The Great Irony of Capitalism
All work no play may have made Jack a dull boy,
But all work no God has left Jack with a lost soul.
But he’s moving on full steam;
He’s chasing the American dream.
He’s gonna give his family finer things.
“Not this time son, I’ve no time to waste;
Maybe tomorrow we’ll have time to playâ€
And then he slips into his little BMW,
And drives farther, and farther, and farther away
‘Cause he works all day, and tries to sleep at night
He says things will get better, better in time
- Casting Crowns - American Dream
The Capitalist economy is structured so that each person tries to exploit the system for his own gain. By allowing for and even encouraging this sort of individualistic behavior, Capitalism ensures its own survival: exploitive and selfish behavior are inevitable in society, and part of the reason Communism fell is because of behavior in the interests of the individual over the group.
Because Capitalism is built on this system of encouraging self-interested behavior to the detriment of the group, the participants work against each other, effectively balancing out the system in the long run - Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” that guides the market to long term equilibrium. This system of motivation is perhaps the strongest of any, because obligation or compulsion hardly ever compel everyone to work their hardest. But working for one’s self on the other hand, multiplied by the entire population of any particular Capitalist economy, produces a group product - GDP - far more consistently greater than any other economic system to date.
But a culture of adamant individualism has its downsides as well. Certainly this was the complaint of Marx and other anti-Capitalists: riches only bring more greed - by any account unhealthy for the psyche. Self interest at the expense of others creates a culture harmful to the individual psychologically, and if taken to its logical extreme, even physically as well (self-interest is, after all, what drives the vast majority of crime).
This then is the irony of Capitalism: by working in our own self-interests and against those of the whole on a massive scale, we actually harm ourselves psychologically and emotionally for the benefit of and in order to uphold that same whole.
SHARE{ FacebookDiggRedditNewsVinedel.icio.usStumbleUponSlashdotTechnoratiMa.gnoliaWindows LiveTwitter }
One Response
Apr 04 at 9:45 pm
Told you I’d comment. I like the idea of the piece, but if you really want to impress me, and maybe others too, consider an in-depth comparison of Capitalism/Communism/(and maybe my favorite to mock)Anarchist interrelations in society. I like mulling over political and economic systems, but I never get anyone to talk to about them.