Capitalism and the Management of Individualism

It is widely contended that individualism is a product of modernity and a feature closely associated with capitalism. At the same time, there is some discontented recognition of the homogenization that results from mass-production, and a certain nostalgia for personal craftsmanship (note the popularity of the word "artisanal"), cottage industries, and mom-and-pop businesses. I have looked before at several ways in which modernity in general and capitalism in particular have generated contradictory impulses. It is interesting to consider how this principle applies to the idea of individualism.

On the one hand, modernity has atomistic tendencies. Capitalism is based on the commodification of individual labor; governmental power relations focus on penetrating and shaping individual consciousness (often, for example, centering upon educational campaigns); religion is a matter of personal beliefs. The motto of neoliberalism is “personal responsibility.”

To the extent that power relations hinge upon the Individual, it follows that individuality assumes a heightened importance as a cultural value. The significance of this value is far from difficult to detect in popular culture and public discourse. Everyone is extolled to “be yourself.” People struggle to figure out exactly what particular career is meant for them. Modern societies pride themselves on the ability of their citizens to follow their own beliefs and personal whims. (This is contrasted to the perceived patriarchal authority/entrenchment in tradition of less modern societies.)

Yet paradoxically, individuality is realized within categories, and while modern power relations act upon the individual, they simultaneously do so by reinforcing and homogenizing these categories. Scientific research on human beings separates populations into discrete, internally homogenous categories, which are used in the construction of simplistic cause-effect relationships. Survey research and polling likewise reinforce social categories through the use of statistics (and thus we scrutinize “the black vote” and “the women’s vote”). We are barely able to comprehend the ways in which these categories intersect. Moreover, categories are so important to the basic mechanics of modernity that opportunities for reinforcement are constant.  All institutions (medical, educational, legal, professional, etc.) define people in relation to social categories, and thus it is not possible to interact with any institution without overtly constructing one's identity via these categories. One cannot apply for college, go to the doctor, or rent an apartment without classifying oneself on the basis of race, gender, marital status, etc.

Even more paradoxically, as diversity and “being yourself” are celebrated, the ideologies and strategies of power associated with modernity have created the concepts of normality and deviance (in a way that never existed before). Children are subject, probably more than anyone, to constant comparisons against the norm; their development is carefully measured and tracked against growth charts; rigidly defined stages of mentally, emotional and moral development; and cultural standards (e.g. regarding the appropriate age to potty train or wean).  Statistics and psychology are the primary tools of governmental power, and they work together to define normality and deviance.  Statistics provide percentiles and bell curves.  Psychology lends scientific legitimacy to cultural norms and renders deviance as pathology. You have trouble with social situations? You are diagnosed with some sort of psychological disorder, which defines who you are as a person – a defective person.

Finally, from a more materialistic standpoint, which I have already alluded to at the beginning of this post, individuality is celebrated at the same time that our lives are overtaken by mass-produced goods. A relatively small handful of corporations determines what we wear, what we eat, and what we watch on tv. Rebellion and nonconformity are expressed through the possession of commodities that have been socially coded as such. In fact, the people on the fringes are the trailblazers who, purposefully or not, determine what the “next big thing” is. They do not lie outside of the curve; they determine its shape.

In the modern world, the Individual has a privileged position as the basis of governmental and capitalistic power relations. The sanctified status of the individual has come at the expense of communal bonds and social support mechanisms. At the same time, the forms that individual subjectivity can take are carefully managed, limited, and homogenized by those same forces. Individual subjectivity is, after all, a medium of power.

The Technocratic Foundation of Law

Although ideology is not purely ideational and discourses are material social facts, law is more than a codification of social contract ideology. No theorization of law would be complete without an account of the institutional arrangements, artifacts, and practices associated with its material existence. Yet, for all the Marxist analyses of contracts and law that I have read, I have not encountered one that thoroughly interrogates the significance of the written record, or juries, or the presentation of evidence. 

The practices of modern legal institutions are based on the same complex of positivist/enlightenment thought (including the ideology of progress) that pervade other modern social institutions. In fact, the barrier between law and various human and natural sciences is quite permeable. In many ways it could be said that law acts as an arm of science. Not only are scientific procedures used to elaborate and clarify evidence (DNA testing, ballistic analysis, drug screening, etc.), but the courtroom is an important arena in which ideas about the limitations of human knowledge and perception, the validity of various forms of evidence, and the intersections of social deviance and free will are worked out, refined, and transformed.

