Capitalism.
Few phenomena are more central to our lives.
As MGTOW try to be intellectually reflective
men, we should be interested in trying to
get some critical perspective on capitalism.
It can be said with little controversy that
capitalism is a defining element of western
culture.
Mathew Arnold, a British poet and cultural
critic, defined culture as: “A pursuit of
our total perfection by means of getting to
know on all matters which most concern us
the best which has been thought and said in
the world.
And through this knowledge, turning a stream
of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions
and habits.”
My intention with this video is to put forward
a brief, but not complete, critique of capitalism.
But even here I must elaborate as to the meaning
of my goal.
It would not be unnatural to immediately suspect
that by critique I must mean criticism, and
then further conclude that for me to put forward
a criticism of capitalism is to simultaneously
and synonymously put forward a defense of
socialism.
Yet neither are the case.
In the first sense, I am not putting forward
a criticism of capitalism but an exploratory
exegesis on the subject itself.
Another way to view this critique is to consider
it as a very long story of what capitalism
entails; namely, I plan to offer a value judgment
free exposition of capitalism which will neither
enumerate benefits or shortcomings as to frame
the conversation in terms of benefits or shortcomings
is to immediately inject value judgements
into what I say about capitalism.
In the second sense, namely, that my motivations
for a critique of capitalism must entail some
defense of socialism is also incorrect.
This very thought is itself illogical.
Though capitalism is often juxtaposed conventionally
as being an opposite to socialism, this is
a failure in thought.
What is the opposite of an apple?
Is it an orange?
Or is it chocolate?
No.
Apples, Oranges, and Chocolate do not have
opposites.
In this same way, capitalism and socialism
do not have opposites less so that they are
opposites of each other.
It is through consistently hearing defenders
of socialism posing critiques of capitalism,
and defenders of capitalism posing critiques
of socialism, by which these two are conventionally
seen as opposites.
The truth is that both socialism and capitalism
are independent entities that have certain
irreconcilable differences yet also many similarities.
Yet often we forget that there are alternatives
to the two.
After all, what would you call the guiding
cultural force during the medieval period
of Europe?
Surely it was neither capitalism nor socialism.
So, I hope that by clarifying these two points
around the spirit and motivation of this video,
we can move on without suspicion as to its
content.
Now, since I first picked up Nietzsche I became
fascinated with his concept of genealogies
of ideas; namely, following an idea backwards
in time to what I would hope would be its
origin.
That is to say, I am interested in the history
of ideas, with the people who articulate ideas,
people that we usually call intellectuals,
often times philosophers, but also writers,
social scientists, and poets; people who try
to think how things are held together, and
how institutions and traditions are related
to one another.
Capitalism was one of those subjects I recently
became very interested in tracing.
So, let me share with you some of the things
I have come to discover.
When people come to think about capitalism
their first inclination is to turn to the
business journals or to turn to economists
to explain it to them.
In business journals, we can read about which
companies are more profitable and which are
less so.
We can learn which products people are buying
and what new products are being released.
We can find trends relating to employment,
inflation, and so on.
Economists tend to focus on how one element
of one market activity is related to other
elements.
For example, how money supply is related to
inflation or how interest rates affect investment
and consumer spending.
However, while we tend to almost exclusively
think of economics and economists when we
think about capitalism, I would like to argue
for the idea that there is a lot more to capitalism
than economic issues.
Capitalism is too important and complex to
be left to the economists.
Capitalism involves a great deal more than
what we typically think of as economic.
It is a system, or rather, a variety of systems
by which people compete and cooperate with
one another.
It is a system through which people try to
satisfy their goals, their needs, their wants,
and through which new goals, new needs, and
new wants are constantly being created.
Capitalism is a system that has political
pre-requisites and it has political effects.
It is a system that has cultural effects.
In fact, almost every aspect of the way we
think about ourselves as individuals and as
groups is influenced by capitalism.
Let us take something that seems to be completely
unrelated to capitalism such as the size and
shape of the family.
The question is this.
Why is it that when capitalism first develops,
the family tend to get larger in size; namely,
that people tend to have more children.
But then, as capitalism develops further,
people tend to have fewer children despite
the fact that they are better off.
MGTOW would argue that perhaps it was not
capitalism itself that has caused the decline
of the family, but perhaps TFM’s thesis
that it was giving women rights.
