OUT OF INDIA

 

Out of India come the world’s most famous “non-Jewish” religions, even though its own native Buddhism has long been evicted from the subcontinent. Talking about Buddhism and Hinduism, both as the religions of India, Schopenhauer observes a common tradition of non-violence in them:

“Although it is a matter of common knowledge that about the fifth century of our era Buddhism was driven out by the Brahmans from its ancient home in the southernmost part of the Indian peninsula, afterwards to spread over the rest of Asia, as far as I know, we have no certain account of any crimes of violence or wars or cruelties, perpetrated in the course of it. That may of course be attributable to the obscurity, which veils the history of those countries; but the extremely mild character of their religion, with a steady inculcation of forbearance towards all living things, and the fact that Brahmanism by its caste system properly admits no proselytes, allows one to hope that their adherents may be acquitted of shedding blood on a large scale, and of cruelty in any form.”

The Time Almanac says: “No single creed binds Hindus together. Intellectually there is complete freedom of belief. Hinduism is a syncretic religion welcoming and incorporating a variety of outside influences.” If so, why did the Brahmans chase the Buddhists out of India? (The last question renders a pleasantly subtle double-meaning to my title, which pleases me greatly, as the pun was initially unexpected.) Was it politics, stupid? At any rate, the Almanac’s assertion about “complete freedom” and the “welcoming mat” does not quite stand up to our very first scrutiny.

Hinduism is defined by the BBC World Religions Project as “a group of faiths rooted in the religious ideas of India.” It is considered the world’s oldest religion, dating back to prehistoric times, and having over nine million to a billion-plus adherents worldwide. It is not a single doctrine, with no single founder or teacher. Ironically, just as Buddhism originated in modern-day India proper, but is no longer considered an Indian religion proper, Hinduism originated in the Indus Valley in modern-day Pakistan, now at least technically no longer part of what we call India today.

More than 80% of the Indian population regard themselves as Hindu, although neither the word Hinduism nor the word Brahmanism used by Schopenhauer, are used by them themselves. Hinduism was actually the name invented by the British administration in India during colonial times, whereas the Hindus call their religion Sanatana Dharma (eternal religion), or Vaidika Dharma (religion of the Vedas), the Vedas being the most ancient religious Hindu text, believed to have been received by Hindu scholars directly from God and passed onto generations by word of mouth. Apart from the sacred Vedas, other important Hindu texts include the Upanishads (dealing with Vedic philosophy and forming the conclusions of each of the Vedas: “elaborating on how the soul Atman can be united with the ultimate truth Brahman through contemplation and mediation, as well as on the doctrine of Karma: the cumulative effects of a person’s actions”), and the Ramayana (concerning the life of the hero Rama, viewed as an avatar of Vishnu, and as “a principal deity in his own right.” Its written form is credited to the poet Valmiki). There is also the Mahabharata, a group of books attributed to the sage Vyasa, recording the legends of the Bharata tribal group. Its sixth book the Bhagavad-Gita is a poem describing a conversation between the warrior Arjuna and the God Krishna. It is an ancient text that has become a main sacred text of Hinduism and other belief systems.

As far as the classical European-written history of Hinduism is concerned, with its Christian emphasis on an “Aryan invasion,” presumably harmonizing Vedism with the Biblical Book of Genesis, it is, apparently, not worth too much, to be given a place in this entry or anywhere else, for that matter:

“There is no racial evidence of any such Indo-Aryan invasion of India, but only of a continuity of the same group of people who traditionally considered themselves to be Aryans. This academic concept in 18^th and 19^th century Europe reflected the cultural milieu of the period. Linguistic data were used to validate the concept that in turn was used to interpret archeological and anthropological data. There was no invasion by anyone.”

Hinduism believes in a universal eternal soul called Brahma the Creator, but its adherents worship other deities as well, recognizing different attributes of Brahma in them. There are two major divisions within Hinduism, recognizing either Vishnu or Shiva as the ultimate deity.

Hinduism has commonly been viewed in the West as a polytheistic religion, but this is not quite accurate. On the other hand, some have viewed it as a monotheistic religion, as it recognizes only one supreme God Brahma, the panentheistic principle of all reality being a unity. Some view Hinduism as Trinitarian which is an interesting stretch, because Brahma’s manifestations in Vishnu the Krishna (Preserver), and in Shiva the Destroyer can be viewed in parallel, although without any deeper similarities, with the Christian triad of God the Father as manifested in God the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Strictly speaking, most forms of Hinduism are considered henotheistic: they recognize one supreme Deity, but also other gods and goddesses as facets, forms, manifestations, or aspects of that supreme God.

This last term is intriguing, as it appears to combine the philosophical monotheism of a great religion with its traditional cultural mythology. In a way Christianity does have a mythology of its own, as represented by a host of its Saints and patron saints, angels and guardian angels, and, of course, by the cult of the Mother of God. Poor Protestants, though. Deprived of mythology, they either had to look for it elsewhere, like in the Nibelungen Ring, for instance, which was not such a bad thing as losing all their culture, like it is now the case among the American Evangelicals.

Before I am done with this entry, here is a word about the important Indian religion, known as Jainism. It is important enough as a cultural phenomenon, to have its festival dates listed in the Time Almanac, but as a religion it is not receiving a similar mention. The BBC World Religions Project calls Jainism an ancient philosophy and ethical teaching that originated in India, the word “religion” conspicuously missing from this short description. The longer description, however, is not so blunt.

“Jainism is an ancient Indian religion teaching the way to liberation and bliss in a life of harmlessness and renunciation. Its essence is concern for the welfare of every being in the universe and for the health of the universe itself.”

There is no single founder of Jainism, although tradition frequently ascribes this role to the semi-legendary ancient sage Mahavira Vardhamana. Although not the first among the Jains (24^th to be precise), he is said to have developed the basic doctrine of Jainism. (I am by all means resisting the temptation to compare him to Christianity’s own St. Paul!)

The distinguishing peculiarity of Jainism is its belief that all animals and plants, as well as human beings, contain living souls. Each of these souls is considered of equal value and must be treated with respect and compassion. Jains are strict vegetarians and live in a way that minimizes the use of the world’s resources. Other than this special condition, Jainism is philosophically too close to the Hinduist religious tradition to merit a special distinction.

Most Jains live in India, and there are reported to be over four million throughout the world. The highest published figure is 10 million, which is clearly incorrect. But its historical and philosophical import is far too great to omit it from at least this brief and non-independent consideration.

PHILOSOPHER’S STONE

My title here is a complicated associative chain that may require an explanation. “Philosopher’s Stone” is a playful version of Philosopher’s Rock, Biblically associated with Church via Matthew 16:18: “…and upon this rock I will build my church.” The uncomplicated title would be Philosopher’s Religion, and I am now talking about Buddhism, one of the least dogmatic, and therefore the most philosophically inoffensive of all world religions.

Mind you, whereas in most cases when I discuss religion I necessarily tie it to the corresponding culture that it represents, in this particular case I am deliberately disconnecting the religious beliefs of Buddhism from the cultures which claim to profess it. Modern, as well as historical, Buddhist cultures can hardly be called benevolent, displaying strikingly negative political characteristics virtually incompatible with the teachings of religious Buddhism. In this entry, though, my specific focus is exclusively on the philosophical value of the Buddhist religion. (In this connection, see my entry The Path Of Dharma, posted on this blog on August 25^th, 2012.)

