Concept Experiment # 3: A Critique of Anti-Capitalism, from an Anti-Capitalism Capitalist: language vs. life

A plastic bag flutters, expands, and breathes its way towards oncoming traffic- some tragic creature, blindly moving towards an epic death. A jellyfish or dove with open wings. Then, as if propelled by invisible breath, it pushes away- the force from a passing truck removes a potentially deathly impact. It settles with its brothers and cousins- plastic cups and cigarette butts-all edging up the lip of the great grey grinning freeway. This immigration strikes me as altogether unnoticed- it is routinely and deliberately overlooked- the motion of objects towards uselessness- so frequent, so normalized- the daily suicides of soda cans and plastic spoons, inching into crevices and disregarded pockets of activity- places where movement is too broad and frantic to be controlled- places the offending wanderers will not be noticed by their former masters.

The impish commute train buzzes endlessly like an electric avalanche, pouring gas into a now-pink, yawning horizon. The road is like a repulsive zipper split down the middle, revealing hideous oil-slick underwear and a few pieces of leftover toilet paper stuck here and there. Nobody notices it- maybe it is too vile. Stopping for a moment to consider the rubbish would too quickly expose us in our transitory condition. I can’t help but stare directly at the objects while the cars pass unconsciously into the work day; I am transfixed altogether. It’s as if I was born to observe these unwanted paradoxes- the useless utility of our generation’s expenditure patterns- some cruel fate has forced me to notice. Capitalism’s waste has always transfixed me this way. The scene is drenched in the scents of impotent, distended consumption cycles. It mawkishly conveys the inability of a life lived through objects to craft any semblance of meaning.

Capitalism, particularly the American variety, is a buzz-word that I have been taught to criticize and expose for all its abuses and gluttonies. Capitalism and consumerism are two sides of the same concept; together they have come to represent the infinite superficiality of American culture. Lately, though, I have discovered that this naïve distaste for “private ownership” is getting harder and harder to pinpoint. Whose fault is capitalism? What is new capitalism, precisely? Better- who is capitalism? Is it McDonald’s fault for selling hamburgers to people who like their hamburgers? Is it Starbucks’ fault for making an easily-replicable marketing scheme? I hate mega-chains as much as anybody, but how would we structure our economy if they went away? What would the world look like without capitalism? How can we replace it? Is every capitalist (slight nod in the direction of Marx) really inextricably married to patriarchal hegemony and commodity fetishism? Why?

Turning to professional examples- friends, coworkers- I come across ideological friction. None of the individuals I encounter who display symptoms of capitalism deserve my contempt. They each play a part in creating value, and they have, for the most part, bought life’s accoutrements with their own sweat. They want what most human beings want- to protect their hard-earned property and secure a future for generations to come. But of course, I’m biased towards those I know.

I attempt to demonize a more abstract target- Coca-Cola. Dirty capitalist pigs- especially the executives. But the same problem occurs here- Coca-Cola provides a wealth of jobs, and delivers a product with predictable efficiency. College students set up vending machines selling Coca-Cola to pay college loans. The Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation donates $3.4 million annually in scholarships for higher education. Coca-Cola donates money to charity- it donates a lot more money to charity than I do. Can I demonize this enemy unreservedly? Is all profit- are all those who make a profit- guilty of exploitation and self-interest?

What about me? Am I a capitalist? The plastic bag puffs up. Serendipitously, it is struck head-on by a baby blue Rolls-Royce. It suddenly occurs to me that I am, almost without question, a capitalist. I produce and own capital. Albeit not a lot of capital- but privately, from the covert obscurity of my own hidden objectives, I make and spend my capital capitalistically (it’s a word!), perpetuating the very cycle of capitalism I so readily disavow.

The right-wing critique of the left, which is meant to foster freedom and responsibility, has always been undermined, successfully in my opinion, by a swift reminder of the greed and selfishness of right-wingers who hope to keep what they’ve got and make sure nobody else gets it. Rational Choice Theory, it seems to me, has been born from this very assumption. Humans are SELFISH. Granted. On the other hand, as I have recently been forced to admit, the responsibility to earn, invest and, yes, consume cannot be avoided- it is an integral part of life which must be cultivated deliberately for the clockwork of commerce to work efficiently. More than that, these choices themselves create a kind of socialist structure- any choice to produce or consume is a social one, and can be made with some degree of respect and compassion. Not everybody has the luxury of escaping to an island paradise to make beaded jewelry and live off the land. In my experience, those who do have this luxury have been funded by the silent hand of a parent or friend who lives vicariously through this type of indulgence. Thoreau was independently wealthy. He didn’t feed the hungry. Why don’t the culture police bear down on his legacy with guilt tactics and scorn?

