This argument is radically "individualistic." There are various forms of individualism, and they tend to confuse the argument somewhat. One confusion seems to be the renunciation of a "monied civilization." There is, for example, a sort of "pioneer individualism" of those who left behind civilization and its discontents for a subsistence living "on one's own" in the wide open reaches of the western states. It is still possible to leave behind "civilization" and live "completely off the grid," but in today's world it seems more a lifestyle choice -- albeit an extreme lifestyle choice -- mythologized and romanticized in various publications like Modern Pioneer. Although few actually do choose to live "on one's own" and "off the grid," the mythology nevertheless has a powerful attraction, particularly in the west. If I believe myself to be a rugged individualist, however, I can also believe that I am not "beholden" to anyone, in part because I don't "owe" anyone, because I haven't accepted "charity" or a "handout" from anyone and have carved out a living "all on my own." If I believe myself to be a rugged individualist, I can also easily convince myself that I don't owe the distant (and mostly mysterious) government anything, particularly not taxes, because I haven't taken any government handouts or welfare, neither housing or food stamps. Moreover, I can resent those who do, because, let's face it, they're "moochers," or "takers," or "whiners," and they lack "moral fiber" because they don't take "individual responsibility" for their own selves. Even if one doesn't "have a pot to piss in," one can, and should, live simply within one's means.
I mention this because there is a corresponding "entrepreneurial individualism" for those who don't quite subscribe to the stoicism of the frontiersman. Even though they have embraced civilization and its various comforts -- I particularly like flush toilets and warm showers -- they have left behind various forms of security for a different kind of subsistence living "on one's own" in the wide open reaches of the "free market." It is still possible to leave behind the subservience of paid employment, become one's own boss, and become a "self-made" man or woman. It too seems a life-style choice, and it too is mythologized and romanticized in various publications like Entrepreneur. If Modern Pioneer teaches proper methods to build a useful composting toilet and grow healing herbs, Entrepreneur teaches one how to develop a "growth mindset," all of which are guided by the Horatio Alger assumption that, not unlike the pioneers of yore, "successful entrepreneurs take risks" by striking out "on one's own." They are "willing to fail and live with the consequences," and if they are not willing to fail and live with the consequences, they "are likely not meant to be entrepreneurs." "Even the most 'talented people have fixed mindsets and are unwilling or unable to make the necessary changes to improve," one billionaire entrepreneur writes, reinforcing the notion that success is contingent wholly upon the character of the entrepreneur. The two mythologies come together in the celebration of "grit," reminiscent of the 69 western True Grit, in which the personality traits of "perseverance", "hardiness", "resilience", "ambition", "need for achievement" and "conscientiousness" were all on full display. If I believe myself to be entrepreneurial, I can also convince myself that I don't owe the government anything, particularly not taxes, because it was my own "grit" that built the business, because it was me against the world. Moreover, I can resent not only the "takers," who live off the government and its annual confiscation of taxes, but also "labor," who live off me and always seem to want more for less. They might "work hard," some of them, but they nevertheless lack the essentials of character that would remove them from their subservience. They are, in effect, losers by definition, and should learn to live with the consequences, humbly, without complaint.
Radical individualism is so hardwired into the American psyche, its mythologies so prevalent, that it is, so to speak, the "default position," but particularly so for American conservatives. Even the most meager anti-poverty measures, insofar as they encroach on individual responsibility and threaten to create a dreaded dependency, are deemed "socialist." Consequently, a message like Hayek's resonated, particularly with American conservatives, for whom any form of "socialism" has long been anathema. You can embrace the attitude of any one of a hundred country songs that romanticize rural poverty, growing up a "coal miner's daughter," for example, where
Daddy loved and raised eight kids on a miner's pay
Mommy scrubbed our clothes on a washboard ever' day
Why I've seen her fingers bleed
To complain, there was no need
She'd smile in mommy's understanding way
Anyone with a half once of historical sense would know, of course, that mommy had plenty of need to complain. Mommy was scrubbing clothes on a washboard, scraping her knuckles raw in lye-water, not because she chose to do so, but because the dominant elite hadn't seen fit to invest in a rural electrical grid. The collective action of the TVA, helped along by a willing government, made possible an end to the bleeding fingers with use of an electric washing machine, and the electric pump made possible an end to backs deformed by the need to haul bucket after bucket of water from the well. Daddy may have shoveled coal to make a poor man's dollar, but the work was dangerous and grotesquely unhealthy, and it was ONLY a dollar because a good deal of effort was expended to suppress the unions that demanded safer working conditions and better pay. Nevertheless, their collective action, ultimately helped along by a willing government, made possible an end to black lung disease and a reasonable living for dangerous work. It may be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, and the poor do take solace in the thought that their real reward will come in the next life, but that does not, in my mind, justify the avoidable suffering inflicted on others in this life. The suffering remains a reality, no matter how thoroughly its stoic moral and ethical superiority is romanticized.
