Archive for the ‘capitalism’ Category
Objectivism? Eh what?
and dollars…
As a person with a bad habit of self-isolating, I occasionally check out the possibility of meet-ups in my area. So I was amused by one that definitely didn’t appeal, except for playing a ‘fly in the ointment’ role. It’s called ‘capitalism and coffee – an objectivist meet-up’, and is based on the ‘philosophy’ of Ayn Rand – of course.
So it’s back to the free will issue, one which, I must admit, I quite enjoy rabbiting on about. So, even the most ardent libertarian or free will enthusiast will have to admit that, say, humans aren’t free to become sperm whales, and vice versa. We’re definitely trapped in our species-dom. Even so, every sperm whale is an individual, as is every human. And isn’t this individuality a feature of every dog or cat you’ve ever owned or known? I’ve been familiar with quite a few. But we don’t tend to believe that their (mostly) delightful uniqueness is entirely of their own making, or even partially so. Different breeds have different characteristics, and within those breeds there are levels of timidity, gregariousness, aggression and so on. So each of these pets is unique, but not by choice. So why do we, or some of us, like to believe that we are free to choose our own nature? Our individuality is evident enough, there is nobody else on the planet quite like us, but nobody else has experienced quite the same parenting and formative experience. Even physically, we’re virtually never mistaken for somebody else.
Of course, freedom is appealing – what could be more so? We’re appalled by what is being imposed on people in Ukraine, in Palestine, in North Korea, in El Salvador, and by the impoverished circumstances of children in many regions, who haven’t had the luck of being born to comfortably-off parents in a WEIRD country.
So the place and circumstances in which we’re born are heavily determinising, if that’s a word (it is now – freedom!), but what about the time. I happen to be reading an epic historical study, God’s War, by Christopher Tyerman – well over 900 pages covering the crusading adventures from the 11th century to the 15th, four major crusades and a plethora of minor ones, including the Albigensian crusade against the Cathars in Languedoc and southern Europe. Talk about the past being another country – they do things horribly there. The world Tyerman describes is dominated by more or less fervent religion, which isn’t to say that land-grabbing, rank-pulling and other forms of capitalism aren’t massively in evidence. And reading about it raises obvious questions for me.
I was born in Dundee, Scotland in 1956. What if I’d been born in around the same region in, say, 1156? The town of Dundee probably didn’t exist then – certainly Australia, to which I was taken at the age of five, was then a piece of land completely unknown to northerners. At that time Scotland was being harried by Vikings in the west, 15-year-old Malcolm IV sat uneasily on the throne (of Alba, as it was then known), and Henry II had only recently begun his long reign in the dominant south, after years of civil war. But of course one thing that held fast was religion, i.e Christianity. The Norman conquest had reinforced Catholicism, with Scotland only just beginning to assert independence from the south in religious matters (full independence was attained in 1192 as a result of the Papal Bull of Celestine III, apparently).
There was no way that I could’ve been anything but a Catholic Christian myself in 1192 – as an ageing 36-year-old. And who knows, I might’ve been fit and fervent enough to join the party for the third crusade of that time, led by Richard Coeur de Lion, no less – among other worthies and unworthies. In any case, the last thing on my mind would’ve been free will and capitalist enterprise.
Nowadays, though, free will has become an issue. With the decline of religion in most of the WEIRD world, some have, it seems, come to believe that they are their own gods. But a few problems arise, for obviously we don’t get to choose our parents, our genetic inheritance, the time and place of our birth, our experiences in the womb or in our early childhood. The Dunedin longitudinal study of health and development, which began in the early seventies, and which I’ve written about previously, while not of course designed to ‘prove’ hard determinism, categorised participants in terms of personality types – Well-Adjusted, Undercontrolled, Inhibited, Confident, and Reserved, and has found that those individual types have barely changed over fifty years. Yet within those types there are differences, making every single person on the planet quite unique. But of course uniqueness is not a proof of free will.
