Does Capitalism come from Western Philosophy?

[Hexen]

Recently I've been reading these sites about the differences between Western and Eastern philosophy.

http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/cultures_east-west-phylosophy.html

http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Eastern_philosophy


The role and nature of the individual http://www.revleft.com/vb/data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIABAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAEALAAAAAABAAEAQAICTAEAOw%3D%3DEdit (http://psychology.wikia.com/index.php?title=Eastern_philosophy&action=edit&section=19)

It has been argued that in most Western philosophies, the same can be said of the individual: Many Western philosophers generally assume as a given that the individual is something distinct from the entire universe, and many Western philosophers attempt to describe and categorize the universe from a detached, objective viewpoint. Eastern philosophers, on the other hand, typically hold that people are an intrinsic and inseparable part of the universe, and that attempts to discuss the universe from an objective viewpoint as though the individual speaking was something separate and detached from the whole are inherently absurd.
I guess since Western philosophy is individualist which means that capitalism can be traced back to it? Is communism/socialism pretty close to Eastern philosophy? If so then I guess the real obstacle is western philosophy itself and we need to educate people to abandon this philosophy and embrace Eastern Philosophy therefore more people can grow more resistant against capitalism?

[Lenina Rosenweg]

This isn't a great answer but basically its the other way around, philosophy reflects the material conditions prevaling. Philosophies such as Confucianism, types of Hindu philosophy, Platonism, and Christianity reflected various feudal societies.

There may be some grains of truth in the differeence between "Eastern" and Western philosophy, but its complicated.

[Caj]

Recently I've been reading these sites about the differences between Western and Eastern philosophy.

http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/cultures_east-west-phylosophy.html

http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Eastern_philosophy

I guess since Western philosophy is individualist which means that capitalism can be traced back to it? Is communism/socialism pretty close to Eastern philosophy? If so then I guess the real obstacle is western philosophy itself and we need to educate people to abandon this philosophy and embrace Eastern Philosophy therefore more people can grow more resistant against capitalism?

Modes of production don't emerge from philosophical doctrines. Rather philosophical doctrines emerge in response to material conditions. The differences between Eastern and Western philosophy can be traced to different material conditions, not the differences in material conditions to philosophical differences.

[Hexen]

Or should we just discard Philosophy all together?

[Ostrinski]

No way. Philosophy is the means by which we analyze society. Ideas develop naturally as a means of adapting to society and the changing ways in which we relate to it.

[ChrisK]

Philosophies are created by the material conditions of the society they are a part of. The overwhelming majority of them present a ruling class view.

[ChrisK]

Or should we just discard Philosophy all together?

Yes.

[Revolution starts with U]

Capitalism is mostly the result of the increased demand for labor after the plagues wiped out most of the population and the mechanical advancements of the rennaissance and scientific revolution. High demand for labor gave increased negotiating power to the workers, causing profiteers to squeeze more money and influence away from the noble landlords.

The nobles, merchants, and manufacturers inevitably conspired to protect their privelage. This was the slow leak of political and economic rights, but the maintenance and strengthening of the property concept. The same thing that had so long protected their right to privelage, the povertous position of the commoner now threatened the destroy the whole class structure. The most efficient option proved to be private property and production for profit, ie market exchange.

Early capitalist philosophy is no more individualist nor collectivist than earlier western philosophy. In fact much of it spoke of the "brotherhood of man," and many make one paradigms. What it was, in essence, as philosophy always is, was a specific play on words designed to justify the the land's new rulers; essentially you make up or redesign language to prove that your tyranny is a win for the common good... hence the state's incessant need for an enemy... and that great men change history, while commoners just ride along.

If you're seeking this path to reveal some understanding on how to create so ialism, let me help you through a few steps. Those cappi philosophers weren't saying anything that hadn't been said before really. It just didn't prove efficient to accept them at the time. Reveal the flaws in the current scheme, organizing labor and actively rejecting the state's legitimacy, and enlighten the people to their material interests and socialism will build itself.

The real revolutionary view is to reject the dualism of individual and collective, to accept material reality for what it is, not what we want it to be. Individuals will rob and rape you, collectives will kill you for your otherness. Get used to it, or get used to being wrong.

[Revolution starts with U]

The simple fact is that realsocialist philosophers will look on what we think of as socialist philosophers of our time much the same way modern capitalist philosophers look at Locke, Smith, etc, as relics.

