Capitalism Created Only by Creative Individuals
The only capitalism I favor is the one that has life
To fully understand the development of capitalism is a worthy goal. We must decide between possible futures. In deciding between the possible futures capitalism offers, I though to divide this Substack article into four sections, with these themes:
Capitalism is in decline when the consumers become stupid.
Consumers need to be actively choosing.
The Americans won in the war against the British. Having expelled the British, they soon thereafter took the next step, which was that they became capitalists.
They retained their power of discernment, for a time. Many moved westward and that, too, was a choice. It was certainly not obedience to some central authority.
Those are the four themes. My idea is that “capitalism” is a “form of society.” Like any extant social formation, it can be met on its own terms if it is functionally intact. The capitalist form may only be based on an active, alive sense of freedom, which includes free choice. Thus, the inhabitants of our capitalistic land must have the corresponding sort of social character. The sense of freedom that is involved may be expressed in many ways, not only in economics. My framework for capitalism is that it requires persons who are independent in their lives and who are individuals in terms of their thought—individual in thinking. Instead, however it is clear to me that large corporations try to program us. But my societies would promote a freedom vibe. And there is no “TM” logo after “freedom vibe,” because what is required is the actual thing. (Something we used to call authenticity.)
Because it was alive and vibrant, or had a living vibe, that capitalism was not immediately destroyed. It would have been cancelled, or killed had it not had “life.” And it was not superseded by something better called “socialism.” That did not happen. Therefore it must be that capitalism is the main social formation. It was precisely this sense of being alive, creative, or vibrant that made capitalism stick. So, it was to be kept around for a few years.
Otherwise it’s very unnatural system that doesn’t have much to say. So the mystery is that it worked at all. We call that “actually existing capitalism.”
The true basic form of society is us
So I would say: the true “basic form of society” is us. Whether the society takes the form of capitalism is up to us. There is no “magic of the market.” It is us, as human beings, who create our societies — especially democracy or capitalism.
The individual is nurtured by the quality of society. They don’t just spring up. They are not full-blown out of nowhere. It isn’t like that. The modern world may be thought of as thought of as helpful or unhelpful in terms of the manifestation of its human creative life. I do not just assume it is always helpful. There must be a positive freedom dynamic.
I believe Reich was talking about this. Reich talked about this energy (he thought it was orgasmic or sexual) as orgone or orgone energy — something like that. Reich succeeded in seeing its blue glow. Now this “orgone energy” is said to be biologically everywhere, in the atmosphere, etc. So maybe I should say it is more than biological. In any case, Reich was not talking about ideas. He looked for physical reasons for a persons to be ill, as would any doctor. He also, for example, wrote a book about persons who have locked up muscles. (“Character Analysis,” 1933)
That could make them sour and negative for example. If they agree to take the cure, it might be helpful, for them. At that time, Reich was found to be still sitting down with persons, giving them a sort of Freudian-style analysis, but I rather think Reich had much less faith that he could talk them out of stuff! Both of the two would sort of look at the persons and sort of analyse them. However, Freud is intervening, explaining, and smoking his pipe in the belief that his logic will move the sufferer. Reich may have also proceeded in this say at first, but I think that sort of “talking cure” tends to drop off. Reich simply loses interest.
Thus capitalism depends on the individual integrity of the customer, who makes a free choice of what to buy or not buy, and when that gives out — ?
~ no more capitalism.