- Capitalism and Alternatives -
Consumer culture: base, boring but....free?
Posted by: Christopher Ketcham ( USA ) on April 05, 1997 at 08:16:41:
Sven Schubert writes on April 4 "...if man will one day be intelligent enough not to see only his own advantage [or self-interest.]" But of course this day will never come to pass unless we violently alter man: Socialism was an attempt to do this, to destroy man as he is and create the Socialist, man as he should be. Socialism failed; in the meantime we have capitalism. I agree with some of the latest postings: damn right, capitalism works. But capitalism and socialism are not so very different: quintessentially modern world-systems, they view man as a bundle of atoms and synapses determined in his behavior by physical phenomena, often predictable phenomena. There is no mystery left in human existence under such systems: materialism is triumphant, in both its most absolute and finite forms. UFO cults and millenarians, fundamentalist anti-abortionists and militiaman preachers may rise up; but the society itself has for raison d'etre the pursuit of wealth, property, pleasure and leisure. Socialism tries to jettison these fundamentals (wealth and property) from modern egalitarianism; therein lies its failure. It misjudges human nature. Wealth and property are good; but to make their acquisition the sole pursuit of one's life...is the recipe for the nihilism, emptiness, staleness and stupidity of modern democratic culture. Tonight, I've heard the suits at Oldsmobile whisper from the television, "Is who you are, what you drive? Or is what you drive, who you are?" Curious and inane tautology, yet driven over and over into the brains of millions per night: It is a contentious point whether advertising controls buying habits, or whether TV violence makes viewers violent. But that is not the point here: The Oldsmobile commercial is part of the content of our culture. Yet we have had 45 years of laugh-tracks manipulating our smiles through what I'd call the period of High American Capitalism, and we are not robots. We are still thinking beings. But the sum of our culture is low, boorish, base, at times disgusting, contemptible. So capitalism works: it does not necessarily make us any freer, but does not impinge our freedoms; it does not make the average man think heartily about his social and political situation (as say Russian communism did at its birth), but it does not make him regret that situation; it doesn't foster genius, but atleast doesn't hinder genius if should happen upon the scene. For a real discussion on this, read Alexis de Tocqueville's DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. But capitalism and democracy do not go hand in hand: as shown by China, one not need be politically free to pursue money.
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