The spirit of capitalism
“A spectre is haunting capitalism,” says Paul Mueller – “the spectre of ‘higher things’.” An increasing number of thinkers on the right say that free enterprise and free trade have failed to deliver “cultural and spiritual goods” to large swathes of the population. Capitalism lacks soul, they say – we need “common-good capitalism” instead, a system that doesn’t glorify materialist consumption and greed, but gives virtue, justice, community and worship their proper place.
This makes the same mistake as some religious ascetics. Humans are both physical and spiritual beings, and it’s a mistake to neglect the lower in favour of the higher. As C.S. Lewis argued, “the highest does not stand without the lowest” nor should we “throw away our silver to make room for the gold”.
By analogy, the same applies to society as a whole. Free-market capitalism constitutes the body of society, and it is as good and necessary as are our physical bodies.
It is “the most natural structure and ordering of human society” that “respects moral agency, individual autonomy and responsibility, the rule of law, and voluntary and civil association”.
Similarly, just as eating poorly and not exercising may manifest as physical problems in the body – as obesity, say – yet are often “symptoms of spiritual issues that emerge from our actions”, so the shortcomings in market societies – “narcissism and consumerism, poor taste in entertainment, not valuing or investing well in families and communities” – require “not external intervention, but spiritual renewal”.
Successful athletes have regimens of rest, diet and sleep to help their bodies handle and recover from the stress of intense exercise. The trouble with modern societies is that we have not learnt how to deal well with the stresses and strains of modern living – not getting enough rest, eating badly, and so on – issues that “require freely chosen internal change to correct”.
Free-enterprise capitalism without virtue and morality will of course be corrupt. “It is the body without the spirit. But where is the spirit without a body? Virtue, justice and community, though higher than market activity, are intertwined with it.” Creating too stark a separation between market institutions on the one hand and virtue and justice on the other “falls prey to an unhealthy spiritual asceticism”. We should therefore reject this trend on the political right. “Free-enterprise capitalism isn’t haunted by the higher things. It embodies them.”