III. Capitalism and Social Ideas

One of the basic questions that has developed in contemporary criticism is how to put an end to the oppression which proletarian humanity has experienced through private capitalism. The owner, or manager, of capital is in a position to put the physical labour of other men at the service of whatever he undertakes to produce. It is necessary to differentiate between three sectors in the social relationship which arises through the cooperation of capital and human labour: the managerial activity, which must be based upon the individual abilities of a person or a group of persons; the relationship of the manager to the worker, which must be a legal one; the production of an article, which acquires commodity value in economic circulation. Managerial activity can only participate soundly in the social organism when forces are active in this organism which allow individual human abilities to manifest themselves in the best possible manner. This can only occur if there is a sector of the social organism which allows capable individuals free initiative to exercise their abilities, and enables the evaluation of these abilities to be made through the free understanding of others. It is evident that the social activity of a person utilizing capital belongs in the sector of the social organism in which spiritual life provides the laws and administration. Should the political state participate in this activity, then a lack of appreciation of the effectiveness of individual abilities must necessarily become a co-determining factor. The political state must be based upon, and occupy itself with, those requirements which are common and equal to all. It must, in its sector, ensure that each individual is able to assert his opinion. The appreciation or non-appreciation of individual abilities is not one of its functions. Therefore, what takes place within its framework may not influence the exercise of individual human abilities. Nor should the prospect of economic gain be the determining factor in the exercise of individual abilities through the use of capital. Many critics of capitalism lay particular stress on this economic gain factor. They assume that individual abilities can only be actuated by this incentive. As ‘practical’ people, they refer to ‘imperfect’ human nature, which they pretend to know. It is true that, within the social order which contemporary conditions have occasioned, the prospect of economic gain has attained enormous importance. But this fact is no less the cause of the conditions which are now being experienced. These conditions call urgently for the development of some other motivation for the actuation of individual abilities. This motivation will have to be found in the social understanding which issues from a healthy spiritual life. With the strength of free spiritual life the schools, education, will equip the individual with impulses which, by virtue of this inherent understanding, will enable him to put his personal abilities into practice.