Or you can "buckle down" and find it in yourself to do what is necessary to win and win big -- be the owner of the mine, the one on the other side of the podium, the one lecturing wannabes on the growth mindset or the 22 leadership traits -- but to win big, you need to go all in, which is, to my mind at least, the equivalent of mortgaging one's home to buy lottery tickets. If you win, great on you, but for every ounce of pluck necessary to success, there's also a pound of luck, and if you lose, as most do, then you must live with the consequences. Loretta Lynn made it out, but there can only be one Loretta Lynn and one wonders how many other "coal miner's daughters" with voices like sparrows nevertheless went on to live lives of knuckle bleeding penury not unlike their mommies? Moreover, what is rarely said outright, increasingly, the ticket most necessary to success is the winning genetic lottery ticket, "choosing" the right mommy and daddy. As the gap widens between the "winners" and the rest of us, as "death" taxes on inherited wealth are eased on inherited wealth, increasingly, we are becoming a nation with an inherited aristocratic oligarchy, and one's best chance of getting to the top is to be born to parents at or near the top. Still, it's possible all on one's own -- the self-made "winners" are broadly mythologized -- so really, if you lose, it must be that you didn't "buckle down" hard enough, you didn't "dig deep" enough, you didn't possess sufficient "grit." Or you didn't pray hard enough. It doesn't matter if one looks up or down the economic ladder, you can always say, "there, but for the grace of god, go I." Luck as we know is dispensed by the grace of god, and if the lilies of you field didn't come to you gilded, as they have for others, then perhaps one is not sufficiently in God's graces. Either way, as they say, "suck it up" and don't complain.
At any rate, radical individualism is so hardwired into the American psyche, its mythologies so prevalent, that it is, so to speak, the "default position," and as we know, when things are not working properly, one reverts to the default position. Clearly, things are not working properly. In today's NY times, Roger Cohen, writes "Democracies, it is clear, have not been delivering to the less privileged, who were disenfranchised or discarded in the swirl of technology’s advance," though I would probably quibble a bit. First of all, democracy has little or nothing to do with it, except insofar as the "people," the "less privileged," have reverted to the default position, even though reverting to the default position, so to speak, wipes out most the last century's gains, the "right" to safe working environments, the "right" to collective bargaining, and the "right" to a social safety net if one has been arbitrarily "discarded in the swirl of technology's advance." I would amend Cohen's sentence to read, "capitalism, it is clear, has not been delivering," which is not at all the same thing, though Cohen assumes that "liberal democracy" and "liberal, free-market societies" are the more or less same thing when he writes that "a lot of thought is now needed to find ways to restore faith in liberal, free-market societies to show that they can be fairer and more equitable and offer more opportunities across the social spectrum." I would suggest rather that a lot of thought is now needed to find ways to restore faith in collective democratic action against the obvious abuses of the so-called "free-market."
Cohen is right, however, when he writes that "a quarter-century after the post-Cold War zenith of liberal democracies and neoliberal economics, illiberalism and authoritarianism are on the march. It’s open season for anyone’s inner bigot. Violence is in the air, awaiting a spark. The winning political card today, as Mr. Trump has shown and Marine Le Pen may demonstrate in the French presidential election next year, is to lead “the people” against a “rigged system." I also think Cohen is right when he writes that "The impact of the smartphone on the human psyche is as yet scarcely understood" that "its addictiveness is treacherous and can be the enemy of thought," and that the "virtual direct democracy" it provides "through social media has outflanked representative democracy." As the Trump social media ascendency and his rallies demonstrate, there is a desire for collective action, a sense that the system is not working properly, and the sense that "the 2nd amendment people" are willing to take up arms, both literally and figuratively, against it. As Plato predicted, and Trump may well confirm, democracies fail when fall prey to a demagogue, and Trump's demagoguery is so painfully obvious, his threat to democratic values so casual, that it beggars the mind that he wasn't roundly rejected. Nevertheless, he is now the president, and he is, at the helm of a "movement," with guns out and drawn, both literally and figuratively, but to borrow Frank Thomas' metaphor, they are pointed in the wrong direction, at the very institutions that make possible collective democratic action against the obvious abuses of the so-called free market.
