This article attempts to explain the radical drive for extraction and consumption that is driving us towards world war, and ecological collapse, in more complex terms than are normally employed in political discourse. Does “capitalism” fully explain the ruthless extraction and consumption we witness?
Fascism is a governmental system in which the means of economic production and delivery of services are privately owned but government-controlled. Throughout history — before even getting to its racism and wars — fascism has led to the glorification of the state and the destruction of personal liberty. It is happening here.
I find much of what you write interesting, but disagree with your conclusion, although not all of your analysis, here.
Here's where we agree:
1. Capitalism is indeed (incorrectly) applied as a catch all rationale for societal problems. I have my own thoughts on this which I will get to in a minute.
2. Many technological advances are not driven by consumer demand.
Here's where we disagree.
1. I wonder if you have misunderstood the second law of thermodynamics when you suggest that it might be the reason for this progress? The second law of thermodynamics suggests that any closed system will tend to maximal disorder.
(i) it says absolutely nothing about such a system attempting to increase disorder by expanding itself to be a larger system.
(ii) I see nothing disorderly about technological progress. If anything the effect you describe (technological progerss) would reflect a large decrease in entropy of the system and must be offset by an increase somewhere else in the rest of the universe (assuming that the definition of "universe" is the entirety of the largest possible system).
2. I think the real reason for the seemingly dystopian urge towards unwanted "progress" is a matter of economics, not physics.
Firstly "capitalism" as the term is commonly (mis)used blends two concepts in a way which is designed to confuse. The two concepts are those of
(a) private property - the right to own a thing
(b) freedom (or free markets) - the right to act and trade without interference from government.
Our current system as operated in the "western democracies" allows (a), but (b) is increasingly restricted by sprawling and onerous regulations. The result is that we do not have free market capitalism, but instead we have monopoly capitalism (sometimes called crony capitalism, or corporatism, or fascism). The confusion is then exploited when (Marxist) critics observe the unpleasant consequences of "capitalism" (consequences which are in fact caused by "monopoly", not capitalism itself), and then advocate for further restrictions on freedom (a greater degree of monopoly) as the solution.
If we correctly analyze our system not as "capitalist" vs "non-capitalist", but instead in terms of freedom and correctly identify our current system as monopolistic instead of free, and thus similar to socialism and communism which are themselves intensely monpolistic systems, then I think we start to see the truth which lies is the distorted incentives supplied by a monopolistic system.
In this case I believe that there are two key drivers of "unwanted" technical progress (or at least progress at an unwanted pace). The first is intellectual property law which provides an outsize reward to whichever corporation achieves an invention first. The second is the artificial economies of scale produced by general industry regulation which tends to favor huge companies and very large engineering organizations over smaller companies - and the large companies exploit this by continually pushing for, and throwing resources at, new standards. The relative burden, spread across vast product ranges, is much lower than for smaller companies with a narrower range of products who must nevertheless comply with all the standards.
The consequence is that the industry in its entirety is forced to move at the pace preferred by the behemoth manufacturers. For example component technology suppliers cannot sensibly maintain more than a couple of product generations as the engineering effort required to maintain the supply and support of "outdated" products rapidly becomes uneconomic. Smaller manufacturers are forced to move at the same pace as the behemoths as they lack the scale to provide a sustainable market by themselves for component suppliers. And service providers must adopt the new technology as they cannot operate their networks with technology where spare parts and maintenance are no longer available. And thus the distorted incentives propagate through the system. And anyone who tries to resist will eventually fail.
You can experience a microcosm of these issues yourself if you try to avoid taking new versions of operating systems or smartphones. I have thus far refused to upgrade from my iphone 6 and Windows 7. However it is becoming increasingly difficult to continue down this path as much software (apps and programs) is no longer supported and I have to spend considerable time devising workarounds.
My explanation can easily be extended to show how the distorted incentives resulting from monopolism lead to "unwlecome" exploitation of resources, environmental damage, and a host of other undesirable effects.
Hello, Emmanuel! I think you ask important questions in this piece. And I'm glad that you look at defining capitalism. What I say is that capitalism is owning the capital or the assets that back the money. It's meaningless without saying who. We live under banker capitalism, and there's nothing we can fix without fixing that. But community and family capitalism would be a great thing.
