Dean
3rd September 2007, 19:32
Interested in thoughts on the below article I wrote a while ago (2005). I don't fully agree with a few of the points, but that's mostly an issue of wording. The point on religion is most off from my current view.
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The Market Authority And The Impotence Of Man
Dean Sayers
Capitalism, the ‘free market,’ and ‘economic freedom’ are the gods of the new global society. The new religion is that of economics; man is defined no longer by what freedom he has reached, but by the degree of freedom he can wrest from entities outside of himself. The market authority has chained man to his possessions; he finds freedom in possessing things. This has arrested him; he has but two choices: retain his natural, unalienable freedoms, or invest his interests in property rights, those necessary for his survival and comfort.
Every thesis proposed needs a qualification to be defined for freedom. I propose that freedom be called the ability to effectually determine the conditions for your own life: the ability to do anything which does not impede on another person’s right. In reference to property, freedom is in being able to assert ones own control over the material necessary for a reasonably comfortable continued existence*. A similar view is stated in Kaczynski’s ‘Industrial Society And Its Future’: “Freedom means being in control (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) of the life-and-death issues of one's existence; food, clothing, shelter and defense against whatever threats there may be in one's environment. Freedom means having power; not the power to control other people but the power to control the circumstances of one's own life.” (Paragraph 94 – My italics)
Why does this lack of freedom occur so regularly? Firstly, we must explain why freedom becomes vested in economic interests. Beyond the necessity for survival, there are social concerns that people must attend to. People need love and relatedness to others, and this need is often met through mutual activities: watching a movie together, going to a game, a party. This necessitates that people consume, and hence become chained to their possessions. This results in more psychological inhibitions; one must defend his property, resulting in a lessened degree of personal determination: while one may want to do what is right, he finds his need for a commodity too influential, so he may do things which he feels are wrong.
Another reason for a character structure built around owning property is the nature of freedom in contemporary society. All nations have freedoms, which are any choices that a person finds to be a viable option in reference to the interests of a person (which are, on an essential level, based around freedom). There are different degrees of freedoms as well. Contemporary society makes freedom an issue of economics: when one does something, he is subject to all stipulations of contracts he has entered into or become forced into. This includes the body of laws of a state, the whims of the owner of the property he effects (especially land), unwritten contracts like those inherent in holding a job, and any other agreements or acts of economic coercion he may have been involved in. If I want to hike up a mountain, I must possess a license - property right to it: a public property license (which includes further contractual stipulations), an oral license (as a property owner allows people to hike on his property), or an actual right of possession to the property itself.
Why is morality such an ineffectual aspect of the contemporary mind? A compelling answer to this is the decline in religion. Whereas in feudal Europe, ancient Rome and the pagan northern European nations religion was much more influential and induced a very strict code of morals (or, in Rome’s case, an abundance of rituals), today religion is not in fact a psychological religion. A feudal serf fears the retribution that his god is said to administer, contemporary man fears economic downfall. This replaces spiritual religion with a religion of economics. Whereas ancient man feared spiritual death, modern man fears economic death, and acts on this.
The effects of this new character structure are clear: a decline in behavior dictated by morals, a decline in self – discipline, a decline in assertiveness, and a generally submissive personality. These factors go beyond the realm of politics, however: children show less interest in school and learning, and the liberalization of the school system has destroyed the only effection responsible for the continuation of an education system which produces knowledgeable students with a capacity to learn (although the latter was already crippled): the threat of severe economic reprehension.
Self – discipline has decreased due to its economic inviability, spawned from the need to market oneself – people must be very flexible, especially in morals. The decline in self – discipline would not in fact cause morally irresponsible behavior if the character structure of man were made to be free and potent, however. Assertiveness is to man the ability to affect people and the condition of one’s own life in a productive, mutually freeing manner – not in having power over others.
The monopolizing effect of today’s economics (including both legal and private institutions) causes assertiveness to be squelched. The legally undemocratic nature of economic institutions (the inability for those effected by policies to determine those policies) is partly responsible for this – people do not have a real influence on the product of their activity. Instances in which people do have such influence on policies include jury deliberations and many labor union meetings, although their potency is restricted due to the character structure built by the undemocratic nature of other institutions and the undemocratic aspects which these examples still possess.
* A frequent response to this is that there is ‘not enough material to go around,’ which is potentially true, presuming that the desires of a people exceed the material available. The factor which causes this hindrance of freedom is the alien aspect of commodity rights – it is easy to secure and control one’s own body and to have an awareness of its boundaries, but property, being naturally alien to man, is a paradox. Contemporary man has graduated in this direction of excessive, unreasonable desires, but my position is that this is a pathological drive resulting from the structure of an authoritarian society. This point is too involving to be discussed here, but clarification can be found in E. Fromm’s “To Have Or To Be?”.
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I know some of the wording is strange, but I know what I meant in each statement so I can rephrase something if you ask. This was written at a whim, as far as I can tell.
