Capitalism is an economic system based on the trading of goods or services. It has no moral code as to what is good or bad except that bad businesses stop trading because they run out of money.
If we take people within a society who have a myriad of different skills such as carpenter, builder, baker, potter, teacher, cooper, tailor and brewer, they can do one thing well but other things less well. It makes sense for them therefore to concentrate on what they can do well and trade their goods or services for other goods or services in a process called barter. The difficulty with barter is that it restricts their market and limits their potential. The monetary system widened their market and enabled the trader to decide for themselves what the reward they received for their goods or service would be.
If someone wants or needs something it has a value and that value is dependent on the degree of the need or want. In a drought, water is scarce and so becomes more valuable. In a famine, food is scarce and becomes more valuable. These are market forces which are not governed by morals or ethics. From a capitalist perspective it is perfectly acceptable to let your neighbour starve to death in a famine if you have more money than they have.
Since the year 2000 there are two markets that have increased enormously – pornography and drugs, legal and illegal.
If we take pornography first, sex is one of the most basic human or animal functions. It is essential for the survival of any species. The world population is around 7 billion so the opportunity for sex is everywhere and yet more and more people are going online for pornography. There is nothing wrong with the business model. There is a need or a want and money is exchanged for the service provided.
Is this ethical? Is it moral? Is it sensible? I am not interested in ethics or morals but I am interested in what is sensible. Sex is a natural enjoyable function between adults. There is a drive and want for this to take place because of the wellbeing it produces in addition to the prospect of having a child. Most sex nowadays does not produce children so the prime aim is the participants wellbeing. If everyone wants sex and there are plenty of people around to have sex with for free, why are people going online to pay for it? Something must be wrong somewhere.
In my view any sexual act that the participants are happy with is acceptable as long as no one is harmed emotionally, psychologically or physically. The participants need to agree on everything that happens. From my experience there are two types of sex, lustful sex which is purely a physical act of self gratification and loving sex which is far more pleasurable, lasts longer, reinforces a relationship and creates greater wellbeing.
Lustful sex does not take into account the feelings of others. It is purely a physical and contractual act and therefore can be deemed as selfish. Lustful sex does not require the “right mood”, the “right space” and “right time”. It is ideal for singletons or those who are in a relationship who act as singletons. Lustful sex does not contribute to another’s wellbeing or the strengthening of a relationship.
Loving sex is an integral part of a loving relationship and is an indication that all is well with that relationship or with the participants in that relationship. If a person is emotionally, psychologically and or intellectually unsettled, it makes it far more difficult for loving sex to take place because the mood, the space and the time are not right. This can put a great strain on a relationship. It is therefore imperative for a loving relationship to flourish, for any emotional, psychological and or intellectual unsettlement to be swiftly resolved. Loving relationships are essential for the wellbeing of children and sets them an example of how successful relationships work for them to replicate later in life.
The increase in pornography indicates to me that society as a whole contains a large proportion of people who are emotionally, psychologically and or intellectually unsettled, which is putting society at risk and risking the wellbeing of future generations. This is not the fault of capitalism. Capitalism is just satisfying a market need.
Drug use within society, whether it be medical or recreational use, legal and illegal, is on the increase. The vast majority of all drugs are used for symptom relief whether it be for headaches, depression, anxiety, ADHD, Type 2 diabetes, or recreational drugs like alcohol, cannabis or cocaine used to relieve either boredom or the stresses of everyday life. Conditions like headaches, depression, anxiety & ADHD are caused by an individuals needs not being met.
Type 2 diabetes is caused by overloading the body with sugar, normally brought about by people being too emotionally, psychologically and or intellectually overloaded to select the most appropriate foods for their needs and becoming addicted to the “sugar rush”. This is easily remedied by the correct nutrition and exercise but the person must be in the correct state of mind for this to be effective. A study, in 1982 by Prof Kerin O’Dea of the University of South Australia, of type 2 diabetic in Australian aborigines, who were taken into the outback to follow their historic foraging lifestyle. It was expected to last 3 months but was cut short , because this lifestyle eradicated the type 2 diabetes so quickly and effectively and participants were so excited by their own wellbeing, they wanted to share it with their families as soon as possible.