For the last half century, there has been a sense that things are going "progressively" wrong. I think, perhaps, the pundits may have it mostly right when they attribute the beginning of the decline with the tumult of the 60s and the backlash it inspired. The election of Nixon was the first step onto a slippery slope that has finally led to Trump. We have been pushed the default button of radical individualism harder with Ronald Reagan, and then harder again with George W Bush, and now hardest yet with Donald Trump. There is, with the election of Trump, a sense of the final "fuck you" aimed at a government that seems no longer democratic ("no one asked my permission to let gays into the military, or to let women kill their unborn babies, or to prohibit prayer while teaching godless darwinism in the schools, or to restrict my god-given constitutional right to carry my self-protection") and that seems no longer fair or filled with economic opportunity ("the factory moved to Mexico, half of main street is boarded up, and the only stores left are the Goodwill selling other people's cast-aways and the Walmart selling cheap junk from China.") I do think too, perhaps, it is altogether too ironic that the visceral ire raised by an undemocratic government is brought on by the democratic party, and the ire it provokes always seems to trump the economic degradation brought on by the free-market policies of republican elites like the Koch brothers. Trump cast himself as a pudenda grabbing republican, a candidate respectful of the two corinthians, but mostly filled with recapped, redneck bonhomie, but his economic policies, his cabinet appointments, and his behavior all tend to suggest he will continue to support the sorts of rapine that gives unrestrained wealth "some secret bond with crime," as Thomas Frank would have it. It is not a wide stride from an oligarchy to to a kleptocracy. Trump promises to bring back the coal mine, but why? So mine owners can grow rich while daddy and mommy both work themselves to an early grave, living humbly, authentically, without complaint? So the mine owner's progeny can inherit the earth, while the next generation of coal miners' sons and daughters, like their parents before them, work themselves to an early grave?
So, here's the thing. There is no inextricable connection between democracy and capitalism -- indeed, the very purpose of democracy is to restrain capitalism. Think of it this way: there will always be rules, and rulers who impose rules. If government doesn't set the rules, if it withdraws into a "free-market ideology" and abdicates its ability to make the rules, then who gets to make the rules? If OSHA doesn't make the safety rules for the mine owners, then it seems clear enough that the mine owners will get to make the safety rules. It also seems clear enough that some level of human compassion may guide the behavior of the owners. In the end, however, the mine exists, not as a pretext for christian benevolence, but for profit. The mine owners will protect the safety of the miners only insofar as it enhances the mine's profitability or at the very least doesn't impede profitability. And so it goes. Another example. If the government doesn't make the rules for health insurance providers, then it seems clear enough that the health insurance providers will get to make the rules. They will be quick to proselytize their role in "keeping America health," and they may even believe it. In the end, however, health insurance exists, not as a means to provide healthcare for all, but for profit. The health insurance industry will keep America healthy only insofar as it enhances their profitability or at the very least doesn't impede their profitability. They will be loath to cover pre-existing and chronic conditions, where payments on claims will far exceed their revenue on premiums. And so it goes. Another example -- this one sort of Trumpish. If government doesn't make the rules for companies who want to outsource labor to Mexico or India, then it seems clear enough the companies will get to make the rules. Companies do not exist to "create jobs." They exist to "create profit." A large number of employees may be a useful PR tool when they want to emphasize themselves as economic behemoths, but employees are an expense against profit, and the more employees they have, the more expensive those employees become, what with their benefits and all, the more they are an expense against profit. Limiting labor costs in Mexico will always trump creating jobs in the US. And so it goes.
