Culture of Capitalism - Essay Example

Culture of capitalism refers to the lifestyle of the people living within the capitalist society. They are governed by the societal norms and they believe the same values, attitudes and culture is followed by people all over the world (Wikipedia). Culture of capitalism could imply the international influence that a capitalist nation has on others. The cultural impacts of capitalism overshadow all other considerations of the system. The capitalism’s impact on society has shaped the western civilization for the past 200 years to the extent that every aspect of culture is a product of capitalism. Capitalism as a social formation started to replace feudalism. Various factors led to the creation of culture of capitalism, which include profit motive, commodity, human desire and the market economy (Price, 2005). The desire for profit was the main motive for the economy regardless of human rights and environmental issues (Wikipedia). The market economy was based on the concept of making money (through employment) and spending money known as consumerism. In a capitalist society the means of production are consolidated under private ownership, and the production of commodities is guided by profit motive to satisfy human desires. The culture of capitalism created a new type of person and as the economy and consequently capitalism grew and the societal norms values, attitudes and belief changed. The work culture underwent a change as did the desires and the tastes. ‘Consumer’ was a new type of person defined in monetary terms. Capitalism encourages people to engage in activity that is deemed valuable by other people (Price). This positive attitude towards capitalism is the reason for the success of the system. Between 1440 and 1880 Europeans and North Americans exchanged merchandise for slaves who were then transported to other locations around the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic slave trade involved the largest intercontinental migration of people. Demand for labor on plantations gave a momentum to the Atlantic slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade became an integral part of an international trading system and led to the expansion of the global capitalism. The Atlantic slave trade that started as a trickle in 1440s grew gradually through 17th century. By 1780 an average of 80000 African slaves arrived on American shores (MSN, 2006). Slaves were the greatest exports at one point of time. The vast majority of slaves transported to America worked on agricultural plantations. Most of the plantations produced sugarcane for Europe, but planters eventually grew such other products as coffee, cocoa, rice, indigo, tobacco, and cotton. Gradually plantation agriculture spread to the Americas. Brazil became the leading sugar-producing area by 1550 and then the British colonies of mainland North America started importing slaves to grow tobacco, rice and indigo. Cotton production also started in southern United States based on slave labor by early nineteenth century. The desire to amass wealth, to become a capitalist contributed to the growth of the slave trade. Anti-slavery sentiments gave rise to several movements which brought an end to the slave trade by 1808 in America but by then much damage had already taken place. The slave trade or the transfer of people changed the racial, social, cultural and economic set up of many American nations that imported slaves. While slave trade led to expansion of global capitalism it left a deep impression of racism from which nations are still struggling to overcome. Capitalism refers to an economic system where the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit. The distribution, pricing, production and marketing are determined by the large free market (Wikipedia1). It is obvious that capitalism involves labor and money. The concept of capitalism has evolved over time although it was initially defined by Pierre Proudhon who called it "an economic and social regime in which capital, the source of income, does not generally belong to those who make it work through their labor" (cited by Robbins, 1999). Human have needs, wants and drives which can only be met by goods and services. It was this desire which compelled humans to produce goods and services useful for society, find the appropriate means to produce the goods and then distribute it to reach the society. When the society could produce more than what was needed for its own consumption, there was a social surplus (Taylor, 1998). This social surplus led to the creation of a capitalist society and profits. Capitalism has three distinctive features and differs greatly from wealth. Owning a castle is wealth but cannot be called capital because it cannot produce anything. It does not lead to any material gain whereas an investment in a manufacturing unit is wealth because it brings extra compensation called profits to the owners. Secondly, in capitalism, when skilled labor is scarce, the owners look for machinery and technology to replace labor thereby reducing costs. Social forms have always changed with the times. It is thus evident that profit was the main motive of humans which gave rise to the culture of capitalism. Historically there were two categories of human beings – the capitalist and the laborer (Robbins). Merchants always existed and labor always produced goods and then consumed what they had produced. Bu early nineteenth century the society was founded on categories of three types of people – the capitalist whose sole purpose was to invest money and accumulate profit, the labor whose sole aim was to sell his labor and the consumer whose sole purpose was to purchase and consume increasing quantities of goods and services. By the end of the nineteenth century the capitalist and the laborer group created a new revolutionary system which laid the seeds of its own destruction (Robbins, 1999). The period 1880 to 1930 marked a major transition in the rate and level of commodity consumption. Food production grew by almost 40 percent from 1899 to 1905 clothing and jewelry doubled between 1890 and 1900. During this period the perfume industry became the country’s tenth largest and at one departmental store the sale of toiletries rose from $84,000 to $522,000 between 1914 and 1926. The manufacture of clocks more than doubled during this period and by the late 1920s, one of every six Americans owned an automobile. Production in such