But here too we must ask ourselves why were
women given rights in the first place.
Let us put a few theories into place and see
how they stand up.
The first theory on why women were given rights
is that beta cucks just wanted to get laid
so it was a form of mating strategy.
The second theory is that businesses just
wanted more labor in the workforce which in
turn would drive labor prices down.
The third theory is that socialists wanted
to bring about a bigger government which they
hoped women would vote in, ultimately leading
to a great socialist revolution.
But why cannot all three of these theories
be true simultaneously?
If beta cucks were using women’s rights
as a sexual strategy, then the question comes
to mind of where did this influx of beta cucks
come from?
To answer this, I can point to the debate
between Voltaire and Jean-Jacque Rousseau
in the 18th century.
The debate stemmed around the idea of luxury.
The debate was triggered by the influx of
cheaply available goods in society at large
as a consequence of capitalistic activities.
Voltaire argued that luxury ultimately enriches
a nation as a whole.
Rousseau, on the other hand, sided with the
Romans and wisdom of antiquity in stating
that luxury made men soft and weak.
He argued that what was once considered luxury,
like salt and sugar, soon become in the eyes
of the people a necessity.
Ultimately, with a steady consumption of luxury,
man’s appetites become insatiable while
he himself becomes averse to all which is
hard and therefore become soft himself.
If we are to take Rousseau’s argument as
sound, then it would follow that the increase
of beta cucks was a direct consequence of
luxury consumption, which in turn was only
made possible by the efficiencies and cost
reductions of capitalistic activities.
So, we must conclude that the first theory
in relation to why families decline in size
are ultimately grounded in capitalism in the
causal chain.
But what about the second theory; namely,
that businesses wanted more labor in the work
force.
Well, this clearly has a capitalistic motivation
as increasing the supply of workers depresses
wages.
In fact, as we look at who constitute the
majority of open-border advocates, we find
business tycoons almost universally represented.
Do we truly believe that Zuckerberg wishes
to chime in a great socialist revolution in
which he would relinquish ownership of the
means of production to the people?
Surely not.
It is more likely that certain socialist ideas
simply make convenient bed fellows with capitalism
and align well with capitalistic interests.
However, if Zuckerberg is ultimately driven
by socialist ideas, in this case they surely
do not interfere with his capitalist sensibilities.
But what about the third theory; namely, that
socialists wanted women to vote so that the
size of the state would grow and therefore
lead to a socialist revolution.
Let us suppose this is true and grant it without
challenge.
Yet here we see a clear alignment of socialist
interests with the capitalistic interests
of the other two theories as well.
Indeed, why can socialist and capitalist interests
not align on many fronts?
Perhaps our failing in spotting these alignments
may stem from us comparing the finished products
as oppose to their states in this moment in
time.
Let us also not forget that feminism, when
traced back to the French revolution and even
before then, was still a phenomenon that has
its roots in a capitalistic system.
Though it could be argued that feminism may
have other conditions under which it could
have emerged, what we know for sure is that
capitalism did not prevent it from emerging.
But now that we have explored our theories
on why families shrink as capitalism settles
in, let us look at some other cultural effect
of capitalism.
Take how capitalism is related to larger groups
with which we identify; such as classes and
nations.
Some scholars maintain that capitalism tends
to break down national barriers.
National borders create barriers for the free
movement of labor and cause issues with trade
as well.
The United Nations, NAFTA, and the European
Union are all exemplars that can be argued
as being at minimum, very friendly to capitalistic
interests and at maximum, almost exclusively
motivated by capitalistic interests.
Yet we also look at these institutions and
can imagine they are motivated by some world
government socialist utopia.
The United States is usually heralded as the
best exemplar of what capitalism can do.
Consider that the United States is constantly
involved in wars in places with rich natural
resources.
Though the causes of wars are complex and
cannot necessarily be boiled down to simply
a pursuit of natural resources, it is clear
that these wars are not against capitalistic
interests.
It has been often argued that war can be very
good for business.
However, this is only true if the war is not
taking place where your means of productions
exist.
Namely, weapons dealers may like wars that
happen overseas but would not want a war anywhere
near their factories.
Let us quickly take a look as to capitalisms
relationship to both conservativism and progressivism.
I will use the United States as my point of
reference here.
Now, we are tempted to think that capitalism
seems to better suite conservatives as oppose
to progressives.
