Democracy and Capitalism are two very big ideas. Democracy is an idea about a method people can use to govern themselves. Capitalism is an idea about how some people think we should produce and distribute wealth among people.
So what do Capitalism and democracy have to do with each other? What does a theory of bigger-dogs-eat-littler-dogs inequality have to do with the idea of government by and for the people?
Democracy is an idea formulated by the Greeks during the rise of Western civilization. It was put forth a practical and moral method of governance in which every person in a society should and must participate as a citizen in making collective decisions about where and how their society should go moving forward.
Capitalism is a more recent idea, born soon after Charles Darwin laid out his theory of evolution. It is a belief about economic relations that says that society is made up of selfish individuals who compete with each other, red tooth and claw, to get a bigger piece of the pie. Capitalism says that this competition is natural, good and true and that through a magical “invisible hand” it creates a “greater good”.
Democracy is a moral idea and Capitalism is an idea about the morality of amorality.
In a democracy we must work hard to reasonably reconcile our differences in order to build shared aims and methods for working toward a common good. The common good is all that we share —- the air we breath, the land we cultivate, the seas in which we fish, the energy we produce to build and maintain our roads, cities, damns, airports and all the enterprises we undertake. It is also the well being of our fellows with whom we work to create and share all of these things and our common hopes and dreams for a better future for ourselves and our children.
Capitalism is an idea that makes no provision for reasoning about and working toward the common good. It claims that the “invisible hand” does all that work. Capitalism says that the common good will come as matter of course as individuals seek to plunder the common good in order to maximize their personal wealth. It is the idea that the strongest among us can and should suck off the teat of the common good—our air, land, sea, our energy resources and the labor of others—to maximize individual profit. Capitalism is cannibalism, plain and simple.
Any fool should be able to see that Capitalism is a democracy killer. It is an idea that excuses the rich to get richer at the expense of others. Capitalism kills the common good. It kills others economically. It kills in wars of economic adventure. It kills the land and sea and air for profit. Capitalism enshrines the worst of the human spirit as a law of God and nature and conspires by any and all means, to overthrow any moral strictures imposed upon it. It denies that humans are moral beings, capable of choosing to do good.
Democracy is all “WE” and Capitalism is all “I”. They are two big ideas about how we should act in the world that have virtually nothing in common with each other. It’s no wonder people are dazed and confused when we talk about Capitalism and democracy as if they were the same thing.
The question we are faced with today is not how to make the world safe for democracy AND Capitalism. The real question we should be asking is: What is it we want—a world of Capitalist cannibalism OR a democracy by and for the people?
I don’t like to hide behind other people’s quotes, but I couldn’t find a better way to express myself: ‘The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.’
– Churchill
Madeline, thanks for commenting. If you think Churchill, an ardent and very militaristic apologist for British imperialism, was a font of wisdom, so be it. In point of fact, he served the captains of industry in early 19th Century England, who were a very brutal lot who fought red tooth and claw to subdue the aspirations of suffering workers throughout their land. I for one, think Churchill was a ghastly brute and a bully. In his time and place he was a perfect match for the bully A. Hitler. But have no doubt, he loathed socialist ideas and thought the lower classes should know their place, whether as servants and workers at home or as cannon fodder in the fields of battle. He was defender of empire and captialism—a very ugly man in a very ugly world.
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