This paper examines capitalism and its cultural dimensions through the works of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Eric Wolf, Marshall Sahlins, and Arjun Appadurai. It traces capitalism's emergence in western Europe and the United States, analyzing how it separated workers from the means of production and drove globalization. The paper contrasts western capitalist notions of affluence and scarcity with hunter-gatherer paradigms as described by Sahlins, arguing that modern societies perpetuate scarcity through an obsessive pursuit of money and consumption. It concludes by addressing how globalization enables a form of psychological colonization that universalizes western economic values at the expense of diverse cultural approaches to wealth and well-being.
The paper demonstrates comparative cultural analysis by juxtaposing mainstream western economic theory with the anthropological perspective offered by Sahlins's concept of the "original affluent society." This technique challenges the reader's default assumptions about what constitutes wealth and progress, using contrast as a rhetorical and analytical tool.
The paper opens with a brief introduction identifying its theoretical sources. It then dedicates a section to explaining the mechanics and consequences of western capitalism, followed by a section introducing Sahlins's alternative paradigm. A third analytical section applies these frameworks to globalization and the cultural meaning of money, culminating in a conclusion about psychological colonization through western media and economic norms.
The works of Smith, Marx, Freud, and Wolf center on the history of capitalism and its meanings as it has emerged from the west — first from western Europe and subsequently from the United States of America. However, this is not the only lens through which the world economy might be examined. There are various economic systems that are viable across different cultures. These will be considered in light of the above-mentioned authors, together with authors who write from a different perspective, including Marshall Sahlins and Arjun Appadurai.
The main characteristic of the capitalist system is that those who produce actual goods are employees. They do not own and cannot buy their own equipment and materials. Through this system, and especially through the advent of the machine, workers have been separated from the production process. Such displacement has occurred through coercion, especially during the early stages of the system, and also in less developed countries. Thus globalization has, to some degree, caused such separation in countries where capitalism is being enforced. Another aspect of this is that the worker's resources are insufficient to compete with those of large capitalist firms. A further symptom of capitalism is the change in lifestyle — one major component discussed by the listed authors in their cross-cultural works. The lifestyle change brought about by capitalism and western "civilization" involves a fixed number of work hours per day and a fixed salary, by which a more "modern" lifestyle of leisure and consumption could be pursued. Capitalism is thus made possible by the fact that producers do not have the means of production. The worker hires out what he has — labor power — which earns wages and sustains the capitalist lifestyle.
Capitalism is also what initiated the process of globalization. Before the era of this system, national and local economies had diverse methods of production. With the rise of capitalism and its associated means of mass production and profit-driven competition, pressure grew to beat competitors by expanding to other countries through imports and exports. Factories and businesses could also be established in different countries at lower cost than in the country of origin. The capitalist system thus grew and expanded, eventually being enforced on a global scale. This further escalated in terms of competition from local capitalists, imitation, reduction of standards, and changes of standards in other countries. The consequence was standardization, drawing all countries toward a single world economy.
The continual pressure to innovate in order to stay afloat resulted in the invention of the machine. In theory this was meant to save time, but the result was mass production, with more time than ever devoted to innovative techniques. A further consequence was unemployment, as workers were displaced by labor-saving machinery. Thus, not only were producers removed from their means of production; they were also removed from their means of livelihood. The employee consequently has very little control in the workplace. "Civilization" has been forced upon less developed countries by those who first adopted the capitalist system. The world and its laborers are thereby turned into slaves and masters by a system whose main aim is ostensibly to prevent scarcity.
The writings of these authors also reveal the colonialist attitude of the capitalist system toward less developed countries. Asian countries are viewed as important primarily for their fur trade activities, while African systems were forced to adapt or be dissolved by the trade in enslaved people.
While the above examples depict capitalism as seen through the western viewpoint, authors such as Marshall Sahlins and Arjun Appadurai offer a more global perspective. Sahlins, for example, compares contemporary western society to hunter-gatherer communities in order to arrive at a different paradigm for understanding the term "affluent."
Sahlins points out that modern economies, although considered economically prosperous, feature a large number of unemployed and destitute people. This is not so in hunter-gatherer communities, where everyone is cared for by the collective. Affluence in such societies is not measured by money, but rather by commodities that can be found in the surrounding environment. Sahlins further contends that the "civilized" world is obsessed with feeding the masses while exploiting and dominating as much of the earth as possible. This frantic search for the endlessly new and improved focuses attention on scarcity. By concentrating on alleviating and avoiding scarcity, culture actually perpetuates scarcity for those who suffer as a result of the capitalist system. Hunter-gatherers, by contrast, are not concerned with dominating or utilizing all available resources to feed huge masses of people. Instead, the resources available are used by each person to satisfy each immediate need.
Hunter-gatherers are thus attuned to the affluence available to them, while western society is continually preoccupied with scarcity. Modern human beings slave away to bridge the gap between unlimited wants and insufficient means. Sahlins further holds that material plenty is a paradigm depending upon ease of production, simplicity of technology, and democracy of property. While the bourgeois impulse is to spend as much as possible in as little time as possible, the hunter-gatherer leads a less stressful life, with sufficient resources to survive at all times.
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