After all, progressives seem to wish to advocate
for an ever more socialist policy while conservatives
tend towards conserving the status quo.
However, under closer examination capitalism
is highly anti-conservative while being completely
pro-progressive in practice.
Think of it this way.
Conservatives necessarily wish for things
to pretty much stay the same but may allow
for minor tweaks here or there.
This is the necessary mindset of any conservative
regardless of what particular values or institutions
the conservative wishes to conserve.
Progressives on the other hand, necessarily
wish for there to be fairly rapid change.
This is the necessary mindset of a progressive
regardless of what particular values or institutions
they wish to reform or destroy.
So, what does capitalism want?
Does capitalism want things to stay the same
or for things to change rapidly?
Well, it is obvious it wants things to change
rapidly.
In fact, commercial activity is only possible
through change and more profitable the faster
change occurs.
For example, if you buy a new phone every
year, you are behaving in a capitalistically
beneficial way as oppose to if you change
your phone every 5 years.
Entrepreneurship, as another example, is the
activity of finding problems and bringing
into being something to resolve those problems,
therefore entrepreneurship is about bringing
about change.
Edmund Burke who is hailed as one of the founding
fathers of the conservative movement was actually
advocating for conservatism against the rapid
changes that he saw being made as a consequence
of capitalism.
If this argument holds true, then it follows
that SJWs, who are the current breed of progressives;
namely, the people who want rapid change,
are benefiting the most from that very same
capitalism which they wish to destroy, while
the conservatives, who seem to be defending
free markets and all that jazz, seem to be
undermined by that very thing they wish to
conserve.
Now, please do not read too deeply into my
depictions of what does and does not constitute
a conservative or progressive in the US.
I am not at all concerned with the details
of the values either of these groups hold
but am concerned only with the fundamental
underpinning of keeping things static vs rapid
change.
So, what about religion?
Well it seems like here too we have a bit
of an ironic outcome.
Capitalism does not seem to have a big problem
with religion in theory and in practice we
can see religion as a great boon to those
capitalists that would exploit religious holidays
like Christmas.
However, capitalism ultimately destroys religion
without desiring to do so while socialism
desires to destroy religion but ultimately
lays the foundation for religion to flourish.
Let us take a look at how this works.
As capitalism can provide a wide diversity
of goods and services at prices affordable
to the masses, the capitalist consumer’s
material standard of living is relatively
increased by a large margin.
The consumer lives in luxuries unimaginable
to even kings of the past.
However, as he indulges in his pleasures,
he finds himself in conflict with religious
teaching which teach asceticism.
Due to the overwhelming abundance and virtually
instantaneous accessibility of these pleasure
fulfilling goods and services, his will makes
concessions and he will fall into sin much
more easily than during times when pleasurable
things were rare and expensive.
In order not to live in bad conscience, the
person will need to either give up the pleasures
of the flesh or repudiate the religious teachings
which create that tension between his actions
and his beliefs.
Given enough time, as most men are men of
pleasure, they will abandon their religious
beliefs as oppose to the pleasures made available
by capitalism.
In this way, religion will start to fade into
oblivion in a practiced sense even if it remains
intact by name.
This is the world of Christians who have premarital
sex and don’t go to church on Sunday but
still say they believe in Jesus.
If you supply luxuries to the common man that
bring his material wealth up to the level
of opulence only accessible to the aristocrat
in the 18th century, you too can expect from
the common man a level of decadence and hedonism
comparable to that held by said aristocrat.
The aristocracy who succumbed to the pleasures
supplied by money were almost always atheists
in practice.
This has another interesting consequence.
The new atheists of today, for the most part
are not intellectual luminaries who have shed
iron age beliefs based on scientific discoveries,
but are first and foremost decadents who need
to resolve their life of pleasure against
a judgmental God.
Simply put, they first and foremost resent
God for forbidding them what they like to
do and cannot resist doing.
They then wrap that rejection up in mostly
nonsensical arguments coming from atheists
like Dawkins and Hitchens.
When one takes this interpretation to heart
it makes perfect sense why your typical overweight
neckbeard is the poster boy for new atheism;
they were raised decadent and lack the fortitude
and temperance to even begin to meet the moral
standards set by religion.
No matter what you may believe about religion,
one this is undeniable.
Religion is hard.
These men are soft.
