Thoughts on the Capitalist Narrative

Grant McCracken recently shared some thoughts on how capitalism doesn’t make a good story. People minding their own business and pursuing their own interests and by doing that serving others is a story that a lot of people find it hard to relate to. Here is what he wrote:

Capitalism doesn’t have heroes.  It doesn’t have people called to higher motives.  It doesn’t have noble sacrifices for the good of others.  It doesn’t, usually, have daring action on a public stage.

No, capitalism is just has some guy who owns a handful of dry cleaning outfits in a small town in New Hampshire.  He works hard, supplies a service, pays off his loans, coaches Little League, goes to church, gets his kids through college, and spends his very few disposable hours on the golf course.

Script!  Casting!  Some one call the studio!   This is appalling.  It doesn’t matter that out of these mundane activities in lots of towns big and small, played out by millions of people across the US, something remarkable will come.  This just isn’t a story anyone wants to listen to.  So no one much wants to tell it.  Not Hollywood.  Not our mythmakers.  Not our story tellers.

The economist has spoken.  It is a little clearer why we do not tell the story of capitalism.  It just doesn’t tell very well. But if the anthropologist may join in here.  Can we at least acknowledge that there is something fabulously odd about a culture that depends on capitalism but that will not ever acknowledge it in the stories it tells itself about itself.

It is a good point he is making here. Modern capitalist society is not only the most diverse society there has ever existed, the whole idea of celebrating diversity would not exist if it were not for this type of society. Strangely enough it is the most criticised and hated by cultural analysts. To me it makes a good story, but I can see that it wouldn’t make a good movie.

But there are other reasons besides it not being a story that tells well. The other day I heard a woman on the radio complaining about how the Danish prime minister had said that being green and environmentally friendly is now something that can help you gain a profit. Now, in my ears that sound good.  None of us want to live in a world full of pollution and deformed children. If businesses make better profits from going green it would mean more of them doing it and a much cleaner world. Good, right?

But to that woman it was a huge problem. You see, she complained about the very idea of people doing something for profit. That in itself was the problem. Even when people were doing something that she thought was the right thing, it was no good if they did it for the wrong reasons. So according to her the intentions would have to be pure in order for the actions to be considered ‘right’ on some level. I think she touched on one of the problems with the capitalist narrative. In order for people to become ‘heroes’ they have to to have those higher motives that McCracken mentioned.

People here in Europe often scoff at stories about people trying to fulfill their dreams within a capitalist framework. A good example is the movie The Pursuit of Happyness in which Will Smith plays a divorced poor man who lives on the street with his son while he studies to become a Wall Street stock trader. Most reviews I have read and people I have spoken to regarding the movie dismissed it as silly and ‘too american’. They couldn’t relate to the story, partly because he actually succeeds and the film has a happy ending. Even though the film is ‘based on a true story’ (theres also a book) it didn’t didn’t seem to make a connection with most European reviewers.

So is this lack of interest for stories about capitalism just because they are boring or is it because we are still driven by some sort of morality that commands us to demand purity of heart and soul? It seems that this kind of purity of intention is very widespread in society. A good example are marriages between Thai women and western men. It doesn’t fit with our concepts of romantic love or equality between the sexes. So very often we get to hear a discourse about how these women are victimised or how such a relationship is assymetrical and hence is not legitimate. The idealised purity of intention is not there and so we condemn it.

These are just some thoughts on the matter. I will surely have more as time goes on. Feel free to share your own in the comments.