So again, here's the thing. There is no inextricable connection between democracy and capitalism -- indeed, I would say the very purpose of democracy is to restrain capitalism. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people should set the rules. Of course, the problem is the obvious one. No one really believes that we have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The "conservative" fueled with culture war resentment against an encroaching "liberalism," can't really believe that a government mandating that a transgender male can piss in the women's restroom at Walmart is really THEIR government. The "liberal" fueled with self-righteous indignation at the petty bigotry of the "conservatives," can't really believe that a government which allows a cop to shoot an unarmed black man and go scot free is really THEIR government. There is always plenty of resentment to go around, and its icing on the cupcake when we all can resent the other's resentment. There is, ultimately, no resolving the culture wars, and they are HUGELY distracting from the fundamentals, or at least what I would call the fundamentals. I do not believe we have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people because we have abdicated the government's ability to make rules that restrain capitalism. In doing so have given over the ability to make the rules to the oligarchs and surprise! most of the rules seem to benefit them if the growing disparity of wealth is any indication. Let's face it, if you have sufficient funds at your disposal, legal or not, you will be able to procure a safe abortion, even a safe late term abortion, and no one need be the wiser. If I were a billionaire, I would be pro-life as well, and contribute to the pro-life campaign of Senator Emanuel, if Senator Emanuel supports my economic agenda and beating that drum provides a distraction. What difference does it make to me? Let the plebes argue over it. The people do need to seize control of their government, and in some ways the voters who cast their votes for Trump believe they are doing just that. Unfortunately, whether out of ignorance, insecurity, the raised middle finger of resentment, or some combination of all, they have fallen for the biggest con of all. Although he has all the cultural sophistication of Elvis, he is nevertheless one of "them," not one of "us," no matter how narrowly you define "us." He will act in their interests, not ours, and the only thing that might salvage some good from his election, the only thing, is his insatiable need to be adored by millions. Perhaps that need will lead him, on occasion, to do the right thing.
At any rate, radical individualism is so hardwired into the American psyche, its mythologies so prevalent, that it is, so to speak, the "default position," and as we know, when things are not working properly, one reverts to the default position. Clearly, things are not working properly. In today's NY times, Roger Cohen, writes "Democracies, it is clear, have not been delivering to the less privileged, who were disenfranchised or discarded in the swirl of technology’s advance," though I would probably quibble a bit. First of all, democracy has little or nothing to do with it, except insofar as the "people," the "less privileged," have reverted to the default position, even though reverting to the default position, so to speak, wipes out most the last century's gains, the "right" to safe working environments, the "right" to collective bargaining, and the "right" to a social safety net if one has been arbitrarily "discarded in the swirl of technology's advance." I would amend Cohen's sentence to read, "capitalism, it is clear, has not been delivering," which is not at all the same thing, though Cohen assumes that "liberal democracy" and "liberal, free-market societies" are the more or less same thing when he writes that "a lot of thought is now needed to find ways to restore faith in liberal, free-market societies to show that they can be fairer and more equitable and offer more opportunities across the social spectrum." I would suggest rather that a lot of thought is now needed to find ways to restore faith in collective democratic action against the obvious abuses of the so-called "free-market."
Cohen is right, however, when he writes that "a quarter-century after the post-Cold War zenith of liberal democracies and neoliberal economics, illiberalism and authoritarianism are on the march. It’s open season for anyone’s inner bigot. Violence is in the air, awaiting a spark. The winning political card today, as Mr. Trump has shown and Marine Le Pen may demonstrate in the French presidential election next year, is to lead “the people” against a “rigged system." I also think Cohen is right when he writes that "The impact of the smartphone on the human psyche is as yet scarcely understood" that "its addictiveness is treacherous and can be the enemy of thought," and that the "virtual direct democracy" it provides "through social media has outflanked representative democracy." As the Trump social media ascendency and his rallies demonstrate, there is a desire for collective action, a sense that the system is not working properly, and the sense that "the 2nd amendment people" are willing to take up arms, both literally and figuratively, against it. As Plato predicted, and Trump may well confirm, democracies fail when fall prey to a demagogue, and Trump's demagoguery is so painfully obvious, his threat to democratic values so casual, that it beggars the mind that he wasn't roundly rejected. Nevertheless, he is now the president, and he is, at the helm of a "movement," with guns out and drawn, both literally and figuratively, but to borrow Frank Thomas' metaphor, they are pointed in the wrong direction, at the very institutions that make possible collective democratic action against the obvious abuses of the so-called free market.
For the last half century, there has been a sense that things are going "progressively" wrong. I think, perhaps, the pundits may have it mostly right when they attribute the beginning of the decline with the tumult of the 60s and the backlash it inspired. The election of Nixon was the first step onto a slippery slope that has finally led to Trump. We have been pushed the default button of radical individualism harder with Ronald Reagan, and then harder again with George W Bush, and now hardest yet with Donald Trump. There is, with the election of Trump, a sense of the final "fuck you" aimed at a government that seems no longer democratic ("no one asked my permission to let gays into the military, or to let women kill their unborn babies, or to prohibit prayer while teaching godless darwinism in the schools, or to restrict my god-given constitutional right to carry my self-protection") and that seems no longer fair or filled with economic opportunity ("the factory moved to Mexico, half of main street is boarded up, and the only stores left are the Goodwill selling other people's cast-aways and the Walmart selling cheap junk from China.") I do think too, perhaps, it is altogether too ironic that the visceral ire raised by an undemocratic government is brought on by the democratic party, and the ire it provokes always seems to trump the economic degradation brought on by the free-market policies of republican elites like the Koch brothers. Trump cast himself as a pudenda grabbing republican, a candidate respectful of the two corinthians, but mostly filled with recapped, redneck bonhomie, but his economic policies, his cabinet appointments, and his behavior all tend to suggest he will continue to support the sorts of rapine that gives unrestrained wealth "some secret bond with crime," as Thomas Frank would have it. It is not a wide stride from an oligarchy to to a kleptocracy. Trump promises to bring back the coal mine, but why? So mine owners can grow rich while daddy and mommy both work themselves to an early grave, living humbly, authentically, without complaint? So the mine owner's progeny can inherit the earth, while the next generation of coal miners' sons and daughters, like their parents before them, work themselves to an early grave?