Buddhism is generally represented as “a way of living based on the teachings of Siddartha Gautama, also known as the Buddha.” Nietzsche calls it “the product of long centuries of philosophical speculation.” (In The Antichrist, XX.) A similar, and perhaps even greater appreciation of its philosophical value is found in Schopenhauer’s tribute to the Eastern religions, at the expense of the monotheistic creeds, described by him as “the Jewish faith and its two branches, Christianity and Islamism” all three of which he apparently abhorred.

In order to understand why Buddhism can be called a philosopher’s religion, let us begin with Gautama’s First Noble Truth: All living beings suffer. The origin of evil and human suffering are perhaps the highest practical subject of interest to a philosopher, and here is the Buddha tackling it head on! The world as such is an evil place (Buddhism and Christianity are in agreement on this point, as Schopenhauer also observes in his comparative analysis of religions), and the person’s noble task is to find his own weak spot (desire), and learn how to overcome his weakness. As the ultimate reward for his victory, he shall enter the eternal bliss of Nirvana, blessed nothingness, non-existence, which is good, as opposed to existence, which is evil. And, so that nobody bails out of the cursed life via a shortcut, here is the punishment of reincarnation! If you thought this life was bad, just wait to see what your next life has in store for you hereafter!

Buddhism, like Hinduism, is sometimes called a “godless” religion. It is not quite true, however, because in order to merit such a distinction, it has to be proven first that God is absent, and not just unmentioned, which may be the case when the idea of an unknowable God allows Him to transcend the limitations of a finite human mental capacity. In other words, the absence of God’s mention may be a token of reverence, rather than a statement of denial. On the other hand, the rather dramatic concept of Hell is not there, and in its stead Buddhism has the unspeakable horror of returning to a life of even greater misery than the life we are having now. And rather than engaging our mind in another perplexing contemplation of what the Paradise is, we have the philosophical unknowability of “non-existence.” Remember the classic Greek line of questioning about the meaning of is and is not! Perhaps, if the evil “is” is this world, then the good “is not” can be the unknowable God!

There is another striking feature in Buddhism, drawing universal praise from all philosophers and turning it into a true philosopher’s stone: its extraordinary tolerance. In this respect, the Buddhists must make the best citizens of the world, in the universal sense of gens una sumus.

Having gone to such great lengths in my praise of Buddhism, the sense of fairness prevents me from going into a serious discussion of some of its demonstrably specious elements, such as the multiplicity, and even the eternity of the Buddha or should I say, the eternal recurrence, which is part of the dogma among most of the existing Buddhist sects. All these dubious features belong to the traditional cultures of the Buddhists who embrace these beliefs, and that is good enough for me to leave them alone as a set of foreign beliefs of a different culture.

Talking about the absurdity of some religious beliefs, here is our insightful Schopenhauer again ridiculing our own Christian doctrines, while praising the Eastern religions, not for their lack of absurdity, of course, but for avoiding the kind of “absurdity” which he associates with the Christian doctrines of Predestination and Grace: “We must recognize the fact that mankind cannot get on without a certain amount of absurdity and that that absurdity is an element in its existence, and illusion indispensable; as indeed other aspects of life testify. I have said that the combination of the Old Testament with the New gives rise to absurdities. In illustration of what I mean I may cite the Christian doctrine of Predestination and Grace as formulated by St. Augustine, and adopted from him by Luther; according to which one man is endowed with Grace, and another one is not. Grace, then, comes to be a privilege received at birth and brought ready into the world; a privilege in a matter second to none in importance. What is obnoxious and absurd in this doctrine can be traced to the idea contained in the Old Testament, that man is the creation of an external will which called him into existence out of nothing. It is true that genuine moral excellence is really innate; but the meaning of the Christian doctrine is expressed in another, and more rational way by the theory of metempsychosis, common to Brahmans and Buddhists. According to this theory, the qualities which distinguish one man from another are received at birth, are brought, that is to say, from another world and a former life; these qualities are not an external gift of grace, but are the fruits of the acts committed in that other world.”

(In fairness to Schopenhauer, he next proceeds to point out that our doctrines of Predestination and Grace are revolting only when taken literally, whereas allegorically they make good sense. Perhaps this is what I should do in the next stage of my work: attempting to find a good allegorical sense in the Buddhist as well as in other Eastern religions’ doctrines, which are otherwise hard to swallow in their literal sense…)

In the meantime, I would much rather stay positive about the philosophical value of Buddhism, as a quest for spiritual enlightenment with an extraordinarily benign attitude of tolerance, not that kind of wholesale tolerance that tolerates everything and anything, but the smart kind, particularly of the legitimate religious and cultural differences among the multitude of world nations.

 

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE LIGHT…

In my previously posted entries (Kaballah As Advocatus Christi/January 15, 2011; Sefirot/May 14, 2012; etc.), I noted an incredible symbiotic relationship between Christian theology and Lurianic Kaballah, to the point where Isaac Luria virtually makes the otherwise impossibly difficult concepts of the Divinity of Christ and of the Trinity comprehensible through such Kaballistic concepts as Gvul, Tzimtzum, and the Sefirot. Here is another such entry, where the Lurianic vision of the Creation is reconciled with the Torah account through the Christian Gospel of John. In other words, I compare the Biblical Story of Creation to the Creation fantasy of Isaac Luria, in whose account Creation is accomplished by a Beam of Divine Light. Was that Light God’s first creation (in which case, this is in direct contradiction with the Biblical sequence of events (In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light!), or was that Beam of Light God Himself, in which case there should be no apparent contradiction?

The Bible is conspicuously straightforward in its account of the first steps of Creation. The heaven and the earth were created first, in darkness, and the light came next. There are some very interesting implications of this, which I will have a chance to explore, whenever I get to work on this section, as I shall consolidate all bits and pieces about Creation possibly in one long entry, and develop this line of thinking much-much further. But first, here is a more accurate retelling of Isaac Luria’s (1534-1572) mystical tale, as quoted in my entry The Legend Of Tikkun Olam (posted on this blog on April 30, 2012), in the Tikkun Olam section:

The God of Infinity, Ein Sof, withdraws into Himself (tzimtzum), in order to make room for the Creation, which occurs by a beam of light from the Infinite, into the newly provided space. Later, the divine light is enclosed in finite vessels, most of which break under the strain and this shevirat ha-kelim (the breaking of the vessels) catastrophe as it occurs paves the way, so to speak, for disharmony and evil to enter the world. Hence comes the struggle to free the world from evil and to accomplish the redemption of both the cosmos and history.

There is no doubt that Luria’s poetic account of Creation is in itself a wonderfully beautiful and thoughtful allegory. It would be a tremendous loss, should it be condemned to dismissal, for not squaring up with the story in the Bible, and my challenge here is to harmonize them, thus reassuring their compatibility.

And therefore, here is my principal harmonization argument. How about these opening lines of The Gospel According to John? These lines are known to all devout Christians by heart, but it would be most instructive to look at the familiar lines from a special angle:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
He came unto his own, and his own received him not. (John 1:1-11.)

Ask any Christian, and they will tell you that Jesus Christ was that Word and that Light. But Jesus Christ in Christian theology was (and is) God, eternal and pre-existent to the Creation. For this reason, we may say with equal truthfulness to John’s 1:1 that “In the beginning was the Light, and the Light was with God, and the Light was God.” Now, the reader will be well advised to compare Isaac Luria’s account of Creation with the parallel account in the Gospel of John, and further with the standard account in formal Christian theology of the role of Jesus in the process of Creation, to be struck with a stunning consistent similarity between them.

