Sunday, August 17, 2008

Autonomous Individuality v. Rugged Individualism

Capitalism is internally contradictory. In one breath it promotes rugged individualism, where the “self-made man” is said to have raised himself by his own bootstraps, while at the same time creates a dependency of workers who are forced to survive on the often meager wages paid to them by employers. If you fail to find someone to hire you then you are likely to find yourself out on the street. One of the stipulations forced on the worker by the employer is to give up his or her individuality and to conform to the mainstream in the hopes of being employed. We see this in the corporate dress codes (written and unwritten) along with the corporate disdain for tattoos.

The capitalist class is free of this burden. The financial freedom that comes with being a capitalist is why some of the rich are known as being “eccentric” for their wealth allows them to exhibit their own individuality. They can show their individuality because they can afford to.

In an economic democracy it would be different. According to Nicholas Capaldi in his book John Stuart Mill: A Biography the reasons Mill supported cooperatives, “were to promote autonomy, to promote the cooperation that flows from autonomy, and to turn workers into entrepreneurs.” Mill also understood that the worker cooperative would end the class system of capitalist and worker and would eliminate the wage system. In an economic democracy people would have the dignity of being able to stand on their own without stepping on someone else and therefore the freedom to express one’s own individuality without fear.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I came across Larry's superb comment when trawling the internet for a page on my site about "autonomous individualism".

Much of the US traffic seems to be about the relationship between individualism and religion, but religion is not very big on this side of the pond - UK.

What increasingly concerns me, as everything in the UK shifts more and more towards "Friedmanism" is that, increasingly, the marginalised are going to be left at the bottom of the pile because the tenets of the Washington Consensus dictate the wind-down of the social state.

The results of this wind-down is that UK governments - of any color - are searching for ways to get "benefits scroungers" back to work.

Since the 'mentally ill' - however defined - are now said to a majority of the people on welfare, it seems no one in the political class has noticed that the "autonomous state" is a factory for the creation of stress and depression.

Larry's pointer towards Mill's co-operatives, allied to the concept of Claus Offe's "Basic Income", would allow people who are unfit for the now-normal "rat race" working environment to find an alternative road to self-fulfilment.

Thanks Larry!

Larry Amyett, Jr said...

Thanks for your great comment, Tom. I became familiar with the "Basic Income" concept reading the work of Michael W Howard, which is a very interesting proposal.

Again, thank you oh so much.
~ Larry