The same decadence that turned them atheist
so too made them into the effeminate beta
cucks that let their community get overrun
by feminists and SJWs.
The criticism I have put forward of the new
atheist is very similar to the criticism Nietzsche
put forward of the French aristocracy.
In this way, capitalism overthrew aristocrats
worldwide as they too became effeminate after
having abandoned honor as the highest value
and substituted it with the pleasures that
money could afford them.
But capitalism also destroys religion in another
manner.
Voltaire argued that when men of faith meet
together in the marketplace, they put their
religious differences aside as it is money
that rules in commerce.
In this way, money for many becomes the object
of focus where previously that focus was reserved
for God.
Capitalism has a way of making various differences
in diverse people disappear when there is
money to be made.
In fact, this was an argument Voltaire put
forward in defending capitalism as a mechanism
for peace.
If people put their differences aside when
they are unified in a common pursuit of money,
then there will overall be less conflict under
capitalism.
But what does socialism do?
Socialism tends to very quickly degenerate
into a life of scarcity and hardship as corruption
and bureaucracy make even food scare less
so luxury goods and services.
So even though the socialist utopian ideal
desires to destroy religion, it creates an
environment where people are left with virtually
nothing but religion and an environment where
adhering to religious beliefs is fairly simple
as there is little to no temptation.
Capitalism also influences the ways in which
we define ourselves as individuals; namely,
by our chosen interests.
The fact that we might think of ourselves
as a jazz aficionado for example, is linked
to our shared appreciation and consumption
of concerts, and recorded music.
Those connections link us to others around
the country and perhaps around the world.
That is only possible by the commodification
of music; namely, that musical performances
can be bought and sold in the capitalist marketplace
and therefore, some people can specialize
in making the sort of music that we want to
listen to.
Think about it.
There are certain genres of music that have
a relatively non-mainstream appeal and therefore
an artist producing that music needs a global
reach in order to make the production of that
music worthwhile.
As such, there exist genres of music today
that could have only been possible under capitalist
conditions.
But this too means that certain identities
are also only possible under capitalist conditions.
From this it follows that hipsters, at least
of the music kind, are a purely capitalistic
creation.
As I traced capitalism back over the centuries
I found that key thinkers in the United States
and Europe going back to at least the 18th
century were interested in the development
of capitalism.
They understood that it was central to understanding
the modern world.
This was true not only of thinkers who we
usually associate with capitalism like Adam
Smith or Karl Marx, but also writers like
Voltaire in the 18th century or Mathew Arnold
in the 19th century.
Or philosophers like Hegel, who was actually
known as somewhat of a figurehead of the left.
As I came to study these thinkers more carefully
I found that thinkers like Adam Smith and
Joseph Schumpeter who were usually thought
of as economists actually had a much wider
range of concerns than is characteristic of
economics proper.
What I found is that the thinkers who transcend
disciplinary boundaries and those who transcended
political boundaries were most interesting.
What I came to discover is that there are
varieties of capitalism; that indeed, capitalism
was not really a monolith but sometimes more
like a plant that took different forms at
different stages in time.
It is sometimes said that the decline of communism
in the Soviet Union, eastern Europe, and in
China has brought about the victory of capitalism.
This, I discovered, was a half-truth.
There are actually a variety of forms of contemporary
capitalism.
Some are more entrepreneurial and dynamic,
some are less so but with quirks of their
own.
Some of them are in democratic capitalist
societies, some are in non-democratic capitalist
societies.
Now, there must be some common set of characteristics
to talk about capitalism as the nature of
capitalism has seemed to have changed over
time.
The capitalism of the 17th and 18th century
was focused, on the one hand, on the importation
into Europe of new goods from overseas; goods
that began as luxuries but soon came to be
perceived as necessities like sugar, coffee,
and tea.
On the other hand, in the 17th and 18 century
we have the development of new means of production
such as cottage industry in which people manufactured
various parts of larger processes in their
homes.
A sort of production based on a division of
labor which was novel at the time.
There was a financial revolution in the 18th
century as well that was connected to the
rise of international trading companies, as
well as to the rise of a market for government
bonds.
There was also a consumer revolution in the
18th century.
Well, at least in England and North-Western
Europe.
That consumer revolution formed the background
of Adam Smith’s book entitled “The Wealth
of Nations”.
In the 19th century and well into the 20th,
it was industrial factory production that
became of primary importance to capitalism.
