Belief systems
Although capitalism is backed up by violence, in day-to-day operation no coercion is required. Most people believe that the world works according to capitalist dynamics, and behave accordingly. Quite a few of them believe, in addition, that this is the way things should work, and exert pressure to bring nonconformists into line.
Here are a few common beliefs in capitalist societies, with comments in brackets.
Capitalism is superior to alternatives. (Many people assume that success, in other words dominance, means superiority or virtue. Logically, this doesn’t follow.)
Capitalism is inevitable. (In the face of everyday reality, many people cannot easily conceive of an alternative that is fundamentally different.)
It is fair that people receive what they earn. (The system of jobs operates as a method of allocating the economic product to individuals and groups. This system is arbitrary and built on the exercise of power. There is nothing inherently fair about it.)
The market is the most efficient method of matching supply and demand. (In practice, many “markets” are artificial constructions, as in the case of copyrighted software. The market is not used for things people hold dearest, such as allocating affection in a family.)
Selfishness is innate and justified; it makes the profit system operate. (Humans have the potential for both selfishness and altruism.[14] Social systems can foster either.)
People who are poor have only themselves to blame. (Blaming the poor ignores the exercise of power in creating poverty and denies the social obligation to help those in need.)
Greater production and consumption lead to greater happiness. (Actually, happiness is not closely correlated with objective measures such as income.[15] Happiness is more related to how people subjectively compare themselves with others, which suggests that inequality fostered by markets reduces happiness.[16])
Politics is something that politicians do; ordinary citizens are not involved except through voting and lobbying. (If politics is taken to be the exercise of power, then capitalist economic arrangements are intensely political. That workers do not vote to choose their bosses does not mean there is no politics at the workplace, but rather that workplace politics is authoritarian.)
Beliefs do not arise out of nothing: they are an adaptation to the situations in which people find themselves, sometimes challenging these situations. There are three main ways in which beliefs supportive of capitalism develop and are maintained: daily life, schooling and mass media.
First, most people adjust their beliefs to be compatible with their daily life. This is a process of reducing “cognitive dissonance,” namely the difference between reality and thought. If daily life is filled with buying and selling, this makes market exchange seem more natural. If daily life involves working as an employee along with many others, this makes selling one’s labour power seem more natural. If daily life involves noticing that some people are very rich and some very poor, this makes great economic inequality seem more natural.
But just because something seems natural does not necessarily make it positive or desirable. There is, though, a general tendency for people to believe that the world is just. When someone is poor, this is a potential challenge to the assumption that the world is just. One way to cope is to believe that the poor person is to blame.
Of course, for wealthy and privileged people, it is tempting to believe that they deserve their wealth and privilege, and that others deserve their misfortune. Beliefs in the virtues of capitalism are commonly stronger among its greatest beneficiaries.
Part of day-to-day experience is interacting with other people. If others share certain beliefs, it can be hard to express contrary views, and easier to keep quiet or adapt one’s beliefs to standard ones.
A second source of beliefs is schooling. Children learn conventional views about society, learn that they are supposed to defer to authority and learn that they need to earn a living. Just as important as what is learned in the classroom is what is learned from the structure of the schooling experience: pupils are expected to follow the instructions of their teachers, a process that is good training for being an obedient employee.
A third source of beliefs about capitalism is the mass media, especially the commercial media, which “sell” capitalism incessantly through advertisements, through pictures of the “good life” in Hollywood movies and television shows, and in plot lines in which good guys always win. Due to global media coverage, basketball star Michael Jordan became a cult figure even in countries where basketball is not a big sport. Jordan is a symbol of competitive success. He embodies the assumption that someone can become rich and famous by being talented and that being rich and famous is a good thing, worth identifying with and emulating. Jordan thus is living testimony to the capitalist marketplace, even setting aside the products that he endorses. Sport generally is something that is sold through the mass media, especially television, and used to sell other products, such as Nike running shoes and McDonald’s.[17]
As well as the beliefs listed above, there are others commonly found in capitalist societies, but of course not everyone subscribes to every one of these beliefs. Nevertheless, the passionate commitment to certain core beliefs by some people (especially those with the most power) and general acceptance by many others makes it possible for capitalism to carry on most of the time without the overt use of force to repress challenges. This process is commonly called hegemony.
There are quite a few contradictions within usual belief systems. Here are some examples.
The ideology of capitalism is a free market in labour. This implies unrestricted immigration, but all governments and most people oppose this.[18]
Sexual and racial discrimination is incompatible with a labour market based on merit.
A free market in services implies the elimination of barriers based on credentials. For example, anyone should be able to practise as a doctor or lawyer.
A key group involved in shaping belief systems is intellectuals. Although universities are attacked by right-wing commentators as havens for left-wing radicals, in practice most academics, journalists, teachers, policy analysts and other knowledge workers support or accept the basic parameters of the capitalist system. Through advertising, public relations, policy development and public commentary, intellectuals give legitimacy to beliefs supportive of capitalism. Many of the most vehement intellectual disputes, for example over employment, public ownership and taxation, are about how best to manage capitalism, not how to transcend it.
Destruction of Alternatives
For the past several centuries, alternatives to capitalism have been systematically destroyed or coopted. Sometimes this is through the direct efforts of owners and managers and sometimes it is accomplished by the state.
The family-based “putting-out” system of production was replaced by the factory system. The new system was initially not any more efficient but gave owners the power to extract more surplus from workers.[19]
Workers’ control initiatives have been smashed. Sometimes this is at the factory level. In revolutionary situations, such as Paris in 1871 or Spain in 1936-1939, it has been at a much wider scale.
14.
Alfie Kohn,
16.
Relevant here is Paul L. Wachtel,
17.
Walter LaFeber,
19.
Stephen Marglin, “What do bosses do? The origins and functions of hierarchy in capitalist production,”