“The bourgeoisie… has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing the Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and gothic cathedrals…. The Bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarcely 100 years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.”
-Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
What makes capitalism so productive? Why does it possess such a dynamism?
Do commercial markets destroy our traditional cultures and ideas? Does capitalism require countervailing institutions of value in order to properly function?
These are a few of the “big questions” of capitalism, and throughout our series, we have answered…. none of them.
Indeed, we haven’t even begun to ask them.
You’re welcome.
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What we’ve done instead is traced out the beginning of the conversation. We’ve gone back through time, following the history of ideas that has led to our modern discussions of capitalism.
That history was about 1500 years of intellectual history, by the way, so don’t say I didn't do anything for ya!
This series was supposed to serve as a very brief introduction into the study of the intellectual history of capitalism.
That may sound boring and impractical, but I submit to you that if you want to have a good answer to any of those questions above — you need to be caught up in this kind of history.
What I propose to do in this series’ final post is to recap what we studied, why we studied it, and sketch the roadmap for continuing a study of capitalism for those of you who are nerdy enough to continue.
Our series’ last hurrah — let’s chop to it.
Recap — The History of Our Discussion Of the History of The Discussion
Just to sum it up — let’s remind ourselves, briefly, what we covered in this series.
First, of course, I made you aware of the leading scholarship of Dr. Jerry Muller — published in his work The Mind and The Market.
This series has followed his outline of the intellectual history of capitalism, and anyone who is interested in continuing a study would be well-served by picking up Dr. Muller’s research.
Following Dr. Muller’s work, we identified the two great intellectual traditions of the West that informed the modern conversation on “commercial society” aka capitalism.
By modern we mean the thinkers of the modern era beginning roughly in the 17th or 18th century — people like Thomas Hobbes, Descartes, Voltaire, and John Locke.
These modern thinkers, in turn, have shaped the way we often speak of capitalism in our day, but to get a sense of what informed their opinions, we had to study the traditions that came before them.
And what were these traditions?
We examined the Christian intellectual tradition, which saw trade as an act of covetousness, money-lending as the sin of usury, and profit as a result of illicit “zero-sum” gains.
We then examined the secular civic republican tradition, which sought to get citizens to participate in their government through virtuous character-building.
The great thinkers of the civic republican tradition were no less scathing in their review of commerce — labeling merchants as weak and vicious members of society.
Finally, in last week’s post, we detailed the beginning of a change in the outlook on commerce.
Starting with Thomas Hobbes, so-called “enlightenment thinkers” began to re-cast traditional vices like “self-love” in a positive light.
Hobbes, along with Voltaire and Locke, argued for the positive peaceful effect that commercial society has on political and religious violence.
Contrary to the Christian and civic traditions, Hobbes and Voltaire felt that trade could be a powerful force for good, and many enlightenment thinkers developed political philosophies around individual self-interest.
And that was it — that was all this series covered. Unfortunately, it’s been terribly brief.
The point of the series was to sketch out the beginning of the modern conversation on capitalism, and to give you a sense of appreciation of the history of these ideas.
But reading Leviathan or Voltaire’s Henriade will not give you the best understanding of where that conversation is today.
After all, there are some centuries between Bernie Sanders and Voltaire…
Roadmap To The Rest of The Conversation — A Dinner For The Ages
I started this series with a story about one of my mentors, and his tardiness to a dinner party.
Recall that when he arrived at the party, finding his companions in the midst of a heated debate, he amateurishly submitted answers that had already been shown to be unsatisfactory.
Someone who wants to talk about the “issues of capitalism,” but has never studied its history, or the great thinkers of the past, is in the same position as him.
We are all in a conversation that has spanned many centuries, and most of our interlocutors are long dead and turned to dust.
If we want to say something that is not immediately recognized as uninformed and stupid, then at minimum we need an appreciation of what has already been said.
In this series, I have only paid lip-service to a few people who roughly started the conversation, but the conversation is long, and has had many influential voices in the mix—
We can imagine Voltaire hosting the dinner party, in honor of his shy friend Thomas Hobbes.
