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CAPITALISM

—the logical evolution of the usage of money, initiated from necessity to supersede encumbrances of barter and from hoarding of glittering metals because of their near universal desirability as instruments of exchange, compact and without danger of diminishment of exchangeability; inspired as much by geographical relation of land masses to one another as by conscious design; now become the juggernaut engulfing the globe.

Complete vertical integration of a society into a system relying upon exchange of money and adequately encompassing the production and distribution of food, is prerequisite to industrialization. The confining shores of the landmass of Britain, providentially isolated from the European continent, provided for a unique and accelerated Evolution of social interaction —the birth of capitalism proper, from combination of opportunity and necessity. That civilization knew early the difficulty of a population too numerous for the limited quantity of land and manner by which they were economically organized. Response was a forceful seizure of that land from the peasants by the more powerful, not just for land so that it might by aggregation be more productively used, but more obliquely, so that the displaced might thus be driven into cities to secure their livelihood fundamentally through acquisition and surrender of money, foregoing whatever meagerness of self-sufficiency possessed. The beginnings of the industrial revolution combined with the possibility and necessity of trade expansion to transform production of textiles into a procedure whereby prodigious accumulations of wealth could be acquired by hiring others to toil in manufactories to produce a quantity of goods greater in added value than what they were paid for the production of that value. This suddenly bedazzling potential to appropriate from laboring of others, and virtual imposition of that quest upon a people en masse, compelling them to perform the explicit will of the few as never before, to depend fully upon the possession and surrender of money in the marketplace, is differentiation of capitalism from the mere exchangeability and hoarding of precious metals.

Usage of money has evolved as the method of managing the cumulative social realization which has arisen through the historical combination of natural resources and human endeavor. Universal desirability of money and widespread necessity to toil for it gives it power to represent creative ability, through the moving of natural resources and the directing of labors; the fact that it may be accumulated without significant loss of potential is profound possibility to reserve this creative ability, the very meaning of capital within capitalism. Extraction of profits by individuals is one possible method by which the immediate total consumption of effort is denied and a portion reserved: justification of these profits must be related to ultimate worth of creations wrought by expenditure of accumulations: that disproportionate benefit to certain individuals will be adequately counterbalanced by a quality of social realization, is a necessary assumption of capitalism.

Growth has been the Sine Qua Non of capitalism. The effort of government management is pursuit of unhindered expansion, conceived principally as the quantitative increase of the total production of goods and services for which money is exchanged; this gross national product is generally presented as the most practical indication of the general quality of life. Beyond the attainment of the only arbitrarily definable basic needs, the fundamental incentive of the capitalist system is either an increase in the rate of individual monetary acquisition, or the maintenance of a rate that is pleasingly above that of other individuals. Consciousness is directed to seek increasing fulfillment of being through increase of ability to command and to possess, perceived as the most possible augmentation of dimension of self; this myriad pursuit of money orientated self-interest is made paramount, and drives the evolving wheel of competition, engendering manifold creations, the great and the iniquitous.

The structure of capitalism is that of an immense pyramidical hierarchy. At the apex are fewest in number, those with most wealth and power. Delineations of power are like that of a pyramid, extending downward from a central point of concentration, a chain of influence encompassing the many by the few. The pyramid has been essentially a monolithic entity, only superficially differentiated by different currencies of different capitalist nations, for the incomparable opportunity to attain wealth attracts wealth and creates a center of endeavor, which extends from there to beyond the national boundary: it is Evolution resulting from generations of competition and accumulation, from prerogatives of ownership, from hereditary wealth and transference of experience in managing and manipulating this wealth: it is the expectable phenomena of money.

This pyramid was originally evolved in England and eventually extended by military and economic tyranny into an empire upon which the sun never set. But the new world beckoned with marvelous land for the taking, and that nation which inherited the language of England and significantly modified the form of government, more importantly, inherited the designing factor of that establishment —capitalism. The destiny of that nation was to supersede the much smaller island. But it took more than a century and a half from the moment of that nation's founding and two world wars, so concrete was the first pyramid.

That nation's superior foundation of agriculture and availability of natural resources were instrumental to the surpassing of Britain, once adequate exploitation occurred and advantages of British colonial domination were ceded: national self-containment of much potential wealth better fostered then development of technology, so crucial to the surpassing of one nation by another through international trade. In trade, the currency which acquires that which is most desired becomes stronger and does acquire through favorable exchange for other currencies, goods and services requiring comparably more immediate collective toiling, effecting a transfer and accumulation of disproportionate wealth — a buck is equivalent to a buck everywhere, each of same difficulty to acquire within the issuing nation, but the dollar has long been more than a buck elsewhere.

As further acquisition of wealth ever remains motivating incentive to even the wealthy, it is the consciousness of the dominant of the pyramid to seek to expand the dimension of height between base and apex: this can be done by increasing all dimensions of the pyramid through extension of profitable trade into other nations; or it can be done by making steeper the slope of the sides of the pyramid which is an increase in proportion of generated wealth taken by the apex, relative to the remainder. In either case, the largest portion of the supporting base must be kept at meagerest fulfillment of their needs, if the disproportionate amount is to be appropriated by those at the apex. The intended direction of capitalism is not to create a social organization of contemplated intelligent design, to achieve greatest fulfillment of the multitudes; rather, it is to give greatest opportunity to the more able few, to those more competent at management of resources and human laboring, engendering what can be particularly created by individual initiative or from accumulations of monetary capital. This direction has not been chosen by any broad consensus of opinion, but has been expectably determined by an unhindering of the powerful and the aspiring.

The collective consciousness of the apex of the pyramid, of the separated eye, has been in effect to conceive the world as if it were a flat map with the pyramid in the center, wherever that center be conceived to be; there is a concentration of power from which the remainder of the world is viewed in relation to, and all is manipulated with the intent of transferring wealth to that center. It is a consciousness born within the confines of an extremely limited land mass that knew early too many people for too few resources, and it has served the world well, for the world also is limited. The engine of capitalism has been a race against time, racing to gain needed knowledges while capacity to acquire them exists, racing to possess them before consequences of limitations of the globe overwhelm and render achievement of ascending civilization forevermore impossible.

Thus, it will be justifiable if many have endured wretched want while others were prodigious in their vanities, only if that progress turns toward the entirety of humankind and the Desire remains unbroken.

--Morningthunder

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