So how did Ayn Rand argue otherwise? What is the ‘objectivism’ that she espoused? That’s not an easy question to answer. It certainly isn’t meant as an opposite to ‘subjectivism’, and it seems that very little of her writing analyses the concept of free will directly. Let me take a piece of it for my own analysis:
If [man] chooses to live, a rational ethics will tell him what principles of action are required to implement his choice. If he does not choose to live, nature will take its course. Reality confronts a man with a great many “must’s”, but all of them are conditional: the formula of realistic necessity is: “you must, if –” and the if stands for man’s choice: “if you want to achieve a certain goal”. [from an essay collection – Philosophy, who needs it? – published in 1982, the year of her death]
Rand always uses the male perspective, and was always bizarrely anti-feminist. Apart from that, much of her writing strikes me as pseudo-philosophical, as this passage shows. What is meant by a rational ethics? Are there examples of irrational ethics? Are there unrealistic necessities? Indeed, who needs this philosophy? But to be fair, perhaps this is a bad, decontextualised example. The central point of all this though, is that Rand never really presents a free will argument. Free will, or what she calls ‘volitional consciousness’, is at the heart of her world-view, but it certainly isn’t adequately explained. The term itself suggests the feeling we have when we make a decision, but those feelings, and that decision, are those of a mind or brain that is wholly determined. How could it not be? And not self-determined, because what is an individual self other than an entirely determined entity? How could it be otherwise? And that seems to be the key mistake that libertarians make (apparently Rand didn’t consider herself a libertarian, but that just seems quibbling). They mistake complexity for self-determination, because we’re undoubtedly highly complex beings, perhaps even approaching some cetaceans in that department.
Of course, Rand is simply the product of her upbringing and early experiences. I don’t know much about her background, except that it wasn’t that of a Dalit in Hindu India, or an Aboriginal in Australia, or a Bantu in the DRC, or a woman in ‘modern’ Afghanistan. And of course I’m not at all surprised that her philosophy is popular in the USA. Nor am I particularly surprised that there’s a meet-up dedicated to it here in dear old Adelaide. Actually, I wouldn’t mind attending – but not as myself, more as a ‘fly on the wall’, listening to how they justify and promote themselves. Sadly, though, flies only have a fly’s neural system.
But -that’s determinism for you.
References
https://www.meetup.com/adelaide-ayn-rand-meetup/
Christopher Tyerman, God’s war; a new history of the crusades, 2006
bonobos and capitalism?
Jacinta: The theme of capitalism has been playing in the back of my mind lately…
Canto: Really? Can you hum a few bars?
Jacinta: Well it’s a theme with many variations, so it’s hard to know where to start….
Canto: With bonobos? Are they capitalists?
Jacinta: Well, that’s the point, capitalism can be defined very broadly and inclusively, which would leave the anti-capitalists – people who define themselves as socialists or communists – with not much ground to stand on.
Canto: You mean like capitalising is what we all do to survive and thrive, like capitalising on balmy weather to spend a day at the beach?
Jacinta: Yes, but even the negative aspects of it might be inescapable, like capitalising on other living things for our food, by, uhh, eating them. Even vegetarians can’t avoid that.
Canto: But by eating the fruit of the tree, you’re not killing the tree. You’re even helping the tree to multiply, so long as you spit the seeds out, on fertile ground.
Jacinta: Yeah vegetarians always do that. But that’s sort of a good example of how hard it is to be ethical capitalists. Trees, like every other living thing, have evolved to multiply, so, in the most amazingly complex but non-sentient way, they cover their seeds, carrying their offspring, in tasty wrappings for insects and birds to peck or consume so that the seeds fall down or are blown away or shat out, and one in a few thousand ends up in the right spot to grow into another tree, just as one of a gazillion spermatozoa ends up in the right spot to grow another mammal. We humans, though, have taken capitalism to another level. Earlier states or civilisations, developments out of agricultural society, depended very much on the labour of slaves, or serfs, or villeins, in a system that more or less fossilised landed aristocracies. But it was a thoroughly capitalist system that worked, to the extent that it grew the human population, establishing us more than ever at the top of the food chain.
Canto: But surely most modern anti-capitalist thinkers have a much narrower view of capitalism. Does Marx have anything still to offer? Neo-Marxism?
Jacinta: I don’t know – but whenever I encounter a self-professed socialist or communist, and I occasionally do, I always want to ask them if they believe in democracy.
