By ELEUTÉRIO FS PRADO*
Civilization finally appears as barbarism and humanity seems to be heading towards extinction
To explain the phenomenon of the new right, as well as its dizzying rise in the contemporary political scene, Rodrigo Nunes, in a high-quality article (Nunes, 2024), points to the existence and persistence of an “ideological operator” at its base; for this to occur, according to him, its growth needed to be driven by “entrepreneurship”. The basis of the social phenomenon here, therefore, is a psychopolitical disposition.
In order for the tacit class alliance that constituted this movement to be established, it was necessary, according to him, that “some images and words produce an identification”. Only this mediation made it possible for such diverse interests, from those of informal workers, sectors of the middle classes to those of financial capitalists, to be politically welded together.
Just as fascist extremism, in the 20s and 30s, brought together ordinary individuals – “children of a liberal, competitive and individualistic society, conditioned to remain as independent units” (Adorno, 2015, p. 158) – who felt powerless in the face of an overwhelming reality, now a gathering of small, medium and large entrepreneurs, driven by a “cruel optimism”, began to develop as neoliberal extremism.
In both cases, structural barriers to the success of individuals socialized as economic “subjects” present themselves as existential barriers, which are then manipulated by right-wing extremism. However, differences remain.
Fascist extremism evolved at a time when imperialist conflicts were intensifying, in which industrial capital prevailed, already under the domination of financial capital, while the latter advanced more recently in globalized capitalism, under the hegemony of North American imperialism, in which – as will be clarified – the logic of interest-bearing capital and fictitious capital began to prevail. In previous article, I tried to distinguish these two moments by distinguishing ordocapitalism and anarchocapitalism (Prado, 2024-A)
In the first case, it should be noted, the “ideological operator” was different; it consisted of an appeal to nationality – an abstract principle of equality and a form of unification –, since this was the only way to bring together individuals from different social categories to form a mass that projected itself into a totalitarian leader. Fascisms, as we know, arise in constrained industrial powers that struggle to expand their economic domains.
In the second case, extremism brings together individuals who see themselves as subjects willing to prosper in a competitive society – already established by means of a global imperialist hegemony – and who project themselves as successful upstart leaders. The psychological motive here is not collective achievement through a project set by the State, but rather the attainment of maximum economic freedom in a police State that has renounced any form of solidarity.
The ubiquity of the “ideology of entrepreneurship” in recent decades has several sources, ranging from the neo-Schumpeterianism of management theorist Peter Drucker to the generalization of “entrepreneurship” as practically synonymous with all human action by the Austrian school of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek. In countries like Brazil, “its diffusion since the 1980s has been mainly due to (…) the absolute dominance of neoliberal ideas in public debate (…), but the growing penetration of evangelical churches that preach the so-called “prosperity theology” and the boom in the self-help and social media industries have also had a significant impact.” coaching” (Nunes, 2024).
From a heterodox Marxist perspective, centered in fact on the concept of ideology raised by György Lukács in For an ontology of social being, Medeiros and Lima also wrote a very relevant text on this topic (Medeiros and Lima, 2023). Presenting a connection not pointed out by Rodrigo Nunes, they showed that there is an affinity between the conception of work as an entrepreneurial activity and the assumed conception that the worker can and should be understood as human capital.
For them, these two theories, both based on “the same conservative and atomistic worldview”, shaped a socially validated way of thinking that went beyond the theoretical field in which it was born, which spread throughout contemporary capitalism and became common sense.
Now it is important to note that, from a Lukacsian perspective, these two authors understand ideology as a system of ideas that has the function of resolving, that is, obstructing the development of social conflicts (in particular, class conflicts) and preventing them from producing transformations. For them, the phenomenon of the rise of the new right is based on “entrepreneurial ideology”; since it has the “possibility of generating a personal (and, eventually, collective) response to everyday problems in a society in which individuals are opposed to subjects of different classes, races, genders, ethnicities, etc.”
As this conception considers that “the ideological function does not depend on the knowledge character of the ideas” put into circulation, it differs – the authors point out – from the most widespread Marxist conception according to which ideology is “socially necessary false thinking”.
From this perspective, these two authors summarize their judgment on entrepreneurship as follows: “The success of the capitalist international is related to the power of capital itself, which today very narrowly dominates the so-called cultural industry, of symbolic formation and dissemination, from journalism to all forms of art. (…) the practice of workers (…) represents a reaction to the brutal conditions of capital that, instead of hindering them, deliberately reinforces them. Strictly speaking, this is precisely the ideological function of the theories we examine here: they are, in their vulgarized version, forms of consciousness designed to disarm revolutionary or even reformist impulses (…) of the working class.” (Medeiros and Lima, 2023, p. 51).
A friendly critique of these two texts must start from an understanding of ideology that is not merely superstructural. To present it, it is necessary to acknowledge that ideologies, as ways of sealing and concealing contradictions, always have an objective basis and that, from there, they arise as quasi-autonomous intellectual constructions, which gain strength when they manage to obtain a wide reception in the public sphere.
