Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Capitalist Traits in Human Being!


Just imagine the time when our forefathers were hunters and food gatherers, roaming in bands in search of the game and food on the earth. The social order of the tribes of ancient times was simple. Still, a primary order was necessary to form the unity of the tribe. Though ethics and religious concepts were primordial, they needed them to maintain internal order for survival.

Every tribe needed a leader to take decisions on its behalf. If no leader there would be the possibility of disintegration of the tribe in the lack of ability to take collective decisions as to which direction be taken, how to avoid or fight enemy tribes etc. Was the leader of the tribe alone could take a decision? No. There must have been an assembly of the elder men who had had the experience of their life to the disposal of tribes' well-being. But still, the leader was the final authority. He was not the only leader of the tribe but the priest of their rudimentary religion as well. Hence he could oracle to satisfy his tribesmen to avoid any confrontation.

A leader would be a stronger man, who came to the position by winning and killing his opponent(s). Was there any kind of economic system then? Yes, there must have been. The proofs indicate that the rudimentary economic system did exist in and within the tribes. The barter system must have been in place between friendly tribes but at a very meager level. What they would trade? Food, animal, and ornaments they thought precious and meager merchandise must have been traded among them.

Within the tribe how the system would have been working?

Let us see how the distribution of the wealth would have been done. What was wealth then? The game, gathered food from the forests, makeshift or temporary homes made of leather or wood, weapons, ornaments, and clothes would be the elementary wealth to those people.

From the hunting, that was conducted jointly, was everyone getting an equal share? The answer is obviously no. The leader naturally would get the best of the share. If the game would be abundant, only the leader and elders would get priority to feed them to their satisfaction and the rest would be distributed amongst the tribesmen.
Some parts would be preserved for their God, that would be any pagan symbol of their like. Why? Unless their God was pleased how they can have the surety of sufficient game and food in the future? Thus capitalization of the God began.

Hence, though in the primordial times, everyone’s share in labor was equal, the distribution of the wealth among them was not equal.

So we can see the traces of capitalism in our earliest social order. Still, women were the property of every male in the tribe and given the highest respect for their fertility.

When the distribution of the wealth becomes characteristically in descending order, from leader to rest of the tribesmen, it is nothing but a source of capitalism for us.

When man became agrarian, capitalism further got strengthened. Till then, when he was the hunter-man or pastoral man, there was no need of claiming ownership of the land. But as he settled with his innovative invention of agriculture inevitably needed to claim the land. Maybe in the beginning whole tribe would own the land trying to keep aggressors at bay.

Still, the distribution of the product couldn’t have been equal to each one. The gradation among the people, farmers, and other service or artisans, must have been different. From the remains of early civilizations, we can find the residences of the people in descending order. Palaces for kings, big houses for the nobles and priests and ordinary houses for the rest of the citizens, which may show inequality in the distribution of the wealth. The wealth of the individual would depend on his contribution. The definitions of the value of contribution would vary depending on the materialistic and spiritual priorities of the people. In short, somehow it was connected with the demand and supply in a rudimentary form. 

This indicates a drastic change in the social order, keeping ancient capitalistic traits alive. Women started getting gradually secondary positions in society with marriage system was introduced to claim inheritance over the wealth accumulated in their lifetime. The marriage system of mankind is nothing but the capitalization of the women, making her property of an individual.

The formations of political systems owe to the capitalist traits inherently existent in human blood. Means changed, and the system changed to suit the contemporary capitalist concepts of the human being in the course of human history. Kingdoms and empires were the systems that was developed to suit the capitalist mindset of the people. The ultimate aim was to claim more and more land, enslave more and more men to produce more wealth, and enslave women to produce more and more slaves, thus creating and growing wealth.

Today, most nations follow the democratic pattern. But democracy is against human nature. This is why imperialism still persists with nationalism. Imperialism is a symbol of capitalism. Every person, business and corporate houses and nations are in a race to gain more and more wealth. To achieve the goal of capitalism, the creation or acquisition of wealth, one after other models were designed and destroyed.

Marxism was a counter-system introduced to the world. The system talked of the ideals and reworked the social history of mankind to show the actual creators of the wealth were peasants and small artisans whereas the landlords, industrialists, and kingships were exploiters. Communism pleaded equal share to each citizen of the wealth accumulated by the society.

Prima-facie the logic was humanitarian, giving justice to the strife of mankind. Marxism later branched into different sects and shook the entire system of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with many countries embracing communist/socialist patterns. The war between capitalism and socialism/communism had become imminent. We still remember the era of the cold war. But Soviet Russia fell, disintegrated, and had to come back to the old capitalistic pattern.

Why did this happen? We must note that capitalism is human nature and communism is not! Communism stands in contrast to the human nature. Whether we accept it or not, no social order can ever survive without the freedom to create and enjoy wealth. He pays taxes to the government to ensure his safety and protection of his liberty and property. He does not want to pay indirectly for the charity. In fact, every human being has an innate urge to prosper and make the present circumstances better. Communism kills natural human inspiration and inevitably becomes an exploiter. The socialist order too is no exception to this. India still is experiencing it. 

Still, there are communist countries, but inevitably are following the capitalistic practices in the new global order. This was bound to happen.

Does this mean the capitalist system is the best? The answer should be “No”. The capitalist system has its own disadvantages to the society. It is inhuman, laden with insatiable greed. It strives to convert the human being to a beast if stretched too far. It destroys natural resources to meet the ever-growing artificially created needs! It keeps on inventing new needs to catch the people in the web of competition he could do without. The capitalist system doesn’t work for society as a whole but for individuals, hence public needs are not their priority to address.

Hence a balance is always required. Everyone should keep greed within the limit. Some elements of communism are always worth following but without governmental interference. It is the people who are better placed to decide what they need and how. Governments in the socialist or communist pattern have ruined the public as well by corruption and mismanagement. To retain human respect government needs to perform greater roles than attempting to confine people's life. 

The hidden dragon of capitalism in the veil of communism is far more dangerous than any!

Capitalism is not an evil in itself, the evil is the government that wants to decide on behalf of the people when many times they are incapable of it! The governments in socialism inevitably turn dictators of people's choice that constantly destroys human liberty. 

And a human without liberty is as good as dead!

1 comment:

  1. खूपच सुंदर , आता चर्चेत या मुद्यांचा संदर्भ देईन !

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