Dinner is served in the house owned by the Christian intellectual tradition, staffed by the civic republicans.
And so far, that’s everyone we met in this series…
We have said nothing of Adam Smith, who is standing by the bar cart talking to David Hume, and his arguments around the moral virtues of capitalist character.
We did not mention Bernard de Mandeville, sitting in the study with the Catholic Jensenists, arguing about the destructive consequences of traditional religious values.
Sitting as far away from Voltaire as he can, Edmund Burke has formed something of a posse listening to him about the need for religious and cultural institutions in capitalist society.
Georg Simmel and Max Weber are smoking cigarettes at a coffee table in the corner, musing to themselves about the ideas of specialization and the state’s role in shaping a perfect capitalist society.
The fascist clique, led by Freyer and Schmitt, are eating hors d'oeuvres by the back door, opining on Simmel and Weber.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are sitting in the backyard, smoking a cigar with Lenin, while Hegel tries to convince them to come back inside.
Sitting politely at the table, trying to hide their irritation with the cacophonous party, Friedrich Von Hayek and Ludwig Von Mises discuss the moral nature of self-interest, and the failures of planned societies.
Schumpeter, a bit miffed at Hayek, is looking at a painting on the wall by himself, thinking of the ever progressing “creative destruction” of capitalism.
Gary Becker, having grown tired of listening to Hayek and Mises, begins to formalize ideas with his friend, Milton Friedman, by the coat rack.
By the sheer Grace of God, you and I have been invited to this party.
If we so desire it, we can enter this incredible conversation, and if we are so fortunate, we may even be able to contribute something useful by the time we’re dead.
Yet, to do that, we have to appreciate the fact that we are coming late to a party that started long ago —
Passing by Alexander Hamilton and James Buchanan, who are bickering outside the front door, let’s imagine we walk through the front door and into this strange scene.
If the first thing out your mouth is — “Well, I think we need a capitalism that works for everyone, and not just those at the top” — I suspect we’d both be hurried into the back parlor to wait for our ride home.
As well we should.
Similarly, if we offer nothing but gross platitudes about the productive capacities of capitalist society, then we are not engaging with the thinkers of the past in a meaningful way — and should probably stop talking.
If we want to have useful thoughts about the state of capitalism in today’s world, we ought to grapple with the ideas that have risen out of this centuries-long conversation
If all we do is regurgitate buzz-phrases at each other all day long, we have killed something beautiful (a fruitful conversation) and done a crime to our minds and souls.
But what are the deep ideas of this conversation, then? Dr. Muller has identified at least eight tensions or themes in the intellectual history of capitalism that have not been resolved today —
Capitalism and the role of the state
Capitalism and the nature of self-interest
Capitalism and the role of the individual
Capitalism and the need for countervailing institutions
Capitalism and and its effect on our community
Capitalism and its effect on the family
Capitalism and its effect on democracy
Capitalism and its creative destruction
These are the problems discussed at our lovely dinner party — and these are the tensions that are still being teased out in our present day.
This series didn’t give you a lot of answers to these questions, but I hope it gave you a starting point.
No doubt in the future, we’ll touch on most of the thinkers I mentioned above — and their respective answers to these issues.
Regardless, I hope this series has shown you that the history of the capitalist debate is a great deal more subtle and complex than most people would have you believe.
Our “cultural consciousness” — as I like to call it — is often too simplifying and erroneous when it comes to our own history.
To arrive at an insightful observation about any one of the tensions I just listed — or any other topic for that matter — requires a great deal of effort and attention.
Contrary to popular opinion then, one cannot gain useful insights into the philosophy of ideas by watching Instagram reels or TikTok videos of congressmen.
As always, I hope this series has communicated the importance of education in the ordering of a good and prosperous society.
Education — the acquisition of wisdom and knowledge — requires discipline, focus, and a lot of effort.
The result of those efforts is often the realization of how complex so many of these questions are.
That realization often leads to a humbling attitude — it decreases your conviction for fanatical opinion, and increases your tolerance for opposing ideas.
That humbling attitude — it seems to me — is something we could all afford to have a bit more of in America, and we can start with our conversations about capitalism.