So, here's the thing. There is no inextricable connection between democracy and capitalism -- indeed, the very purpose of democracy is to restrain capitalism. Think of it this way: there will always be rules, and rulers who impose rules. If government doesn't set the rules, if it withdraws into a "free-market ideology" and abdicates its ability to make the rules, then who gets to make the rules? If OSHA doesn't make the safety rules for the mine owners, then it seems clear enough that the mine owners will get to make the safety rules. It also seems clear enough that some level of human compassion may guide the behavior of the owners. In the end, however, the mine exists, not as a pretext for christian benevolence, but for profit. The mine owners will protect the safety of the miners only insofar as it enhances the mine's profitability or at the very least doesn't impede profitability. And so it goes. Another example. If the government doesn't make the rules for health insurance providers, then it seems clear enough that the health insurance providers will get to make the rules. They will be quick to proselytize their role in "keeping America health," and they may even believe it. In the end, however, health insurance exists, not as a means to provide healthcare for all, but for profit. The health insurance industry will keep America healthy only insofar as it enhances their profitability or at the very least doesn't impede their profitability. They will be loath to cover pre-existing and chronic conditions, where payments on claims will far exceed their revenue on premiums. And so it goes. Another example -- this one sort of Trumpish. If government doesn't make the rules for companies who want to outsource labor to Mexico or India, then it seems clear enough the companies will get to make the rules. Companies do not exist to "create jobs." They exist to "create profit." A large number of employees may be a useful PR tool when they want to emphasize themselves as economic behemoths, but employees are an expense against profit, and the more employees they have, the more expensive those employees become, what with their benefits and all, the more they are an expense against profit. Limiting labor costs in Mexico will always trump creating jobs in the US. And so it goes.
So again, here's the thing. There is no inextricable connection between democracy and capitalism -- indeed, I would say the very purpose of democracy is to restrain capitalism. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people should set the rules. Of course, the problem is the obvious one. No one really believes that we have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The "conservative" fueled with culture war resentment against an encroaching "liberalism," can't really believe that a government mandating that a transgender male can piss in the women's restroom at Walmart is really THEIR government. The "liberal" fueled with self-righteous indignation at the petty bigotry of the "conservatives," can't really believe that a government which allows a cop to shoot an unarmed black man and go scot free is really THEIR government. There is always plenty of resentment to go around, and its icing on the cupcake when we all can resent the other's resentment. There is, ultimately, no resolving the culture wars, and they are HUGELY distracting from the fundamentals, or at least what I would call the fundamentals. I do not believe we have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people because we have abdicated the government's ability to make rules that restrain capitalism. In doing so have given over the ability to make the rules to the oligarchs and surprise! most of the rules seem to benefit them if the growing disparity of wealth is any indication. Let's face it, if you have sufficient funds at your disposal, legal or not, you will be able to procure a safe abortion, even a safe late term abortion, and no one need be the wiser. If I were a billionaire, I would be pro-life as well, and contribute to the pro-life campaign of Senator Emanuel, if Senator Emanuel supports my economic agenda and beating that drum provides a distraction. What difference does it make to me? Let the plebes argue over it. The people do need to seize control of their government, and in some ways the voters who cast their votes for Trump believe they are doing just that. Unfortunately, whether out of ignorance, insecurity, the raised middle finger of resentment, or some combination of all, they have fallen for the biggest con of all. Although he has all the cultural sophistication of Elvis, he is nevertheless one of "them," not one of "us," no matter how narrowly you define "us." He will act in their interests, not ours, and the only thing that might salvage some good from his election, the only thing, is his insatiable need to be adored by millions. Perhaps that need will lead him, on occasion, to do the right thing.
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