The capitalist system

CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK

Angell termed, some 30 years back, the ‘economics of cannibalism’. When you want to eat me and I also want to eat you, it is difficult, indeed impossible, whatever may be our verbal declarations to the contrary, to agree on an arrangement which will redound to the survival of both of us, let alone our prosperity and happiness. It is not surprising, therefore, that around these international bodies various interest and pressure groups have been formed to strengthen their joint ‘cannibalistic’ designs. And so, we have the Group of Ten, the African Group, the Commonwealth Group, and other groups, alI of which seek not to promote the overall common interest but to advance their sectional economic greed, aggrandisement, and supremacy.

It should be quite clear from what we have said that the vices and evils of capitalism are inherent, and cannot be cured by adopting a capitalist approach to them. For as we have seen, all the efforts which man has made to eliminate or minimise these evils have had no salutary or beneficial effects. Only a few instances need be mentioned. The antagonism of the working class towards the employing class grows more acute rather than diminishing with time. The landlords and the capitalists continue to take advantage of scarce supplies of shelter, goods, and money to reap plenteously where they do not sow. In the face of the strenuous activities of the World Bank, the IMF and GATT international trade and liquidity are as chaotic and baneful as ever- if not more so; the under-developed countries remain relatively more under-developed than hitherto; and about two-thirds of the world population continues to wallow in poverty, ignorance, and disease. In spite of Keynes and all his illustrious predecessors and successors, unemployment, inflation, deflation, trade cycles with all that they import, the problems of international trade and liquidity, etc., not only remain with us but are also becoming more pervasive, more frightful, and more catastrophic in their effects than ever before. It is not that the eminent savants just referred to are not skilled enough in social engineering, or economic surgery and therapy. This is certainly not the case. The naked truth is that, without exception, they all approach economic problems with an impervious capitalist attitude of mind. They believe, quite erroneously and dangerously, that the only way by which man can permanently control, humanise, and harness economic forces is to adapt himself to them, instead of directing these forces to serve his chosen ends and his best interests,

In this connection, the following pithy words of Engels are pertinent. Says he: ‘The forces operating in society work exactly like the forces operating in nature: blindly, violently, destructively, so long as we do not understand them and fail to take them into account. But when we once have recognised them, and understood how they work, their directions and their effects, the gradual subjection of them to our will, and the use of them for the attainment of our aims, depends entirely on ourselves. And this is especially true of the mightily productive forces of the present day.’ In the infant and primitive days of homo sapiens, ignorance of the economic forces at work, and of the mechanics of controlling them and making them serve human progress and happiness, is excusable, At this point in time, however, such ignorance is not only inexcusable but also damnable in the extreme. For by the use of the appropriate scientific tools we can analyse these forces and understand them, and by so doing, discover the most efficacious cure for their ill effects, or the most effective way of controlling and directing these forces for our good and benefits. It follows, therefore, that our present-day failure in these matters cannot and must not be ascribed to our non-understanding of the’ economic forces at work, but must be imputed to our deliberate refusal to do what is scientifically manifest, and socially equitable, fair, and just. And as long as we refuse to do what is just, so long will the vices and evils of capitalism, which we have copiously spotlighted, remain inherent in our society, and continue to be stubbornly incurable.

When all this has been said, the worst of all the inherent vices and evils of the capitalist system remains to be considered. It is that capitalism, in its essence and intrinsic nature, offends against the principles of dialectic. We have deliberately chosen to make this important point at this particular stage because the principle of dialectic is at once the inescapable doom of capitalism and the indefeasible hope of socialism which is our topic of discussion in the next chapter.

Whenever we speak of the dialectic, two great names readily come to mind. They are Hegel and Marx. They are par excellence the propounders of the principles of dialectic as we currently know them. But they are not the originators of dialectic. The art of dialectic has its origin in ancient Greece. It was an oral means by which the truth of any matter in issue was discovered or exposed by urging, most vigorously and with consummate logic, the ‘pros and cons’ of the matter. At his worst, a dialectician in ancient Greece was a sophist, and at his best a deductive logician.

In this sense, he is more akin to a forensic advocate than to a methodologist. In the Republic, Plato advocates 30 years of rigorous education for the rulers – ‘the Guardians and Guards’ – after their preliminary training up to the age of 20 years. Of these 30 years, he insists that ten should be devoted to the intensive study of mathematics and dialectic. As Plato originally used it, dialectic meant the process by which man’s mind, either in disputation with another person or with itself in the form of an ‘inner dialogue,’ tries to discover the truth of any matter in issue. By means of questions and ‘answers, a method most skilfully employed by Socrates, the contradictions in any matter under discussion are exposed and rejected, and the truth is ultimately arrived at. As a later development, Plato regarded the dialectic itself as the very embodiment of truth.

CONTINUES NEXT WEEK

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