It might seem awfully difficult to empathise when you want something out of other people.
Indeed, the culture of selfishness that a capitalistic society fosters, for 'the good of all' (enter the invisible hand), orientates us towards the demand side of exchange. The baker does not care that you are hungry. He cares only that you are paying him good money for the bread he makes. Likewise, the buyer doesn't care if the baker has many mouths to feed in his family. He cares only that he gets the bread he wants as cheaply as he can.
This makes bourgeois culture exceedingly hostile towards perceived inefficiency in satisfying demand. We want something and we want it when we want it, the denial of which is irritating at best. The more capitalistic the society, the more hostile it is. On the producer side, this creates an atmosphere of cut-throat competition or a rat race, in which you need to offer what others can offer in order to thrive.
Unlike individual workers, however, businesses have some clout. Through political or market influence, they give themselves room to manoeuvre by ensuring that they retain some avenue for profit without always having to offer what is necessary or what is the best. Where and when they do need to compete with each other, they turn to their workers, wringing more of the latter's labour in order to increase efficiency and maximise profit.
To defend themselves, the workers have to agitate for rights and form unions to negotiate with their employers; or they could deliberately adopt inefficient practices to mitigate or spite the exploitation that they are subject to. And when they do these things, the spotlight of bourgeois wrath is turned upon them—they are seen as lazy and motivated by an unjustified sense of entitlement. This is the capitalist blame game.
Some societies may be less susceptible to such finger-pointing, but the potential for its existence is always there if we believe that human beings are inherently selfish at some level. As such, for us to rise above it, we have to actively moderate our short-sighted tendency to be selfish, to balance empathy against our desire for quick gratification. That remains virtually impossible until we stop buying into modern consumer culture—until we break the vicious cycle of capitalist ideology—for the good of ourselves as both consumers and producers.
(0) Comments
Post a Comment