Since I’m in school and like to torture myself with philosophy I write A LOT of papers....I’m going to start putting them on my blog just so I have a backup of them (our database(s) are now being backed up religiously..sorry, again, about that guys :( )in case the love of my lif....errr....my laptop dies. Below is the first in all its MLA formatted glory. Feel free to rip it to shreds.
Andy Baran
PHL 228/Prof. Behun
07 Sept. 2003
Capitalism: Guenon vs. Smith
Capitalism is the reason this paper is being written. Money is being invested in an education in order to further the chances of money being made in the future. In other words, money will beget money. Capitalism is the dominant player in world economics and therefore affects every being on Earth. Each person has a different role in the capitalist system called a profession. Each profession allows a person to look at capitalism from a different vantage point. The owner of a successful business may see it as the system which provides him with food, shelter and luxuries in abundance while the employees of that owner may see it as the system which robs them of the riches obtained by the business owner.
Rene Guenon argues that capitalism strips man of his spiritual maturity. It forces us to focus all of our energy on material matters rather than spiritual matters. He believes that things existing in the material realm are mainly quantitative while those existing in the spiritual realm are mainly qualitative
Guenon argues that each person has a soul and that the nature of that soul is suited to a specific profession. This being so, a profession should be chosen based on the nature of one’s soul. Work would then be given a spiritual dimension. In capitalist societies a person’s profession has no spiritual dimension. What makes capitalism different from other economic systems is that a person is not required to stay in one profession. A person is encouraged to take up whichever profession will make him the most money. This means that work is being done without paying attention to the nature of one’s soul. This disturbs Guenon because we define ourselves by our work. Thus if our work is not based upon spiritual principles neither are we. Since our work is our defining characteristic we spend more and more time working and improving the skills involved in doing so. This forces us to spend less and less time working to grow spiritually. Even if we do spend a good deal of time growing spiritually we can never reach our true potential; the time during which we are working is set aside for non-spiritual matters and this is time that could be spent growing spiritually if we took jobs in accordance with the nature of our soul.
In order to solve this dilemma of professional before spiritually growth Guenon suggests that every profession be taken in accordance with one’s soul, not his or her desire for material gain. In doing so our spiritual growth will take precedence over all else in our lives.
In “The Degeneration of Coinage” Guenon states that:
“The question is that of money, and if the merely ‘economic’ point of view as it is understood today is not departed from, it certainly seems that money is something that appertains completely as possible to the ‘reign of quantity’. This indeed is the reason why it plays so predominant a part in modern society . . .” (107).
In other words, the understanding of money in modern capitalist societies is a part of the quantitative lives led by their peoples.
Guenon further argues that money signifying solely price is problematic of modern capitalism. He reminds us that money was at one time covered in spiritual symbols, “...the ancient coins are literally covered with traditional symbols, often chosen from among those that carry some particularly profound meaning...” (108). Which meant that the money held qualitative value as well as the quantitative value assigned to it. He explains how over time those symbols began to be removed from the coins “. . . but after having been relegated in certain countries to a place around the rim of coins, in the end these devices disappeared completely; indeed there was no longer any reason for them as soon as the coinage represented nothing more than a ‘material token’.” (108).
Guenon also argues that money was a helping hand in our fall to the quantitative, “The qualitative degeneration of all things is closely linked to that of money. . .” (110).
As stated earlier, that which is qualitative exists within the spiritual domain. Thus when Guenon refers to “qualitative degeneration” he means that our spiritual growth has become secondary to our economic worldly growth. Since the accumulation of money is the basis of capitalism one can easily infer that Guenon believes that the accumulation is robbing us of spiritual maturity. Thus, in relation to the previous example of a business owner and his employees Guenon believes that both the business owner and employee are being robbed. However, he believes they are being robbed spiritually as opposed to financially.
Unlike Guenon, many philosophers are supportive of capitalism. The most famous of these is Adam Smith. In fact, the idea of capitalism as a whole is often times attributed to Smith. Smith watched the economy and the effects it had on the people of his day and attempted to devise a best case scenario describing the interactions of the two from these. The scenario he described is what today we know as capitalism. Smith recognized that men have goals and desires of their own which often times meant that society would not benefit. He created the idea of “the invisible hand whereby the private interests and passions of men are led in the direction which is most agreeable to the interest of the whole society” (PBS) to prove that capitalism is beneficial to a society as a whole. Furthermore, he used them as proof that:
“ . . . the drive of the individual self-interest in an environment of similarly motivated individuals will result in competition; and they further demonstrate how competition will result in the provision of those goods that society wants, in the quantities society desires, and at the prices society is prepared to pay” (PBS)
Notice there is no mention of the government or any governing body. It is apparent in Wealth Of A Nation that while he wants some government involvement in his system, for example with public schools and roads, he “is against restraints on imports and bounties on exports, against government laws that shelter industry from competition and against government spending for unproductive ends.” (PBS) In other words, as long as the government does not waste its money or restrain the market in any way. Smith’s hope was that this system would result in economic prosperity for all.
Equality in Smith’s system was key to its success. Everyone had a theoretical chance to compete so long as they had the funding to do it. If they didn’t compete then their power was exercised through the purchasing of goods. This idea was picked up by the third estate in their rise to power in the revolutions of 18th century Europe.
During the Industrial Revolution the ideas of Smith were again brought to the floor; however, they were used in a much different manner this time. During this time enormous factories sprang up all over European country sides and everyone including children was forced to work because of poor economic conditions. The owners of these factories helped to create and maintain the poor economic conditions of the workers in their factories; which in turned created poor living conditions for the workers. The owners were able to do this partly because they took Smith’s idea of government not being involved with the economy to extremes and the government had no regulatory action. Thus the situation was allowed to continue as such for years.
Both of the previous perspectives on capitalism are valid. A capitalist system which is entirely focused on material value robs men of something spiritually and capitalism seems to be the natural way in which things are done. Ideally, however, a capitalist system could be a combination of the both. Men would prosper spiritually as well as materially.
Bibliography
DeLong, Brad. “Adam Smith.” http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Economists/smith.html 13 July 1997.
Garrison, Roger W. “The Intertemporal Adam Smith.” Quarterly Journal Of Austrian Economics vol. 1, no. 1 (1998): 51 – 60.
PBS. “Adam Smith and The Origin of Capitalism.” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/pdf/ess_adamsmithorigin.p
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