But, of course, legitimate questions remain. What about the created light, and how does Lucifer fit into this picture? I will argue that we are talking about two kinds of light, and the created light must be, in principle, distinguished from the eternal Light, who is God.

In conclusion, I am delighted to make another philosophical connection, this time between the Bible and an adage from Goethe. In John 12:46, Jesus says: “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.” Here it is again, that uncreated light which is so consistent with Rabbi Luria’s original Beam of Light, in his version of Creation.

In the Bible, Jesus comes into the world to let the world see the light, so that now there is no excuse for the unilluminated ones to abide in darkness. And here is Goethe’s adage, from Goetz von Berlichingen: “Where the light is brightest the shadows are deepest.” Indeed, there is no deeper darkness than the darkness which persists in the presence of light. The philosophical battle lines are sharply drawn, as Jesus says, in Matthew 12:30 and in Luke 11:23, that “he that is not with me is against me.”

There is no gentle chiaroscuro here. Just the stark contrast of bright light and dark shadows.

A RELIGION BORN AGAIN

“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”. (John 3:3) Baptism with fire, as death and resurrection in the great mystery of life of both man and nation…

I am talking of course about Russia and her revitalized religion, rooted in her history, tradition, and culture. Russian Pravoslavie (literally, “the right way to glorify God”) has been the source of that culture, and the force behind the Russian self-appreciation as a great nation with a distinctive Manifest Destiny, formulated as the Doctrine of The Third Rome, where politics and religion stand hand-in-hand, mutually empowering each other.

Russian spiritual consistency is evident in its firmly anti-Capitalist, Christian-Communist mentality, which had been distinctly manifest at all times, well before the Bolshevik Revolution, in the Russian tendency for communal living, such as the post-Emancipation peasant communes known as “mir,” which accounted for well over eighty percent of the Russian population. The idea of Communism was thus by no means foreign to the Russian Christian nationalist soul, but it had nothing in common with, in fact, it was totally inimical to, the peculiar Jewish idea of “Communism,” as represented by Trotsky, for instance, to whom it meant the social empowerment of the Jews, and necessitated a veritable world revolution. Too bad that the West had never been able to discern the real Orthodox Christian-nationalist Russia behind the grotesquely overblown decoy balloon of Trotskyism.

The real Russian Revolution belonged to Stalin-the-Seminarist, whose remarkable vision of Marxism was to combine the historical magnetism of an untamed Russian Buntar, the Rebel, and the shrewd calculation of a stern, moralizing Orthodox Priest.

I am definitely not whitewashing Russia here, whose ruthless disregard for the lives of individuals in the pursuit of her grand nationalist ambitions, a disregard which has caused countless unspeakable tragedies, and particularly in the 1990’s, when millions of lives were destroyed without a civil war, or even an ideological struggle of any sort, I find particularly reprehensible, as I have explicitly stated in several of my entries throughout this book. But this writing is not about pronouncing judgment or taking sides. In the historical America-Russia confrontation neither side can claim perfection. Incidentally, enough of this “democracy” nonsense. Russia’s patently oppressive political system is properly legitimized by her genuinely democratic urge to be ruled by a strong leader. Its authoritarianism cannot be dismissed as anti-democratic, because it is totalitarian (that is, rooted in a social totality) in nature, and, even if it may shock quite a few brainwashed ideologues, masquerading as political scientists, totalitarianism is in its very nature the child of a nationalistically self-conscious democracy, begotten in self-defense, to protect her against the real and potential enemies, threatening her proud sovereignty.

WHY EVERY NATION NEEDS GOD… OR A REVOLUTION

How do nations establish their authority? From Hobbes and from quite a few others we know how easy it is to do this on the domestic front, that is, by appealing to the sovereign power, granted by the citizens’ Covenant for the governance of their Commonwealth. Yet such a covenant affords no special authority, and with it legitimacy, to any nation among other nations. For this reason each nation needs God to provide His Absolute authority to legitimize its existence and its actions, and to make them both consequential.

As if the nations wanted to tell the world: You don’t have to believe me, but here is what the Lord God will tell you about me…

Annuit Coeptis (see the eponymous entry in the American section), such is the ambitious motto inscribed on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States, consistent with the American nation’s self-awareness of her Manifest Destiny. Rooted in the hallowed antiquity (being a paraphrase from the great poet of the early Roman Empire Virgil), and appealing to the supernatural authority of the Almighty, it affords a supernatural imprimatur (God Himself “gives a nod”) to all America’s undertakings!

Another interesting fact of America appealing to the authority of God is the following, seldom-quoted passage in the Star-Spangled Banner:

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”

As we can notice here, God promises America victory whenever her cause is just, and the reciprocity of the nation’s trust in God is in relation to this Divine promise.

Curiously, the erstwhile mottos of the old German Empire (Gott mit uns!) and of the old Russian Empire (S nami Bog!) are indistinguishable, both meaning God is with us! (the Biblical Imanuel!) Once we are on this subject, the latest version of the lyrics of the Russian National Anthem, rewritten by the late Soviet/Russian poet Sergei Mikhalkov from his own two versions, previously written in 1942 and 1977, speaks of “the one and only beloved land, kept under God’s watch.” As we see here, God’s promise is purely defensive in this instance (God’s shield is in front of God’s sword, whereas the previous Soviet Cheka/NKVD/KGB emblem had the sword in front of the shield), playing up Russia’s solemn pledge not to fight any wars except defensive wars, reiterating the centerpiece of the famous Soviet song (to Yevgeni Yevtushenko’s words) that the Russians are not bent on fighting wars for wars’ sake, even though they know how to fight and win wars.

An even sturdier reliance on the imprimatur from God is demonstrated in the lyrics of the British National Anthem God Save The Queen/King (its author unknown!), quite belligerent, as a matter of fact, containing these words, among others:

O Lord our God arise,

Scatter her enemies

And make them fall;

Confound their politics,

Frustrate their knavish tricks,

On Thee our hopes we fix,

God save us all!

Needless to say, Israel’s national symbolism is thoroughly permeated with religious themes and substance, although an effort has been made to downplay and even minimize these references by the secular Zionists. For more on this, read through the Tikkun Olam section, and particularly, The Legend Of Tikkun Olam (the Jewish Manifest Destiny), and the Hatikva entry, which discusses the religious content of Israel’s National Anthem. Meanwhile the following two lines from the original Hatikva are significant in this respect despite the fact that they were censored, with several other religious allusions, from the official text of the Anthem:

“Israel: Your healer is God, the wisdom of His heart,

Go my people in peace, healing is imminent…”

Most modern European anthems, despite the general secularization and de-theologization of Europe contain strong references and even direct appeals to God (e. g., the Dutch anthem!). The modern (since 1922) German anthem characteristically suppresses religion in favor of a nationalistic German unity, which has been threatened historically by the North-South, Protestant-Catholic divide. The lyrics of the French anthem, La Marseillaise, go back to the French Revolution, when the French nation demolished the old royalist culture, and the old royalist religion with it, as reflected in its 1792 words. Although French Catholicism did not die on the guillotine, it was definitely weakened enough to justify the substitution of God by the Revolutionary passion of the French nation, with the words surviving intact up to this day.

