The central theoretical underpinning for both capitalism and democracy is the "hidden hand". Millions of individual choices made in the choice-makers rational individual self-interest result in the greatest good, the most wealth for the individual and the society and a government responsive to the majority collective wants and needs. Don't laugh, you know enough of Adam Smith and enough of one man-one vote to know that this is true. So I won't laugh. I will bring up one problem with hidden hand economics and politics. I will illustrate the problem by personal example.
I am of the most privileged economic, and the most powerful political, cohort in America. I am a WASP man. I am retired in material comfort. That fits. I am a Democrat. That does not fit. I didn't pursue wealth for most of my career either. I worked for the government for 27 years; for myself in private law practice (in which I did pursue, but unsuccessfully, wealth) for eleven years. I was always a Democrat.
We all know also that neither capitalism nor democracy guarantees individual acquisition of material or political desiderata. There are losers in the pursuit of happiness. We accept that for the sake of argument. My question is:
Was I anti-capitalist for working for the government for 70% of my life? Since I didn't pursue wealth did I go against the very foundation of capitalism? Each of us, our Declaration of Independence told us, has an unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness granted us by our Creator. In the 19th century, a God-given right was argued to impose an obligation on its use. Use it or lose it kinda thing. Don't piss off the great Giver. No, I don't think I was being anti-capitalist in choosing a public service career and sucking at the teat of the government for material sustenance. Adam Smith was not an anarchist, he envisioned some government overseeing all of those hidden hands. The overseers are essential and have a right to be compensated
But in another aspect, I think I overdid it. I give away some of my money, in one case a not insubstantial sum to a person I did not know. Made me happy, but shouldn't I have plowed my surplus back into the hidden hands that create more wealth? A rising tide lifts all boats? (don't laugh). Is there a place in capitalist theory for altruism? Yes. I don't think Smith meant that charity was bad. It is not capitalist behavior, though!
I confess that I am not a good capitalist in another respect: I don't much like money. I mean, it's okay, but don't stuff me full of it. I have enough, I don't want anymore. (God right now is pissed at me.)
How about this?:
It’s difficult work for the one-woman show; she is often outside at 5 a.m., sowing seeds, weeding, or harvesting, and she spends weeks preparing for the two weekends a month she is open. ...Her cooking is craftsmanship, with keen and careful attention given to every ingredient. For now, I isn’t looking for more of anything. “I can barely keep up with my usual clients,” she says.
...There is something refreshing about I’s acceptance of her limitations. She isn’t looking to grow her business...—there’s a constant, buzzing churn toward more. ...it can be exhausting and overwhelming, representing a capitalistic overindulgence that often prioritizes quantity over craft. It makes I’s desire to fly under the radar feel welcome, even noble.
Is I a bad capitalist? She has a business but "isn't looking to grow" it! What's up with that, I? This was going to be a one-theory critique but that article got me on another of my critiques. So just en passant: Capitalism always seemed to me like the legend of the shark, it has to keep moving (to aerate it's gills) or it dies. Businesses have to grow bigger...Why is that? That is not self-evident to me, or I. Or capitalism is a perpetual motion machine, that's the other analogy that also recurs to my mind. Perpetual motion machines violate the laws of physics. The hidden hand of capitalism is always grasping, pursuing its prey. Doesn't seem like that is sustainable. Doesn't seem human. Seems inhumanely predatory. Ah, predatory capitalism.
Now democracy and me personally. As a member of the elite political cohort in America I should be a Republican. I'm not. Never have been. I'm a Democrat. I don't vote my personal interests, economic or class. Voting your personal interests is the hidden hand in democratic theory. Am I a bad democrat for being a Democrat? In democratic theory I am. Fine, then I'm a proud bad democrat. I vote for candidates who would impose higher taxes on me. Not in my economic self-interest. I vote for candidates who don't want to keep me and non-WASP males on their privileged pedestal. One time I even voted for a Jamaican Black South Asian woman for president! I want people who are different from me to have the advantages that I got for no other reasons than my race, the religion that I do not practice, and my gender. I will even sacrifice and protest when I get too much and they get too little. Very undemocratic in theory.
Is there a place for empathy, the most sublime of human emotions, in capitalist theory and democratic theory? Actually, it's hard to shoe-horn empathetic behavior into either theory. If there is not, then I am a proud anti-democrat, anti-capitalist. But I think there is. I think the hidden hand theories require behavior that in practice makes others' lives more solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. I'm proudly disobeying those theories.
Good night.