We're actually pretty safe with our assumptions about something as basic and physical as "breakfast". Nobody really cares if you want cold pizza, steak and eggs, cereal, bread and coffee or a three-course warm meal. There are other things, however, that others do care about (for whatever reasons), but they, too, function a lot like breakfast. We do them, believe them, advocate them, support them, and, sometimes even, fight for them ... because we don't realize that, in the end, they're just like breakfast.
Let's stick with "capitalism" because it's something we believe we all know something about and just about every one of us has some kind of opinion about it. When we leave the realm of the concrete (e.g. "breakfast"), we leave the world of "nomal" for the world of "right". We may think it is silly that other people eat cucumbers and tomatoes for breakfast, but as long as their amongst themselves, it really doesn't bother us, it doesn't really affect us, and so we simply don't care. When it comes to abstract ideas (and "capitalism" is an abstract idea), we start thinking in terms of right and wrong. It starts mattering to us because it affects us directly.
What most people overlook at this moment is the fact that we have placed one thing (breakfast) into an individual framework (even though other cultures may do it differently, everyone if free to have for breakfast whatever the hell they like) while the other thing (capitalism) is placed into a collective framework, and by that I mean a framework that extends beyond the individual. Capitalism affects all of us, regardless of culture. (Oh sure, there can be variations as to how it is implemented from culture to culture, but the fundamental principles remain the same.) So, what is this "-ism" that affects us all?
In its simplest form, I suppose we could say that "capitalism" is an economic way of thinking in which capital (most often money, but it could also be resources of other kinds) generates weath. That doesn't sound bad at all, does it? Sounds downright harmless, if you ask me, but we all know that there is a lot of angry discussion surrounding the term these days. My last few posts could be seen by some (not incorrectly) as a direct attack on that very simple principle. What could possibly be wrong with that? It's a good question, and one that deserves an answer.
In our simple definition, we have two concepts that, at least to me, need further clarification: "capital" and "wealth". We think we know what these are, but I would ask, do we really? Let's work backwards. What is "wealth"? In many quarters, this simply means being rich, having a lot of money, having more than enough to satisfy subsistence requirements (food, clothing, shelter) and to be able to have some joy in life. In other words, it has something to do with an abundance of material possessions that makes life "more worth living" (or something like that). If we trace the etymology (history) of the word, we find that it comes from the Middle English "weal", meaning "well-being"; the "-th" ending indicating "a state of"; that is, wealth, at root, means a state of well-being. Hey, who could argue with that?
One problem arises when we mistake the words for the reality. What actually is "well-being"? Do we agree on what the terms means? I don't think so. For some it means having a lot; for others it means have very little (minimalists). Who's right? And then, we have the matter of capital? What's that? As intimated above, sometimes it's money, sometimes it is other things, like land, natural resources, or more).
At this point the observant reader will realize that some kind of tension is building. To move on, we need to resolve that tension, which I'll attempt to do next time.
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