More than this, one must look at the ultimate goals toward which these legal practices are oriented. It is not merely the enforcement of contracts and the preservation of the division of labor. The governmental impulse to reform and rationalize all aspects of human life is absent nowhere, least of all here. Law is used as an instrument of Benthamite cost-benefit analsyis. Individual pleasures and collective goods are weighed against personal limitations and injuries (e.g., the detention of a single person for the good of the community).

According to the ideology of progress, continually improved legal procedures are a means by which society can be ordered in the most beneficial and efficient way possible. For instance, an entire spate of laws relating to marriage and childcare seek to impose normative representations of family life, or acceptable variations thereof. Psychological categories of sanity and criminality are used to determine who may exercise the full rights of citizenship, and correspondingly be held responsible for breaches of law (in other words, what “deviant” behaviors will prevent one from fully participating in the social contract). Matters of individual consciousness and belief are carefully, almost mathematically, weighed against the imperatives of social welfare (the need for a proper education, access to healthcare, etc.).  From the point of view of progress, it is the rationality of law, more than anything else, that can perform the cost-benefit analyses (under a guise of neutrality and abstraction) on which governmentality rests. 

Going hand in hand with this liberal, reformist impulse is a tendency to objectify and discretely measure ambiguous concepts like pleasure and pain. Mental anguish and psychological disturbances may be awarded monetary compensation. Pleasure, belief, and “lifestyle” are components of cost-benefit analysis. (Note, for example, that Heather Mills was awarded so much money in her divorce from Paul McCartney, simply because she was accustomed to a certain lifestyle, and it would diminish her pleasure and personal fulfillment if she were not able to maintain that lifestyle.) Of course, absent from this calculus are any notions of the potential value of suffering or pitfalls of pleasure, both of which are important in a variety of pre-modern value systems. **I don’t know that Marx would view this as anything more than the natural course of evolution, owing to the fact that his own thought was often pervaded by the ideology of progress. It is interesting, in this regard, to draw upon more “deconstructivist” scholars such as Talal Asad for detailed analysis of these changes.

Finally, the sanctity of the written word in legal proceedings, while undoubtedly following from positivist ideology, also firmly establishes legal institutions as bureaucratic networks, dependent as they are on records. The use of written documents in court, for example, captures life in the “outside world,” as well as real-time events in the courtroom, and brings them into the web of institutional objects, which can be circulated, copied, embedded in other documents, and appropriated for other purposes (like the common practice of referring to prior cases).

So, then, what makes legal institutions different from other bureaucracies? What distinguishes the law from government agencies of various sorts? The answer to these questions will be the subject of my next post.

The State and Science are Tools of Capitalism

I have argued quite a few times now that, in order to launch a full-scale attack on capitalism, one must include all interrelated structures of the modern world. This is an important point, and commonly neglected, as many Marxists continue to look for solutions in the state, socialism, or even a type of socialist world government.

The state is, at its most basic level, a means of violence, which, via ideological manipulations, is construed as somehow "legitimate," even necessary. Usually this legitimacy is derived from social contract ideology, which posits that a certain degree of coersion is necessary to maintain social order. Despite the fact that there is evidence to the contrary (and in fact, state violence often exacerbates violence of all kinds), this "fact" is rarely questioned. But more than that, the modern state is a tool of the capitalist class, and is therefore a weapon of violence inflicted upon the masses by the ruling elite.

As an arm of the state, the justice system is one of the primary means by which this violence occurs. In addition to capital punishment and all the manifold forms of violence employed on a daily basis by the police (witness, for example, the response to the "Occupy" protests), there is also the gigantic prison-industrial complex, which also serves as a playground for capitalist interests with a sadistic bent. The term "justice system" is an oxymoron, as the system is inherently unjust and inherently violent. Once again, this truth is cloaked behind ideological rhetoric and popular imagery: notions of "human rights," for example (of which it is supposedly the duty of the law to uphold), layers of bureaucratic procedure, and the persona of the lawyer, who grounds the integrity of the justice system in the infallibility of human logic and reason.

