Thus spake Marx and Engels, in The Communist Manifesto of 1848, making it clear that, even among those who consider capitalismÑembodied here in the form of its driving social stratum, the bourgeoisieÑto be a dated, dangerous and socially debilitating form of economic and social organization, there is a recognition of its creative energy and constructive power. We can all attest to that. Capitalism has created and maintains whole industries, advanced technologies, life prospects and mega-cities beyond the wildest dreams of the kings of old.
Marxists see the rise of capitalism as a function of changing relationships between the world's peoples and the means of production. Others, e.g., Max Weber (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism) and R.H. Tawney (Religion and the Rise of Capitalism), cite religious ideas, Protestantism in particular, as basic to the mindsets necessary for the creation of capitalist enterprise. Still others look to specific social groupsÑsecond sons, Jews, etc.Ñas the creators and carriers of the capitalist idea.
Well, here we are, right in the middle of our civilization, and capitalism, whatever its genesis and whatever its glories is, in fact, looking a little tired. Many folks have reservations about a system which started out by throwing most people off of the land they and their families had lived on for generations and driving them into the squalor of new industrial cities where they found it necessary to put their young children to work in order to survive.
The overwhelming majority of the world's people are still shut out from the land. The kids are still working, as witness Nike, Kathie Lee, The Gap and many, many other leading industrial and commercial firms. And of course our government, in thrall to the capitalist elites, smooths their path by establishing, through brute military might as well as economic power, a global environment that pits societies against one another in a race to the bottom for those who aren't part of the moneyed class.
Capitalism has eyes only to gaze upon the grand aspects of its marvels, to take pride in its great gated estates, its high-powered vehicles and the shining towers of the metropolis. It sees not the great mass of suffering humanity, crushed beneath the heel of the bottom line. It only hears the hum of motors, the bustle of the marketplace, the promises of politicians and the exaltation of empires. Foreign to it are the cries of the hungry, the homeless, the evicted and the dispossessed, the wails of the bereaved and the screams of the dying. Its only senses are for money and power. Based on greed, it has no use for those things that enlighten and elevate the human mind or the human condition. Its forethought extends only to the next quarterly report. To paraphrase that great humanitarian, Henry Kissinger, capitalism has "no friends, only interests."
And it is within the belly of this soulless beast that we struggle. We see the world; capitalism sees the gain. We see the value; capitalism sees the price. We see the forest and the stream, and their worth to us as individuals and as a community; capitalism sees board feet and a watercourse to carry its polluted runoff. If beauty and resources were both endless and were not interrelated, we could share. We could let capitalism take its plunder and be content with the remaining splendor. But they are not endless; they are finite in a zero sum equation. And capitalism knows not how to share; it only knows how to exploit.
But its appeal is great. It bribes us with goods, goods, goods, stuff, stuff, stuff, things no society in history could ever have imagined. We are supplied far beyond our basic needs, at prices we can almost affordÑas long as our credit remains goodÑbut at costs which, though often hidden, exact a tremendous toll on the physical world as well as the human spirit.
It is those costs which we would eliminate by saying "no" to the rape of the earth and by activism to enforce that "no." Our struggle must be one which generates a consciousness in ourselves, our communities and our society that focuses on need and not "convenience." Given the power relationships in this capitalistic society, that's not easy, but it is clear that we must work toward goals which realize that focus.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1999
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited