Capitalism Is Not to Blame for Wokeness

In an article published by Chronicles, titled “Wokeness and Capitalism,” Neema Parvini argues that “the woke prerequisites – mass immigration, feminism, equality laws, etc. – are the inevitable fruits of capitalism.” He argues that capitalism “pretends to make individuals ‘sovereign’ after drawing them into the labor pool, while neutralizing their attempts at political organization.”

He highlights the correlation between free market liberal democracies and the dominance of wokeness, pointing out that “the least woke places in Europe are represented by the former Soviet bloc; the most woke places are those most closely tied to the U.S., such as the UK and Germany…” To understand the context of Parvini’s argument, it is worth consulting David Gordon’s review in which he observed that Parvini criticizes free markets from a conservative perspective.

Many of them, not all, criticize the free market from a right-wing point of view: it subjects all social bonds to the “cash nexus,” a phrase coined by Thomas Carlyle, one of Parvini’s subjects. In doing so, the market displaces the virtues of courage and honor.

In response, a general observation must first be made about the distinction between correlation and causation. If capitalism is defined as voluntary exchange based on private property rights and free markets, then it cannot be said to have caused the rise of “mass immigration, feminism, equality laws, etc.”, much less to have done so “inevitably.” For example, Parvini blames capitalism for the enforcement of woke edicts, giving the example of the Colorado baker who was forced to bake cakes for gay and transgender weddings, which he believed violated his Christian beliefs.

But a forced exchange—the baker being forced to bake cakes against his will—surely cannot be blamed on capitalism, which is based on voluntary exchange. The same applies to the meaning of “individualism,” on which much ink has been spilled by defenders of individual liberty. Classical liberals do not view individualism as atomistic. On the contrary, voluntary exchange presupposes human interaction, as logically an atomistic individual hiding away from the world cannot trade with himself. Ludwig von Mises emphasized the importance of mutual exchange, arguing that “The concept of freedom always refers to social relations between men. . . . Society is essentially the mutual exchange of services.”

But such responses, which rely on correctly defining capitalism—distinguishing it, for example, from crony capitalism and mercantilism—are not sufficient to answer those who blame capitalism for the woke hegemony. Given that capitalism is widely reputed to be the cause of all social and economic woes, any defense of capitalism that relies on dismissive “but that is not real capitalism” arguments is unlikely to persuade anyone except the people who already love capitalism. Parvini may well, as Gordon observes, “rely on intuitive insights rather than rigorous reasoning,” but it must be acknowledged that his insights are regarded as persuasive, and indeed compelling, by many people.

When Milton Friedman describes the individual as “sovereign” in the context of consumer choice, Parvini sees that as a factor that feeds into the wider “I do whatever I please, and devil take the hindmost” culture of liberalism. He gives the example of a man claiming that he identifies as a woman because he is sovereign and “who are you to tell me otherwise?” Although Parvini does not attempt to show how voluntary free market exchange and consumer choice “inevitably” creates a situation where men claim that they are women and burst by force into the girls’ bathrooms, he is trying to invoke a capitalist culture of the sovereign individual that makes such wokery thrive.

Capitalism may not be the cause of wokery in a strict scientific sense, but in a loose sense, it is accused of providing the perfect conditions to spawn and propagate wokery. Even worse, it is said to thwart attempts by conservatives to fight back, which Parvini describes as “neutralizing their attempts at political organization.” As I argued in a previous discussion of the moral case for capitalism, “No economic system, no matter how efficient and productive, can flourish if it is widely regarded as the root of all evil.”

Another reason why terminological debates do not get the defense of capitalism very far is that many public intellectuals who defend free market capitalism are guilty as charged of defending open borders, mass immigration, and all types of wokeness. They justify their arguments by reference to “capitalism,” arguing that free markets require free movement of labor and capital. Similarly, some “liberals” and “libertarians” promote “mass immigration, feminism, equality laws,” exactly as Parvini alleges, and they explicitly justify their views by reference to free market capitalism. These debates, therefore, are not merely semantic.

Terminological defenses—answering critics of capitalism by simply pointing out that their definitions are wrong—may satisfy political theorists and pendants, but in public discourse they only give the appearance of deflection, even when they are justified. The same may be said of “that’s not real liberalism” or “not all libertarians” types of arguments, because nobody has control over who calls themselves liberal or libertarian.

Therefore, some attempt must be made to evaluate criticisms of capitalism on the merits. Parvini cites Milton Friedman to substantiate his argument that capitalism works against “traditions, customs, rules, religions and so on,” in a passage where Friedman states:

The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.

Capitalists see that as a good thing—you do not have to appeal to the baker’s altruism to be able to buy your daily bread because, as long as you pay the price he asks, the baker will happily sell it. The fact that the baker does not care who the customers are benefits all customers. Voluntary exchange does not depend on being a member of the baker’s in-group.

But many conservatives see that as a bad thing. As they see it, in these conditions the incentive to care about other people and to avoid antisocial behavior is erased. People can behave as badly as they wish, because, even if they are ostracized, they can still buy their daily bread. Capitalism, therefore, seems to them to incentivize antisocial behavior and all manner of vices. Further, if the baker does not care who his customers are so long as they pay up, the customers might as well be immigrants brought in by the Democrats to be their forever voters. So what if the native population is replaced by immigrants? What difference does that make to the free marketeer? Why should he care, as long as his price is paid? Indeed, this was a major source of grievance in the United Kingdom, where the government paid hoteliers a handsome bounty to house illegal immigrants. The hoteliers were happy to get their rooms fully booked, indefinitely, for a guaranteed rate which could be any price they set because the government has bottomless pockets courtesy of the taxpayer.

One might respond to that by saying, “Well, that’s not capitalism, that’s just cronyism and corruption.” But that response overlooks the underlying concern—the baker, or the hotelier, who does not care who his customers are, is regarded by capitalists as a hero! This is the major public relations catastrophe that has always beset capitalism, and which Ayn Rand did her best to address in her novels by turning capitalists into strong and handsome heroes and depicting selfishness as a virtue.

Capitalism certainly cannot blamed for people’s perceived moral failures, but the more important question raised by Parvini is whether capitalism “inevitably” yields systems in which such moral failures are more likely and, further, whether by doing so it incentivizes people to behave in precisely such ways—described by Parvini as “the inevitable fruits of capitalism.” To many conservatives, the answer is yes. That is why they blame capitalism, free markets, and individualism for the prevalence of the social ills which they abhor. The political cost to conservatives of losing elections, because the Democrats decided to import voters and the free marketeers decided it does not matter who the customers or workers are, is high indeed. This is why many conservatives reject liberalism and see libertarians as their existential enemies, not as their potential allies.

In his book Liberalism, Ludwig von Mises reiterates that liberalism does not purport to be a theory of everything. It does not purport to tell people what morals they should uphold, what society they should try to forge, whether they should be conservatives or libertarians, or what religion, if any, they should believe in. In his great treatise, Human Action, he likewise insists that the science of economics does not answer questions about what moral, religious, or social values one ought to uphold.

If anyone is responsible for the fact that capitalism is widely blamed for matters that have nothing to do with capitalism, it is not just the critics who use “capitalism” as a catch-all word with no specific meaning. Responsibility also lies with defenders of capitalism who assume that because they defend capitalism, it follows that all their personal moral, social, and political preferences are merely “capitalism.” As Murray Rothbard has shown, “capitalism” does not tell you whether to be a nationalist or a globalist, whether to defend open borders or controlled immigration. Those are political matters on which people must make up their own minds.