The objective basis of ideologies consists, from a very Marxist perspective, in the appearance of social practice which, for this very reason, must be considered as socially necessary. As formations that reside in culture, that is, in the superstructure, ideologies are products of the understanding that apprehend the external relations between phenomena, but which also make use, in order to achieve this instrumental end, of merely imaginary, that is, false, elements.[I]
In this sense, for example, keep in mind the notions of homo economist, somewhat different from each other, which were formalized in the various economic theories (classical, neoclassical, Austrian, etc.). It should also be considered that they are based on characteristics present in the behavior of social individuals that swarm in the generalized mercantile economy. If they are notions of rational – and normative – knowledge, they have a real basis in the social reality to which they refer.
Now, this “purely intellectual product of science, which thinks of man as an abstract unit, inserted in a scientific system” – according to Karel Kosik – “(…) is a reflection of the real metamorphosis of man, produced by capitalism”. We are therefore not faced with a mere free-floating idea nor a general anthropological determination, but the product of a system, whichever it is, the one that is nucleated in the automatism of the capital relation. Behold, “the homo economist“– explains this author – is man as part of this system, as a functional element of this system and, as such, must be provided with the fundamental characteristics indispensable for the functioning of this system” (Kosik, 1969, p. 82-83).
In fact, as Karl Marx had already explained in The capital, the economic man is the character par excellence of the sphere of mercantile circulation, within which the sales and purchases of goods occur, including the sales and purchases of labor power. In this way, his attributes appear as natural. And he inhabits a competitive world that is denoted as “a true Eden of the natural rights of man”. If men appear there as equal, free and self-interested, the system itself appears as an “exclusive kingdom of freedom, equality, property and Bentham” (Marx, 2013, p. 185).
In fact, in this excerpt from The capital, Marx presents the contradictions that move the subjected subjects who present themselves as homo economist. And there are two of them: one of them is found in the capitalist who considers himself an entrepreneur, but is, in fact, merely the personification of capital; the other is found in the worker who is obliged to behave as a free contractor of his labor force, but who is, in fact, an element, exploitable or not, a possible part of the “great machine” of the capital relation. It should also be borne in mind that these contradictions are present both in the objective condition and in the subjectivity of the “subjects” in general who “prosper” in capitalism.
“When we abandon this sphere of simple circulation or exchange of commodities, from which the free trader vulgaris extracts notions, concepts and parameters to judge the society of capital and wage labor, a certain transformation can already be perceived, it seems, in the physiognomy of our dramatic personae. The former owner of money now presents himself as the capitalist, and the owner of labor-power as his worker. The former, with an air of importance, confident and eager for business; the latter, timid and hesitant, as one who has brought his own skin to the market and now has nothing left to hope for but the... peeling.” (Marx, 2013, p. 185).
Note, now, that these two dramatic personae thus they present themselves at the interface of production and commodity circulation, which is nothing more than the appearance of industrial capitalism in the strength it had acquired in the mid-19th century and which could be exposed in this way theoretically. Therefore, how can the condition of entrepreneur gain generality in the development of this mode of production, presenting itself as an existential and subjective condition of both capitalists and salaried or self-employed workers?
This may seem like an unexpected reminder, but it must be emphasized here: the possibility of this illusion was explained by Marx long before the wave of entrepreneurship appeared in history, which, as we have seen, only happened after the 70s. To better understand it, it should be noted from the outset that this possibility depends on the position of interest-bearing capital as a form of sociability inherent in the capitalist mode of production.
In section V of Book III of The capital, finds the following: “the form of interest-bearing capital is responsible for the fact that each determined and regular income in money appears as interest on some capital – or not”, that is, as a gain associated with a sum that is strictly not capital. If a sum of money is lent by a bank or other financial institution to a company in the sphere of industrial or commercial capital, it is indeed interest-bearing capital – at the end of a certain period there will be a reflux of the principal plus interest and this increase – interest – accounts for part of the surplus value generated in the production of goods.
But if a sum of money is lent by any financial institution to the State, to banks, or to consumers, then we have what Marx called fictitious capital, which appears to be, but does not in fact, bear interest. What happens here is that the flow of payments appears – without actually being – to be a reflux of the principal plus interest. Here is how he himself explains it in the cases of loans to the public sector and usurers: “for the original creditor, the part of the annual taxes that he is entitled to represents interest on his capital, just as for the usurer the part that he is entitled to of the prodigal’s assets, although in neither case has the sum of money lent been spent as capital.”
Thus, capital, strictly speaking – and this is very important – is the relationship of exploitation of the labor force that manifests itself in a reified way, successively, as money, means of production, labor forces and goods.
In this way, Marx also explains the illusion of “human capital” which he calls insane, without, however, using this nomenclature consecrated later. “The insanity of the conception reaches here,” he says, “its culmination” – and it had already appeared in the writings of William Petty in the 523th century. “Instead of explaining the valorization of capital by the exploitation of labor power, one proceeds in the opposite way, elucidating the productivity of force by the circumstance that labor power itself is that mystical thing called interest-bearing capital” (idem, p. XNUMX).