Capitalist interests use state violence to uphold the limits to competition that are requisite for profitability (for example, regulation of the labor market), and to maintain neocolonial control over other nations (or in the case of underdeveloped nations, to resist neocolonial control to the benefit of local bourgeoisie). It has even been argued that the prison system functions essentially as a sort of "plantation" on which young African American males once again find themselves providing free labor. (The primary lesson here is that progress is an illusion: if you try to abolish something, they will find another way to reconstruct it. This is why comprehensive systemic transformation is necessary.)

Of course, capitalists have expanded the role of the state to include other functions as well. First and foremost, it is used to ensure the general conditions necessary for the existence capitalism. Maintaining the limits to competition (by patroling borders, regulating citizenship, enforcing copyrights, creating regional disparaties via monetary policy, etc.) falls under this umbrella. So does the protection of property rights, and the provision of infrastructure. It has also become increasingly important to diffuse (subsidize) the costs of labor and investment (including research and development): the latter, in particular, has been growing at an unmanageable rate, such that it now requires a LOT of capital to start and maintain an enterprise, making it both difficult and exceedingly risky.

There is an illusion that the state provides a social safety net. Don't be fooled. Partially, the "safety net" is a means of subsidizing the costs of labor (i.e. the state pays for certain things in lieu of the employer, thus forcing the working population to contribute). When this is not the case, it is a means of pacifying and controlling labor. Certain concessions are made to suppress discontent and unrest, to make the workers more or less agreeable to the conditions of their oppression. People who would actively change the system are encouraged to work in state agencies, subtly maintaining the status quo and all the while believing they are "making a difference." Furthermore, state agencies, in concert with their partners in crime - the nonprofit sector and institutions of medical and social science - collect copious amounts of personal information ("data") and work tirelessly to manage the populations under their jurisdiction: to quell unrest; to homogenize and induce "desired" behaviors (often through educational campaigns and strategic use of the law); and, in a contrary move, to reinforce social categories (every survey inquires about race and gender) and maintain the social division of labor based thereupon.

Which is a perfect lead in to a discussion of how science fits into the picture. Science is not neutral. It is not a matter of "truth." It is not independent of the state, capitalism, or human social relationships in general. In fact, the institutional development of modern science occurred, not in a void, but amid a shifting world order in which the authority and role of different institutions (religious, political, economic) were being redefined in relation to one another. As such, science is an indispensible component of the capitalist world system that eventually emerged. For a number of reasons, including:

1) Historically, science has been instrumentally involved in the social construction of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality... all that comprises the social division of labor which is necessary for capitalism. Even seemingly "neutral" scientific ideas (such as Linnean classification) have been fundamentally shaped by these cultural assumptions.

2) Science is the ground on which "nature" is defined (and redefined). I plan to elaborate in future posts, but the concept of "nature" (not a universal concept, and not equivalent to the concept of "reality") helped constitute a new terrain on which the authority and power structures intrinsic to the modern world system are premised. The idea of "human nature" and "man in a state of nature" provides a rationale for the authority of the modern state; social contract ideology, after all, is the chief legitimizing rhetoric of the secular state. With the concept of "nature" comes a new perspective on what it means to be "human," and therefore what can be protected by the state and, conversely (and more importantly), subject to its violence. To be fully human, one must be cut free from other social relations (which are relegated to secondary importance) and be constituted in one's primary being as a citizen of a particular nation-state, thus creating the atomized, calculating individual who can function as a consumer and wage laborer within the capitalist mode of production.

The concept of "nature" is also an important component in the construction of what is "normal." "Natural" and "normal" function together to judge, act upon, and limit certain types of behavior. They define the "deviant" and "pathological" and provide ground for managing such illicit behavior. Scientific rhetoric has undergirded appraisals of sexual preferences, bodily functioning and appearance, illegal and destructive actions, and nonconformity in general. Thanks to scientific definitions of "nature," when one contravenes social norms, one's essence as a human being is called into question (thus priming one to be a recipient of state-sponsored or condoned violence).

The driving goal of many social and biological sciences has been the decisive disentanglement of the "natural" from the "cultural": the determination of what separates humans from animals. This is not merely an intellectual exercise.  It is an ongoing political necessity.

