by Micah Tillman
Bernard Madoff is a capitalist, if the charges are true. And Madoff shows you what capitalism gets you: misery.
Most people, however, aren’t capitalists. Even most libertarians — whom Brian Doherty calls “Radicals for Capitalism” — aren’t actually capitalists. They’re freedomists. They’re humanists. They’re lifeists.
One has to be careful with _____ism, as I once so sagely wrote, because it implies that you value _____ above all else. Most _____isms, after all, boil down to the belief that _____ is the source of all value.
Racism, for example, is the belief that a person’s value depends on her race.
Sexism is the belief that your value depends on your sex.
Individualism is the belief that the individual is the source of value.
Christianism is the belief that Christianity is the source of a person’s value.
One could even say alcoholism is the belief that alcohol is the source of value (and, therefore, is the thing to be pursued above all else).
Etc.
It’s in this way that Madoff is a capitalist (if the charges are true), and most self-labeled capitalists aren’t. From the reports, it would seem that capital was the source of value for Madoff, and thus rules against obtaining it were valueless.
There is no such thing as theft, for a capitalist (i.e., for a person who thinks capital is the source of value), because taking capital means acquiring something of value.
And since “value” and “good” are ultimately interchangeable, to acquire something of value is to acquire something good.
Thus, to take what is valuable is to gain in value, to become good. And how could theft lead to becoming good? Theft is an illusion; or if it isn’t an illusion, there’s nothing wrong with it.
In fact, one would think that for the capitalist, theft would be a kind of virtue, not a vice. What could be more virtuous than becoming good in as easy a way as possible?
I said earlier that capitalism brings misery. However, I may have that backwards.
Perhaps misery brings capitalism. As Torchwood’s Captain John Hart (James Marsters) says in “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang”:
“What a cosmic joke, Eye Candy. An accident of chemicals and evolution. The jokes, the sex — just to cover the fact that nothing means anything. And the only consolation is money.”
Perhaps Chris Chibnall (the writer of “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang”) is right. But that’s not the whole story.
Capital is just a form of power. It’s something you use to get other people to do what you want.
And that means it’s an illusion, if you think it has any value in itself. Its only value is that it gets you what you value (what you “want”).
The value of power, of capital, comes from being a means to an end. The real value lies in the end. Value flows into the means from the end. (Unless, of course, the means themselves are intrinsically bad. In that case, the means are a stopped-up pipe through which no value can flow.)
And that means the means have no value unless the end has value to give.
This is why one sometimes hears that the life of acquisition is “empty.” It can only be “full” of value if it is spent in the acquisition of things which themselves have value.
The power to acquire, in itself, is valueless. Power, in itself, is valueless.
However, Madoff (if the charges are true) isn’t the only prominent capitalist — the only eminent person devoted to pursuing power above all else — in our society.
If I’m right about Obama, he at least lives like a capitalist.
And so does (almost?) every other politician.
What’s strange is that so many who call themselves capitalists aren’t, and so many who won’t go near the word are.
Most self-avowed capitalists are actually freedomists, while many who would be thoroughly embarrassed by being called a capitalist are actually powerists.
But capital is power. Wanting one is no better or worse than wanting the other.
The questions are whether you pursue capital/power for its own sake, and what you do with it when you have it.
Micah Tillman is a lecturer in the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America.