Canto: Well there are people, and parties, that call themselves social democrats. I assume that’s a kind of ‘soft socialism’, with the aim of convincing, or ‘educating’ the populace into viewing socialism, or at least a less hierarchical employer/employee system, a more distributed ownership of the means of production, a taxation system that favours the more disadvantaged, a quality education and healthcare system that favours the same, should get their vote every time, or more times than most.
Jacinta: Yes and there are political organisations like the Chinese Communist Party, which isn’t really a party at all, which give communism a bad name, if it ever had a good one. And there are thinkers who seem to define themselves as anti-capitalists, who seem to take the view that if we can only change the system, as so many young people are keen to do, and become less rapacious and more keen to care and share, the human world will be so much better.
Canto: And yet they never mention bonobos. That’s a shame. We get caught up with these ‘isms’, including conservatism and liberalism, and they box us in and make enemies of others. Bonobos have a society, but it would be silly to call it leftist or rightist, capitalist or socialist. Yes they capitalise on available resources, and they socialise with each other for fun and comfort and sex, which is also a form of capitalism, broadly speaking, but again labelling it this way seems a bit dumb.
Jacinta: Yes, to me, the key is to develop a sort of humanism which is more like bonoboism with all the big-brained human stuff thrown in. Modern science seems like that to me, I mean the practice. That community has its spats, as do bonobos, but mostly its collaborative and supportive. They need more sex perhaps, but, you know, sublimation and all that.
Canto: Yes, that’s interesting. There’s some hierarchical elements in the scientific community, with team leaders and stuff, but the focus isn’t so much on power, as it so often is in politics, the focus is on improvement – better data, better tools, better theories, better results, better connections.
Jacinta: Yes it’s generally a relief to turn to science, especially as an antidote to US-style politics, which is so absurdly divided. I think the social media world has very much exacerbated that situation. People have gotten stuck in their bubbles, and there’s so much hate talk, it’s exhausting.
Canto: So getting back to capitalism, I agree that it’s inescapable, and the key is what we call ‘mixed’ capitalism, and the disagreements are or should be about the degree of regulation, the degree of taxation, the degree of exploitation (of people, resources, land and so forth). That means coming together on boring things such as wage indexation, healthcare, education, housing, environmental protection, interest rates, crime and punishment and the like. Imagining that we can change the system in some holistic way by implementing a particular ideology just ignores ye olde crooked timber of humanity….
Jacinta: Our current federal government, cautiously centre left, seeking to be collaborative and so getting hit from both sides (but not too hard), seeking to mend fences with our neighbours, with some success, and looking to tackle a number of difficult issues re housing, global warming, our overdeveloped service economy and neglected and dying manufacturing sector – this new government has many challenges, as all governments do, but it has more women in it than any previous government, and many smart independent members. Collaboration across the political spectrum has never been more of a possibility, it seems to me, than ever. This is something that a diverse, active population needs, and will hopefully support, for a while. An opportunity worth capitalising on.
a bonobo world? 8 – hunter-gatherers, the agricultural revolution, capitalism and science
We can see that human society, various though it is, has much in common with chimp society. Throughout human history, males have dominated females to an overwhelming degree, and large groups of males have fought to the death over territory, or over which dominant male should vanquish and control the territory of the other. Edward Gibbon’s monumental Decline and fall of the Roman Empire is a tale of 500 years of political intrigue, betrayal and murder in a system where succession was never based on inheritance but only on political power and skill, with the military always prominent.
