ideas began to influence government policy in Great Britain by the beginning of the 20th century. They gained more and more acceptance among intellectuals in the U.S. during what is called the Progressive Era, but they had little effect on government policy until the Great Depression.
Contrary to popular notions, the depression was produced
by a failure of the government in one key area - money - where the government
had exercised exclusive authority since the ratification of the Constitution. However, the government’s responsibility for the
depression was not - and is still not -recognized. Instead, the depression is still widely interpreted as a
failure of free market Capitalism.
That myth led the public to join the intellectuals in a
complete change of view about the relative responsibilities of individuals and
government.
Emphasis on the responsibility of the individual for his
own fate was replaced by an emphasis on the individual as simply a cog in the
great wheel of life, a pawn being thrashed about by forces beyond his control. The earlier view that government’s role is to serve as an
umpire to prevent individuals from coercing one another was replaced by the
view that government’s role is to serve as a parent, charged with the duty
of coercing some to give aid to others. The hatred of Capitalism by intellectuals, and their
embrace of Marxism, is directly related to the earlier discussion of how Capitalism, as a system, reveals the failure of people to conduct their pursuits
with an eye toward meeting the demands of the consumer.
Intellectuals, such as doctors, lawyers, artists and
writers, scientists, professors and teachers, etc., resent Capitalism precisely
because it assigns to some a position that they themselves would like to have. The so-called common man, as a rule, doesn’t have the
opportunity to associate with people who have succeeded better than he. He or she moves in the circle of other common people.
He or she never meets his boss socially. They never learn from personal experience how
different an entrepreneur, or an executive, is with regard to those abilities
which are required for successfully serving the consumer. Therefore, their envy and resentment are not directed
against another living person, but against abstractions like management, capital, and Wall Street. One can’t hate such an abstraction with the same
bitterness that one may bear against a fellow human that one associates with
daily.
It’s different with those in which the special conditions of
their occupation or their family ties bring them into personal contact with the
winners of the prizes that they believe should have been given to them. With them, the feelings of frustrated ambition become
especially piercing because they engender hatred of concrete human beings. This is the case with people who are commonly termed intellectuals. Let’s take, for instance, doctors.
Their daily routine and experience make every doctor
cognizant of the fact that there exists a hierarchy in which all medical men
are graded according to their merits and achievements.
Those who are more famous and skilled are those that the
regular doctor must follow in terms of their methods and innovations. He must learn and practice those methods to
keep up-to-date and these eminent doctors he must follow were his classmates in
medical school, they served with him as interns, and they attend the same
medical meetings he does. Some are his friends and they all address him with the
utmost cordiality.
But they tower above him in the appreciation of the public
and also in the amount of income they earn. When he compares himself to them, he feels humiliated. But, he must be careful not to let anyone
notice his resentment and envy. So he diverts his anger toward another target. He blames the system and the evils of Capitalism. If it weren’t for the
unfairness of the system, his abilities and talents would have brought him the
riches he deserves.
It’s the same with many lawyers and teachers, artists and
actors, writers and journalists, engineers and chemists. People who are commonly called intellectuals. They are angry, too, by the rise of their more successful
colleagues and their former schoolmates. The anti-capitalistic bias of the intellectuals is a
phenomenon that is not limited to the U.S.
But it is more bitter here than it is in the European countries. To understand why you must understand the
basic difference between Society in Europe and society in America.
In Europe, (capital S) Society includes all those who are prominent
in any field. Statesmen and government
leaders, the heads of civil service departments, publishers and editors,
prominent writers, scientists, artists, actors, lawyers, and doctors, as well
as members of the aristocratic families all make up what is considered the good
society. They come into contact with one another at dinners and
teas, charity balls. They go to the same
restaurants, hotels and resorts. Access to European society is open to anybody who has
distinguished themselves in any field. It
may be easier for people of noble ancestry and great wealth, but neither riches
nor titles can give a member of this set the rank and prestige that comes with
personal distinction in their field.
(Little S) society, in this sense, is foreign to Americans. What is called society in America almost exclusively
consists of the richest families. There is little, if any, social interaction between the successful
businessmen and the authors, actors, artists and scientists, no matter how
famous the latter may be in their field. Most of the socialites are not interested in books and
ideas. When they get together, they
usually gossip about other people and talk about sports like polo and tennis. But even those who do like to read consider writers,
scientists, and artists as people with whom they do not want to associate. There is almost an insurmountable gulf which separates
society from the intellectuals. Consequently, American authors, scientists, and professors are prone to
consider the wealthy businessman as a barbarian, someone exclusively intent on
making money.
The professor
despises the alumni who are more interested in the college's football team than
in its scholastic achievement. He is insulted if he learns that the coach gets a higher
salary than a professor of philosophy. Those whose research has given rise to new methods of
production hate the businessman who they view as simply interested in the cash
value of the research, rather than its intellectual value. Therefore, it’s significant that a large number of
American professors sympathize with socialism.
If a group of people secludes itself from the rest of the
nation in the way American socialites do, they naturally become the target of
the hostile criticism from those they keep out. What they fail to see is that their self-chosen
segregation isolates them and kindles animosities which make the intellectuals
even more inclined to favor anti-Capitalistic policies.