[CommunityBeliever]

Capitalism comes from the industrial revolution and not any philosophy. However, it is fuelled by Western philosophy. The Western countries were the main opponents of the Eastern bloc in the 20th century so they had red scares that demonised socialism and propaganda campaigns that promoted individualism and capitalism. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, these propaganda campaigns continued. Even today, people in the West are still being taught that capitalism and individualism are what make the West richer then the rest of the world.

[Deicide]

Or should we just discard Philosophy all together?

No. Philosophy (in the broader sense of the term) has a special purpose. ''Philosophy doesn't solve problems. The duty of philosophy is not to solve problems, but to redefine problems. To show what we experience as a problem is a false problem.'' I think that quote is correct.

[ChrisK]

No. Philosophy (in the broader sense of the term) has a special purpose. ''Philosophy doesn't solve problems. The duty of philosophy is not to solve problems, but to redefine problems. To show what we experience as a problem is a false problem.'' I think that quote is correct.

Who said that? Sounds like Wittgenstein. Which, by the way, he was right.

[Deicide]

Who said that? Sounds like Wittgenstein. Which, by the way, he was right.

See my avatar ;)

[ChrisK]

See my avatar ;)

Zizek said something coherent? Well shit that's a first.

[ChrisK]

Ah I see it now. "redefine problems." Well there goes my hope for Zizek.

[Rafiq]

No, Western Philosophy comes from capitalism, and before, a reflection of the mercheant classes.

[Kronsteen]

I take the Jamesian view that philosophy is the investigation of things for which no proper scientific method of investigation has yet been formed. A philosophy of X is the embryonic form of the science of X.

On the issue of how philosophies (and indeed sciences) are distorted and hindered by ruling class ideology, two thoughts.

First, the image of Marx as someone who suddenly and singlehandedly threw off hitherto unchallenged ruling class ideology from politics, history and economics...is preposterous.

Establishment intellectuals may be charged to support capitalism, but they're also charged to work for capitalism, and to do that effectively they have to see through its mystifications - at least somewhat.

Marx came from the ruling class and built on the work of establishment figures, and afterwards others built on his work. There are no clean breaks in the history of ideas.

Second, there are two incompatible claims made about Marx's ideological position. One is that he saw through the ruling class view to the truth. The other is that he discovered and made systematic the view of the opposite class - the workers.

We could declare that the workers' view is the truth - assuming there really is a single coherent view beneath the 'muck of ages'. But this would be to decide an epistemological matter by deciding which gang you support.

Essentially, it flips the authoritarian epistemology on its head, to create an anti-authoritarian epistemology. And as we know, an inversion of a stupid idea is usually an equally stupid idea.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Marx did not "break though" and uniquely discover "the truth". He represented a trend and culmination of bourgeois thought. Since the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas of society, 18th/early 19th century bourgeois thought was the most advanced thought of that time.Hegel, secularism and the Rights of Man, nominally legal equality, was an enormous advance over what came before.

Marx based his work of the best of the political economists-Smith, Ricardo, etc. He carried their work to its culmination and was able to confront its contradictions.

Marx , like all of us, was embedded within his time.He came of age in the afterglow of the French Revolution and its philosophical systemazation in Papa Hegel.He was able to surmount its inherent contradictions.

Looking at it another way, "Marxism"isn't just the writings and work of Karl Marx. Marxism is the inherent movement of the working class, whatever the specific politics of working people at any specific time. The working class, by being utterly dependent upon the capitalists but also being essential to capitalism, is the only class, who by its forward movement, challenges the class system of capitalism itself.

Virtually all bourgeois social science-sociology, economics (especially), history, education, developed in reaction to this aspect of "Marxism", even if this, as usual, is unstated.

Marxism is the 900 hundred pound elephant in the room.

Bourgeois epistemology refuses to confront its own limitations and presuppositions.Its not a question of "authoritarian" versus "non authoritarian" epistemologies, its a question of breaking society from the conditioning of its rulers.

It is true that ruling class intellectuals have to, at least to an extent, understand the contradictions of the system that pays them. That's why we have people like Nourial Roubini praising Marx and a neo-liberal like Jeffery Sachs, at least to an extent understanding the damage that he has done.

[Hit The North]

No way. Philosophy is the means by which we analyze society. Ideas develop naturally as a means of adapting to society and the changing ways in which we relate to it.

