Dimensions of Value: Socialism and Capitalism

Socialism and Capitalism are both ways of combining theories of value with practices "on the ground" which purportedly reflect these perceived values.

SOCIALISM

It seems that Socialism pays special attention to three value-related concepts:

• "Fairness" in the system of allocating things of value. This needs to be unpacked a bit since there is a different concept, also called "fairness" in capitalism. The two concepts are so different that we can see part of the dispute as encouraged by a problem of language. The same word used in opposite senses, as in "newspeak".
• Equal influence on public policy. The "government" should act on behalf of all citizens and not be dominated by a certain segment. Being "rich" should not equate to being politically powerful. One person, one vote, not one dollar one vote.
• Since "Socialism" is fundamentally a political world view, "socialists" are, of course, willing to stretch the truth, sweep details under the rug and ally themselves with the devil to "win power for the people". This process often seems to throw the baby out with the bathwater, as with the Canadian NDP, who seems to totally accept the capitalist lexicon in an attempt to grab power. The ultimate value with any political party is political power itself.
• "Socialist" countries are willing to sacrifice the lives of their citizens for the sake of "society". I regard the willingness to do so on a spectrum. At one end are the "democratic socialists" who will fight to preserve general welfare. At the other end are "communists" who regard "society" as an abstract entity that has little do do with the actual welfare of actual citizens. Actual citizens are expendable. Dissent is to be suppressed to preserve the illusion of "society" as a "thing" worth defending. I regard "society" to be an illusion - a fiction - quite like the "Invisible hand" of the market so popular on the right.

CAPITALISM

• "Fairness" in capitalism boils down to holding property rights sacred - baked into the constitution. Any re-distribution of property, especially by the Government in (for example) taxes is "unfair". Morally wrong.
• In Marxist terms, those who own the "means of production" are entitled to all profits that arise from the use of those means of production. Profits, as well as the means themselves (industry), are private property. Re-distrubtion of these is morally wrong.
• Modern capitalist thinking makes room for "middlemen" - merchants and "platforms" such as Amazon, to have a moral right to their profits. It's a simple matter of arithmetic to see that the allocation of such profits is a zero-sum game between labor and capital. Therefore, the capitalist (valuing property rights) sees the suppression of wages (and therefore the value of life itself) as an "externality".  "Culture" or "society" is meant to deal with these "externalities" but not by means of expropriating of capital, especially through taxation.
• Capitalistic rhetoric often features "jobs" as a substitute for the value of human life. "Jobs" are the rabbit pulled out of the hat that, mysteriously, leads us to think of people as raw material for capitalistic production and therefore profits. The purpose of society, in general, is to provide "inputs" to industry and consumers for its outputs.
• Capitalists tend to treat "money" as the measure of all things. The entire discipline of "economics" is an effort to reduce all human value to money. If there is anything such as "socialist economics" I have failed to find it.
• To the capitalist, political power, like everything else, is to be purchased and owned. The capitalist loves to risk other people's money and other people's lives. You often see this attitude emerging in claims that the rich "own" the country because "they" built it. "They" own the real estate, the factories, the banks. They, therefore, have the moral right to "run the country". This is a claim that is rarely challenged in open debate. We tend to forget that their claim to ownership extends beyond the borders of our country (including Canada), resulting in "shooting wars" and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of politically misguided peasants in "other" countries. "Ownership" is everywhere achieved, maintained and defended at the point of a gun.

BETWEEN THE CRACKS

Both of these worldviews tend to systematically ignore whole categories of value. At bottom, they represent different worldviews along with different ideas about the way political power should be allocated in a "fair" way. Mostly economic power. Money power. Jobs. Taxes. GDP. 

We all seem to agree that political power is a value worth fighting for. In personalities likeMitch McDonnell, we see people who are willing to sacrifice anything to gain power, even allowing the country to be ruled by Russia rather than the Democrats. In every "political" struggle, it is power itself, rather than "values" of any type that are being fought over.

Stalin was the ultimate capitalist, clothed in Socialist rhetoric. Stalin owned the country. Its wealth was his to distribute. Every citizen lived and died at his whim. He starved millions to death to build up a modern industrial economy (capital). Individual citizens had zero political power and zero value in themselves. They lived in fear of their lives. Allowing millions to starve and millions of others to be imprisoned or exiled represents the logical end of a system of thought that attaches no significance to any human value. Yet, "right wing" rhetoric paints Stalin as the "ultimate socialist".

