The environmental movement misses out on many vital aspects of thought by its antagonization of capitalism, portraying it as this big fat wealthy man with a pipe in his mouth, a top hat on his head, stumping upon greenery as he counts his dollar bills. Capitalism isn’t equal to oil tycoons, industrial billionaires, cynical lobbyists, unsustainable market policies, corrupt governments, exploited workers, toxic waste in streams and land, heavy air pollution, unsustainable products, destructed habitats, mass extinction, the climate crisis… These are the outputs of global capitalism, but not because the ideology establishes such a neglective and harmful political-economic system. Capitalism creates environmental degradation because society adopts a form that feeds into the ecologically blind self-fulfilling prophecy. It is not the ideology that harms the earth, and it is our ignorant and narrow understanding of social constructs. In this text, I’ll be defending capitalism’s innocence as an ideology by showing which assumptions drive it; and show that how we perceive and adopt ideologies is the real issue.
To understand why capitalism isn’t born evil, we must first reflect upon its key tenant: rationality. Capitalism is the successor of an older and broader ideology: liberalism. Liberalism assumes its agents as rational actors, acting in their best interest; so, for liberalism, logically, the collective outcome of these best interests would yield in the best interest of the human society
-both economically and politically. This is also the propulsive core of capitalism. After all, capitalism is liberalism applied to economics with the core emphasis on capital gain. So, if the business organization is legally recognized as an individual that can act in its own best interest, how could the state take away its freedom of choice by dictating what to do? Suppose the market is a socially-progressive force in the right direction due to all actors’ collective minds. Isn’t a state only a bully if it tries to act as a regulator? Can a small group of political elites know better than the collective mind of the market? Well, in an ideal situation, yes.
Liberalism is the political and economic context with different agents whose consciousness is falsely treated in the same way. Human beings and businesses do not have structurally identical minds. State and the market often neglect the fact that the same individuals construct them; citizens create the government while laborers build the market, yet they are the same people with different personas. So, in theory, the only reason a commercial organization could compete with the state on the knowledge of what is suitable for society could be by having a collective mind within itself, just like the state. But businesses are internally structured with a primitive manifestation of the hierarchy of power, which skews the freedom to decide to an elite sub-group that isn’t chosen by the votes employees.
There is no consent within a business enterprise, only a structure that divides society according to its qualities and qualifications. Most of the time, the individual laborer doesn’t control it as it depends on wealth inheritance. So, can we ensure that it is best not to regulate and only facilitate these individuals if they are internally oppressing the voice of other individuals and calling this the interest of all? Could a non-liberal construct have the innate right to liberal action if it is evident that the choice isn’t thoroughly produced by, and therefore for, those individuals that are constructing the more significant individual? Although the state has its comings due to the multidimensionality of political acts, governance the state portrays is for the people and by the people, giving it leverage on who is the one to trust. Therefore, the state has the innate right to regulate the market for the greater good. And why am I talking about this, or how will this relate to the assumption of the rational actor? Well, you’ll see it in the next paragraph.
So, with now knowing the somewhat too philosophical clash between organizations, the state, and the market, we now understand why capitalism is the scapegoat of our intelligence failure. We tend to take the constructs that were there before we were born for granted as tangible and static entities that cannot be changed. Most of us know the modern history of humankind yet don’t quite grasp how it came to its place and how this past affects our present. We don’t try to understand the constructs that came before us and thus only interact with the current trends and perspectives -such as our false perception of markets being liberal and states being dictators if they use their regulative power. We don’t take time to assess the effects of ideas on the tangible world because we live in a time where humans dominate the world as the top driver of geological change. And this is our intellectual failure, which makes us non-rational actors. Rationality requires inquiry of reality and being completely unbiased on our assessments of it, which isn’t something we can do. Unlike what we want to believe in, we are still driven by our primitive instincts and emotions intensely as individuals. However, we do stand a chance as collectives as we establish constructs more influential on society than any individual can be for our security.
It’s not capitalisms fault that we are in this position; it is an idea that we can re-design and think. This situation -the ecological crisis we are in- is our failure. Not understanding ourselves and how we function as mind and body, putting godly assumptions about our existence leads us to find scapegoats. If we haven’t fueled capitalism, denounced it as individuals, attempted to change it, or allowed strict governance upon the environmental front by collectives established to protect us -like the Scandinavian capitalist model- we would be in a different situation as our world is burning up in flames, killing our biosphere right now. At the same time, some corners see gushes of water terrorizing artificial and natural habitats; I invite you to think and scrutinize your own life. How are you challenging or allying to this massive intellectual failure? What is your stance against it?
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