Sunday, April 05, 2009
Capitalism with a conscience
Virg: I was pleased when the phrase, "Capitalism with a conscience" was used at the recent G-20 summit (I think by Sarkozy). It is past time for this country to adopt that mindset. The competitive, exploitative nature of pure capitalism does not have a place in a country (or world) that claims to have a moral basis. Certainly personal economic incentive needs to be preserved; without it technical progress would be limited, we all know that. However, it needs to serve a "higher purpose" (as I think our President said). My hope is that the above statement heralds a new, humanitarian, post-capitalism age. In unfettered capitalism, someone loses, someone is on the bottom, someone is exploited (witness the robber barons of the past decade). The art is in the application of the fetters, but we're certainly up to the task, aren't we?
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2 comments:
I agree, MacGraham. It's going to be a rough battle, though. Remember "Compassionate Conservatism?" Capitalist ideologues rival fundamentalist Christian & Muslim groups in dehumanizing the world & putting form over substance.
Capitalism has no conscience. That is fundamental to its nature and a key aspect of its virtue. It is and always will be a mistake to believe that the market place will ever acquire a conscience, the language of conscience is not read in the market place.
It is the role of government to establish the bounds within which the market place functions, to guide, direct and harness Adam Smith's invisible hand to the collective purpose.
The fundamental error in American Philosophy, beginning with the Regan era has been the idea that the market can provide nearly everything a nation needs and that values are entirely a personal level issue. Unfettered capitalism became our one and only collective public value, the very purpose and definition of the nation.
Such a philosophy defines a hollow and soulless culture, devoid of shared public values or definition beyond that which can be written on an accounting statement.
The market place in truth is an unavoidable reality with one and only one virtue; its ability to reflect economic reality and transform that into group action in real time. It is an indispensible necessity to any modern economy but wholly inadequate in and of itself to define a culture, a society or a nation. It is a beginning and a means not an end.
The market place did not send us to the moon. The market place did not write the constitution. The market place did not free the slaves or cause the civil rights movement, pass child labor laws of build our universities. The market place can provide no meaning for the life of a nation. We do that together when we define our government.
So I think it is a subtle mistake to phrase the statement as it is. We need a nation with a conscience. Capitalism is not the nation it is but an element in it.
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