I tend to see the "Nordic" countries as examples of socialism at work. Everyone is guaranteed access to the necessities of life. Such values as a good education are taken for granted and "fairly" distributed. Major resources (such as fossil fuels) and the revenue from them are owned by the state. There are instructive differences between these countries. Iceland is not Sweden. Denmark is not Finland. But you see a commonality of assumptions - how people think of value. I call this system of values "democratic socialism". It is not even a close relative to "communism" - a totally different animal which I may come back to at some point. 

America is a country without a coherent system of values. "Capitalist" assumptions fill the vacuum, resulting in an atmosphere of false alternatives and alienation. Ignorance of the population (itself a consequence of education being a "commodity" to be bought and sold) leaves America open to almost any rhetoric. There are no accepted values worth defending. The American voter is effectively for sale, resulting in de facto rule by the rich. 

Even in this brief introduction, we see that our left wing/right wing assumptions place us with a false alternative. Socialism seems to cast a wider net than traditional capitalism and it seems to attract those who want to make the net bigger, such as "environmentalists". Even so, Socialists seem

to find it hard to admit to any concern that is not fundamentally economic. Who pays for health care? Why do the rich not pay their fair share of taxes? Why do a small number of people own the lion's share of wealth? The "left" cedes the floor to the capitalist "right wing" by treating these sorts of issues and this dimension as fundamental.

Climate change is an example of an issue "falling between the cracks". Both sides struggle to find an economic reason to avoid destroying the planet. Both sides manage to find the logic that supports massive investment in weapons that will if used, destroy us all. Both sides have trouble seeing over their borders to the suffering created for the masses who "fall between the cracks" as they arm wrestle for power within their borders and struggle to expand their domination at the expense of actual people.

The most glaring example of this is the USA, which makes laws for the entire planet, assumes the right to invade any country, kill anyone, destroy any economy but claims no responsibility whatsoever for the catastrophe it leaves behind for "others". There is a large aspect of "entropy" in this project. The USA doesn't leave "order" behind (such as tame capitalist economies). It leaves chaos behind. Ruined economies. Impoverished political debate. Kleptocracies. We need to step back and see the entropy in this situation. We can see it also in pictures of Europe in the aftermath of World War II. We can see it in failed nuclear reactors and the unrecoverable environmental mess that military activities leave behind in their wake.

MORALITY

Both "sides" of the political debate regard the "other side" as morally corrupt. Yet, in private, the individual is rudderless when it comes to defining what is or is not "moral". It seems arbitrary. It's in the "eye of the beholder". Yet, our "eye" is being steered in definite directions and away from the horrible truth.

Pope Paul's encyclical (on Human Life) points the way to a moral issue that both sides skip over. Are we morally obligated to leave an inhabitable planet for our descendants? Is it morally right to steal that planet for the benefit of people now living? Pope Paul attempts to expand orthodox Catholic theology to include a few "new sins". He also makes a brave attempt to convince non-Catholics that they need to re-assess their view of morality even if they reject "religion". There is a troubling connection between the Catholic concern for the "unborn" fetus and the welfare of the people who do actually get born. Most non-Catholics don't want to go anywhere near this way of seeing things.

I maintain that "morality" reflects the way we see (or fail to see) "dimensions of value". It boils down to how we see (or fail to see) the world with the full range of dimensions of value. Similarly, we see (or are made to see) certain aspects of value (such as money and the "good life") as the only values worth attention.

To a certain extent, we are free to challenge the way we see things. To exactly the same extent, morality is a matter of choice. But all of these frameworks of value are sold to us like Corn Flakes. They are woven into the very language we use. We can't address the question without figuring in the way that humans are "programmed" to see things a certain way, just as our biology programs us to see light in certain wavelengths and hear certain sounds but not others.

We arrive at the conclusion (not so surprising) that morality and values are intimately linked. The link is not something "out there" like the laws of physics. Or laid down by some supernatural being. It is the link between the individual and society. The individual sees morality (and therefore value) only through the filter held up by society and the environment. Under the spell of the capitalist, we can be made to "see" the "Invisible Hand" and the "Market" at work.  Under the socialist spell, we are tricked into feeling like we are supporting the "common good" without really knowing what this means.

Break the spell and a whole different world comes into view.

More on "Dimensions" here.