Capitalism came to power with the fall of feudal monarchy, waving the mighty banners of "freedom, equality and brotherhood". Capitalism abolished the centralisation of power usually afforded to the royal or nobility, and instead of the old aristocracy Capitalism sought to bring with it a meritocracy, where it was to be action rather than lineage that defined a person's success in society.Since that time, capitalism has developed much, but unfortunately it has developed in both directions. With the fall of the Communist regimes in Europe, capitalism has now reached a point where it holds almost a monopoly over the world's economy and philosophy. The foundations of capitalism therefore have to a high degree affected the World to become what it is today.
Ethically, Capitalism brings with it the ideals of 'the strong individual'. The traditional ethics of the capitalist system is based upon profit and the principle of personal gain, as well as being based on the consequences of one's actions, not what the actions themselves are. This is obvious in the fact that in the current World, there are vast unbalances between Western nations and the Third World, as there is no profit for the Western world in attempting to even out this unbalance. Instead of actively attempting to bring the Third World up to a standard resembling our own, we occassionally send them aid on an 'alms to the poor' basis, instead of attempting to remove the line between poor and rich completely. Furthermore, the environment has in many places been so destroyed in the name of profit for the simple reason that it is far cheaper (thereby maximising profit) to produce without consideration of the environment. There also are the inhumane practices used in the agricultural sector of simply keeping animals under the most inhumane and minimal conditions, often pumping them full of synthetic hormones in order to -again- maximise profit. These factors could probably be saved in capitalism (after all, Marx predicted workers' revolutions which never came because capitalism proved itself to be more flexible than he had given it credit for), but there still would be the problem that the mentality of "most profit" and the hollow "what's in it for me?" ethics. I suppose we all know situations where we have asked that sentence, "what's in it for ME?" and acting on that principle. I believe that a system which is ethically based on such a principle is immoral, and even if the destruction of the environment, the exploitation of the Third World and the other inhumane capitalist practices were successfully removed, the ethical principles of capitalism would continue to bring with it problems of the same nature.
Aesthetically, Capitalism aims at marketability. Even the human body has been reduced to a simple market commodity. This is evident in the inhuman and vulgar ideals we are fed through advertising and the film industry, ideals who depending on gender are often either absurdly muscular or emaciated to the degree of appearing anorexic. A person who falls short of this mark is deemed either bland and unnotable at best, ugly and physically unmarketable at worst. Some might find it a bit far-fetched to discuss aesthetics when judging a political system, but capitalism is more than just politics - it brings with it a complete mindset and philosophy. And my points about capitalist aesthetics are to be seen in the light that the ideals we look at now are defined by the capital. Ideals have always existed in some forms, but in earlier times they have been defined by King or Church, today it is the corporate capitalists. The practice of creating human ideals is something that robs us of personal freedom, for such a practice will inevitably lead to the attempt by people to reach them at all costs, and those who cannot are lost in the wayside. Having the capital define the ideal human being is neither better or worse than having it done by king, church or even a People's State. But the fact that it today is the capital also means that the human ideal is again targeted at profit. We are fed ideals through advertising that indirectly tells us that the young, handsome and rich use a specific brand, and because our ideal is a young, handsome and wealthy person the advertisement sell us the dream of becoming like our ideal by using their product. Not only purely physical ideals are used, some advertisements attempt to sell us the ideal of a happy family to make us use their product.
In principle capitalism is a form of meritocracy, but it can be discussed whether the merits of capitalism are worth basing society upon. Capitalist merits are not what a person is able to do, think or create, but usually what a person is able to put others to do for him. Furthermore, capitalist principles about 'the strong individual' effectively eliminates itself because a 'strong' individual is more often a simply lucky individual, one born into wealth from the beginning and therefore able to get the best education and treatment available so in effect a form of aristocracy has been maintained, only it is the children of capitalists and not nobility who are better off than others.
This system has however proven itself to be highly flexible. Marx and Engels falsely predicted it would fall because of the oppression of workers and modern socialist thinkers have speculated that it will either be environmental abuse or the oppressed Third World that will start the end of capitalism, but in truth Capitalism will probably be able to reform to avoid such an end. However, no matter how reformed, the philosophical foundations of capitalism are in many cases wrong. Capitalism claims that the will to gain profit is something inherent in human nature, but man is obviously a basically social creature. We can easily see this, if man was a competitive predator and not a social being, would we have organized into a society at all? Or would we have highly developed instincts and urges that are based on interaction with society and the impulses we recieve from it? Obviously not. From the early stages of human evolution, we have organized into groups, packs, tribes, kingdoms and so on to improve our probability of survival. Furthermore, even in spite of the "what's in it for me" ethics, there are times when we simply know that what we are doing may be wrong and cannot be justified with profit. I suppose even the most indoctrinated capitalist citizen realizes that advertisements are selling us ideals and recognizes the inequity of being 'born to success' with no higher merit than being born into wealth already established.
This system is what we as socialists have to formulate our alternative to, which we must do by formulating a system that negates the unbalances in capitalism. As outlined by other socialists, this system would be based on a production for need basis rather than a production for profit basis, and the necessity concept will leak through to other parts of the socialist philosophy as well, just as the profit concept has done in capitalism.