Er, no, sociology is the means by which we analyse society, through a theoretical interpretation of empirical evidence.

Philosophy can tell us little about society.

[Ocean Seal]

Modes of production don't emerge from philosophical doctrines. Rather philosophical doctrines emerge in response to material conditions. The differences between Eastern and Western philosophy can be traced to different material conditions, not the differences in material conditions to philosophical differences.
While I don't agree that capitalism emerged from the west's desire for individualism, I'm not sure that this is correct. Ideas don't necessarily emerge as reflections of the MoP or current material conditions.

Capitalism like most mode of production type ideas emerged from the ideas of the previous mode of production so in that sense it is somewhat of an exception to what I've said above.

[Hit The North]

While I don't agree that capitalism emerged from the west's desire for individualism, I'm not sure that this is correct. Ideas don't necessarily emerge as reflections of the MoP or current material conditions.


They don't always accurately reflect material life, they can also be (and often are) partially distorted accounts of social life. Hence the term ideology.


Capitalism like most mode of production type ideas emerged from the ideas of the previous mode of production so in that sense it is somewhat of an exception to what I've said above.


Except that capitalism isn't an idea or even a mode of production based on an idea; it is a mode of production based on material relations of production. Ideas, when functioning at the level of myth, philosophy and theory, are attempts to make sense of those relations and sometimes attempts to obscure those relations.

[Rooster]

Does this mean also that capitalism does not come from revisionism? :confused:

[StalinFanboy]

the word economy comes from the greek word oikonomia which relates to the idea of jesus being the manager of the world. economics as we know it absolutely stems from Christian theology.

"Over the past three years, I have found myself increasingly involved in an investigation that is only now
beginning to come to its end, one that I can roughly
define as a theological genealogy of economy. In the
first centuries of Church history-let's say, between
the second and sixth centuries c.E.-the Greek term
oikonomia develops a decisive theological function. In
Greek, oikonomia signifies the administration of the
oikos (the home) and, more generally, management.

We are dealing here, as Aristotle says (Politics 1155b21),
not with an epistemic paradigm, but with a praxis,
with a practical activity that must face a problem and
a particular situation each and every time. Why, then,
did the Fathers of the Church feel the need to introduce
this term into theological discourse? How did
they come to speak about a " divine economy"?
What is at issue here, to be precise, is an extremely
delicate and vital problem, perhaps the decisive question
in the history of Christian theology: the Trinity.
When the Fathers of the Church began to argue
during the second century about the threefold nature of
the divine figure (the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit), there was, as one can imagine, a powerful resistance
from reasonable-minded people in the Church
who were horrified at the prospect of reintroducing
polytheism and paganism to the Christian faith.
In order to convince those stubborn adversaries (who
were later called "monarchiam," that is, promoters of
the government of a single God), theologians such as
Tertullian, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and many others
could not find a better term to serve their need than
the Greek oikonomia. Their argument went something
like this: "God, insofar as his being and substance
is concerned, is certainly one; but as to his oikonomia-
that is to say the way in which he administers
his home, his life, and the world that he created-
he is, rather, triple. Just as a good father can entrust to
his son the execution of certain functions and duties
without in so doing losing his power and his unity, so
God entrusts to Christ the 'economy,' the administration
and government of human history." Oikonomia
therefore became a specialized term signifying in particular
the incarnation of the Son, together with the
economy of redemption and salvation (this is the reason
why in Gnostic sects, Christ is called "the man of
economy," ho anthropos tes oikonomias). The theologians
slowly got accustomed to distinguishing between
a "discourse-or logos-of theology" and a "logos of
economy." Oikonomia became thereafter an apparatus
through which the Trinitarian dogma and the idea of
a divine providential governance of the world were introduced
into the Christian faith." - Agamben, What is an Apparatus?

i copy and pasted from a pdf so the formatting is fucked up, but the idea is still there.

[L.A.P.]

Zizek said something coherent? Well shit that's a first.

No, it actually isn't.

[Bostana]

Marx says in his book, The Communist Manifesto, that Capitalism arose in Middle Aged Europe.

[Luís Henrique]

Does this mean also that capitalism does not come from revisionism? :confused:

I don't think revisionism could exist before capitalism, so of course, capitalism doesn't come from revisionism.

Luís Henrique