In other words, as the salary gain presents itself as a possible flow of future remuneration for the worker, it is taken figuratively as if it were interest, which is then capitalized, also in a mystical way, to form “human capital”.
This is how the workforce and the worker come to be thought of, respectively, as human capital and as an entrepreneur of oneself. That said, it remains to explain why it was only from the 1980s onwards that this type of conception invaded and took over the public sphere in capitalist countries in general. The reason is that, with the rise of neoliberalism,[ii] interest-bearing capital – real or apparent, that is, fictitious capital – has finally become the form of capital par excellence. At the end of a course that began in the early days of capitalism with the creation of joint-stock companies, what Marx called the process of socialization of capital has reached its peak in the West (Prado, 2024-B).
In this century-old process, large industrial and commercial capital became the domain of financial capital and capitalism as a whole became financialized (Maher and Aquanno, 2014, tell this story; Prado, 2024, tried to summarize it). The entrepreneurial ideology, now opportunistic, spreads throughout society as a new naturalness of economic man; the very sphere of politics becomes a domain in which political entrepreneurs thrive, who are themselves insane and, therefore, suicidal.
And here we must see a crucial difference between industrial capital and finance capital in general. If the former engenders a sociability aimed at the collective transformation of the world and, therefore, prone to solidarity (but also to authoritarianism), the latter favors an extreme individualism that blindly trusts in the capacity of the economic system to generate benefits, as Friedrich Hayek would say, spontaneously, to the point of falling into ecocide in order to “gain” more life.
The perspective of circulation and markets dominates this author's thinking. Now, if the first capital creates the constructivist entrepreneur, the second produces opportunistic entrepreneurship. When the second predominates as a form of capital, the central figure ceases to be the industrialist and is replaced by the seizer of profit opportunities, that is, the rentier.
From a global perspective, it can be seen that US imperialism, the main beneficiary of the globalization of capital and financial dominance that occurred after the end of World War II, seems willing to destroy the world in order to maintain its hegemony. The new right-wing movements operating in this world, in any case, are advancing because the left, representing the old proletariat, seems to have lost its way and hope. Civilization finally appears as barbarism and humanity seems to be heading towards extinction.
How can we find a chink in history that leads to another path? Who can compose a new proletariat? How can the victims of the catastrophes of financialized capitalism be mobilized to create a mode of sociability, thus overcoming the lacerating contradictions of the currently prevailing mode?
* Eleutério FS Prado is a full and senior professor at the Department of Economics at USP. Author, among other books, of From the logic of the critique of political economy (anti-capital fights).
References
Adorno, Theodor W. Adorno – Freudian theory and the pattern of fascist propaganda. In: Essays on Social Psychology and Psychoanalysis. New York: University of Chicago Press, p. 153-189.
Kosik, Karel – Dialectic of concrete. Rio de Janeiro: Peace and Land, 1969.
Maher, Stephen and Aquanno, Scott – The fall and rise of American finance – From JP Morgan to BlackRock. London/New York: Verso, 2024.
Marx, Carl – Capital – Critique of Political Economy. São Paulo: Boitempo, Volume I: 2013; Volume III: 2017.
Medeiros, João L. and Lima, Rômulo – Against entrepreneurial ideology: arguments for a Marxist critique. Magazine of the Brazilian Society of Political Economy, nº 66, 2023, p. 30-57.
Nunes, Rodrigo – The declinations of “entrepreneurship” and the new rights. Site of Unisinos Humanitas Institute (IHU), August 20, 2024.
Prado, Eleuterio FS – Ordocapitalism and anarchocapitalism. In: The earth is round, 19/06/2024-A. Blog Economy and complexity, 21/07/2024.
Prado, Eleuterio FS – On the socialization of capital. the earth is round, 12/09/2024-B. Blog Economy and complexity, 22/09/2024.
Safatle, Vladimir – Economics is the continuation of psychology by other means: psychic suffering and neoliberalism as a moral economy. In: Neoliberalism as a management of psychic suffering. Belo Horizonte: Authentic, 2023.
Notes
[I] Even if the perspective of knowledge proves insufficient to understand entrepreneurship, we do not wish to go beyond it here, with the aim of showing the structural basis of this psychopolitical disposition. But let it be noted here that ideologies – and this is very important – are always combined with the propagation of normativities in the social environment, which configure individuals from the outside and from the inside, that is, psychologically. In other words, a more complete understanding of this phenomenon requires a) the science of how it seals itself and silences contradictions; b) knowledge of the rules and laws that it imposes and that constrain the behaviors of social individuals; c) knowledge of the psychology that produces and shapes individuals to assume “an anthropological figure, strongly regulatory, to be shared by all individuals who aspire to be socially recognized” (Safatle, 2023, p. 33).
[ii] Neoliberalism, as we know, came to be a response to the profitability crisis of the 1970s, which allowed a new wave of globalization of capital and, thus, the expansion of North American imperialism. As such, it is both an ideology and a normativity, both an economic policy and a social policy with repercussions on the way of being of social individuals.
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