[lbo-talk] capitalism needs...

Matthias Wasser matthias.wasser at gmail.com
Tue Oct 13 07:35:07 PDT 2009


On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 7:54 AM, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com>wrote:


> you don't think it needs ideology? wow!

There's almost certainly a sense in which capitalism needs an ideology, but the sense in which this is true is hard to specify. First, we know that capitalism can do with a number of different ideologies. Second, we've seen a human society without ideology, and lacking it seems in some sense biologically impossible, so if capitalism simply requires an ideology, any ideology, that's trivial, like saying capitalism needs people and institutions.

I think most people's intuitions associate capitalism with liberalism, a certain conception of personhood, et cetera, but proving the causal relationship is hard. It's rightfully its own area of study.



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