Also, there was the rise in the 19th century
of several new institutions with tremendous
ramifications for the development of capitalism.
For example, the limited liability corporation
which allowed far more people to participate
in the ownership of companies.
Also, in the later 19th century there was
the development of trade unions which eventually
led to labor parties.
These labor parties, in turn, were there as
a mechanism to increase the economic and political
power of the working classes.
In the 20th century, capitalism was transformed
again.
Advanced capitalist societies moved from an
industrial economy to an economy focused on
what we now call services which involves everything
from education, healthcare, to the means of
entertainment.
But what is capitalism?
How shall we define it?
Before we try and come up with a working definition,
let us turn our attention for a moment to
the history of the word.
The term capitalism is relatively new.
Though as it often happens in the history
of ideas, the phenomenon existed long before
the term.
It existed under a variety of other labels.
Originally, capitalism, as a term, was a political
slogan.
It was a term coined by socialists who looked
to stigmatize the phenomenon.
Karl Marx never used capitalism as a noun
but he did write about the capitalism system
of production.
Though other thinkers have used the term before
Marx, it was Marx who popularized the word.
For Marx, the term capitalist, namely, the
capitalist system had a polemical meaning.
The term was made to indicate that the system
worked on behalf of those who had money and
invested that money at the expense of everyone
else.
The word capitalism became defused of its
polemical quality and gained a neutral tone
at the beginning of the 20th century when
the German sociologist Werner Sombart entitled
his book “Modern Capitalism” in 1902.
Two years later, another German sociologist,
Max Weber published the first part of his
famous essay “The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism”.
After that, people started to use the term
in a value neutral sense.
However, well before the word capitalism was
in use people were using a variety of other
words more or less to describe the same phenomenon.
For example, Adam Smith, writing in 1776,
described it as commercial society.
Like most concepts in the social sciences,
capitalism is an ideal type.
It is an abstraction from experience that
helps us grasp key elements and their relationship
to one another.
So what are the key elements of capitalism?
The first is private property.
Now, private property is by no means as straight
forward a concept as it seems.
It actually implies a lot.
You might think, for example, is it not the
case that all property is private, or at least
isn’t that the default position for property?
The answer is no.
In reality, things belong to whoever has the
power to take them, unless, there is a power
that guarantees that other people will not
take them.
So usually, private property depends on the
existence of government power.
Namely, a power that is able to protect property
from those who would like to steal it.
The second element of capitalism is that capitalism
involves exchange between legally free individuals.
This means that in a capitalist society, when
one person works for another, it is for wages.
When this person exchanges something of value
with someone else, it is for money.
You might be asking yourself at this point,
what is the alternative?
Well, the historical alternative, before the
rise of modern capitalism was often a situation
in which you worked for someone else because
he was your political superior or because
he owned you.
Much of Europe in the early modern period
was still dominated by serfdom.
Under serfdom, lords owned land and exercised
a good deal of direct control over the people
on the land.
The lord was entitled to a certain amount
of unpaid work from his serfs.
The lord also had control over where his serfs
could live.
In some cases, the lord also controlled who
his serfs could marry.
In Eastern Europe and Russia, serfdom persisted
into the 19th century.
In Poland, for example, much of the language
still carries with it overtones of this system.
The word “Chlop” means adult male but
it also carries the connotation of his station.
The word today has barely overcome its connotations
and is even sometimes used as an insult.
In Polish culture, it is not uncommon for
people to look up their genealogies to see
if their families were part of the aristocracy
or not.
Mind you, the lesser aristocracy was fairly
large as compared to the higher aristocracy,
but nonetheless, there is still an element
of pride in the voice of Poles who bring up
the fact their families were not serfs.
In Western Europe, nobles were still entitled
to various types of economic extractions from
the peasants on their land up to the time
of the French Revolution.
In other parts of the world, including north
and south America, there was slavery in the
17th and 18th century.
That is to say, a situation in which some
people owned others as property.
The 3rd element of capitalism is that it is
a system in which production and distribution
of goods operates primarily through the market
mechanism.
Now, when we say that production and distribution
operates through the market mechanism we mean
that prices are not set by custom, government
decision, prices are not set by those who
produce the goods, but they are set by the
rules of supply and demand.
Or more generally, prices are not determined
by anyone in particular.
