Vito Caiati on the Tension between Corporate Capitalism and Conservatism

Dr. Vito Caiati by e-mail (emphasis added):

I am increasingly convinced that we on the Right are caught up in a set of contradictions of our own making, in that we wish to uphold, on the one hand, a particular political, social, and cultural inheritance and, on the other, an economic system, which in the past was largely supportive of or at least conducive to the former but which now, that is, in the form that it has attained in the last century, its principal solvent.  The capitalism of which we often so glowingly speak on the Right is long-gone, along with the social classes and modes of life tied to it. How do we not fall into the trap of denouncing the latter while upholding the former?  I see this as the hardest of puzzles to solve, and it may well mean that something is at work deep in the American social formation that deprives us on the Right of a firm footing in existing reality, which would explain why the Left has succeeded in conquering one political and cultural institution after another: The nature of contemporary capital, not merely its economic nature but the ways of life and cultural norms that arise from it, is inherently antagonistic to the nation state, classical liberal polities and rights, and traditional forms of civic society and belief systems. If this is so, then the Right has the unenviable task of opposing all forms of collectivist organization and control, public and private (that is, corporate), the latter of which is the inevitable form of corporate capitalist development today, while proposing some viable alternative, one that would inevitably result in a direct challenge to the dominance of the present ruling class. This is a very contradictory situation for the defenders of order, since we ordinarily do not seek to undermine the leading institutions of society. At best, we on the Right have so far only snipped at this dominance, speaking of outsourcing of manufacturing or corporate censorship, but all of these efforts leave the beast intact. What would a real assault from the Right look like, and how could it be mounted without giving up basic philosophical commitments to private property and initiative? For me, this is a real dilemma, but perhaps you disagree?

The following may serve as an illustration of Vito's dilemma.  Consider Amazon.com.

I love it and its fabulously efficient services. I fund it to the tune of about $100 per month buying books and other merchandise.  The company is a perfect example of how a man with an idea can make it big in America and enrich the lives of millions with his products. This is made possible by capitalism and the rule of law, not one or the other, but both in synergy. An enterprise like Amazon is unthinkable under socialism. The man in question, Jeff Bezos, is now the Croesus of the modern world. I have argued many times that there is nothing wrong with economic inequality as such. But money is translatable into power including the power to shape attitudes and work cultural changes.  Bezos' vast resources translate into formidable political and cultural clout. As you know, Bezos owns the left-leaning Washington Post.

By buying from Amazon, I support the Left nolens volens and its censoring of conservative books, not all of course, but many that only a hard-core leftist would think of censoring.  I also aid and abet the hollowing out of that buffer zone between the individual and the state apparatus that is called civil society. Amazon puts small book stores out of business which are not merely places of business but meeting places for citizens. But haven't I called repeatedly for the defunding of the Left? I have. Ought I not use Amazon? But that would be an impotent protest on my part. The company is a juggernaut that won't be stopped by any boycott or influenced in its corporate policies by any boycott.

There is a tension between advanced corporate capitalism and conservative values. The question I would have for Dr. Caiati, however, would be whether advanced corporate capitalism is inherently or essentially antagonistic to conservative values as he maintains. (See bolded sentence above)   Perhaps there is no necessity to this antagonism and that a sufficiently strong state headed by a nationalist such as DJT could rein in such corporate behemoths as Amazon. 

Comments

[Sean]

I'd take it further and say that with how Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc, own so many companies or are used behind the scenes by so many websites that your ability to use the internet is crippled. An experiment by someone who went so far as to block all traffic to/from Google IP addresses (can't find the article) discovered either slow access to websites or an inability to reach a lot of websites. They were not owned by Google, but they were relying on google to show content on their websites.

I'm staring at a Facebook link right above this text box as I type.

[Jacques]

Is an enterprise like Amazon unthinkable under socialism? The actual USA is not really a "capitalist" society in any meaningful sense. There is massive government interference in the market. There is the federal reserve system. There are (in effect) monopolies. There is a giant bloated welfare state. Like most countries, the USA has elements of "capitalism" and elements of "socialism". (At least, under some definitions of these terms. How would you define them?)

Amazon depends on an infrastructure (including the postal service) that is publicly funded. I'd guess that many people who work for Amazon (and were "enriched" by it) maintain their standard of living in part because of publicly funded systems and institutions. So I'm not sure. Maybe something like Amazon--a morally dubious thing to begin with--is equally unthinkable under true capitalism?

It seems that traditionalist or cultural conservatism is intrinsically incompatible with capitalism. As Marx pointed out, the endpoint of capital is the dissolution of religion and culture, of all local and particular traditions and ways of life. That's correct. These are all obstacles to the free movement of labor and capital over the whole planet. This is why we now see "woke capital" pushing very hard for the destruction of the family and the sacred, demonizing the ethnic majority and its history. We have to be reduced to atomic worker-consumers.

Capitalism and communism are fundamentally similar in their values and objectives. They differ only about the means. Does a planned economy better maximize material utility, "freedom" and "equality"? Or is the free market a better instrument? That's one way to think about it anyway.

[BV]

Good to hear from you, Jacques. As usual, you make good points.

I basically agree with your first paragraph. But I think it is consistent with what you say that Amazon as we know it, is, if not unthinkable, at least highly unlikely under anything that deserves to be called socialism. Essential to socialism is collective ownership of the means of production and distribution. Under such a system, Amazon as we know it -- with its incredible efficiency -- could not exist. Anything the government owns and controls could not come up to that level of efficiency. The economic system of the USA, although not pure capitalism as you rightly point out, does allow for individuals to show initiative and to profit personally from it.

[BV]

As for your second paragraph, I meant "enrich' culturally, not monetarily. Amazon has allowed me to add to my personal library out-of -print books I would never have been able to acquire otherwise in any practical and cost-effective manner.

Does Amazon need the publically-funded postal service? Not so much. After the WuFlu pandemic and the resultant lock-down, I have been seeing Amazon delivery trucks on a daily basis -- and I live in a semi-rural area. Of course, their distribtion system still needs publicly funded roads. But drone delivery -- which I don't look forward to -- would eliminate that too.

Your third para is in line with what Caiati is maintaining above.

[BV]

Free markets with some gov't regulation is best. Communism has proven to be disaster. Democratic socialism is a contradictio in adiecto.

Essential to socialism is collective ownership of the means of production. Democratic socialists will presumably want to distinguish socialism from statism, which may be defined as state control of the economy, where the state control is not in turn democratically controlled. Historically, however, the tendency is for supposedly collective, democratic control to transmogrify into control by an elite group of central planners who, exulting in their power, will use all the means at their disposal to hold on to it and expand it -- and 'the people' be damned.

The tendency, then, is for socialism to terminate in statism and totalitarianism. Power to the people? Hardly. 'The people' end up among the socially planned and not among the social planners. Either that or they end up in a gulag.