On Freedom And Capitalism
Class Wars Not Culture Wars
Morning Comrades!
Today’s email is another essay that looks at Freedom, Capitalism and what to make of it all. It should take you about 15 minutes to read and hopefully spark a few “material” ideas.
Before that though I wanted to point you to the newest episode of Cocktail’s and Capitalisms Podcast. I joined Erika to not only drink Negroni’s but talk at length about practical Communism, Love and Drinks, obviously.
This will also replace this week’s edition of Hot Shots, most likely anyway, as real life commitments have once again reared their ugly heads. Enjoy!
So let’s talk about capitalism and subsequently, freedom. The problem starts with the word Capitalism in itself as the majority of people don’t even use the word but rather “freedom” “social democracies” “free trade” and so on. We also don’t use the word “murder” but “collateral damage” when our governments use the profits extracted from out labour to bomb a far way wedding ( Hey Obama ) because, meh, Islamic Terrorists.
Capitalism is the economic reality in which we exist, the materialistic framework in which you make money with money. Interest and compound interest, there is a reason why your labour is taxed usually at around 40% and the profits you make with financial investments at 20%, if at all. Money is more important than Labour, something everyone feels on the daily. Interest and Compound Interest are the root causes for the division of wealth aside from the exploitation of said labour.
Ironically, the fact that this pillar of economics has always been a massive cause for inequality isn’t a new revelation, Marx wasn’t the first to address this. All major religions, going back to Judaism ( aka a few thousand years before Christians popped up ) FORBID the idea of interest and compound interest. This is practiced currently under Islam still, where any Islamic bank operating under the concept of Sharia is not allowed to charge interest. Trade yes, interest no.
Early Christians also adhered to this idea but then Catholicism came about and that changed. Charging interest became a reality and Capitalism as an extension of that religion was accepted, no, incorporated and pushed into Colonialism and here we are. Fanatically, those with power have managed to exchange the fanaticism of colonial Christianity with Capitalism and perverted the Enlightenment concepts of Freedom with the rapture of Christianity. Make no mistake, outside of this and other bubbles, the majority of people still believe that Capitalism and existence under Capitalism not only equates Freedom but makes life better for everyone, and is a biblical goal worth attaining.
The parallels to the fervor of Christian Colonialism are uncanny, as obvious as they are.
The most fascinating and brutal aspect of this internalization is, just like religious fervor, you really do not have to understand what you are living through, you merely have to believe it, as is the case with the majority of fellow humans here, specifically in the West. Additionally, Capitalism functions psychologically like religion in the sense that some are allowed to profit from it, whilst the salvation therein is pre-mandated by everyone else believing in it.
Productivity, Growth and Freedom are our new gods and it is blasphemous to argue otherwise. Similar to the Spanish Inquisition, the sheer amount of money and power given to those institutions fighting alternative economic realities is enough proof of their similarities.
Don’t get me started on Productivity either, that whole idea is one of the most unnatural cons ever invented and I will leave it at that.
But “Freedom”, that elusive concept, the most holy of nirvana’s in capitalism, the idea that we bomb and subject the rest of the world for - and have done prior to Christianities Colonialal jump into Capitalism, cough, the Crusades.
Just like the zealots of old, whenever anyone argues against Capitalism you will not only be met with punishment - another wonderful concept of subjugation for freedom that is beyond flawed - but you also be met with an onslaught of outrage usually centered around the notion of freedom.
Those who profit from Capitalism have managed to convince, through language, propaganda and violence that this economic reality gives you freedom. As much as I struggle with Orwell, his coinage of DoubleSpeak is absolutely apt and correct in that regard.
But what Freedom? What is Freedom even? Do not worry, this isn’t leading into a long-winded philosophical essay about what “Freedom” is, much more brilliant minds have spent centuries exploring this idea but a few words have to be said.
Freedom is traditionally understood as independence of the arbitrary will of another. Such a state is contrasted with slavery. A slave is constantly subject to the will of another. By contrast a free person can do whatever they choose as long as they do not break the law and infringe on the freedom of others. This has been described as external freedom or "negative liberty."
There is also the sense of inner freedom which exists where free will is followed by free action. A person who does not succeed in doing what he sets out to do, because his will fails, is in a sense unfree, a slave to his passions. So freedom comes from self-control. Goethe said, "From the forces that all creatures bind, who overcomes himself his freedom finds."
According to the American moral philosopher Susan Wolf, freedom is the ability to act in accordance with the True and the Good. According to people such as Saint Augustine and Confucius, this kind of freedom can reach a point at which it always produces goodness. Thus historically people have struggled not for abstract freedom for its own sake, but for the freedom to be good and do good.