You also bring up a great point with consumption. My theory is that, when there's such a huge gulf between what we need for the basics to be secure--housing, healthcare, higher education and hope for retirement--shouldn't we be allowed a little joy with anything we happen to have left over? The Two-Income Trap by Elizabeth Warren and her daughter, shows that we actually consume less than our parents or great grandparents. Our creativity and time has all been taken from us, I don't begrudge people their little luxuries.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment. Let me take a read and respond
December 1, 2022 Slouching Toward Fascism
Fascism is a governmental system in which the means of economic production and delivery of services are privately owned but government-controlled. Throughout history — before even getting to its racism and wars — fascism has led to the glorification of the state and the destruction of personal liberty. It is happening here.
https://www.judgenap.com/slouching-toward-fascism/
I find much of what you write interesting, but disagree with your conclusion, although not all of your analysis, here.
Here's where we agree:
1. Capitalism is indeed (incorrectly) applied as a catch all rationale for societal problems. I have my own thoughts on this which I will get to in a minute.
2. Many technological advances are not driven by consumer demand.
Here's where we disagree.
1. I wonder if you have misunderstood the second law of thermodynamics when you suggest that it might be the reason for this progress? The second law of thermodynamics suggests that any closed system will tend to maximal disorder.
(i) it says absolutely nothing about such a system attempting to increase disorder by expanding itself to be a larger system.
(ii) I see nothing disorderly about technological progress. If anything the effect you describe (technological progerss) would reflect a large decrease in entropy of the system and must be offset by an increase somewhere else in the rest of the universe (assuming that the definition of "universe" is the entirety of the largest possible system).
2. I think the real reason for the seemingly dystopian urge towards unwanted "progress" is a matter of economics, not physics.
Firstly "capitalism" as the term is commonly (mis)used blends two concepts in a way which is designed to confuse. The two concepts are those of
(a) private property - the right to own a thing
(b) freedom (or free markets) - the right to act and trade without interference from government.
Our current system as operated in the "western democracies" allows (a), but (b) is increasingly restricted by sprawling and onerous regulations. The result is that we do not have free market capitalism, but instead we have monopoly capitalism (sometimes called crony capitalism, or corporatism, or fascism). The confusion is then exploited when (Marxist) critics observe the unpleasant consequences of "capitalism" (consequences which are in fact caused by "monopoly", not capitalism itself), and then advocate for further restrictions on freedom (a greater degree of monopoly) as the solution.
If we correctly analyze our system not as "capitalist" vs "non-capitalist", but instead in terms of freedom and correctly identify our current system as monopolistic instead of free, and thus similar to socialism and communism which are themselves intensely monpolistic systems, then I think we start to see the truth which lies is the distorted incentives supplied by a monopolistic system.
In this case I believe that there are two key drivers of "unwanted" technical progress (or at least progress at an unwanted pace). The first is intellectual property law which provides an outsize reward to whichever corporation achieves an invention first. The second is the artificial economies of scale produced by general industry regulation which tends to favor huge companies and very large engineering organizations over smaller companies - and the large companies exploit this by continually pushing for, and throwing resources at, new standards. The relative burden, spread across vast product ranges, is much lower than for smaller companies with a narrower range of products who must nevertheless comply with all the standards.
The consequence is that the industry in its entirety is forced to move at the pace preferred by the behemoth manufacturers. For example component technology suppliers cannot sensibly maintain more than a couple of product generations as the engineering effort required to maintain the supply and support of "outdated" products rapidly becomes uneconomic. Smaller manufacturers are forced to move at the same pace as the behemoths as they lack the scale to provide a sustainable market by themselves for component suppliers. And service providers must adopt the new technology as they cannot operate their networks with technology where spare parts and maintenance are no longer available. And thus the distorted incentives propagate through the system. And anyone who tries to resist will eventually fail.
You can experience a microcosm of these issues yourself if you try to avoid taking new versions of operating systems or smartphones. I have thus far refused to upgrade from my iphone 6 and Windows 7. However it is becoming increasingly difficult to continue down this path as much software (apps and programs) is no longer supported and I have to spend considerable time devising workarounds.
My explanation can easily be extended to show how the distorted incentives resulting from monopolism lead to "unwlecome" exploitation of resources, environmental damage, and a host of other undesirable effects.
Hello, Emmanuel! I think you ask important questions in this piece. And I'm glad that you look at defining capitalism. What I say is that capitalism is owning the capital or the assets that back the money. It's meaningless without saying who. We live under banker capitalism, and there's nothing we can fix without fixing that. But community and family capitalism would be a great thing.
You also bring up a great point with consumption. My theory is that, when there's such a huge gulf between what we need for the basics to be secure--housing, healthcare, higher education and hope for retirement--shouldn't we be allowed a little joy with anything we happen to have left over? The Two-Income Trap by Elizabeth Warren and her daughter, shows that we actually consume less than our parents or great grandparents. Our creativity and time has all been taken from us, I don't begrudge people their little luxuries.