Culture of Capitalism

Consumerism has grown with capitalism, and can be seen as providing an excuse, reason or driving force for capitalism, allowing the masses to benefit through their individual consumption whilst capitalists profit.
We've moved from a work-based to a consumer-based society
in which people are identified more through their consumption and less so by their occupation and general citizenship.

Capitalism and consumerism have become global as capitalists look for new markets to sell their goods and individuals are tempted by the rewards and benefits of consumption

Consumption requires money which is not equally distributed throughout a capitalist society.

The Consumer Association now act solely for consumers and not for those who may be exploited through consumption. That is, in reviews in their magazine 'Which?' they discuss the advantages of products to a consumer - features, price, quality - but do not mention anything about possible sweatshop work, environmental degradation and other forms of exploitation required to produce it.

To conclude, it is evident that global capitalism has developed a panetary consumer culture and that that culture both excludes and exploits. However, consumer culture is not 'based' upon exploitation and exclusion. Instead, it is based upon progress and the continual rise of living standards. It is an unfortunate consequence that this occurs in an exploitative and exclusive way, but it is not an intended goal.
http://www.jakeg.co.uk/essays/consumer_exploitation.htm

Capitalism is somewthing without culture.
And culture is nothing to do with capitalism.

You can talk about capitalism and communism and all that sort of thing, but the important thing is the struggle everybody is engaged in to get better living conditions, and they are not interested too much in government.
Bernard Baruch



But we don't have an example of a democratic society existing in a socialist economy - which is the only real alternative to capitalism in the modern world.
Peter L. Berger

Socialism is nothing more nor less than the social, political and ideological system which breaks the fetters upon economic growth created under capitalism and opens the way to a new period of economic and social expansion on a much larger scale.
Earl Browder

Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class.
Al Capone

Capitalism is a stupid system, a backward system.
Stokely Carmichael

I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating... because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition.

Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away.
They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?
Fidel Castro

Chicago is the product of modern capitalism, and, like other great commercial centers, is unfit for human habitation.
Eugene V. Debs

I just got back from Germany, and artists of all eras are played on the radio, and there's no separate box. In America, it's all down to marketing and the size of the country. It's also capitalism.
Peter Frampton

There are people who don't like capitalism, and people who don't like PCs. But there's no-one who likes the PC who doesn't like Microsoft.
Bill Gates

What's immediately profitable is the only kind of logic that capitalism understands.
Susan George



The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization.
Mikhail Gorbachev

The very people who were railing against communism in a way want to create the same kind of bland society, but based on capitalism.
Philip Kaufman

The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn't deliver the goods.
John Maynard Keynes

Capitalism is not about free competitive choices among people who are reasonably equal in their buying and selling of economic power, it is about concentrating capital, concentrating economic power in very few hands using that power to trash everyone who gets in their way.
David Korten

If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism, we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism.
Vladimir Lenin

Capitalism attacks and destroys all the finer sentiments of the human heart; it ruthlessly sweeps away old traditions and ideas opposed to its progress, and it exploits and corrupts those things once held sacred.
Daniel De Leon

In the democratic western countries so-called capitalism leads a saturnalia of "freedom," like a bastard brother of reform.
Wyndham Lewis

The basic law of capitalism is you or I, not both you and I.
Karl Liebkn


I was just very interested in the American frontier and the growth of capitalism - those enormous fortunes that were being made, more often than not, on the blood of poor people, black people, Indian people. They were the ones who paid very dearly for those great fortunes.
Peter Matthiessen

I invested in many companies, and I'm happy this one worked. This is capitalism. You invest in stock, it goes up, it goes down. You know, if you don't like capitalism, you don't like making money with stock, move to Cuba or China.
Terry McAuliffe

A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank.
Ron Paul
Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
Bertrand Russell

The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way.
Richard Stallman


Fascism is capitalism plus murder.
Upton Sinclair

The inexorable advance of capitalism in American society undermines the aesthetic sensibilities of noble-minded citizens while promoting the pursuit of wealth and empty prosperity. Capitalism subverts high culture, because high culture is not productive &emdash; it is eminently wasteful. Ballets, operas, theaters, concerts, libraries and art museums demand precious resources which could be invested to build faster cars, bigger buildings and more powerful computers. A liberal education provides for the defense of culture; although it cannot ever completely resist the material demands of capitalism, it can certainly stand as a bulwark against the worst excesses of vulgar commercialism.


Capitalist societies need highly competent lawyers, bankers, doctors and businessmen in order to operate effectively. The high salaries available in these professions have consistently tempted Harvard students to reject academic careers in the liberal arts. But that should not cause these same students to reject the liberal arts themselves. While Harvard students contribute to society by creating innovative businesses and advancing medical science, it would be a shame if that were all that they could do. An institution such as Harvard has a profound responsibility to ensure that its resources are used to elevate the culture of a materialistic, capitalist society. Those students who neglect the liberal arts are more susceptible to the vices of capitalism &emdash; unbridled self-interest, avarice, and philistinism &emdash; than are those intrepid students who immerse themselves in literature, history, philosophy and art. Harvard, of all places, ought to be a fortress of culture and high ideals. Instead, it is becoming little more than a stepping stone to a lucrative professional career.
http://www.digitas.harvard.edu/~salient/issues/961021/capitalism.html

the vices of capitalism are opposed to love and being a moral human being. If this is true, this social structure should be criticized. The weak will suffer in a competitive society ruled by money. Jesus told a famous parable about the Good Samaritan. I think an important lesson to learn from this parable is that love has to do with how we treat those who suffer and the weak and less fortunate. But capitalist societies don't seem to care enough for the weakest. When Bush now is doing a $1,200,000,000,000 tax cut, the practical consequences will be less money for social security, free health care etc. It may create a raw society and decrease the public conscience of love and solidarity. Some liberalists and capitalists say that they promote solidarity and aid for the poor, but that they think this should be done through private initiative. Well homo capitalismus, my news for you is that this has been tried out in America for years and years, and it doesn't work. People go to hell with a bottle of cola in their hand, what they need is radical changes. I do of course not want to generalize, but those who today promote radical programs of love and solidarity are mostly leftists or social democrats, not capitalists.
Capitalism does indeed have virtues, but as I see it, the vices override the virtues. As Johan Galtung says, the American capitalist order may be labeled "structural fascism", a system of "structural violence". Fortunately, the American society has many other different values, which makes many of the people very pleasant. (This is also such a pluralist society that many kinds of people and ideals exist side by side, some people are very much marked by capitalism others perhaps much less). The psychology of Wall Street I do not like, but the America of Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, Martin Luther King jr. or Dissent magazine I admire enormously. The Hollywood narcissism is dangerous, while those American scientists working to find treatments of cancer, AIDS and other diseases should be respected very much. Nevertheless, the psychology which has started to penetrate business, the media, entertainment and much of the academic world today, the result of a "capitalization" and Americanization of the world, gives reason to look for alternatives.

The alternative is not Soviet communism as some may think. Many alternatives to free trade hyper-capitalism exist: modified capitalism, welfare states -so-called social democracies, or versions of non-totalitarian socialism. The welfare state system, something in between capitalism and socialism, has been tried out with good results in Scandinavia and Canada. My political philosophy is a leftist version of social democracy: a welfare system where we take care of the weak and poor as well as give the strong and progressive space and opportunity to develop their skills and initiatives. In this period of Bush and new free market liberalism we should reflect upon our choice of political leaders and ideologies. Politics and economic systems do not just affect social structures and society at large, but also the human deep psychology.

http://goinside.com/01/4/capital.html