THE MORALITY OF CAPITALISM- Jersey Flight

"If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue." G. K. Chesterton 

To speak of the morality of capitalism is to speak of the control of capitalism over the individual, as morality is the means whereby the capitalist gets the worker to regulate himself according to the capitalist's desires. He does this by indoctrination and by indirectly threatening the individual's stability. [The subtle violence of economic coercion.]  

Two axioms stand at the foundation of this moral tyranny:
 
1. The mindless command to work. The "duty" of the worker to perform tasks which are considered moral or else suffer the consequence of forfeiting his virtue. To not perform the "obvious, moral duty of labor" (according to the specifications and dictates of the capitalist) is to be an immoral man or woman. 
 
2. The deification of the entrepreneur, which comes in many subtle forms. The logic here asserts that individuals are responsible for social progress. Once this assumption (the sovereignty of the individual) permeates society this premise lords over the masses as though it were a morality from God (as though the entrepreneur had the authority of God). "These men and women are greater than us!"

The subtle implementation of these values, adopted by the individual and then imposed back on himself, are what account for the subservience of the masses. We have been taught not to question these precepts, but instead, to order our lives by them. We succumb to the cultural object of authority. In short, we have been trained to submit.

"I would also like to say something about the claim on behalf of the entrepreneur. Is it a fact that the entrepreneur makes the great body of inventions? He certainly has the habit of collecting and utilizing them, but he does not as entrepreneur make the main body of inventions. Neither does he make the main body of other industrial improvements. He is a middle-man in regard to these matters. Of course I do not pretend that the entrepreneur does not play an important part and does not deserve a certain share of the resultant gains, but he certainly does not in my judgment do all that is imputed to him here. The great accessions to our wealth are due not so much to monopoly of capital and labor and the organization of it as to specific applications of the natural sciences to methods of industry. That is to say, the work is commonly done by the servants of the entrepreneur who get a very small proportion of what would be equal in this theory to the actual value of the increased productivity which their labor creates. A great many inventions, including the greatest inventions of all, are not made for profit, and would be made if no profit attached to them. Those which do require some incentive of profit do not require the enormous profit which the entrepreneur is often able to take for them." John A. Hobson, The Dynamics of the Wages Question – Discussion; Publications of the American Economic Association, 3rd Series, Vol.4 No.1, February 1903, pp.143-153.

What interests me is the substance of this claim, that a man who provides a vision is superior to those who help him realize it. What does it really mean to possess more capital (an accumulation that can be invested)? The moral insinuation, which is so subtly propagated by the capitalist, is that such a man or woman is morally superior. The capitalist is one who takes credit for work he has not done; he monopolizes the attributes of other people.

"The capture by the master-desire -- the powers of acting occupying themselves in its service -- constitutes therefore a dispossession of creative labor, dispossession not only of the monetary value of the product of labor through the capture of surplus-value by capital, but more generally, because capture is what defines all forms of bossing, with the dispossession of authorship [authorat]. Helped by the social mechanisms of personalization and institutional embodiment, bosses appropriate the symbolic profits of the collective creative labor of the enlistees, which they then attribute in toto to themselves. In all generality, the dispossession carried out by bossing is thus a form of recognition-capturing by the individual monopolisation of a fundamentally collective authorship: having hidden from view the work of all those who helped them..." Lordon, Willing Slaves of Capitalism pg.118, Verso 2014

The man who speaks of the sovereignty of the individual (in capitalist terms) does nothing less than trample the masses under his feet. So far from innovation, inequality and exploitation are what account for the entrepreneur... inequality and exploitation are what prohibit the creative potential of millions and millions of people. In this sense one is tempted to say that an entrepreneur is a man with no talent but lots of money! So far from furthering the progress of society, he is a man that stands in its way!       

The other thing to note is that the capitalist now exists in the paradigm of financial capital, which completely alters the material nature of the claim that he is taking a "risk." It is also important to define a capitalist as one who is and must be concerned with surplus value, which defines the necessity and nature of his actions. In this sense the capitalist lays down a morality for the workers, but is exempted from any kind of morality himself... or we could say, he considers profit to be the highest morality of all. Therefore, whatever it takes to realize surplus value (no matter how immoral) cannot triumph the supreme morality of profit, and must therefore, be considered moral no matter how immoral it might be. Essentially this means the capitalist must invest in situations which have the lowest possible cost of production. Essentially this means the capitalist must compete, in that he must realize surplus value, which means he is driven to the act of exploitation!

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