Capitalism as Slave Morality

The question was raised on Thursday as to whether we believed capitalism operated under the slavish mode of evaluation and I feel it in necessary to answer in the affirmative. It can be easy to consider capitalism in some way enacting Nietzsche’s [implicit] moral philosophy that the strong should not act in any way that is to their disadvantage. In our current system we see forms of those who have amassed some sort of influence exercising it over those who have less influence, efficacy, or mobility (ability to act upon opportunity and potential by choice); and in this light we want to point to those who follow “Nietzscheism” and tell them “look here! Here is your so called noble mode of evaluation! Look what horrors it has wrought!”

Dramatics aside, it is a mistake to think that those who have somehow profited from the capitalist system as being noble. Structurally capitalism is demonstrative of the slavish mode of evaluation and suits more so the character of slaves than any traits of the noble.

This particular medium is perhaps too brief to cover all the ways in which the structure of capitalism – meaning before particulars caused by individuals inhabiting the system come into play – promotes the following: the idea of a free will, agents’ are transparently – at least sufficiently transparent – to have their acts distinguished form their motives, and, finally, that all humans are similar enough that a single moral philosophy is sufficient and can be applied universally. By these means it is found that capitalism promotes the idea that the strong should express themselves as weak.

First off, the freedom of an agent’s will. Nietzsche dismisses this on the basis that humans are not self-causing agents (we do not cause ourselves to exist) and as such cannot have a free will in the true sense. Capitalism, however, (again dismissing particulars) is a system that is intended to promote equal opportunity of those who are participants in it. The confusion that capitalism favors the strong is the confusion that money and political/social influence are associated with strength. The strength Nietzsche describes comes from the essence of the particular being. It is not the case that strength can be otherwise nor that weakness (non-strength) could express itself as strength under the noble mode of evaluation. External forms of strength such as money or influence are not demonstrative of the strength of the particular individual and therefore do equate to the terms Nietzche used. Instead, it is the case that these ideas promote an idea of the freedom to make decisions for oneself based on their “strength” so defined by money and influence in the capitalist system.

Similarly, capitalism is founded on the idea that the self is transparent enough that an individual’s actions are distinguishable from their intentions as exemplified by the creation of laws under the system which separate individuals, give them agency, and protect them in degrees from their actions that they take based on intent. The inverse of this, rather, is what is found in the noble mode of evaluation in which motives are not distinguished from actions and no way to evaluate or rank motivation is to be had. There are simply those acts.

Lastly, Capitalism puts everyone under the same conditions and restraints as a structure. No one is above the morality provided by capitalism in the sense that no one escapes the claim that this is good or bad based of universal ideas of what is good and bad. An act is still against the law whether a person is tried for it or not. There is no accounting for the nature of an individual being that of strength or weakness. All people – weak and strong – are put under the same universal system, which, in Nietzsche’s’ mind is slavish mentality as it forces the strong to express their strengths as weakness and attempts to make weakness strength.

This was very brief but I wanted to get it out there and see what others had to say in response since it seemed such an important question. Let me know.