In regards to relative modernity in the West, let’s say going back around 600 years, philosophers have traditionally made a distinction between freedom and license. Freedom is always constrained by laws or rules that apply equally to all members of a society. These laws have a negative quality in that they prohibit certain acts which are damaging to the community or which interfere with another person's freedom. These are traditional laws such as the prohibition of rape, murder and theft etc.
John Locke said that such laws preserve and enlarge freedom. This is why the rule of law is so important to freedom- something that again stands in relation to Christianity and Capitalism. It’s an argument I don’t wholly subscribe to, philosophically but in material realities, this is what we are dealing with.
In contrast, license is associated with power and the idea that a person can do anything without censure, an idea first associated with Voltaire. In the modern world many people mistake license for freedom and become angry when they are censured for being selfish, rude, irresponsible and immoral. Again, I am hoping you see the parallels in today’s shit storm.
Freedom has traditionally been linked with the idea of responsibility. George Bernard Shaw expressed this succinctly, "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." A free person has the opportunity and burden of making choices and decisions. This also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions. This theme was explored by Dostoyevsky in the "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" in The Brothers Karamasov.
There have been two main attacks on the idea of freedom. One comes from the notion of God's foreknowledge suggesting that an omniscient God already knows what will happen in the future, either because he wills it or just because he knows. This leads on to the notion of predestination. The second has come from the idea of determinism which suggests that in a law governed universe, the law of cause and effect means that the future is already decided. This implies that human freedom is an illusion as all choices and decisions a person makes are determined by physical laws and chemical interactions. I have always found it somewhat ironic and astounding that within Capitalism, even these attacks have been incorporated into the Universalism that is Freedom under Capitalism. Everything is Real, Nothing is Permitted.
In today’s world we additionally have to differentiate between political freedom and inner freedom. Political freedom is closely allied with the concepts of civil liberties and individual rights. Inner Autonomy, or mastery over one's inner condition. Inner Freedom is a huge philosophical school that can be best summarized as such: Greek philosopher Diogenes speaks to Alexander the Great, saying: "You are my servants' servant." The philosopher has conquered fear, lust, and anger, whereas Alexander still serves these masters. Although the king has conquered the world without, he has not yet mastered the world within. This kind of mastery is dependent upon no one and nothing other than oneself.
As much as that school is beautiful and worth anyone’s time, in today’s fight, materialism trumps identity and thus inner realities. They coexist to be sure, but since I am talking about actually changing realities, we have to prioritize.
Most liberal democratic societies are professedly characterized by various freedoms which are afforded the legal protection of the state. Or are they? We are told what we consider our rights to be ( for the sake of argument, let’s look at European Civil Constitutions and the one in the US ) and then the reality of existence. We profess these rights, but has Capitalism allowed them?
In theory, sure but the reality looks entirely different. Capitalism allows us to consume, produce and consent to their manufactured narrative but that’s it. Once you breach the glass ceiling as so many before us have done, ask why and offer solutions that would conclude a FAIRER distribution of everything, well, we all know where Guantanamo Bay is right? The history of the struggle against Capitalism, Colonialism and Christianity is littered with dead bodies of dissidents. No easy way around to say this and every inch of so-called Freedom we exercise wasn’t granted by Capitalism, it was taken from the Capitalist by comrades whose shoulders we stand on today.
Essentially, Capitalism manufactures a number of faux culture wars to stop us from attaining autonomy, freedom if you like, by diverting any and all actions away from a class war. Even historically, the debate that was crystallized on the shoulders of Marx and Engles through The Communist Manifesto is punished by ostracization to imprisonment and worse. What is the point of “freedom” if it boils down to choosing between Coca Cola and Pepsi, but not fully realizing freedom via the tools of seizing the means of production, as a starter? If we are forced to exist under the undemocratic realities of this existing economic model in which we have no options other than enriching the few to not starve and suffer what are we even talking abou? For clarity's sake, I appreciate and value all debates that deconstruct cultural norms, as they partially shape material realities - the nuclear family for example - but as long as we cannot truly debate and force change of the material realities that bind us, we do not have “freedom”.
I am a big fan of freedom, truly. There is however no point in engaging in semantics about freedom when the ruling entity does not grant us even the remotest possibility thereof. The point of this essay is to help everyone understand what freedom is, that it doesn’t exist under Capitalism and that it is the gloriest of fights to obtain it.
To end this with a quote from one of my favourite non-academic brilliant mind, Utah Phillips:
What a great read first thing in the morning! I'm hopping off the hamster wheel for a couple of weeks for much needed vacation.