So we see, that in all those cases when the authority of God is absent from the national symbolism, the void is always filled by nationalism and /or revolutionism, or otherwise the words become meaningless, and end up discarded. In my view it is much better to keep the words of the sixteenth century (the Dutch anthem) or of the eighteenth century (the French anthem) than not to have them at all (the Spanish anthem).

It would be most interesting to examine other nations’ relationship with the God concept as well, for which reason, I will be rewriting this entry on a much larger scale at a later time. In writing this entry, I am always following the line of God’s specific promise to the nation in question, thus rendering God indispensable to national authority, and thus indispensable to the nation itself.

A BEGGAR OR THE MISTRESS OF THE HOUSE?

Is Philosophy a beggar at the door of science or the real mistress of the house? Such is the question raised by Nietzsche in Jenseits (204). I am afraid that the meaning of this question will be hopelessly lost on the modern reader, and consequently, no coherent answer can be expected to be forthcoming.

It is not without a good reason that I am placing this entry as the last entry in my Contradiction Section. I see Philosophy as the missing link or rather the broken bridge between the real world and the one beyond this life, that is the world of lasting value, untouched by the sleighty hand of a financial genius.

Indeed, our real world has too many Donald Trumps and too few Heraclituses, Platos, and Empedocleses. We have become too sophisticated in the affaires d’argent for our own good. Money-making is the spirit, the goal, the modus of our daily existence, it has become life itself. Who needs culture these days, when a coarse, semi-literate brute has become the symbol of success, the embodiment of the American dream…

His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yeah, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough… Isaiah 56:10-11.

I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth… Ecclesiastes 10:7.
And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast?… Revelation 13:4.

The Contradiction between Capitalism and Christianity is not hidden in the nature of capitalism as-such, but in the propensity of our wonderful Christians to follow its advocates in turning capitalism into an idol for worship. Without a good education, without culture, it is still possible, although difficult, to appreciate the wisdom of the ages, but when human ignorance is accompanied by a contempt for learning (who cares for reading books when an hour of reading does not earn you even the minimum wage!), the case becomes all too hopeless.

“And be not conformed to this world,” says Romans 12:2. “Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” asks James 4:4. How easy it is to take such Biblical passages out of context, assuming that there is no light in learning outside the Holy Scriptures, that all humanistic education is, in fact, a lure of the evil world for the smart alecks, “a mask and picture of the Devil,” to use Martin Luther’s words. It is naïve to suppose that the excesses of the Dark Ages with their insistence on ignorance as a virtue are all behind us trampled into the dust of history. Look what is going on today in the alleged bastions of human civilization. Look at the American school curricula, see what kinds of books are being bought in the stores and read in the libraries. Paraphrasing Alexander Radishchev, “I have looked around myself, and my soul was heavy with the extent of human misery!”

In American Christian churches there exists such a contempt for learning where ignorance disguises itself as a total rejection of “secular” thought. As a result, the Bible too loses its philosophical value, becoming an empty word, pronounced with fake reverence, while its select lines are heard, read, and even memorized, all without comprehension, the latter substituted by the consistent brainwashing of the faithful in the pleasant dogma of the expected sinfulness and the unconditional promise of forgiveness through the blood of Christ, in a last-minute confession and hurried “repentance.”

…So, what does philosophy have to do with this, you ask? Philosophy is much more than Imanuel Kant’s incomprehensible gibberish. It is our love for wisdom, for learning, for higher value than consumer goods and services. It does not preclude a legitimate interest in making money, but it frowns upon money-making as an obsession. Philosophy does not intend to evict all other interests from man’s house, but it desires to be the mistress, not a beggar in that house.

By the same token, there is nothing wrong with capitalism per se as long as it knows its place as an alternative economic function, except when it becomes obsessed with hegemonic power, misrepresenting itself as the predominant global ethical philosophy, the “master of the universe,” and a substitute for God.

LIBERTARIAN CAPITALISM: A CASE OF STOLEN IDENTITY

(By all means see my entry Libertarian Socialism: A Nicer Name For Anarchism, published on my blog on April 3^rd, 2012.)

The following is basically an informative entry, whose chief purpose is to alert the reader to the simple fact that… all that calls itself gold isn’t gold.

Let this be a fitting epigraph to the phenomenon, modestly and unassumingly known in the United States as libertarianism, which, however, is a case of deliberately false identification.

It will be perhaps appropriate to dedicate a large entry, within my freedom theory subsection of the general Philosophy section, to the anarcho-libertarian conception of liberty, an unexpectedly provocative, thrilling subject. This entry, though, is not aiming at a comprehensive analysis of the libertarian philosophy. It is limited to only one aspect of it: the libertarian’s ethical evaluation of freedom in the capitalist, as opposed to the socialist or stateless context. It is important to emphasize that I am presently focusing on the American version of libertarianism, also called libertarian capitalism, to be distinguished from libertarian socialism, which latter is, of course, the authentic variety of libertarianism in the classic European tradition.

Champions of the latter reject American libertarian ideas of “individual economic freedom” as inimical to the libertarian spirit. They argue that capitalism is incompatible with individual freedoms for the majority of people “by creating social inequality, poverty, and lack of accountability for the most powerful.” Their antagonists strike back claiming that “personal responsibility, private charity, and the voluntary exchange of goods and ideas are all consistent manifestations of an individualistic approach to liberty, presenting a more effective and more ethical way to prosperity and peaceful coexistence. They insist that in capitalistic societies, even the poorest would end up better off as a result of faster overall economic growth.” (Quoted both times, and later on, from the Wikipedia.)

How, then, did the precipitous change from anarchism to capitalist liberalism occur under the sanctuary of a single word, libertarianism?

In the latter half of the twentieth century, the term “libertarian,” earlier associated with anarchism, came to be adopted by those whose attitudes bore a closer resemblance to the classical liberals. In 1955, Dean Russell wrote an article pondering on what to call those such as himself, who subscribed to the classical philosophy of individualism and self-responsibility. This is how he put it:

“Many of us call ourselves liberals. It is true that the word “liberal” once described persons who respected the individual and feared the use of mass compulsion. But the leftists have now corrupted that once-proud term, to identify, as liberal, themselves and their program of more government ownership of property and more control over persons. As a result, those of us who believe in freedom must explain that when we call ourselves liberals, we mean liberals in the uncorrupted classical sense. At best, this is awkward, subject to misunderstanding. Here is my suggestion -- Let those of us who love liberty trademark and reserve for our own use the good and honorable word “libertarian.”

Simple? But what would a true classical libertarian say about this clear-cut case of an identity theft?

In the final analysis, I believe, the legitimacy of libertarianism depends on the validity of its philosophical interpretation of individual freedom.

Libertarian capitalists argue that a free market will spontaneously arise, unless suppressed by force. They say that a capitalist economy is natural, rather than artificial, so it would naturally develop in the absence of regulating factors. Thus, they argue that a truly socialist libertarianism is an oxymoron. They contend that libertarian socialism is based on a false view of human nature that humans will work and fulfill their natural potential without any thought of reward. They further contend that the libertarian-socialist wish to bring democratic control to all areas of life will by definition eliminate individual control of any aspect of life. This, they say, brings to question the very use of the word “libertarian” in “libertarian socialist,” since the word implies maximum individual freedom.