Of course, our social responsibility covers many domains, including health care, education, and financial security. But we can’t honestly critique the system until we understand what it entails- a lot of work meeting a variety of needs, fueled by a complex network of skills. “The capitalist machine” is usually a postmodern way of saying “all the people you know who earn a living, their bosses, their bosses’ bosses, and the governments that try to support their efforts”. In short, it is a way of escaping thinking about exactly what we are decrying. Who is capitalism? Nobody in particular- or, rather, everybody who creates and uses capital intentionally- not only those who use it with greater returns.

Whining about injustice or disapproving of taxes may be fun weekend pastimes, but they won’t make life any more tolerable for the poor and suffering. In my opinion, anyone who has ever been wholly invested in American party politics has ignored at least one half of the problem. Today, my critique is of the left, because I myself am guilty of leftist tendencies- I have used capitalism to hurl insults around- to look for a way of escaping personal responsibility.

All that said, I still believe in conscientious spending and ownership. If I don’t like a company’s policies, I buy from somebody else. I met a would-be congressman in a bar at Oxford who told me I sounded like Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand has written many-a-tirade championing the robust superiority of businessmen, and she usually makes me ill- there is something fascist in her that is deeply worrying. I do not subscribe to her line of thinking, which claims that “wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think”. If that were true, the vast majority of great philosophers, poets, artists, and inventors would have also been filthy rich. Not everybody can be a businessman, and most of us who place value outside the all-holy dollar (or any other currency) are finding that life is becoming unreasonably difficult to sustain. If the world was composed of businessmen, the proverbial soul of civil society would probably start to resemble Donald Trump’s hair-spray-infested toupee- brittle, phony, and unattractive. Those who have the opportunity to be kings and queens still need to be meticulously accountable to those who don’t. They should be responsible for employees, and ensure the wellbeing of anyone who is impacted by their work. This is still my first priority when I go to the voting box- to hope the government will respect the needs of its diverse citizenry, not defend the rights of wealthy businessmen, or worse, their own biases. In this spirit, I tend to vote left.

But taking down the man and cultivating a private loathing for the rich isn’t an answer to capitalism, it’s a way of avoiding the problem of freedom: “thus arises a city, not of freemen, but of masters and slaves, the one despising, the other envying; and nothing can be more fatal to friendship and good fellowship in states than this: for good fellowship springs from friendship; when men are at enmity with one another, they would rather not even share the same path” (from Aristotle’s Politics). Being pro-business does not mean being anti-ethics. Making money does not necessitate human rights abuse. We seem to have surrendered ourselves to the inevitability of our own dualisms. Not every business venture translates to masked imperialism.

A dangerous, bipolar tendency has crystallized American thought and is threatening to take the rest of the world with it. It is the language, frankly, of ignorance. When I hear words like capitalism, my first instinct is one of disgust, but my second instinct is one of pause. The anti-capitalist attitude breeds irresponsible rhetoric, just as marketing campaigns spin cultural stereotypes back to consumers, forcing plastic and caffeine down the throats of the general public. If I am going to be a diligent anti-capitalism capitalist, I have begun to believe, I need to do two things. First, I need to recognize the difference between enterprise and exploitation- to respect the capitalist as much as the communist- to keep the baby in the bathwater and try to stop it from killing itself or others; I need to differentiate between the evils of “capitalism”- which generate singular selfishness in certain companies who espouse certain ideological fallacies or intolerances- and the capitalist- the creative backbone of the economy. Is it possible for individuals to maximize personal success that both respects progressive liberties and sustains necessary social institutions? Second, I need to find alternatives to injustice and greed that do not involve enslavement to bigoted government agendas, escape tactics, or the blame game, however poetic or abstract my scapegoat may be.