Reviewing The Cultural Case Of Capitalism Part 11 Of 12

In this week's episode, Jonathan Witt revealss what he regards as the greatest freedom of all. It seems that he believes that economic freedom is the most important one. Why say this?

Note his first paragraph:

Economic freedom does generate certain challenges. The wealth that free economies are so effective at creating brings with it temptation. Wealth can tempt us to depend on our riches rather than on God. The temptation can be resisted, as we see with wealthy biblical characters like Abraham and Job. But it’s a challenge the church should be mindful of, helping its members cultivate a balanced view of money and of our responsibility and opportunities as stewards of the things God has given us.

We should then read the next paragraph about the challenges economic freedom presents to the community:

The free society also can be hard on communities, since the free enterprise system makes for such a mobile society. Michael Miller talks about this: the opportunities and demands generated by a complex market economy mean that people often end up moving far away from their childhood homes and the network of relationships that surrounded that home. In seeking to meet this challenge, we need to ask ourselves what strategies would effectively address the problem, and are there well-intended policies that are likely to make the problem worse. In essence, we need to exercise the virtue of prudence.

Note the interchangeability of terms between 'free society' and 'free enterprise system.' They are used synonymously.  In addition, note whose responsibility it is to adapt. We are to respond to the challenges that economic freedom presents to our lives but never the other way around. It is as if we live to serve the economy rather than the economy being there to serve all of the people. Martin Luther King Jr. would call this emphasis on the economy a part of a thing-oriented society.

And we should note what economic freedom actually means. Though not defined here, what economic freedom means is that, outside of avoiding corruption and the abuse of others, businesses have no social responsibilities. Economic freedom places business above democracy. Thus, people cannot use the democratic process to tell business how it should live in their communities and what social obligations it should have. And this is despite the fact that valid business activities have significant effects on the communities in which they reside. In addition, in many instances, business is given the privilege to define what is abuse. This is especially true when it comes to the Global Warming and the Climate Science debate. The most oft used objection to following the advice of vast majority of Climate Scientists is that it would lead to economic hardship. And what follows, though it shouldn't, is a denial of Global Warming because of the economic implications of an appropriate response.

So the brunt of the article is that we should adapt to economic freedom rather than making adaptation a two-way street. But there is something else we should note about economic freedom. The more wealth and property one has, the more freedom one has. We should note that the financial world has a one dollar-one vote relationship. There is no equality in this economic freedom. There is the ability to consolidate wealth and since power follows wealth, to consolidate power as well. So one wonders if we should be talking about economic privilege instead of economic freedom.

This brings us back to the first review in this series (click here). This blog stated that a primary indicator we have for measuring tyranny can be found in the presence or absence of democracy. The less democracy there is, the more elite centered rule we have  whether it is from the private or public sectors. A secondary indicator for tyranny can be found in how much individual ownership rights exist in the economy over and against collective ownership. Witt's view of economic freedom both consolidates power by consolidating wealth and denies collective ownership. And that denial is regardless of the interdependencies that exist in the system and society. So can we expect a growth in tyranny here?

A way to answer that question is to look at the facts on the ground. We still have quite a few freedoms. But these freedoms are mostly individual freedoms. What about the freedom of people to determine what kind of society we will live in. This freedom is a group freedom, not an individual freedom, and is commonly referred to as democracy. There we find that though we vote in our elected officials, these same officials obey the mandates of those who make the biggest contributions. As a result, banks and financial institutions can commit fraud and other felonies with criminal impunity while the rest of us cannot. We find that energy companies can also escape criminal prosecution when they harm the environment and they can sometimes even avoid impunity from civil suits too  regardless of the impact of their actions. We find that those with the most wealth have the most pull in writing the laws of this country. We find that many corporations can supplement their payroll with government assistance programs while not paying their fair share in taxes. And what about the foreign military aid where public funds are paid directly to our weapons manufacturers who in turn send equipment and weapons to foreign countries.

In the meantime, most of us comply because our remaining freedoms are found either in meaningless consumption or by vicariously living through the rich and famous. Many of us have given up on being able to experience group freedom (a.k.a., democracy). That last point is indicated by our passion for sports according to Noam Chomsky (click here). 