Finally, many argue that freedom and equality are often in conflict with one another, and that promoting equality (as valued by socialism) will inherently require restrictions on liberty. The Kurt Vonnegut story, Harrison Bergeron where equality is enforced by imposing handicaps on the overachievers, can be seen as illustrating this point through exaggeration. (Ironically, Vonnegut was himself a socialist, thus his Harrison Bergeron can hardly be interpreted as his criticism of socialism per se! We shall return to Vonnegut later in another entry.)

Libertarian socialists see the alleged conflict between freedom and equality as nonsense.

Radical egalitarians, such as Noam Chomsky, observe that “human talents vary considerably, within a fixed framework that is characteristic of the species and that permits ample scope for creative work, including the appreciation of the creative achievements of others. This should be a matter of delight, rather than a condition to be abhorred.” (Chomsky Reader) The idea of another great egalitarian, Karl Marx, was never to make human beings identical, but “the development of rich individuality, which is as all-sided in its production as in its consumption,” and “the absolute working out of (his or her) creative potentialities.”

Libertarian socialists believe that the libertarian capitalist conception of freedom as such, often amounts to little more than apologetics for the right of the rich and powerful to do as they please at the expense of the freedoms of the poor and (at least virtually) powerless.

It is on this last point where I am in total agreement with the classical libertarians of the socialist kind. To paraphrase the famous Baconian dictum in a multiple fashion, Money is Power and Freedom is Power. It is not possible for the poor to be free where the rich have the power, buying their special sort of freedom with their money, which the poor have not, and therefore cannot buy it for themselves. Leaving the poor at the mercy of the rich may give the poor certain advantages, like some tasty scraps from the masters’ table, but freedom is by no means one of those scraps.

…And now, the last point I’d like to make. The idea that the socialist state deprives its citizens of freedom because of its power to coerce, is baloney. In the natural stateless state of man, there are always the strong and the weak, and, therefore, no equality, no freedom for the weak. Society has to handicap the contest, to achieve a reasonable level of fairness. The socialist state thus serves not so much as a coercer, as an equalizer. It is precisely because of the nature of human nature that such equalization decisions ought not to be relegated to private benevolence but to the public domain of the equitably functioning state. In other words, only a strong and self-confident state can dispense freedom to all. No capitalist utopia will ever want to do it, or will be able to do it, even if it wanted to.

On the other hand, those who might argue that capitalist society can very competently provide those same social services that I was talking about, through the capitalist welfare system, as it has been the practice in the United States for decades, ought to realize that the American welfare practice has been an aberration in the philosophy of capitalist society, and that it rather represents an artificial and manifestly awkward at that socialist additive to the capitalist mode of functioning than a natural outgrowth of a social-friendly alter ego of a capitalist entrepreneur.

And, yes, mind you, my use of the word “socialist” is in conformity to the liberal European tradition, and not in the radical sense, which its opponents are all too eager to ascribe to it.

WEBER’S PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM

It is no secret that the so-called objectivity of all those scholars who subscribe to it, is primarily influenced by the rampantly subjective, intimately personal circumstances of their lives. Even when such little private clues are ostensibly missing, we can safely assume the fact of their actual existence. But there are also lots of instances when they stare us in the face even from the most cursory biographies of our authors. Such is, in fact, the case with the German sociologist and political economist Max Weber. There is little doubt that his quasi-revolutionary discovery (actually, he was not the first to surmise a connection between economics and religion, but he was undoubtedly the first major thinker ever to do so) of a direct relationship between Protestant, particularly Calvinist, ethics, and the entrepreneurial spirit of capitalism, has much to do with the fact that his mother was a devout Calvinist orthodox, and that his own views were much influenced by the family of his mother’s sister, married to the celebrated historian Hermann Baumgarten. Weber’s subsequent political activism in the left-liberal Protestant Social Union, Evangelisch-Soziale Verein, might fill all the remaining blanks in that first part of the picture.

In his 1895 Freiburg Address, contemplating the future of Germany, Doktor Weber curiously chose to follow in Herr Doktor’s* totalitarian footsteps. The ruling Junker aristocracy was in his view historically obsolete, while the existing liberal parties not competent enough, and the working class not ready enough, to assume the responsibilities of national power. Quoting Encyclopedia Britannica on this (for some reason, I couldn’t find Weber’s direct quote on the Internet), “only the nation as a whole educated to maturity by a conscious policy of overseas imperial expansion, could bring Germany to the level of maturity previously attained by the French and by the British in the course of their imperial expansion in the nineteenth century.” (From The Freiburg Address.)

In his best-known book The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit Of Capitalism (1904-1905) Weber comes to the stunning and highly controversial, if not dubious, conclusion that it is not the Jewish spirit of entrepreneurial ingenuity, but the patently Gentile Protestant character, which constitutes the guarantee of capitalist success, at least in so far as Germany is concerned. He notes the statistical correlation in Germany between successful business ventures and the Protestant background of the entrepreneurs in-point. He then attributes this connection to certain accidental consequences of the notions of predestination and calling in traditional Puritan theology as developed by Calvin and his followers, which contributes to the emergence of the workaholic type, religiously committed to his worldly calling, coupled with ascetic abstinence from the enjoyment of the profits of his labor, which, in practical terms, is conducive to the swift accumulation of capital.

Unlike Marx, Weber does not see capitalism as the consequence of changes in the means of production, but as the unfettering of the entrepreneurial spirit from previous religious restraints. Capitalism, for Weber, is the most advanced economic system ever developed in history. Yet, although he defends capitalism against its socialist critics, he is also able to see its ethical downside, as a potential ‘iron cage,’ constraining human freedom. This insightful distinction between business and ethics further serves my general point, expressed on numerous occasions both in this section and elsewhere.

Weber’s identification of a positive spirit of capitalism, tied to the Protestant ethics, coupled with concern about its threat to traditional values, makes an interesting point, worth delving into. But for now this should do it, except for the following final tongue-in-cheek observation, which may, perhaps, turn out to be much more serious thinking than the words “tongue-in-cheek” might suggest:

If we should assume that the spirit of capitalism is somehow tied to Calvinist Protestantism, does that mean that the spirit of socialism is tied to Italian and Bavarian Catholicism? And on an even more reflective note, it may perhaps go without a challenge that the spirit of Christian communism is, likewise, alive in the body of Russian Orthodox Christianity, thus implicitly supporting its Third Rome historical destiny...

(*Footnote: Herr Doktor used to be the semi-jocular appellation of Hegel, hence the wordplay.)

CAPITALISM AS AN UNLIKELY PROMOTER OF RELIGION

It seems that capitalism in a rather crooked fashion has become a promoter of religion in America. Under socialism, the State is taking care of the underprivileged, thus reducing the latter’s incentive to seek support in the churches, and as a consequence breeding a certain indifference to religion in secular socialist society. (Europe is a good example of this.)

Capitalism, on the contrary, undermines the social support system of the state, as the capitalist welfare system eventually becomes inadequate and degrading to dependent individuals as the American experience has clearly demonstrated. Thus, in order to elevate oneself out of the indignity and inadequacy of the capitalist welfare paradox, the individual becomes especially motivated to join a church, where the indignity of being poor does not appear as demeaning.
Therefore, three cheers for capitalism, the great impresario for religion. What would America’s religionists do without its greasy blessing?

THANKSGIVING 2012

Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers and best wishes to all.

