In a piece at American Greatness Roger Kimball ponders the case of Christopher Lasch, a writer/intellectual that started out as a full-on lefty but ended up not quite so left.
I myself have a copy of Lasch's Revolt of the Elites, but I can't remember what it was all about.
But Lasch hated capitalism. Back in the Sixties
he informed us that we now faced “an unprecedented crisis” wrought by capitalism, “giant corporations,” and other familiar villains... He concluded that “It is clearer than ever that radicalism”—which he went on to identify with socialism—“is the only long-term hope for America.”
But in his last book, The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics,
Lasch mounted an attack on the “ideology” of progress, which he saw as a natural coefficient of the free market (a phrase I shall henceforth prefer to “capitalism” since “capitalism” is a negative epithet baked in the oven of Marxist imprecation).
“How does it happen,” he asked in his preface, “that serious people continue to believe in progress, in the face of massive evidence that might have been expected to refute the idea of progress once and for all?”
I can help wondering, after reading all this, that "what is his problem?"
The first problem is to stigmatize the culture of the market -- free or otherwise -- as "capitalism." That tends to characterize capitalism as a cultural or political movement, which it is not. If there is an "-ism" to capitalism it is the realization, after the fact, that something just changed. That was what classical economics was all about, a first effort of trying to figure out what was going on in the economic sphere.
The second problem, in my opinion, is to imagine -- as intellectuals tend to do -- that anyone can grab control of the process of capitalism, politically or culturally. Really, we don't have a clue what is going on.
When you develop an ideology of "progress" or develop an opposition to "progress" you are taking a huge leap into the unknown. You are imagining that you can even come to fully understand the ways of human life and culture.
Why did "capitalism" arise in the late medieval era? And why since 1800 have we experienced what Deirdre McCloskey calls a "Great Enrichment?" Why did feudalism die out? And why did lefty totalitarianism, with its attempt to command economy, politics and religion, all in one, emerge in the 19th century?
Really we don't have a clue. But we can all have a grand old time speculating about it.
Why, for instance, did slavery become a scandal in the 18th century? And why are almost all educated people working in semi-serfdom as salaried employees for Big Business, Big Government, Big Education, Big Activism?
Why are we seeing a cultural meltdown on race right now? Why are people panicking over a teensy weensy increase in global temperature?
Yup. It's a mystery. So more research is needed.
Actually, I do understand somewhat the rage against capitalism. It comes out in Marxist Ellen Meiksins Wood's The Origin of Capitalism: a longer view. Her big thing is the "market imperative," that for people living under capitalism you have to conform to the dictates of the market -- i.e., its prices -- whether you like it or not.
But what Wood never really faces is: compared to what? Because the alternatives are all subordination to the "imperative" of some sort of landowner or ruler or priest. At least in the market economy there is a a certain freedom to use your talent to make a living, never mind who your parents are. And if you are a despised minority, well, maybe your income will be a bit lower than it should be. But then, you can always find a job by lowering your salary demands. Because the evil capitalist boss is always going to be tempted to make money on you rather than keep the proles down.
I suppose that is the biggest problem humans face: the problem of not being in control of your fate. There must be a better world where everything will turn out for the best.
Hope and Change, as a famous political philosopher once said.
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