The sanctity of selfishness
In the 1930’s, Keynes famously described a moment in the future where there will be such abundance that we will be able to dispense with what he described as the money motive: ‘The love of money as a possession -as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life -will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease.’
For now, though, this money motive was for Keynes a necessary evil; we allow these selfish, competitive motivations, ‘however distasteful and unjust they may be in themselves, because they are tremendously useful in promoting the accumulation of capital’.
Control rods for the capitalist reactor
Because capitalism is based on such immoral behaviours and such selfishness, for Keynes, and for his generation, it was clear that limits were required. For these economists, the modern mixed economy was a bit like a nuclear reactor, another invention of the post-war era. A nuclear reactor can provide incredible levels of power, but it requires control rods, that can be lowered or raised, and in so doing control the number and power of reactions. Without these rods, the reactions will spiral out of control.
These control rods in the economy were government regulation, but also the broader regulation provided by morality. Properly functioning successful economies require states with laws, with standards, with regulations that are enforced, where there is recourse if contracts are violated.
Beyond government regulation, morality also plays a critical part in helping capitalism. Values of honesty, kindness and trust play a huge role in enabling our economies to work. Capitalism needs the foundations of morality and values formed before and outside of capitalism to function.
Greed is Good
For neoliberals though, the approach is a different one. Instead of seeing the instincts and motivations that drive capitalism as a necessary evil, they instead turn things on their head. In the words of Gordon Gekko from the famous 1980’s film ‘Wall Street’, greed is good. Not just good for the economy, but good in a moral sense, as if everyone acts in the most selfish way possible, this in turn will lead to the most optimal outcome. So, acting in any other way than selfishly is irrational and in a broader sense immoral too.
Before neoliberalism, the main debate was over how and in what ways to control capitalism. After neoliberalism, the debate was over the need to control capitalism at all.
This view then impacts on individuals, corporations, and even states. Because this is the most optimal way, the most moral way to organise things, it is then logical to spread the idea of the market and competition to as many areas of life as possible. To attempt to put a price on everything from healthcare to carbon dioxide. Any other measures of value, like the good for society, or happiness, or planetary survival, are never as good as prices, markets and the sum of individual self-interest.
Are right wing bullies an aberration?
For many in the political centre, there is a struggle to explain the huge and growing popularity of far-right parties and their populist leaders. They are seen as an aberration, a deviation from the norm. A product of lies and misinformation. If only we can get irrational voters to realise this we can return to the good old days, of sensible, grown up economic reforms and policy.
The economic policies of these new far-right leaders are certainly not neoliberal in some respects. In particular their economic nationalism in trade and rejection of globalisation. In other areas though it feels like there is not much change, whether the continued power of finance capital, or continued low taxes for the richest and for corporates, or their toleration of economic inequality.
But I think beyond the economic policy continuities and discontinuities, there is a much more powerful, moral continuity which shows that the governments and leaders we have today are not an aberration. They are, I think, the logical next step in a world that has sanctified selfishness, and beatified bullying.
These nasty, horrible leaders, exhibit the behaviours for which we would punish our children for exhibiting. Bullies, liars, braggarts; they are I think the logical end point of seeing selfishness as a good thing, as a moral end in and of itself. When selfishness is raised to such a pedestal, any decent, moral actions by states, individuals or corporates are at risk; like unstable elements, they can’t coexist. Ultimately the control rods on the selfishness reactor cannot be justified if the underlying, fundamental logic is that the more selfishness there is the better for everyone.
Humans are fundamentally social beings
At the same time, I agree with Michael Sandel, who makes the point that new right-wing leaders have also spotted something else, forgotten by parties of the left. This is the desire of all humans for a story that is collective, not just individual. A recognition that the definition of humans is as a social animal, one that came into existence only as part of social groups. That there is a natural rejection of the idea that we are all on our own; that, as Mrs. Thatcher famously said, there is no such thing as society, there are only individual men and women and their families.
Sandel points out that Trump does not talk about the American Dream, that you can ‘make it if you try’. Instead, he talks about Making America Great Again - a collective objective that has a broad appeal.
The parties of the centre left have yet to learn this lesson and have not tried to present a collective positive future of their own. Instead, the lesson they seem to have learned is that if they too act despicably, if they too burnish their bullying credentials, show no kindness, no mercy and join in the persecution of the weak, the poor, those fleeing persecution, those kept alive by aid, they will be somehow politically successful. Like a perverse race to the bottom of a pit of nastiness.
But even if they are successful in winning this race, at what cost? By becoming neoliberals, the mainstream left parties arguably already rejected any morality based on the collective good in favour of individualism. Now they are wholeheartedly signing up to immorality based on the collective bad.
My son Stanley is really into the musical Hamilton at the moment and there is very powerful quote used in one of the songs which seems very fitting, when Alexander Hamilton says to his nemesis Aaron Burr: ‘If you stand for nothing sir, what will you fall for?’.
ENDS.
Author: Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam International and EQUALS podcast co-host. He is also the co-chair of the Global People’s Medicines Alliance.
Listen to our latest episode featuring David De Jong on how Germany's wealthiest families had ties with the Nazi regime.
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