The facts on the ground show that we are called to make room for the economic freedom while economic freedom is not called recognize us. Perhaps this is why Witt calls on communities to do more of the patching up of problems. For he paraphrases Robert Nisbet saying:

greater centralized political authority and social safety net spending beyond a certain minimal level actually begin to undermine civil institutions and community, since people depend less and less on their family and community bonds and more and more on state-sponsored humanitarian assistance.

He adds that the solution is not found in big government, democratic or not. He cites Tocqueville in associating 'soft despotism' with too much government care resulting in the people becoming sheep with the government as their shepherd. 

But what Witt doesn't cover here is that community wounds can be deep enough so as to make any group of locals impotent in responding to the challenges of economic freedom. And it is in those unhealed wounds where we see real tyranny. In addition, by calling the people sheep and the government a shepherd, Witt divorces the government from the people regardless of how representative of the people the government is. This is a common approach of American Conservatives who are very individualistic. The problem with overemphasizing individualism, as Martin Luther King Jr. noted in his writings, is that it denies that life is social.

With Witt's divorcing of government from the people, not that government has not often tried to do that itself, we see that if there is to be a consolidation of power, it will be found in the private sector of wealthy elites where we go from a one person-one vote system to a one-dollar-one vote system. 

Finally, when Witt says that the answer is not found in government, since democracy can be a form of government, he is also saying that the answer is not found in democracy. Rather, according to Witt, the answer is to be found in individuals, civic groups, and communities, in other words volunteers, regardless of how they have been affected by economic freedom. Perhaps a reason why Witt thinks this way is because only democracy can have a chance at rivaling the power of economic freedom. Why? Because democracy includes the collection of communities working together rather than isolated communities working separately. What is the old saying? "United we stand, ...

Reviewing The Cultural Case For Capitalism, Part 1 of 12

Over at the Acton Blog, Jonathan Witt is in the midst of writing a series of 12 blogposts regarding the "Cultural Case For Capitalism." Being an anti-Capitalist myself, I thought that I would comment on the series of writings. I do not yet know whether I will dedicate a blogpost for each part, but I will comment on his first post here (click here for the 1st of 12 blogposts by Witt).

Before commenting on what he has to say, I want to present a preliminary model of thought which I will use to look at Witt's defense of Capitalism. The drawing below provides a picture of the model I will be using.

American Capitalism Today

The above grid does not show a function as much as a 2-dimensional model of where America's capitalist movements are today with regard to Individual Rights and Collective Consciousness and Democracy and Elite Centered governance. Both axes deal with distribution. The horizontal axis is an economic one that measures the distribution of ownership and thus the claim to wealth. The more we acknowledge the role that others play in or the more others are impacted by the creation of our wealth, the stronger will be our notion of a Collective Consciousness. The more individuals take credit for their wealth or the less responsibility they acknowledge for how their wealth affects others, the more emphasis will be placed on Individual Rights.

The vertical axis is a political-economic one that measures the distribution of power noting that having power is not necessarily the same as having authority. So the vertical axis measures the degree to which power is shared. The more that power is distributed and shared by all of the people, the more Democracy holds sway. But the more that power consolidated and centralized, the more rule over people is Elite Centered.

Contrary to the expectation of some Conservatives, Elite Centered rule or power, can come regardless of whether one overemphasizes either Individual Rights or a Collective Consciousness. What can also surprise Conservatives is that Elite Centered rule can come from the private sector as well as the public sector. The reason? Again, it is because having power is not necessarily the same has having authority and that power follows wealth.

Finally, we should note concerning the two axes that the vertical plays a primary role in determining the degree to which tyranny or freedom will exist. Meanwhile, the horizontal axis plays a primary role in determining the degree to which wealth disparity should be expected. It will also play a secondary role in determining the degree of tyranny or freedom that exists. Here, we will repeat that power follows wealth, and because of that the greater the accumulation and consolidation of wealth, which is most commonly associated with emphasizing Individual Rights, the greater the potential for tyranny to exist. 