So, our working definition of capitalism involves
private property, and exchange between legally
free individuals where production and distribution
of goods occurs primarily through the market.
However, this is a sort of model from which
in historical fact there have been many variations
and divergences.
For example, slave owners and slaves were
very much a part of the international capitalism
economy of their time.
Most of the slaves in places like the Caribbean,
Brazil, or the colonies that later became
the United States were purchased by their
owners to grow crops that would be sold to
others.
Crops like sugar or tobacco.
Slavery, of course, is the opposite of legally
free individuals so slavery diverges from
our model of capitalism.
Though the slave owners were legally free,
the slaves were not.
Some, however, might consider slavery to be
non-capitalistic.
The problem with this is that we would then
fail to capture the close link between new
world slavery and the large Atlantic capitalist
economy.
Alternatively, you might say that we should
drop the element of legally free labor from
our model of capitalism.
Doing so, however, would leave out a key element
of capitalism in most times and places.
So, we are best served to keep our 3-point
model but recognize that it is just a model
from which reality has sometimes diverged.
But when did capitalism begin?
This is a difficult question.
This is not the kind of question to which
one can give an absolute answer to but only
a rough estimate.
Trade has been around for a very long time
but it is only relatively recently that a
society primarily based on trade has come
into existence.
There has been bartering since the stone age.
There was a good deal of trade in the ancient
world and in the middle ages.
Indeed, there was a commercial revolution
in Europe from around the 12th century to
the 14th century.
However, during all those periods in time,
most households continued to consume most
of the things that they themselves produced.
And most households produced most of what
they needed to consume.
It is probably that only in and around the
18th century that in the most advanced parts
of Europe the majority of people came to buy
most of the things they needed.
To buy the things they needed, people took
to selling most of what they produced rather
than using it themselves.
This is a key observation in our critique
of capitalism.
A pre-capitalistic man was fundamentally skilled
in a great deal of areas.
Though his expertise was not perhaps to the
level of a master craftsman, he was competent
enough to make goods to a high enough level
for his purposes.
For example, when I look at the farmstead
of my grandparents, I could see that pretty
much everything needed for a self-sustained
life was present.
For example, my grandfather would breed rabbits
for their meat but more importantly for their
skins.
In turn, he had all the tools he needed to
skin the rabbits, and toughen those skins
into workable leather.
The leather in turn, he would use to make
shoes, or certain articles of clothing.
In this way, the complete production cycle
existed for many common household items; butter,
bread, wool clothes, leather clothes, farm
equipment such as rakes, shovels, and other
tools as well.
My grandparents kept chickens, pigs, rabbits,
pigeons, ducks, geese, a cow and a horse.
They grew wheat, potatoes, cabbage, carrots,
pickles, beets and several other vegetables.
They grew all the typical herbs and spices
used in Polish cooking.
They had apple trees, pear trees, both types
of cherry trees, a walnut tree, and plumb
trees.
They had strawberry bushes, raspberry bushes,
gooseberry bushes, red and black currant bushes.
They also kept bee hives.
The point is that pre-capitalistic men were
usually self-sufficient men who did not particularly
need money for anything other than more complex
specialty items like perhaps metal works that
would come from a blacksmith.
But what does this mean?
Well, Ted Kaczynski, otherwise known as the
UNABOMBER, in his manifesto, explored how
technology supplied an ever more powerful
mechanism for making people miserable.
He argued that man can only get true satisfaction
from continually facing challenged which were
non-trivial, but still within the man’s
power to overcome.
Well, Kaczynski argues that technology progressively
reduces the set of non-trivial challenges
by making things much easier while many of
the challenges that were previously outside
the scope of a man to overcome, mostly remained
at that level of difficulty.
A man, in a world of technology, is then left
in a place where all that exists before him
are trivial challenges which give him no satisfaction
in overcoming, or challenges that are completely
outside his power to overcome.
By robbing a man of the satisfaction of overcoming
non-trivial challenges, a man may have material
comforts and luxuries, but himself be an entirely
miserable creature.
A similar phenomenon, I believe, became the
case also when man switched from the pre-capitalistic
life to the role of a merchant life under
capitalism.
Like my grandfather, the pre-capitalistic
man had a lot of different non-trivial challenges
like making his own shoes, breeding his own
animals, and so on, which, when executed,
gave him life satisfaction both in their accomplishment
but also in the diversity of activities he
was engaged in.
