Do You Have a Choice? #060

Capitalism and the freedom of choice

Hello, welcome back to EveryDawn. This week I would like to finish with Erich Fromm, whom we have been talking about for a while now, and his critique of capitalism. He says, "Let's look with the eye of a doctor at what is going wrong in this society." And one of the things that are going wrong in capitalism is this uniformity that capitalism needs in order to operate. So let us have a look at what Fromm is saying. I will read it to you:

"Modern capitalism," he says, "needs men who cooperate smoothly and in large numbers, who want to consume more and more, and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated. It needs men who feel free and independent, yet willing to be commanded, to do what is expected of them, to fit into the social machine without friction." This is from a book called The Art of Loving, which is, by the way, a great book that also explains Fromm's theory of love.

Now, what does this mean, that modern capitalism needs men who cooperate smoothly and in large numbers, who want to consume more and more, and whose tastes are standardized? I made this experience when I was younger for the first time. I still remember that it was very impressive as an experience when I wanted to buy a white belt for my trousers. I was young, so I thought that a white belt would look cool or something, and I went out to try to find one in a German city, a normal West German city, which had all kinds of shops and all kinds of fashion stores, and I had the money to buy that belt, so that was not the problem. The problem was that there simply was no white belt at this time anywhere in the city, and when I asked the salespeople who were selling these belts, they told me, "At this time of year, a white belt? This is impossible, you will never find one."

And right then, it became clear to me that all this promise of capitalism, of producing, you know, whatever you want cheaply, works really only if what you want is the same as what everybody else wants, because these are the things that capitalism is going to produce. And if you have a taste that's different, if you have a taste that's original or creative or in any way different from what the norm, what the mass wants, then capitalism is not going to serve you. And this is a problem because, in this way, through the fashion industry, but not only — also in culture, with books, the newest bestseller that everybody is supposed to be reading is available everywhere in bookstores and online, and you can find it easily and it is cheap. But if you want a book that is out of print, it becomes increasingly difficult to find it. If you want a book from the 19th century, some classic that is very famous but nobody's actually buying it in big numbers, then it's almost impossible to find that thing, and you have to go to used bookshops, and these are getting rarer and rarer because people are buying everything on Amazon.

And so even with culture, it's not only dressing, it's not only fashion that has this problem. So, in the end, this capitalist way of producing more and more, cheaper and cheaper, is really also a form of impoverishing culture and reducing choices. We can only have this "more and more" if the "more and more" is "more and more of the same." On YouTube, for example, the same kind of viral video topic is presented again and again and gets more views again and again. But small channels that perhaps try to do something different, they don't get the same audience, and therefore they have much less of a chance to be successful. But if these channels are not financially successful, if they don't get enough views, if they don't get enough advertisement shown, then the creators won't get money, and so they will have stopped doing that.

So in the end, this means that we are losing culture, we are losing these channels, people cannot afford to produce this content anymore, and therefore, again, culture is becoming more impoverished. The same is true of cinema. When you go to a cinema today, and you look at what is playing, these are all the same franchises again and again. These are all the superhero movies. But independent cinema, independent movies are very hard to find; they're very rare nowadays, or movies that are not part of a franchise, movies that are perhaps a little more difficult or a little more demanding or a little more culture-oriented, they are being phased out; they are not being produced anymore.

So this, if you see it in the big scheme of things, is a big problem because we are reducing our choices more and more in the name of, you know, freedom of consumption and choice and capitalism. And these were all the buzzwords that carried this capitalist machine in the 20th century, and people thought this is great, we are free, we can do whatever we want, see the, you know, poor Russians who don't have so many things as we have. But although it is true that we have more freedom and we have more choice, we still, we are also, in part, deluded about the choice we have. We only have the choice because we also have a uniform taste, and as long as you have the same taste as everyone else, then it's okay, you have choice because your choice will be what everybody else chooses. But if you choose something different, then life becomes more difficult.

So what can we make of this for our lives? It's very difficult to oppose the system, or it is almost impossible to make this capitalist machine produce white belts if nobody is buying white belts, or, you know, t-shirts in colors that are just not in, or movies that are not what most people are running to see. But we do have some influence as consumers. You can support small producers, you can support local shops, often in used clothing shops you can find things that are out of fashion but perhaps more original, perhaps more what you actually want. In terms of culture, YouTube still offers small channels that do things that are more interesting than big culture, so perhaps support these.

So these are ways how we can, as consumers, support the culture that we want and do something for the diversity of culture so that we all have more choice.

Thank you, and see you tomorrow.