Capitalism vs. Civilization

Capitalism vs. Civilization

Here’s a quick example: the rise of primitive Rap Music. Capitalist Music Producers could sell real music – trained professional singers with professionally orchestrated instrumental music, but they choose to sell sexist cussing and swearing with a background of synthetic percussion. You see, in either case they can only get about the same price for either product. The Quality product would of course cost more to produce. Finding somebody who will cuss and swear in rhymes, well, that’s almost free. Like the Colonel said to Elvis, “I can find a kid on any street corner who can do what you do”… and at least Elvis could play guitar. As far as Rap Music goes, the Ghetto is teaming with young men who can cuss in rhyme. Talent is guaranteed to be cheap, and Capitalism will be predisposed to give us as little as possible for what we are willing to spend.

Yes, Capitalism argues that it is only providing for demand, and if we wanted Quality then it would provide Quality. Yes, if only that were true. However, from my own life experience I know perfectly well that Capitalism does all it can do to Shape Tastes. Very little Propaganda is Political. Most is commercial – they call it advertising in most cases, but the shaping of Public Taste is done at many levels. Now, think about almost the entire 20th Century and you will see one solid trend, if anything, and that is that Quality and Established Culture in the Arts, of almost anything bought and sold, was portrayed as elitist, pretentious – basically ‘uncool’… to use one of their low-quality phrases. Tastes were deliberately dummed down, so that product could be churned out cheaper… so that nearly all returns could go directly to the Producers. Not only would Talent be kept as cheap as possible, but also Production. Simple things are easier and cheaper to produce than complex things, while, again, the asking price is the same.

We can track the Decline of our Musical Example. Big Bands replaced Orchestras. Impromptu off-the-cuff Jazz replaced composed and orchestrated music. Swing Bands replaced Big Bands. Then Rock and Roll replaced Bands. For a while Disco replaced even the small rock and roll bands. Now Rap has replaced Rock and Roll, and there are no musicians… just noise technicians – spitters and scratchers. Look at the credits on any CD made today. Then find a record made 40 years ago. Music used to be an Industry that employed a lot of people for a living wage. A hundred years ago Musicians formed a sizeable Profession, several percent of the population were Professional Musicians, and a good percentage of them were even respectable – not reduced to playing down to the moronic tastes of idiot kids in drugged out clubs, but actually playing the best music ever conceived. That’s been wiped out except in Socialist Societies that continue to try to keep such things alive; however, it is almost a futile gesture, remembering that the talent pool has been so much constricted. When 3% of Society were trained musicians, then the Very Best were the very best of Very Many. Now, only a tiny fraction of people ever study music, and it is likely that the best of that tiny fraction might not be very good at all. There’s not been a decent concerto written in 50 years. Some years the Chopin Award is not given because nobody who shows up for the competition is deemed worthy to even compete for it. We are on the verge of pronouncing Music a dead Art.

Literature also cultivated a Coolness, substituting an uneducated style for the Snotty Didactic University Style… again, maybe it is only a coincidence that the more primitive styles are less costly to produce. Hemingway made a career out of convincing the Public that anything written beyond the reach of a sixth grader was artificial. Well, duh. And since Hemingway little has been written much worth reading. You see, the Art in Artificial was what made literature worth the trouble. Now we have plots and pornography that anybody can understand, even dropouts. And its all on the New York Times Bestsellers List.

People are willing partners in the conspiracy to have themselves dummed down. Give Easy Ignorance an excuse to feel superior to arduously acquired Culture, and the dummies will grab it up like Free Beer.

Yes, there is the argument that a dummed down Culture is accessible to everybody but an elaborate and Educated Culture would have to be Selective and Elitist. Well, yes, but only if it were predetermined that most people would be deprived of a higher education. Yes, in America it is Public Policy to require Education only up to the age of 16. Then only High School Educations are provided for, and after that students must fend for themselves. That’s all a matter of Public Policy which could certainly be changed. Higher Education would lead to Higher Salaries which would amass more Tax Revenues – it would pay for itself. One argument against it is that it would attack the Class Privilege that now deliberately aims at limiting the access to Higher Education. The other argument against it is that the Ruling Party has found that lesser educated people vote for the Ruling Party – no Politician is going to mess with a Social Formula that brought him into power to begin with. No matter how much they speak of ‘change’, it is the Status Quo that brought them their success, and we can expect that they will do little to kill the goose that laid their golden egg, so to speak. Anyway, it follows that the Culture would be Dummed Down so that the Victims of this Policy of Class Privilege and Manipulated Voting will perhaps not notice their victimization – if the Culture of the Common Man is the only thing they see, then they will not feel as though they are being deprived of anything. And the stratagem has largely worked – the great majority of people feel as content as pigs in mud.