AN INVISIBLE HAND

One of the most complex philosophical questions, with regard to ethics, rises from the perennial dilemma of how it is possible that good causes may produce bad effects, and reversely, how bad causes may produce good effects. Considering the absolute nature of goodness, the answer has to be "impossible," and yet, in real life we come across the practical possibility of such theoretical impossibility all the time.

My answer is simple: look for the joker in the deck, for there must be a joker in the deck! The circus magician does not really take the rabbit out of an empty hat, the rabbit had to be there somewhere all the time, only we could not see it.

In the Section on Philosophy and Ethics, I have touched upon the ethical riddle hidden inside the notion of the free choice, the most inconvenient of all gifts of God to man, a catalyst for trouble. Free choice subsists in my view Jenseits von Gut und Böse, in this case, on the other bank of the mystical river, as an unknown quality, in-itself, not subject to moral valuation. In order to reach from cause to effect, both located on this side of the river, we have to make a mystical trip to ‘the other side’ back and forth, something comparable to the extranormal trips made by the characters in the Matrix movies. Hence, the connection between our causes and effects becomes tainted, disconnected by the trip Jenseits, and the frequent ethical disconnect between them no longer poses a rational challenge to the absolute nature of goodness. (The nature of evil, as I happened to point out elsewhere, is not absolute, in my understanding, but only temporal.)

The preceding theoretical rumination leads me now to Adam Smith and the subject of an invisible hand.

Smith uses this metaphor in Book IV of The Wealth of Nations, arguing that an individual will employ his capital in foreign trading only if the profits available by that method far exceed those available locally and that in that case it is better for society as a whole that he does so: “But the annual revenue of every society is always precisely equal to the exchangeable value of the whole annual produce of its industry, or, rather, is precisely the same thing with that exchangeable value. As every individual, therefore, endeavors as much as he can, both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He, generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.” (IV .ii. 6-9)

The paradox which Adam Smith is hereby promoting is that apparently out of the totality of selfish motives of the enterprising individuals comes, as if assisted by “an invisible hand,” an end result most favorable to the public good.

In The Wealth of Nations, Smith offers the following elucidation to illustrate the simplicity of this principle:

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity, (!) but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities, but of their advantages (what was the name of this little game again, please?). Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of their fellow-citizens." (I agree with the last part, except that it is incomplete. Citizens of a commonwealth, or state, if you like, are all parties to the same social contract, which is supposed to give them the assurance that, leaving aside the self-interest of their fellow-citizens, they can to an even greater extent depend upon the benevolence of the state, without feeling themselves like beggars, into the bargain.)

With this remarkable passage in mind (so remarkable that I have already used this quotation elsewhere), a fairly simple comparison can be made between the capitalist system (under which the vendor has to do his best to accommodate his customer not for some noble or sentimental reason, but for the very selfish reason of beating his competition) and the Soviet-style economic system (where the salaried vendor’s incentive is largely lacking, except for saving his neck from being branded as a saboteur, as a result of his poor service, like it was the case under the highly efficient Stalinist system), to the indisputable benefit of the capitalistic competitive system, but only if one specific factor, such as this, is taken into consideration, to the exclusion of all others. (Incidentally, a potentially unsurpassed, yet habitually unappreciated source of personal motivation can be found in the individual’s patriotic zeal, but this phenomenon is dismissed as a rare exception, rather than a collective event, thus also dismissing the historical miracle of the Stalinist society, which had transformed the USSR from relative backwardness into a global superpower in the course of a single generation.)

The situation changes dramatically, however, when we see our wonderful capitalist merchant--- offering the best customer service available for the money--- being run out of business by a giant corporation (like, say… Wal-Mart?), employing salaried, undermotivated workers like in the latter days of the Soviet Union, by offering so much cheaper prices that our small-business friend just cannot compete… Adieu to the capitalist utopia of the neighborly butcher, the smiley-faced brewer, and the self-loving baker!

Not so simple, after all, is it? But here comes the expected qualification of the self-love principle, courtesy of the Wikipedia (blue font):

“Contrary to common misconceptions, Smith did not assert that all self-interested labor necessarily benefits society, or that all public goods are produced through self-interested labor. His proposal is merely that, in a free market, people usually tend to produce goods desired by their neighbors.” (Yes, and many drugs which usually provide the cure to various diseases often have dangerous side effects, or become ineffective, as the disease-producing organisms develop an immunity to them!)

“...A very simple example of how the invisible hand is supposed to work are checkout lines in a store. Each customer getting in line “selfishly” chooses the shortest line, regardless of the other customers. Their utility maximizing choice means that eventually customers, without the slightest direction, and by following only their selfishness, form lines of the same length, which is clearly the most efficient disposition.” (A beautiful argument that cannot be beaten, except that its counterargument may be unbeatable too. This reminds me of Pantagruel’s back-and-forth with Panourge, regarding the pros and cons of marriage. To each pro-argument Pantagruel replies, “So, marry!” To each contra-argument he reacts, “So, don’t!”)

And here is the proof. Adam Smith himself frequently warns in The Wealth of Nations about how the invisible hand can lead to disastrous outcomes. Apparently, our laissez-faire providential remedy may become a killer poison just like that, unless the physician big government comes to the patient’s rescue. For instance:

“In the progress of the division of labor, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labor, that is of the great body of people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are, perhaps, always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert understanding or to exercise invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties, which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment that concerns many even ordinary duties of private life. Of the great and extensive interests of his country he is altogether incapable of judging, and unless very particular pains have been taken to render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending his country in war. The uniformity of his stationary life corrupts the courage of his mind, and makes him regard with abhorrence the irregular, uncertain, and adventurous life of a soldier. It corrupts even the activity of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his strength with vigor and perseverance in any other employment than that to which he has been bred. His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expense of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilized society this is the state into which the laboring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.”

…Bravo, Panourge! Bravo, Pantagruel!!!

A CAPITALIST PRIMER

The general purpose of this complicated entry is to present an external text on the modern understanding of the term “capitalism,” mainly based on the Wikipedia and the Britannica (blue font), and supplied with my annotations (red font), prefaced, and ending with my conclusion.

This is not, however, a straightforward retelling of other people’s tales. My chain of entries is singular, due to the pronounced presence of a persistent and fairly simple leitmotif in it my point being that the history of capitalism, the latter understood as an ideology of laissez-faire, is a continuous fight to restrain the beast by means of imposing a strict state control on the entrepreneurial practices of the admittedly unscrupulous and questionably altruistic profit hunters, a continuous fight, even in the strongest historical citadels of classic capitalism, to dilute capitalistic principles within the social framework of their respective societies, and to smuggle inside, under some fictitious name and generously furnished with false identification papers, that very forbidden and extremely dangerous radical, Genosse Sozialismus.

Capitalism generally refers to an economic system in which the means of production are mostly privately or corporately owned and operated for profit, and in which distribution, production, and pricing of goods and services are determined in a largely free market. It is believed to involve the right of individuals and groups of individuals, acting as legal persons or corporations, to trade capital goods, labor, and money. The term also refers to several theories which developed in the context of the Industrial Revolution and the Cold War, meant to explain justify or critique private ownership of capital; explain the operation of capitalistic markets and to guide the application or elimination of government regulation of property and markets.