3) There is no clear, distinct boundary between science and industry, and there never has been. Without the technologies that result from the practices of science, capitalism would not be possible. Technological innovation is a necessary component of the capitalist system. I would also be willing to guarantee that the money for "research and development" follows lines of political and economic interest (i.e. military technology). In that vein it is important to note that, not only is technology a double-edged sword (a lot of bad comes with the good: pollution, weapons of mass destruction, undesirable prolongation of life, car and machine-related accidents, assembly line drudgery, etc.), but as new technologies proliferate, the requirements for existence become increasingly more expensive (making it that much more difficult for many to survive - just witness the ballooning costs of healthcare) and technological benefits become concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer people. Most people in the world cannot enjoy new technologies; in fact, their own poverty increases as a direct result of the system it sustains. In that sense, one should really question whether technology represents "progress."

4) Scientific practices, know-how, and technology are also indispensable for (in fact, form the crux of) the operation of governmental power. Demography and statistics allow for the management of populations, as well as the reinforcement of social categories and ideologies. Technological developments enable more effective surveillance techniques (it is now a contentious issue whether police should be able to use GPS tracking without a search warrant, for example). Personal information disclosed over the internet (I'm looking at you, facebook) is used by corporations for marketing purposes. Twitter and google have been used to track the spread of epidemics.

In addition, representatives of sociology and psychology have found their way into pretty much every institution in the modern world: business (marketing, human resources, and training); criminal justice and law in general; religion; education, the family, and the entire child care industry; public health; military, intelligence, and defense; department of state and economic development agencies; social work; urban planning; and the list goes on... (and includes all the nonprofit organizations dedicated to these and other causes). Psychology, in particular, is the modus operandi of governmental power, in its attempt to use universal, objective laws to penetrate and shape individual subjectivity.


What implications do I think should be drawn from all of this?  1. No authority should be beyond questioning or criticism; 2. Nothing is sacred; 3. The roots of the current world system run deep and wide; and 4. Nothing short of complete systemic transformation will solve the real problems of injustice, inequality, and exploitation.

Personality and Power

Today I was at a seminar in which the instructor discussed the "four personality types." There are many variations on the four personality types, though they are pretty much all the same. My instructor claimed that the idea came from the ancient Greeks, although this is patently false. The concept of "personality," as we understand it today, did not exist at that time and place. Our concept of "personality" is, in fact, a product of the modern social order, and more specifically, it is a prime mechanism of governmental power. I described in a previous post how "government" is a form of power that seeks to nurture, manage and produce - to enhance life, health, happiness, and efficiency.

The concept of governmental power (aka "governmentality") was introduced by the French philosopher/sociologist Michel Foucault. Foucault argued that government employs two contradictory modes of operation: it abstracts and manages humans as populations at the same time as it acts by penetrating individual consciousness and creating personal "essences." This is accomplished through the construction of "types" - the sorts of labels that we commonly apply to people. On the one hand, "types" are abstractions which can be used to describe populations (for example, in terms of percent makeup) without referring to any individual person. Yet, simultaneously, these "types" and their associated stereotypes become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and in that sense actually work at the individual level to shape behavior.

It is important to keep in mind that "government" is distinct from the state. The state does employ governmental strategies, but government extends far beyond the state. The "personality types," which has become a very popular corporate/organizational training tool, is one such example. Corporations invest in this training because they believe it will increase the efficacy of communication in the workplace. They can induce desired behaviors among their employees by assigning to all of them a certain essence and encouraging them to view their work relationships within the framework of these essences. It is easier to deal with someone when the complexity and unpredictability of their actions is eliminated.

This is most definitely a form of power, though it need not necessarily be harmful, in and of itself. Still, I must say that I do not like to be interpreted and responded to according to some label that does not represent who I really am. I, like everyone, am context-specific and complex. I first encountered the four personality types during a job training. I believe that it actually made communication with my coworkers more difficult because they mischaracterized me from the beginning and were quite apt to misinterpret my behavior.

I think it is useful to remember that the concept of "personality" is a tool of governmental power, and that the best way to get to know anyone is to learn all the nuances of their behavior across a variety of contexts. That is difficult work, but it is more accurate.