The requirement for recreational drugs is because life in general is so stressful that some sort of release or extreme pleasure is required to counteract the stresses of everyday living.
Again the increase in drug use indicates to me that society as a whole contains a large proportion of people who are emotionally, psychologically and or intellectually unsettled which is putting society at risk and risking the wellbeing of future generations. This is not the fault of capitalism. Capitalism is just satisfying a market need.
Democracy is a way of a population governing itself that is considered to be more inclusive than alternatives like communism or a dictatorship. A conventional dictatorship is governed by the will of a single person – the dictator, and the population have to comply with that will. Communism is also an authoritarian regime but this time the population have to comply with the will of a collective group representing the population at the head of government – the politburo.
As populations grow there needs to be some form of governance to create cohesion, and infrastructures that support the whole, like schools and hospitals. There are great benefits of larger bodies that support a population with a greater depth of knowledge, experience and funding than individuals all doing their own thing for their own families, often coming into conflict with their neighbour.
How does democracy work? The idea is that government is by the will of the people but because people all think differently and have different life experiences and knowledge, each person is likely to have a slightly different opinion on a particular subject. To move forward you need to have some form of agreement otherwise decisions can’t be made. If you can’t obtain 100% agreement then a majority will suffice and the greater the majority the easier the decision making. For this reason persuasive argument is used to persuade one person to change their view so that they support the other person so that the majority can increase.
If everyone has a vote but not everyone understands the complexities of a particular issue or doesn’t have the experience, knowledge or intellectual faculty to effectively assess the argument, and therefore make an informed choice, they are vulnerable to persuasion by a person who has a vested interest in a particular outcome of the issue. This means that the outcome of an issue may not be in everyone’s interests, even though the persuader suggests it is. When this becomes apparent to the voter, the voter is likely not to trust the persuader. This lack of trust results in tribalism or party politics.
The benefit of party politics is that the voter is more likely to be amongst like minded people who they are more likely to trust because they have similar views. Another benefit of party politics is that you can put together a set of policies that by and large reflect the interests and will of the members of the party, although this often requires compromise and is often more about what the voters will accept rather than what is best for the population. Party politics also enables power to be held by a set group of people, rather than disseminated across a wide variety of views and interests and enables action to happen rather than endless discussions on the way forward.
The principles behind democracy are sound, the application is less so. Let’s look at what happened in the 2019 UK general election where the Conservative party won a “landslide majority”, the figures are as follows:
The proportion of the population that voted who were eligible to vote: 67.3% (source House of Commons Library)
The share of that vote obtained by the Conservative party: 43.6% (source House of Commons Library)
The percentage of votes that were cast against a candidate rather than for a candidate: 32% (source YouGov poll)
67.3% x 43.6% = 29.34% of the population who were eligible to vote that voted for a Conservative candidate
29.34% – 32% = 19.95% of the population who were eligible to vote that voted in support of Conservative policies
This means that more than 80% of the population who were eligible to vote did not vote for Conservative policies. The reason those who were eligible to vote but didn’t do so, invariable is because they were disillusioned by the political system or could not find a candidate whose policies reflected their views.
The consequence of this is that 80% of the population were alienated by those in power. If someone is alienated, it means they are not comfortable. It means that they are fighting against a system that does not represent them. The only difference between those that make up the 80% of the population is the degree of alienation.
If you feel alien, life is not fun and you are likely to be highly stressed and by highly stressed I mean you are emotionally, psychologically and or intellectually unsettled.
Given what I have written above, it’s not capitalism that is the problem, although capitalism might be exacerbating the problem, it is democracy or how democracy is applied that is the real problem. But if democracy is the least worst option for governance, what do we do? What we need is a “Democracy MK2” and that is a topic for another article!