There are two points to be made here. One concerns the political rationale on the part of the free nations to justify the capitalistic way of doing business, as opposed to the Soviet-style method of command economy. In defending the Western way of life against “communism,” too much credit has been given to the system of free enterprise which in its laissez-faire form simply does not work, and too little attention has been given to the socialistic principles underlying the European model of economic development.
The other point is this: This definition of capitalism emphasizes profit as its principal feature. Assuming that by profit one means ‘the financial or monetary gain obtained from the use of capital in a transaction or series of transactions’ (in Webster’s definition), the next step is to define capital. According to Britannica, capital in economics is a word of many meanings, which is comforting already! They all imply that capital is a “stock,” that is, a store or supply, by contrast with income, which is a “flow.” In its broadest possible sense, capital includes human population; nonmaterial elements, such as skills, abilities and education; land, buildings, machines, equipment of all kinds; all stocks of goods, finished and unfinished, in the hands of firms and households. In the business world, capital usually represents the part of the net worth of an enterprise which has not been produced through the operations of an enterprise. In economics, it is generally confined to real, as opposed to merely financial, assets.
All sorts of further distinctions are made which have little bearing on this discussion, except to complicate it beyond necessity, which is solely limited to proving the vague nature of our subject.
The for-profit characteristic of capitalism suggests that all non-profit corporations and businesses are not to be counted as part of the capitalist scene, and therefore their prominent presence in American business life necessarily dilutes the capitalist purity of this nation’s political-economic identity. By the same token, the qualified status of private ownership in the basic definition of capitalism as an economic system where “the means of production are mostly privately or corporately owned,” completes the rather confusing story of capitalism as a word of an essentially uncertain meaning.
The concept of capitalism has limited analytic value, given the great variety of historical cases over which it is applied, varying in time, geography, politics and culture. Some economists have specified a variety of different types of capitalism, depending on specifics of concentration of economic power and wealth, and methods of capital accumulation (Scott, 2005). During the last century capitalism has been contrasted with centrally planned economies. Most developed countries are regarded as capitalist, but some are also often called mixed economies, due to the government ownership and regulation of production, trade, commerce, taxation, money-supply, and physical infrastructure.
Are we to understand that capitalism is best to be negatively, rather than positively, defined, as something which it is not (a centrally planned economy), rather than which it is (laissez-faire, for instance, could have fit the bill, except that it is a chimera, putting the whole question of the legitimacy of the term capitalism in serious doubt!) But even in such a case the picture remains unclear. For instance, to what extent should government regulation account for at least some measure of central planning? On the other hand, history is telling us that the so-called centrally-planned economies are such only to a point. Soviet society at all times allowed at least some measure of private enterprise in various sectors of national economy, including small business, special services, such as private tutoring and instruction, private medical and dental services, and of course private agricultural production, allowing small farmers to sell their products for personal profit at any of the numerous farmers markets profusely sprinkled throughout the nation.
The concept of capitalism has evolved over time, with later thinkers often building on the analyses of the earlier ones. Moreover, the component concepts, used in defining capitalism, such as private ownership, markets and investment, have evolved along with changes in theory, in law, and in practice. The following subsections describe several schools of thought in which the thinkers involved do not necessarily agree on all analytic points, but participate in a common general approach to understanding what capitalism is…
The ambiguity of the last paragraph hangs like a thick moist cloud over the mystified, as well as mistified, landscape, promised fair dry weather by some forecasters, heavy storms and flooding by others, yet having neither of the above in actuality. As to the existence of “thinkers who do not necessarily agree on all points, but participate in a common general approach to understanding what capitalism is,” this reminds me of the frequent public discussion as to the definition of risqué art, as opposed to pornography. Apparently, we are expected to “know capitalism when we see it,” rather than have it adequately defined. The only alternative to such ambiguity, I am afraid, would be the boorish and offensive clarity of Marxism.
(For the record, the famous phrase “I know it when I see it,” alluded to in the last paragraph, belongs to the Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court Potter Stewart, being part of his written opinion in a 1964 pornography case.)

MARX AND THE ETHICS OF CAPITALISM

What do we really know about capitalism, according to Karl Marx? -- Easy! Here we go:

"Marx saw capitalism as a historically specific mode of production, in which capital becomes the dominant mode. The capitalist stage of development, or bourgeois society, for Marx, represented the most advanced form of social organization to date." (Wikipedia.)

Karl Marx is occasionally called the last of the classical economists, (by scholars who are proudly striving after political neutrality and scientific objectivity) the now apparently extinct, illustrious breed that started with the eminently respectable Adam Smith. "Following Smith, Marx drew an explicit distinction between the use value of commodities and their market exchange value. In Marx’s view, capital is created with the purchase of commodities for the purpose of creating new ones, with a higher exchange value than the sum of the original purchases. The use of labor power, under capitalism, becomes a commodity. The exchange value of labor power, as reflected in the wage, is less than the value that it produces for the capitalist. This difference in values, Marx says, constitutes surplus value, which the capitalists extract and accumulate. In Das Kapital, the capitalist mode of production is distinguished by how the owners of capital extract such surplus from workers, all prior societies had extracted the surplus labor, but capitalism according to Marx was new in doing so via the sale-value of produced commodities."

Encyclopedia Britannica qualifies Marx’s title as the last of the classical economists by the claim that his economics is anchored not in the real and changing world, but in the created world of Smith and Ricardo. Their labor theory of value maintaining that products are exchanged in a certain proportion to their labor costs, leads Marx to the logical conclusion in his theory of surplus value that labor alone creates all value, and all profits. The implicit conclusion is that Marx’s economic theory rests and depends on the imported and now completely outdated postulate of the classical economy.

Leaving aside the validity of this conclusion for the science of economics (which shows such a remarkable range of conflicting opinions that I fail to see why the classical view should be thus discriminated against at all!), what is of biggest importance to me is that right here, in Marx’s leap from the labor theory of value to the theory of surplus value, he is actually making a giant leap from an ethically neutral economic theory to the historically portentous venture of imbuing economics as-such with moral valuation.

"For him, this cycle of the extraction of surplus value by the owners of capital, or the bourgeoisie, becomes the basis of class struggle. This argument is intertwined however with his labor theory of value, asserting that labor is the source of all value, and thus of profit. This point is contested by most current economists, including some of the contemporary Marxist economists. One line of subsequent Marxist thinking sees the centrally-planned economic systems of existing communist societies, still based on exploitation of labor as state capitalism.

"Some 20th century Marxian economists consider capitalism to be a social formation where capitalist class processes dominate but are not exclusive. Capitalist class processes to them are simply such where surplus labor takes the form of surplus value usable as capital; other tendencies for utilization of labor nonetheless exist simultaneously in existing societies where capitalist processes are predominant."

The earlier-stated claim that Marx was the last of the classical economists is by no means contradicted by the existence of a host of minor economists called Marxian or neo-Marxian economists. On the one hand, this fact testifies to their lack of originality, an inability to chart their own course and earn their own name tag in science. On the other hand, to call any economist a Marxian, or Marxist, economist is to say that he (or she) holds the value judgment that it is ethically improper for property owners in a capitalist society to derive their income solely from the fact of such ownership.

In other words, we are no longer dealing with an ethically neutral economic theory here, but plunge right into the heat of an Armageddon-type of battle, where the outcome is all too clearly predetermined, leaving no room for further argument.