Not only did he produce his own goods, he
also consumed them, which also gave satisfaction.
Now, everyone pretty much has one expertise
they specialize in and whose product they
most likely do not even consume themselves;
especially where the service industry is concerned.
People today define themselves by this singular
expertise.
When you ask someone “what are you?” or
“what do you want to be when you grow up”,
you expect to hear the name of a job.
But this means that man’s self-image of
himself is of nothing more than a means of
production; a human doing as Warren Farrell
would say.
In pre-capitalistic societies, the question
of “what are you” would probably be answered
by referring to one’s station in the social
hierarchy.
A man would answer; a peasant, a nobleman,
a duke, a knight and so on.
A man might be a cobbler in addition to being
a peasant, but his identity would not be rooted
in his role as a cobbler.
The entirety of our lives today is structured
around optimizing ourselves to be an even
more efficient means of production.
We no longer go to school to grow as human
beings but to develop marketable skills.
Our humanity is but a secondary consideration
and not usually a focal point of our waking
efforts.
In virtually all career choices, we eventually
lose meaning in our work as decades of repetition
of the same tasks have a tendency to breed
boredom and a sense of futility.
The things we usually produce we neither use
nor can we usually recognize even as our own
achievements.
Think about the construction of an apartment
building.
A very large team of specialists will work
on such a building.
What about you as an electrician?
You cannot point to the building and say “I
built this!”
No, you can say that there are some, hidden
from view wires you put into it and little
more.
How much more rewarding would it be if you
and maybe 2 of your friends could construct
a humbler structure which you could honestly
be able to point to and say with pride that
indeed, you built that!
Sure, the building you built might be no more
elaborate than a log cabin, but it would have
been all you!
Our labor today, seems to have the emotional
impact on us that I would imagine the slaves
who built the pyramids must have had.
Decades of their life expended alongside countless
others, doing the bidding of a taskmaster,
only to be able to point to something and
say that they made some trivial knick-knack
that happened to be used in something greater.
With the division of labor and the immense
complexities of modern supply chains, man
is left to performing repetitive trivialities
day in and day out.
Though the wonders that modern capitalism
has produced are undeniable, and have indeed
led to many luxuries in life, we must ask
ourselves; have we become better human beings
as a consequence?
Are we happier as a consequence of these luxuries
and ease of living?
Perhaps the price we pay for sensual comfort
is mental anguish.
This, coupled with the effeminizing effect
that luxury seems to have on people, is potentially
the price we must pay.
If indeed what I have discussed so far is
true, or at least true to a great degree,
we can explain a few other phenomena in our
culture.
It is argued within MGTOW that women see themselves
as human beings whereas they see men as human
doings.
Indeed, men see women as human being and other
men as human doing as well.
This might have no explanation deeper than
biology.
However, capitalism sees everyone as human
doings.
A statistic was brought up in MGTOW that said
that around a quarter of all women in the
United States are on some form of anti-depressant
or some form of medication of a similar nature.
Perhaps a meaningful contributing cause to
this is that women, under capitalism, too
must in many respects look upon themselves
as human doings as oppose to human beings.
Perhaps this imposed expectation is too much
for women.
Perhaps they are simply cracking underneath
the pressure as a consequence of having never
been forced into this position before.
Or more specifically, having been forced to
think of themselves in this light as an expectation
carried throughout their entire lives.
In MGTOW we have long ago gave a specific
answer to a certain question.
The question is: why did feminism come into
being in the time frame that it did?
As in, why did feminism not come into being
in say the middle ages?
The answer that was given in MGTOW was that
women started to demand a prominent role in
public life as soon as men made the public
sphere safe enough and public life easy enough
that it could be comparable to the safety
and ease of the private sphere.
Let us assume this is true.
So, for feminism to emerge, it was necessary
that women felt safe enough and work became
easy enough for women to be neither in danger
or have to exert themselves too much.
But it is also argued by members of the MGTOW
community that it was the beta cucks who ultimately
gave women various rights within the public
sphere.
So, from this it follows that for feminism
to emerge it is necessary to have a safe environment
and an apply supply of beta cucks to serve
as women’s proxy agents.
Based on what we have explored so far in this
video, it looks like capitalism was fully
capable of supplying both.
Through capitalism constantly rewarding change
in the form of entrepreneurship, many luxuries
and efficiencies were produced.