It’s generally accepted that the ancestors of modern human apes engaged in a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle from at least 2 million years ago. This very successful lifestyle was dominant until the development of agriculture a mere 12,000 years ago. While there’s much debate on the structure of hunter-gatherer societies, the dominant view is that they were more egalitarian than post-agricultural societies, and also chimp societies. Recent research also suggests that the success of the hunter-gatherer system, with its sexual division of labour, enabled Homo sapiens to outcompete Homo neanderthalensis as they spread across the globe. However, it’s unlikely that this lifestyle and social system was invariant across regions or time, and evidence found about one group will not stand for all. Technologies varied, as did diet and climatic conditions. In some of these societies, women joined the hunt, or hunted with other women, depending on the type of quarry being hunted and how the hunt was carried out. Kinship relationships in these early societies tended to be matrilineal, that is, descent through the female line is generally acknowledged, though this had little effect on inheritance among hunter-gatherers, as there is virtually nothing to inherit, except, perhaps, reputation. However, the gradual transition to a settled, agricultural lifestyle created a more routinised existence of digging, sowing, reaping, building and defending territory. Research has found that, in women as well as men, bones became bigger and harder during the early agricultural period. It could in many ways be described as a disastrous change in the short term, as workloads increased and diets became less varied. It certainly spelt long-term danger to other species, with deforestation, land degradation and the diversion of natural water-courses becoming increasingly widespread. The reliability of seasonal rains and sunshine became a focus, which led to the growth of religious rites and ceremonies, and to a class of religious intermediaries. As to gender roles, with the development of fixed dwellings, the males tended to do more of the field-work and the women became more home-bound, engaged in child-rearing, cereal processing and other food preparation. And naturally, with land itself becoming increasingly central, territorial conflicts and ownership hierarchies developed. The domestication of animals, together with the cultivation of fields, made these hierarchies more visible. If you laid claim to more land, you could produce more food, making others in the village more dependent upon you. We think today of wealthy people with more capital to invest or otherwise utilise, and interestingly, the word capital comes from the same Indo-European root as cattle, the first animals to be domesticated in large numbers. You might make this increase in your capital more tangible with a bigger dwelling and perhaps more ‘wives’ and dependents under your keeping.
It certainly seems likely that the development of a sedentary, agricultural lifestyle created a more patriarchal, and unequal, human society. Women spent more time ‘at home’ than they did in hunter-gathering times, and had more children. Recent research has also found that the regions which have had the longest history of an agricultural lifestyle have the most deep-rooted patriarchal attitudes.
In modern capitalist counties, inequality is obviously increasing, especially if you judge by that most capitalist of nations, the USA, which currently has the greatest income inequality in its history, and the greatest income inequality of all the G7 nations. The gap between the super-rich and the merely rich in the USA has widened spectacularly over the past twenty-five years, and If we examine US wealth from a gender perspective we find that women own 32c for every dollar owned by men. Whether or not the gap between women and men’s wealth increases, I cannot envisage anything but an increasing gap between rich and poor in the US, as it is far more wedded to libertarian mythology than any other nation.
It’s my belief, though, or maybe it’s a mere hope, that less atomistic societies, such as we find in Asia, may ultimately lead us to the way of the bonobo – a society with less internal strife, less rigid hierarchies and inequalities, a greater sense of togetherness and mutual concern, and even more relaxation and play.
Science
Some years ago the philosopher A C Grayling gave a talk in Australia, which I heard on Radio National. He spoke of two visits he made in the region of Geneva, to the headquarters of the United Nations, and to CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider. He was stuck by the contrast between the genial, collaborative atmosphere at CERN, featuring scientists from over 100 nations, and the testy, zero-sum nature of negotiations at the UN.
Science has become more collaborative over time, and far less patriarchal over the last century, though there’s still some way to go. Venki Ramakrishnan, who won the Nobel Prize for his contribution to decoding the structure of the ribosome, made many interesting points about the famous prize in his book Gene Machine. He notes the increasingly collaborative nature of science, and doesn’t subscribe to the heroic narrative of science. Many people and groups in recent years have been given the prize – which is always life-transforming because it brings their name to the generally non-scientific public in one fell swoop – for simply being the first to solve a puzzle or make a discovery that many groups or persons were on the verge of making, within an atmosphere of generally collegial competition. It’s also noteworthy that, while the early Nobel Prizes in the sciences were awarded to individuals, this has become increasingly rare. I rather enjoy the fact that, as the twentieth century progressed, and on into the twenty-first, both the collective nature of science and the female contribution to it have become increasingly recognised. I would like to think that the connection between collectivity and female participation is not coincidental.
Of course, many early breakthroughs in science and technology are anonymous, and as such, seen as collective. Who invented the plow? The Sumerians maybe, or some other Mesopotamian or Indus Valley culture. Writing? Mesopotamia again, or maybe the Indus Valley or China, or separately by different cultures, possibly even in Rapa Nui. But nowadays, we’re keen to give individual recognition for any technological or scientific developments.
References
https://www.jstor.org/stable/44113711?seq=1