pmd@cbscd5.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) (10/01/83)
I am not an advocate of socialism, but I do think a critical look at our western brand of capitalism is healthy. It is much easier to find the problems with a philosophy or economic system that conflicts with, or threatens the one we hold so dear. There is great motivation to do so. In an attempt to criticize both, I want to add my random thoughts to the discussion. Not to prove anything, just to get us to think about the problems with each. I'll probably be harder on capitalism because I'm more familiar with it. There is a great disparity between socialist rhetoric and the way socialism actually works. The socialist vision sounds great and is satisfies to the sense of justice posessed by many. But it fails to take into account the the basic need of humans for a sense of individual significance. Inherent in the system is the stifling of individual creativity and motivation to be a productive member of society. In it's desire to help the masses the significance of the individuals who make up those masses is lost. With socialism the individual's only significance comes through his identification with the state. This is not enough. The state is only an extension of man's fallibility and temporality. It is impersonal. On the other side, capitalism also has its problems. There is no doubt in my mind that our western brand of capitalism has done much to create a class ridden and divided social order where the rich have excessive advantages over the poor. And, in the words of John Gladwin: "It [western capitalism] has encouraged the aquisitive society with its commercial pressure upon people to want more and to demand more. It has deepened the ecomomic divisions of the world and has exacerbated the aggrieved sense of justice in the third world". It is easy to extol the virtues of capitalism among its beneficiaries. But tell it to the third world, or even to the poor in our own country. The class mentality inherent in capitalism tends to ghettoize those victimized by its economic actions. Out of sight, out of mind. Capitalists seem not to care about the probems socialism trys to solve, which only aggravates those with the problems. The sense of justice umong capitalists is different from that of socialists. Socialism strives for equal economic benefit for every one. This is a good ideal, but tends only to suffocate individual freedom in practice. The essence of dilectical materialism is that if you change the way man relates to materials you change the man. This works only in a very limited fashion. The individual's need for freedom and significance will always have a strong urge for expression. In reaction to this socialistic goverments may tend to protect themselves by demanding an uncritical acceptance of their policies from the people and before long you have totalitarianism. Captialism has attained a good degree of freedom for the individual, but when this goes too far the individual's sense of responsibility to others suffers. In our "aquisitive society" people tend to veiw justice and rights more from an individual perspective. Once what we would call an individual's basic human rights (adaquate food, clothing, shelter, etc.) have been satisfied, that person's perspective on what his "rights" are shifts to something higher. Most people I work with tend to view a yearly increase in salary as their right. I once heard a man say "I don't care about money, as long as I have *enough*". (Emphasis mine, he didn't elaborate on how much "enough" was.). Yet several months later when he got his raise he was definitely bitter. I guess he didn't have "enough" yet. I have never met anyone who said they had. The advertising media feed on this, trying to convince us that we "deserve" or "owe it to ourselves" to buy their product. They spend too much money on this, and have been doing so for too long for me to believe they are not succeeding. Responsibility for the well being of others cuts into personal profit. Corporations in America don't implement polution control, labor saftey standards, or even employee benefits out of any genuine concern for the environment or the people. They have historically been goaded into these things by external factors. (Labor unions may have gotten out of hand in some ways, but how many of us remember what it was like before we had them. Now companies either have to live with them or give concessions to their employees to keep them out.) A capitalistic economy seems to thrive on the greed of it's consumers. The greed is imperceptible because it is uniform in any given class. And classes have limited interaction and exposure to one another. e.g. I only want what my neighbors all want, and I only associate with my neighbors, so I don't see myself as being greedy. My greed doesn't stand out. It is always those in the "upper class" that are the greedy ones. Contentment with what one has seems to be a sin in the U.S. If people only bought new cars, watches, homes, clothes, etc. when their old ones were no longer usable, or when they had a real need for them, our economy would collapse. In our economy it often costs more to replace something that to restore, or upgrade it. To me, it seems that this results in an an ever escalating demand for raw materials and energy--the procurement of which also takes and increasing amount of these recources--and tremendous waste. We seem to have an economy that assumes that the supply of such energy and materials is infinite, or that we will always be able to economically obtain them from somewhere. Either that or we don't care about running out because we will be dead by the time that happens. We use the materials and energy of future generations to build weapons that we hope never to use, containers that aren't good for anything but to be tossed away once they are used, and "new and improved" products that make their predecessors obsolete before the end of their useful lives. The fact that our country with 20% of the world's population consumes about 80% of its energy and raw materials (if these figures are wrong I think they on the conservative side) has contributed to the dim view the rest of the world has of us. (By the way, If anyone has read Jeremy Rifkin's book "Entropy" I would be interested in your comments on it. Mail them to me.) Not a socialist, but not in love with capitalism either. Paul Dubuc