huge quantities led to panic and fear among the businessmen and the government officials. The society was luring the common man to change the lifestyle and gave them several options to choose from in every consumer good. Consumerism became essential to save industrial capitalism from its own efficiency. By 1919, a new society had come to life in America. Samuel Strauss suggested the term ‘consumptionism’ to characterize this new way of life (Robbins). Human beings were committed to production of more and more things. To maintain a prescribed standard of living was more important than holding the right values. They were prepared to make intellectual or moral concessions to maintain their own concept of standard of living. By this time 2 percent of the people owned 60% of the wealth while the bottom 50 percent owned only 5 percent. In words of Ernest Gellner this was a society of perpetual growth, which led to the creation of a new type of culture known as consumer capitalism and the emergence of a new person called the consumer. Every culture has its own key elements and the key element of the culture of capitalism is money. As Jack Weatherford mentions money is the focal point of modern culture (cited by Robbins). Money defines relationships, be it at the family level, the economic level or the government level. Money is the language of commerce and money is the central institution of market and economy. The culture of capitalism is a set of relations between capitalists, laborer and the consumer because each is dependent on the other but have conflicting demands. The consumer wants goods at the lowest price while the laborer wants the highest possible remuneration for his services, which increases the price of the goods. The capitalists wants a good return for his invest but wants to pay as little as possible to the laborer. At the same time the consumer must earn enough to be able to purchase goods. Now the laborer is also a consumer and vice versa. This causes conflicting demands. The capitalist is dependent on the labor to produce goods and on the consumer to purchase goods. Therefore each role disciplines and drives the other. Culture of capitalism was compared to civilization or to a part of process of modernization. This would imply that anything less was uncivilized or primitive. In the third world countries culture of capitalism was known as economic development which again meant that anything below this was undeveloped or underdeveloped. In reality capitalism as a cultural adaptation has impacted people’s lives not merely as an economic development, growth or modernization. It has displaced people’s life; every aspect of human life has been touched by the culture of capitalism. It has affected the material, spiritual and intellectual life; it has changed the attitudes, values and basic culture. It has dictated the direction that society should take. Advancements in technology and communications, revolution in food production, fashion clothing medicine and wave after wave of consumer goods virtually shook the society. Trying to feed individual consumer tastes required global integration. People may not realize but if one stops to think it would be interesting to know that the oranges we eat may have been grown in Spain, packed in cardboard boxes made of Canadian pulpwood, wrapped in plastic produced in New Jersey, transported on trucks made in France with Italian, Japanese and American parts. This is culture of capitalism! Anything that we use may have been assembled in some country but different parts produced in several countries. This very culture of capitalism is exported to all parts of the world. Consumption, labor and investment in one country may affect the wages in another country. The culture of capitalism is such that it intentionally conceals from its members the consequences as it spreads and increases. People get caught in the wave without realizing and become a part of it. The early Americans, especially the Puritans believed in austere lifestyle. The people were self-sufficient and practiced a culture of self-denial (Price). They provided for their own needs and wants directly independent of the market system. The culture of being the family farming country gave way to the culture of capitalism by the mid-nineteenth century. The culture of capitalism gave rise to unfair and inefficient distribution of wealth and power, economic exploitation, labor exploitation, exploitation of human desires, market monopoly or oligopoly, unemployment and inequality (Wikipedia1). Around 1400 most businesses were family owned and capital was controlled by these groups or state organizations. Today this has evolved to such an extent that capital has control over our lives. The ordinary merchant of that era became the industrialist and gradually the investor and the capital controller by the early nineteenth century. Thus we can see that the culture of capitalism started in mid 1400s under slave trade which was used to grow plantation. Because of cheap labor plantation grew leading to increased production and expansion of global capitalism. Gradually people realized that wealth was not capital and knew that they had to invest to get good returns on their wealth which would further allow them to buy goods. This demanded cheap labor again and it also demanded consumers to buy the goods and services that would be produced. At every stage, with every change in approach, there came a change of behavior and lifestyle. This led to the creation of a third category of people in the society, namely the consumer. No doubt competition enabled better products at cheaper costs; it also led to developments in technology. Nevertheless, the wave of consumerism contained the seeds of destruction of the society. The profit motive in the culture of capitalism exploits human desires for personal gain. The gap between the rich and the poor has widened at the cost of health and environmental consequences. References: MSN (2006), Atlantic Slave Trade, http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761595721_3/Atlantic_Slave_Trade.html Price, R. G., (2005), Understanding Capitalism Part IV: Capitalism, Culture and Society, 12 Feb 2007 Robbins, R. H., (1999), Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, 12 Feb 2007 Taylor, K. S., (1998), Material Life, Markets and Capitalism, 12 Feb 2007 Wikipedia (n.d.), Culture of Capitalism, 12 Feb 2007 Wikipedia1 (n.d.), Capitalism, 12 Feb 2007 Read More