These efficiencies, in turn, made the public
sphere generally danger free, and created
jobs that did not demand hard physical labor.
The luxuries in turn, effeminized men through
their consumption.
These luxuries created the small army of beta
cucks that would later give women rights in
the public sphere as their mating strategy.
Slowly, as the supply of cucks grew, gynocentrism
became ever more present in public institutions
as a consequence of female suffrage and the
willingness of ever larger numbers of effeminized
men to defer to women in hopes of getting
laid.
Further evidence suggesting that the veracity
of this conclusion is true can be observed
in the spread of feminism itself.
Those countries with the longest history of
capitalist development seem to have a much
stronger feminist influence.
In my video discussing the history of feminist
thought, I trace back proto-feminist thought
to in and around the French revolution circa
1789.
In and around that period you also had American
independence.
Both events were in a sense an overthrowing
of the aristocracy by the bourgeoisie.
And who were the bourgeoisie?
They were the wealthy merchant classes of
society who wished to annex political power.
Up to that point, political power was vested
in a social hierarchy that was not ultimately
a consequence of wealth.
Nobility, for the most part, was based on
hereditary inheritance.
There were many poor nobles but even though
they were poor, they were still higher on
the social ladder than the rich commoner.
In this way, these revolutions can be seen
as a form of victory for capitalism.
Now, one of the ways it can be said that a
society has become a capitalist society has
to do with the distribution of time in the
household.
In the past, households had contact with the
market.
That is to say, households sold some goods
that were produced in the household but these
were excess goods that were sold to supplement
the household’s income.
Today, with the rise of capitalism we have
seen the predominance of market oriented households.
Households became market oriented in a variety
of ways.
First of all, there was agricultural specialization.
When people produce with an eye towards self-sufficiency,
they tend to grow small amounts of a wide
range of crops and animals; exactly like my
grandparents did.
However, when a household produces with an
eye towards the market, households tend to
specialize.
That is to say that the household will grow
one or two goods that they are particularly
good at growing, with the intention to sell
them.
Another form of market orientation of the
household is through cottage industry.
Namely, through devoting more family time
to producing goods at home for sale in the
marketplace.
Another example is, of course, wage labor.
Spending less time in the household and more
time working for others in order to gain money.
In turn, as people increasingly oriented themselves
towards the market, and spent more of their
time towards producing goods and labor in
market activity, the other side of this was
that people increasingly purchased items in
the market that in the past would have been
made at home.
Goods like beer, furniture, clothes, or needles,
or pots and pans, soap, butter, and vinegar.
People began to purchase common items from
the market as oppose to making them because
it was more efficient for them to do so.
That is to say, people could own a wider variety
of desirable things than if they had to produce
those things themselves.
Of course, like I mentioned earlier, this
also resulted in forgoing the satisfaction
one would experience in creation itself.
In order to buy these things from others,
they worked harder than in the past, and devoted
more of their labor to making things that
they did not need themselves but could sell
to others.
Slowly, people began to live in an increasing
commercial society, in which, as Adam Smith
put it, everyone becomes a merchant to some
degree or another.
Yet as a consequence of this move, the psychology
of people came to be uniformly molded to think
as a merchant.
In the past, the male dominance hierarchy
was informed by martial prowess.
The strongest and most skilled warriors would
hold the highest positions.
This codified itself into an honor based hierarchy
that carried through to the 19th century but
soon enough fell away and was superseded by
an economic ranking.
Today, a man is higher in the hierarchy based
on the amount of money he has.
Our language has also undergone a transformation.
Just look at MGTOW and the concepts we have
within this community.
Virtually all MGTOW concepts are analogous
to merchant language.
From the sexual market place, to sexual market
place value, to hypergamy, the wall, and even
neoteny.
Each of these concepts operates squarely within
a merchant point of view.
In fact, it is hard to imagine how we could
describe the dynamic between men and women
today without reaching for this paradigm.
Capitalism does not end at merely being an
economic model but seems to force all of life
into economic terms; from how male dominance
hierarchies form, to how we organize our educational
goals, how we pick friends, and how we commoditize
virtually all human activities.
Capitalism does not care for your humanity,
it rewards you if you have money, it rewards
you if you produce and throw you in the gutter
as soon as you are no longer able to produce.
Capitalism is a woman.
Thanks for listening.
Go Team!
