The Cultural Contradictions Of Capitalism

I mentioned inward a previous postal service some of my reactions to Patrick Deneen's interesting mass Why Liberalism Failed.  I noted that many of his arguments are evocative of before critiques of liberalism written inward the 1960s together with early on '70s.  One of the most of import of those critiques was Daniel Bell's "The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism."  As Marx had noted, 1 effect of capitalism was to disrupt settled societies, to "make all that is company melt into air."  The decidedly anti-Marxist Joseph Schumpeter emphasized the importance of "creative destruction" inward the capitalist project, i.e., to destroy existing industries together with the communities that mightiness receive got been based upon them upon the regain of novel together with meliorate mousetraps.  Although it is non my principal involvement inward this post, I practise banknote a even inward today's New York Times that emphasizes, altogether accurately, the extent to which  Donald Trump is engaging inward the political economic scheme of nostalgia, trying to restore industries, most manifestly the coal industry, that volition never always brand a come upwards dorsum because it has inward fact been creatively destroyed past times other sources of energy.  Texas, for example, is similar a shot the largest root of current of air ability inward the US, together with 1 finds real few Texans, other than the pitiable Rick Perry, who believes that valuable dollars should locomote wasted on trying to revive a dying coal industry.  One mightiness brand much the same declaration almost steel.  But, as I say, that's non the principal focus of this comment.

Instead, I am completely fascinated past times the column inward Friday's Wall Street Journal, component of its regular serial "Houses of Worship," on diverse religions inward America.  The Journal, of course, is to locomote commended for taking an involvement inward American religious communities.  This weeks column, past times Kim Woodward Osterholzer, is almost "Faith together with Family Among the Amish."  She herself is a home-birth midwife, similar a shot living inward Colorado, having before lived for ix years inward the Amish province inward Pennsylvania.  She scarcely presents an attractive moving painting of the Amish; it is real different, for example, from the high-romanticism offered past times Chief Justice Burger inward Yoder.  Thus she writes that she "found barely functional homes filled amongst a bustling, Spartan folk wearing patched together with sweat-stined clothes.  I was taken aback past times the fossil oil hands, the weather-battered faces, the circular together with weary shoulders, the bare together with blackened feet, the swollen ankles, together with the legs stranger amongst bulging veins.  I glanced when I saw how many immature families lived inward barns, shed together with the basements of partly constructed homes....  I learned to regard amongst nonchalance the rolls of flypaper that dangled from the ceilings.  After a while, I hardly noticed the mice scampering nether doors together with along the edges of baseboards,,,, "  She also describes herself as "unfazed past times the severity of the religion," which is structured only about next the Ordnung, as interpreted past times a bishop together with 2 local ministers, "who are selected past times lottery together with serve for life piece keeping their 24-hour interval jobs."  Perhaps needless to say, "women are never allowed to preach."

Lest 1 mean value that the column is a criticism of this completely totalitarian enclave of those who mightiness locomote described past times the unsympathetic as religious fanatics, the writer inward fact ends upwards amongst a tribute to what she saw.  "The Amish are a God-fearing, family-centered people.  They piece of work hard, but they also relax together with play.  Their lives are then untarnished past times the broader civilization that to locomote amongst them is refreshing...  The fruit of the Amish agency i\of life is that it keeps its people meliorate focused on what genuinely matters--faith together with family.  They intimately empathise the resilience together with fragility of life together with the certainty of death.  It keeps them unopen to the earth, inward sync amongst its rhythms.  Whenever I departed from a visit, I would enquire myself:  Do nosotros actually require the fearfulness of hell driving us before nosotros tin brand fourth dimension to locomote amongst 1 some other together with relish the magnificent world God created for us?"  I suspect that 1 mightiness regain some similar elegies almost some Hasidic Jews, who as withdraw from the world together with practise everything they tin to brand for sure that their children are indoctrinated into the ostensible virtues of the integral community together with rendered basically unfit to be inward the exterior world.

Deneen is Catholic, then I dubiety that he would locomote completely taken amongst these descendants of German linguistic communication Anabaptists.  But they practise instantiate the variety of minor integral communities whose devastation past times liberalism--defined either as the rigid consolidated province favored past times contemporary progressives or the buccaneer capitalism embraced past times libertarians--he laments together with seemingly wishes to homecoming to.  There is an obvious problem, though.  If a pregnant issue of Americans were persuaded fifty-fifty that milder versions of Amish austerity were desirable, American capitalism would collapse.  The Wall Street Journal devotes itself to roofing those whose lives are devoted to extending the attain of capitalism, including, all importantly, the consumer-oriented societies that define success as owning the side past times side large thing, whether the latest issue IPhone or expensive watches or whatever.

I suspect that the Wall Street Journal would locomote hesitant to opened upwards its columns to serious hippies, assuming whatsoever are left, who telephone band for the rejection of consumption inward favor of the unproblematic life.  Ordinary radicals, who mightiness believe that everyone deserves an equal chance to purchase Mercedes etc. are far less unsafe to the overall capitalist ethos than mortal who preaches the virtue of asceticism, as practise the Amish.  So why practise they issue the column, together with its conclusion?  I suspect it is because they recognize that almost literally none of their readers are probable to regain asceticism a genuine virtue.  The Amish play the component of exotic animals at the zoo.  We tin experience meliorate almost ourselves for tolerating them, but alone then long as they practise non inward fact acquaint a genuine threat to a gild built on almost everything the Amish reject.

But Bell wasn't actually concerned almost the Amish. Rather, he noted that capitalism depends on the destruction, creative or otherwise, of existing ways of life.  My domicile town of Hendersonville, North Carolina is similar a shot a quaint tourist town instead of a community of local minor businesses, etc, (where I worked when I was growing up, get-go when I was a ten-year old), because of Walmart, etc.  Donald Trump promises to restore communities inward West Virginia together with Kentucky that were built only about coal, or Gary, Indiana, built only about steel.  But, tellingly, he isn' promising to become later Walmart together with other denizens of modern American capitalism that receive got destroyed many minor communities.  (Nor practise I necessarily mean value he should.  That, too, is the theme for other conversations.)

The Journal instantiates the most bizarre characteristic of the contemporary Right, i.e., the alliance betwixt religious conservatives, many of whom genuinely yearn for community, together with the agents of American capitalism who are completely together with utterly indifferent almost the consequences of their prosperity.  Think alone of Facebook inward this regard.  And, of course, the Journal adamantly supports the farther devastation of labor unions, a devastation accurately credited past times Stephen Brill inward his ain mass Tail  Spin, as 1 of the sources of American decline over the past times one-half century.  Opioids together with suicide are genuine problems of populace health, together with they are inward component a reply to the "creative destruction" of modern capitalism.