Those poor, self-sacrificing capitalists

I'm just working out politics here

I just posted wondering whether I should learn more politics to become a better online person. Perhaps I should learn more politics because it’s kind of important and it’s terrible being this ignorant. But that’s the state of affairs right now, so let me think through some things in writing.

I just read this, which I liked:

John Rawls and the death of Western Marxism

I loved A Theory of Justice, think Rawls is a very good philosopher, and so hearing that he offered a good alternative to Marxism is interesting. (I assume all of this is very contested, so not to be believed directly, but interesting that the ideas exist.)

Anyway, he discusses how the Marxists just never came up with good criticisms because there’s nothing in capitalism that is bad. That’s backed up by this link, called directly “What (if anything) is wrong with capitalism?” Now, this seems somewhat unlikely to me, but I’m not ready to address the question of what is wrong with capitalism quite yet. I just want to take on this little nut in the linked paper.

The author, Van Parijs addresses the question of whether workers deserve to own what they make, and decides that the answer is not entirely, because:

capitalists also contribute...For there is a difference between living labour and capital, namely that the latter presupposes a certain amount of "waiting", of "abstinence", of "saving" and possibly of "risk". And this is precisely what the capitalists' specific contribution consists in.

This argument strikes me as pretty bad. Do workers not wait? They don’t get their pay immediately. I’m not even sure what the abstinent comment is supposed to mean - I think it’s ‘non-consumption’. The next term, saving, is also non-consumption, so I’m fairly sure he’s doubling up rhetorically there. And finally, that old chestnut, risk. Because labour never involved any risk? Who risks more, the worker in the factory, or the capitalist who owns the factory?

This model of capitalists laying it on the line just like the workers is honestly a bit sickening to me. Certainly the rich ones don’t risk anything when they start businesses (usually using money from banks, put there by their workers or the government).

It’s worth thinking about small capitalists, small business owners. Someone sells their house, opens a shop. My parents. Did they risk anything to do that? I mean, they’ve ended up in a not-brilliant state in retirement. But they were in a not-brilliant state when they opened the shop. They got there because as an employee, my dad was at great risk, and that risk was realised when he was laid off. But opening the shop didn’t obviously open them up to much more risk… not that I can see.

So I don’t think that there is any truth in the idea that capitalists are contributing by putting themselves at risk. Do they contribute through saving? Deferred consumption over a long period, that gave them the capital to start the business? Maayybe? I dunno, I’m struggling to see it.

Anyway, my theory is that all of this is nonsense. Capitalists simply don’t contribute to the creation of goods. Being a capitalist is nirvana. It’s escape from the samsara of labour and sale, labour and sale. That’s what it was designed to be: a safe haven, out of the ratrace.

Now that leads us back to a Marxist vision, where capitalists are leeches, dependent on and sucking their nourishment from the productive people and forces. So my question is, if the heroic vision of self-sacrificing capitalists is true, then what other justifications exist for them?

Nozick apparently provides one: they haven’t done anything wrong, and if you take away their money, then you are doing something wrong. That’s pretty strong, but I think there are some problems with it because it runs into fairness issues. Hmm. Next time.