Socialist ethics would therefore be based on the principle that a person's actions should be based upon an insight in necessity and the placement of humanity (society as well as individuality) as the highest value. Not as in an ascetic principle that anything not required should be rejected, but simply the statement that every person should have the freedom and sovereignity to do what is necessary both for individual and collective, and I find it impossible to claim that the exploitation of others and infringement on the freedom of others are necessities. Some socialists have attempted to formulate their ethics around an adaptation of the capitalist idea, reformulating it to "What's in it for us?", but such an idea must also be rejected. It is fundamentally based on collective profit over individual profit, but it still allows unbridled exploitation of the environment and the subjugation of other nations, only here such things are done in the name of collective profit and not individual. Examples of nations that have based ideologies around this doctrine would be the Soviet Union and China, where we can clearly see in the former Soviet Union how they practiced production which contributed to destroying environmental balance, because the community would have gain from it. The necessity ethics I mentioned before would presume the pronciple that all human beings are of equal value, wherefore an active exploitation of Third World nations would become impossible, they being as human as we. Therefore, an attempt to even out the gap between rich and poor would have to be done in a more dignifying way than the rich giving alms to the poor, as this effectively keeps the rich and poor in the situation they already were in.
Another thing that must be worked for is the emancipation from commercial ideals. All theories of an ideal human being must be rejected, be it the ideal of a Yuppie or the ideal of Homo Sovieticus. Having established that all human beings are of equal value, every person should be his own ideal rather than assuming ideals from commercialism. Thereby I do not mean that every person should attempt to believe him or herself perfect, which would result in a human species of narrowminded egocentrics, but that we need to recognize that being of equal human value there is no need to assume external ideals, so the individual should have the freedom to define his or her own personality without the capital's subversive influence.
Our system should allow a true meritocracy instead of the pseudo-aristocracy capitalism has created. It would be impractical, inhuman and impossible to attempt to keep all people economically and socially completely equal throughout their lives, but what we must work for is a system where everyone has equal possibilities no matter their gender, lineage, ethnic group, physical development and beliefs. Education, hospital care, information and the like must therefore be publicly available to all, with equal services made available no matter the person's economic status.
Again presuming that all people are of equal value, there can be no supremity of the 'State' unless the state IS the people's. This requires democracy to truly work, but not as in the pseudo-democracy practiced today. This 'democracy' effectively ends at the gates of the factory. No, to truly speak of democracy, every person must have the possibility to take part in the managing of what has relevance for his or her life. The state should therefore be managed democratically, ideally with a no-party system where people themselves have the right and possibility to express their concerns and ideas to take part in the managing of the state. A one-party system as practiced in China and the former Soviet Union is antidemocratic, antipluralistic and is an enormous infringement on personal freedom, because the citizens have to be members of the party to take part in the managing of the state, and therefore have to agree with the party's doctrine. The no-party system is effectively a form of representative democracy where the state is managed by elected representatives, but given that the individuals running for places in the managing of the state are not members of parties, they will be able to take care of the interests of the groups of society they represent and were elected by, and not narrow party politics. Of course, people of overlapping interests could organize their programs together, but such 'parties' would be of an ad hoc nature, as the various social groups have changing interests over changing times. Democracy should also be extended so the various facilities for information, production and services should be managed democratically by the people involved in them, not by the 'State' or by private capitalists. It makes little sense to call a nation truly democratic if the only way a person can get his or her opinion through is by placing an X by a party on election day while having no voice in the management of what has relevance for the person in daily life.
If such a system is successfully implemented, it would be of vital importance not to believe it to be a 'perfect' society. If a society is believed to be perfect, what then is there to do? It should then go on for eternity without change - and then it has effectively become ultra-conservative. It is important that the possibility to change society when necessary is present, otherwise it likely would end as a closed prison where debate and freedom are hampered to avoid alteration of 'perfect' society - which in such a case is not so perfect at all. This has to a high degree been the problem in nations like the former Soviet Union. We must realize that social, scientific and human development can, must and will continue under socialism, which effectively means that there will also be society after socialism, but we have little chance of predicting what, given that we don't know which changes tomorrow will bring.
For the Left today, one thing that is splitting socialism is the fact that it is by many pursued almost as a religion. Marxism, Trotskism, Leninism, Titoism, Castroism and Maoism, socialists today have a tendency to pick their chosen 'prophet' of the socialist principles and then place themselves under an -ism named after this 'prophet'. This must be avoided at all costs, for of course there are points where socialists disagree - we just shouldn't allow ourselves to go under so many different -isms of that reason. Capitalists disagree too, that doesn't mean they have Gatesism, Fordism, Clintonism and the like, that would appear utterly ridiculous. We all disagree on some points, that is actually desirable or we would end up as stiffened conservatives, but it is ridiculous with all these -isms. We disagree both with each other and socialists of past times, for we each have an individual opinion. Yet we don't run around calling ourselves Gerardists, Fassbinderists, Zeusists and Kongshojists, so why not drop
Marx, Trotskij, Lenin, Mao and the others' -isms as well? Their works have theoretical and historical imprtance for us, but shouldn't narrow our minds to think the thoughts of philosophers who have already done so for us, it is up to us to add to socialist theory, not run around waving Das Kapital, The Revolution Betrayed and Mao's little red about like religious fanatics.
Socialists, unite, but not on one tendency. Pluralism is what gives any idea its strength.
-Simon Kongshoj
PS: Comrade Gerard, I assume that you have nothing against my contribution even though I wasn't mentioned as a 'true citizen' in your original post. :-)