The quadrants in the above model are as follows.  Quadrant I, that is the upper right quadrant, is where Democracy is favored over Elite Centered rule and where a Collective Consciousness trumps, in varying degrees, Individual Rights. What is recommended by this blog is a flexibly small to moderate predominance of a Collective Consciousness over Individual Rights with a strong favoring of Democracy over Elite Centered rule. Why? We limit our favoring of Collective Consciousness because, as Martin Luther King Jr. put it, we can forget that "life is individual." And we somewhat favor a Collective Consciousness over Individual liberty because, in an ever growing interdependent society, others have more connections to our wealth by either participation or impact and thus they have a legitimate claim to the possession and/or use of our wealth. Those who occupy the recommended portion of this quadrant tend not to be Capitalists

In Quadrant II, that is the upper left hand quadrant, we have an emphasis on Democracy over Elite Centered rule and Individual Rights over a Collective Consciousness. This is where the society freely chooses to lessen the restraints that the ramifications of interdependency have on individuals seeking their fortune by denying that interdependency exists. This blog predicts that this quadrant is self-limiting. That is because the more a system emphasizes Individual Rights over Collective Consciousness, the greater the wealth disparity that will exist. And the only way to allow a growing wealth disparity to continue is to limit or continually reduce Democracy. 

Quadrant III is the home for our political-economic, right-leaning advocates of Capitalism from Conservatives to Anarcho-Capitalists. The key difference between those in this quadrant can be seen in the degree to which they favor Individual Rights over a Collective Consciousness. In this quadrant the more one favors Individual Rights, the more one must depend on an ever increasing Elite Centered rule to keep the growing number of financially displaced in line. Here Conservatives are to be preferred to the others in the quadrant. And just as Martin Luther King Jr. had a word for those who overemphasized the collective, he told the Capitalists of his day, whom he saw as overemphasizing the individual, that they forget that "life is social." 

Quadrant IV consists of a growing enforced collectivism by Elite Centered rule. Its mild form can be seen in America's political liberals who wish to save Capitalism by offering those who are displaced some bones to gnaw at. But note that these liberals show that they lean more toward Elite Centered rule than toward Democracy. Also, America's liberals share this quadrant with leaders from the late Soviet Union who exercised great power and forced collectivism on all others but themselves, fellow elites, and favored individuals. The primary difference between America's liberals and many of the those leaders of the Soviet Union is in the degree of Elite Centered control they favor. 

Of course, this model does not address the specifics of the article being reviewed here, but it will provide a backdrop for how all parts of the series will be analyzed. 

Witt starts the post linked to above with the good and ugly of Western culture and there seems to be an inconsistency in how he does that. For while our cultural strengths include some positive changes in society, such as that which the Civil Rights movement brought, the ugly was almost totally concerned with personal sins such as how girls dress, boys looking at pornography, drug use, a high divorce rate,  and families without fathers. What was missing in Witt's ugly part of today's culture and society included the environmental damage our way of life and commerce are causing, the current wealth disparity, financial crimes such as fraudulent foreclosures and money laundering, the exploitation and abuse of both workers and prisoners, a renewed arms race, and an ever growing authoritarianism as seen in both our foreign policy and domestic law enforcement. What is pertinent here is that his ugly list leaves out the sins of the financial elites. At the same time, many conservatives like Witt emphasize a need for almost boundless economic, individual liberty including for the aforementioned financial elites, a liberty that should almost only be restrained by moral standards.

Some Conservatives would argue that addressing individual morals by itself is sufficient to fix the abuses that occur in quadrant III. But how would fixing the problems Witt listed address the societal problems he failed to mention? In addition, we should note that personal moral values leave important questions unanswered. For example, we know that we are not to pollute the environment. But what constitutes polluting the environment? We also know that stealing is wrong but what about poverty wages? See, the answers to some of these question are not addressed by simply focusing on personal morals. This is especially true when the desire to increase profits can corrupt our perception and personal morals. Sometimes, one must rely on input from others rather than one's self or religion. And that input from others can come from Democracy and a Collective Consciousness. Why? Because such input comes from the communities in which we live and act and what we do there often has an effect on them. But since relying on others seems to be an anathema to those stressing individualism, the stress on moral standards by such people becomes understandable.

Using the model above, this blog predicts that in trying to make the "cultural case for Capitalism," Witt will put himself squarely into quadrant III. And in quadrant III, while trying to pose as a champion for individual liberty, he will pose as an enemy of the liberty practiced in Democracy.  Thus Witt, however inadvertently, will promote Elite Centered rule. In addition, in trying to be a champion for individual liberty, Witt, however inadvertently, will promote practices that increase wealth disparity. Thus he will be supporting the increase in wealth disparity because this is what happens when one minimizes one's own or a group's Collective Consciousness. 

So for the next whatever number of Fridays, we will be reviewing Witt's cultural apologetic for Capitalism.