I'm particularly interested in thoughts on the psychological points made. Psychology is a field that I think is all - too - often neglected in marxist and communist theories nowadays.
----------------
The Market Authority And The Impotence Of Man
Dean Sayers
Capitalism, the ‘free market,’ and ‘economic freedom’ are the gods of the new global society. The new religion is that of economics; man is defined no longer by what freedom he has reached, but by the degree of freedom he can wrest from entities outside of himself. The market authority has chained man to his possessions; he finds freedom in possessing things. This has arrested him; he has but two choices: retain his natural, unalienable freedoms, or invest his interests in property rights, those necessary for his survival and comfort.
Every thesis proposed needs a qualification to be defined for freedom. I propose that freedom be called the ability to effectually determine the conditions for your own life: the ability to do anything which does not impede on another person’s right. In reference to property, freedom is in being able to assert ones own control over the material necessary for a reasonably comfortable continued existence*. A similar view is stated in Kaczynski’s ‘Industrial Society And Its Future’: “Freedom means being in control (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) of the life-and-death issues of one's existence; food, clothing, shelter and defense against whatever threats there may be in one's environment. Freedom means having power; not the power to control other people but the power to control the circumstances of one's own life.” (Paragraph 94 – My italics)
Why does this lack of freedom occur so regularly? Firstly, we must explain why freedom becomes vested in economic interests. Beyond the necessity for survival, there are social concerns that people must attend to. People need love and relatedness to others, and this need is often met through mutual activities: watching a movie together, going to a game, a party. This necessitates that people consume, and hence become chained to their possessions. This results in more psychological inhibitions; one must defend his property, resulting in a lessened degree of personal determination: while one may want to do what is right, he finds his need for a commodity too influential, so he may do things which he feels are wrong.
Another reason for a character structure built around owning property is the nature of freedom in contemporary society. All nations have freedoms, which are any choices that a person finds to be a viable option in reference to the interests of a person (which are, on an essential level, based around freedom). There are different degrees of freedoms as well. Contemporary society makes freedom an issue of economics: when one does something, he is subject to all stipulations of contracts he has entered into or become forced into. This includes the body of laws of a state, the whims of the owner of the property he effects (especially land), unwritten contracts like those inherent in holding a job, and any other agreements or acts of economic coercion he may have been involved in. If I want to hike up a mountain, I must possess a license - property right to it: a public property license (which includes further contractual stipulations), an oral license (as a property owner allows people to hike on his property), or an actual right of possession to the property itself.
Why is morality such an ineffectual aspect of the contemporary mind? A compelling answer to this is the decline in religion. Whereas in feudal Europe, ancient Rome and the pagan northern European nations religion was much more influential and induced a very strict code of morals (or, in Rome’s case, an abundance of rituals), today religion is not in fact a psychological religion. A feudal serf fears the retribution that his god is said to administer, contemporary man fears economic downfall. This replaces spiritual religion with a religion of economics. Whereas ancient man feared spiritual death, modern man fears economic death, and acts on this.
The effects of this new character structure are clear: a decline in behavior dictated by morals, a decline in self – discipline, a decline in assertiveness, and a generally submissive personality. These factors go beyond the realm of politics, however: children show less interest in school and learning, and the liberalization of the school system has destroyed the only effection responsible for the continuation of an education system which produces knowledgeable students with a capacity to learn (although the latter was already crippled): the threat of severe economic reprehension.
Self – discipline has decreased due to its economic inviability, spawned from the need to market oneself – people must be very flexible, especially in morals. The decline in self – discipline would not in fact cause morally irresponsible behavior if the character structure of man were made to be free and potent, however. Assertiveness is to man the ability to affect people and the condition of one’s own life in a productive, mutually freeing manner – not in having power over others.
The monopolizing effect of today’s economics (including both legal and private institutions) causes assertiveness to be squelched. The legally undemocratic nature of economic institutions (the inability for those effected by policies to determine those policies) is partly responsible for this – people do not have a real influence on the product of their activity. Instances in which people do have such influence on policies include jury deliberations and many labor union meetings, although their potency is restricted due to the character structure built by the undemocratic nature of other institutions and the undemocratic aspects which these examples still possess.
* A frequent response to this is that there is ‘not enough material to go around,’ which is potentially true, presuming that the desires of a people exceed the material available. The factor which causes this hindrance of freedom is the alien aspect of commodity rights – it is easy to secure and control one’s own body and to have an awareness of its boundaries, but property, being naturally alien to man, is a paradox. Contemporary man has graduated in this direction of excessive, unreasonable desires, but my position is that this is a pathological drive resulting from the structure of an authoritarian society. This point is too involving to be discussed here, but clarification can be found in E. Fromm’s “To Have Or To Be?”.
----------------
I know some of the wording is strange, but I know what I meant in each statement so I can rephrase something if you ask. This was written at a whim, as far as I can tell.
I'm particularly interested in thoughts on the psychological points made. Psychology is a field that I think is all - too - often neglected in marxist and communist theories nowadays.