Also we need to consider that in Cultural Matters, formal education may have very little to do with anything. Look at the Cultural Climate that supported the Big Bands or High Literature. Kids grew up with such things and became educated up to its level by their exposure to it. People acquired their High Tastes on their own. It was something of a trick for the Producers to convince people of High Taste to be ashamed of their Elitism and Artificiality, but such is the power of Social Stigma used as a weapon by those only interested in The Profit Motive.

Well, Music and Literature are only examples. Every Capitalist Producer of anything has a financial interest in keeping his costs as low as possible, his own organization as small as possible. and so also has an interest in keeping popular tastes as low and as simplistic as possible. In matters of Taste, this has proved to have been easy for them. Manufactured Goods present a different problem, and one where American Capitalism has fallen into its most obvious areas of failure. Stuff has to work right and last a long time without breaking down. It is almost impossible to convince even the most susceptible imbeciles that broken and poorly performing manufactured goods are ‘cooler’ than working and reliable manufactured goods (Harley Davidson Motorcycles being a notable exception).

In Manufacturing the Trend toward dummed down simplicity and stripped down Production Teams works against a Quality that is almost necessary. The Profit Motive, it’s surprising to say, works against Manufacturers. Simply look at the success that the Authoritarian and Socialist Regimes have had in manufacturing. They are better at coordinating necessarily large Organizations. Russia beat Germany in WWII simply by producing more tanks, more weapons. Then the Far East’s success in the Automotive and Electronics Markets were not about stripping down their Production Facilities but about coordinating their entire National Capacities. For them it was about National Efforts to Win the Peace, when in America it was only about isolated attempts at augmenting the private profits of relatively few people.

Then there is the matter throughout the West of Private Companies and even Governments being infiltrated by Secret Societies, to the effect that Job Placement and Promotions are being conducted by the Secret Societies for the benefit of the Secret Societies. Engineering Firms, Manufacturers, almost any sizeable company is no longer assured that the Best People are being utilized, not when their Human Resource Offices have been taken over by Secret Societies. America, and even Western Europe cannot compete in the Auto or Electronics Markets when their Chief Engineers know nothing about Engineering but get their Big Offices because they are 32 Degree Masons. The Success of Asia may be attributed to nothing more than the fact that they have not YET been infiltrated by Masons.

Oh, and then the West has another problem with divided loyalties – the Company vs. the Unions dynamic. It must be extremely difficult for any worker to feel loyalty to a company, and to support its efforts toward Quality Control, when that Company so openly attacks his interests every few years, in order to give the Worker the worst contract possible. Its all very loud and its all very public. Workers and Company become bitter enemies, and all the ill feelings and grudges are barely forgotten when it becomes Contract Time again. How can one expect any Decent Product to emerge from such a bitter and vengeful process? But nearly every product from either America or Europe might as well be stamped with a Logo that says “Made With Hate and Distrust”. Yet it is the Business Model that America is trying to foist on the rest of the World… so that everybody can be as Happy!?

It should be noted that Government has very little to do with any of the above mentioned problems. This comes as a surprise to us, after the 20th Century which tried so hard to convince us that any problem anywhere was probably traceable to some Government Interference into the Saintly Affairs of kindly and well meaning Private Individuals. But, really, when the real Threat is understood, then we find that Government is not the Problem at all – “1984” and “Brave New World” were completely wrong about what the real Future Threat would be. Indeed, a Strong Government, independent and superior to Business and Private Interests would be Civilization’s only Hope. Just think about it for a moment, the difference in motivations between working for The Public Interest and the selfish and personal considerations of the Profit Motive. A quick look at History will show that the Old Government Bureaucracies and the Universities had a decent record in regards to the Public Interest. The Modern Regimes in the Far East also are not doing so badly in terms of their Public Interest. Certainly even a Mixed Record in regards to The Public Interest is better than any degree of success with what amounts to a cannibalistic and predatory Profit Motive. Screwing over People to get their money for the least possible trouble does not advance Civilization, but as we have seen it operate in America, Civilization is destroyed, first in fits and starts, but ultimately, completely.