Sunday, 7 July 2019

Capitalism, Life and Human Destiny I

Is there anything outside Capital? 
Capital is one of the four factors of production along with land, labour and organization. Capital refers to the money invested to procure labour, land and organization. To ask oneself whether or not there is anything outside capital is to wonder whether there is anything outside the circle of production. Everything artificial around us was produced. Thus, everything man-made is included within the circle of production but my question, Is there anything outside Capital, refers to something else.
Unlike the guilds of medieval Europe and castes of India, trade from sixteenth century onwards is designed to create profit than provide livelihood for a group of people or to keep the division of labour intact in a society. From the 'age of discovery', capital is invested with an eye for profit. The rise of industrial capitalism has been superseded by contemporary capitalism that trades in all kinds of things. The main impulse of the capital, as a growing system, is to 'capitalize' everything i.e. it tries to turn everything around it to either a factor of production or a product. This means that capitalism reorganizes everything around it for profit, since it produces for profit. The purpose of existence for these products is to be profitable. But if capitalism capitalizes everything, the what about life itself, or, at least, what about human lives? Is it also capitalized?
The relation between capitalism and life has started to intrigue me. Capitalism, by capitalizing life, gives meaning and direction to it, doesn't it? Although our existence maybe without meaning, capitalism gives purpose to our lives. It has turned us into a part of production process. By consumption and demand we are pushing the circle of production forward. By working to the point of exhaustion we have become one of the factors of production itself, i.e. labour. Moreover, some of the heartfelt moments of our personal lives are facilitated through capitalist innovations in technology. Has human civilization got a future without capitalism? I don't know. It seems very unlikely.

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