So, what do we really know about Karl Marx and Marxism? No, this time not in those fancy words about productive forces and industrial relations. What about Karl Marx as an ethical philosopher? Not much, I am afraid, if anything at all, as far as the general public is concerned… not even the all-wrong stuff of the more “familiar” aspects. However, anyone who looks at Marx not as an “outdated” economist, but as a bona fide ethical philosopher, will be able to realize right away that the rumors about Marx’s death are far away from the reality of life, that his ghost is very much alive and well, and even scarier than ever… Which is only natural. It is too easy to dismiss a scientific theory as hopelessly outdated and destined to be forgotten, but the key ethical debate over what is good and what is evil will never draw to a close. Indeed, it will keep running its course with an undiminished and, perhaps, on the contrary, an ever-growing strength, until the end of time.

GLOBALISM AND GLOBALIZATION IN THEIR RELATION TO CAPITALISM

(This second entry discusses the modern phenomenon of globalization as a process and in opposition to the doctrine of globalism.)

The following paragraphs in blue are quoted from Wikipedia’s take on Globalization, in the article on Capitalism, and supplied with my comments in red.---

Although overseas trading has been associated with the development of capitalism for over five hundred years, some thinkers argue that a number of trends associated with globalization have acted to increase the mobility of people and capital since the last quarter of the twentieth century combining to circumscribe the room for maneuver of states in choosing ‘non-capitalist’ models of development. Today, these trends have bolstered the argument that capitalism should now be viewed as a truly world system. (Here is, of course, that classic neo-imperialist ideological argument for political globalization, which I was referring to, in an earlier entry.) However, others argue that globalization, even in its quantitative degree, is not much greater now than during some earlier periods of capitalist trade. (Once again, look at my argument on certain non-offensive features of natural globalization, as opposed to the political-ideological offensive of our modern-day international Globalists.) For instance, Doug Henwood (born 1952, an American journalist, publisher of the Left Business Observer newsletter, writing on matters of economics and politics) is one such economist, arguing that the heyday of globalization arose during the mid-nineteenth century. This is what he writes in What Is Globalization Anyway?:

“Not only is the novelty of globalization exaggerated, so is its extent. Capital flows were freer, and foreign holdings by British investors far larger a hundred years ago than anything we are seeing today. Images of multinational corporations shuttling raw materials and parts around the world, as if the whole globe were an assembly line, are grossly overblown, accounting for only about a tenth of U.S. trade.”
(Are we, perhaps, talking about the previous original stage of imperialist expansion, best described in clear political terms, even though less sustainable as a theoretical argument, by Comrade Lenin?)
After the abandonment of the Bretton Woods system and the strict state control of foreign exchange rates, the total value of transactions in foreign exchange was estimated at least twenty times greater than that of all foreign movements of goods and services. (The end of this passage, which follows, is of critical importance to the total argument made here and with regard to the modern meaning of globalization in general. Nota Bene!) The internationalization of finance, seen by some as beyond the reach of state control, coupled with a growing ease, with which large corporations have been able to relocate their operations to the low-wage states, has posed the question of the eclipse of state sovereignty, arising from the growing globalization of capital.
The crucial importance of this discussion of the financial aspect of globalization is the introduction of the element of a relentless political pressure by the neo-imperialist powers, primarily, by the United States, on the rest of the world through the superior ability of the rich, as opposed to the poor, of the large, as opposed to the small, to control the international financial system, and the resulting effort on the part of the poorer nations, but also, and equally significant in its own right, by the rich-yet-smaller competitors to oppose the imperialist giant’s claim to virtual monopoly over the globalization phenomenon, with some unpredictable consequences, buttressing my sharp counterdictum “It’s politics, stupid!” as opposed to the more familiar, but infinitely less insightful “It’s the economy, stupid!” cliché, coined by James Carville.

As I see it, the neo-imperialist globalization drive, mainly conducted by the United States, has produced at least two negative effects for the citadel of modern global capitalism. In its internationalist anti-nationalist offensive, Globalism meets a determined opposition from other countries which acutely perceive the threat of losing their national independence, and react accordingly, with a stiff resistance. At the very same time, the American society suffers from the effects of the above-mentioned anti-nationalist drive, but it cannot defend itself properly, because there appears to be no foreign aggression here, and thus no resistance, while the society itself slowly erodes and loses its cohesive identity, crumbling into smaller mutually antagonistic groups having very little in common.

In the meantime, the small rich countries of Europe, presumably having little in common with the traditionally poorer nations, have paradoxically formed a united front with them in opposition to the American neo-imperialist offensive. It is no coincidence that the European Union, in its definitive Maastricht form, came into existence after the collapse of the USSR, apparently in opposition to the immediate hegemonic offensive of the “sole remaining superpower.” In the establishment of the EU, I see a very similar rationale to the later formation of powerful regional organizations in Asia (SCO, etc.) and in the Americas (there are several of them there, which deliberately exclude the United States and Canada from their ranks), thus creating a significant opposition to the global power of the United States. By the same token, the creation of the euro (a very different quality from the previously devised ECU), has produced a viable opposition to the power of the US dollar, thus also counteracting the post-Soviet American hegemonic offensive.

Economic growth in the last half-century has been relatively strong. Life expectancy has almost doubled in the developing world since the postwar years, and it is starting to close the gap on the developed world, where the improvement has been smaller. Infant mortality has decreased in every developing region of the world. Income inequality for the world as a whole is diminishing. Many other variables, such as per capita food supplies, literacy, child labor, and access to clean water, have also improved.

Once again, forget these attractive statistics, proving only that the life of a domestic servant in a very rich household may have certain “benefits,” compared to the rough lebenskampf of a poor-but-proud freeman. In every struggle for independence and self-respect, the power of the economic argument takes a back seat to a host of other considerations.

And finally, here is what Noam Chomsky has to say on the phenomenon of globalization. He summarizes it with the phrase “old wine, new bottles,” suggesting that the motives of the élites are always the same: they seek to isolate general population from important decision-making processes, only under globalization the centers of power are transnational corporations and supranational banks. Chomsky argues that transnational corporate power is “developing its own governing institutions” reflective of their global reach.

According to him, a primary ploy has been the co-optation of the global economic institutions established at the end of World War II. The IMF and the World Bank have increasingly adhered to the “Washington Consensus” forcing developing countries to adhere to limits on spending and make structural adjustments that often involve cutbacks in social and welfare programs. IMF aid and loans are normally contingent on such reforms. Chomsky says that the construction of global institutions and agreements, such as the WTO, GATT, NAFTA, and the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, are new ways of securing élite privileges, while undermining democracy.
Chomsky believes that these austere and neoliberal measures ensure that poorer countries merely fulfill a service role, by providing cheap labor, raw materials and investment opportunities for the first world. This also means that corporations can threaten to relocate to poorer countries, and he sees this as a weapon to keep workers in richer countries in line.
He takes issue with the terms used in discourse on globalization, beginning with the term “globalization” itself, which, he says, refers to a corporate-sponsored economic integration, rather than being a general term for things becoming international. He dislikes the term anti-globalization being used to describe what he sees as a movement for globalization of social and environmental justice. He understands what is usually known as free trade as a “mixture of liberalization and protection designed by the principal architects of policy in the service of their interests, which happen to be whatever they are in any particular period.”

All this general talk, however, is less a matter of opinion, than it is directly subject to the eventual outcome of the process discussed. The winners are never judged and vae victis. As things look today, globalization is in the last throes, so to speak, and the inglorious end of this ‘process’ is no longer in the domain of some leftist fantasy, but a full-fledged reality admitted by all those detractors who speak of it, as well as by its defenders whose way of admission is to stop talking about it altogether.