I often think about these tweets from Elon:
(archive)
There's a certain beauty here. This man has built great companies, made billions, and decides to spend his money on things governments can't do.
And he's not alone. Bezos, Branson, Dorsey, Zuckerberg, Buffet, Gates, Collison... These literal capitalists (for they detain capital) are not in it for the money. Most of them could cash out and chill on a private island with an army of escorts or something, but no. They have a vision. They're building the world of the future.
One of the complaints people have about capitalism is the loss of spirituality in favor of cheap clothes, higher dividends, and being able to choose between 200 different brands of toilet paper.
"We are so materialistic nowadays."
Granted, the industrial, scientific, and philosophical revolutions have killed god and the widespread influence of religion on our behaviors. But that's not for the worst. They have enabled so many new spiritual and self-improvement movements to develop.
Before I get too deep, let's look at some data and definitions.
[...] materialists have physiological needs and stress physical and economic security. Postmaterialists, by contrast, strive for self-actualization, stress the aesthetic and the intellectual, and cherish belonging and esteem.
Ronald Inglehart is a researcher who spent decades measuring the level of materialism and post-materialism in different societies. The way he measures that is by asking people what they think the two most important goals for a country are, across three cohorts of points:
A high level of economic growth
Making sure this country has strong defense forces
Seeing that people have more say about how things are done at their jobs and in their communities
Trying to make our cities and countryside more beautiful
Maintaining order in the nation
Giving people more say in important government decisions
Fighting rising prices
Protecting freedom of speech
A stable economy
Progress toward a less impersonal and more humane society
Progress toward a society in which Ideas count more than money
The fight against crime
In his 2008 paper, Inglehart mapped countries according to their mean on the post-materialist/materialist scale (y-axis) and their GNP per capita (x-axis). A score of 1 means that a society is 100% materialist, and a score of 3 means 100% post-materialist.
Here is what it looks like:
(The GNP data is from 1995, that's why it looks a bit dated.)
According to this, liberal, "western", rich democracies are the most post-materialist societies. Of course, this is not necessarily a causation. But there is definitely a correlation between being a capitalist country and scoring higher on that scale.
It's easy to understand why. If you're poor, your first concern is getting enough money to buy food and shelter, not "trying to make our cities and countryside more beautiful."
Abraham Maslow, one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century, built, in 1943, a very famous pyramid: the hierarchy of needs.
The pyramid shows how humans prioritize their needs. The most primary thing for our species is to secure "physiological needs": air, water, food, shelter, sex. Only when we have fulfilled those can we start worrying about the "safety needs." And so on until we reach the top, made of self-actualization and transcendence (think spirituality, altruism).
Whether you like it or not, the industrial revolution and capitalism have dramatically increased the quality of life in their host countries, allowing these societies to fulfill their most basic needs. Contrary to all the previous centuries, it's very unlikely to see famine in Western Europe anytime soon.
Also, did you know that life expectancy went from 29 years in 1800 to 71 years in 2015?
We live longer, safer, and healthier lives than ever before. These achievements have allowed us to look up the pyramid instead of looking down. Spiritual goals can only be attained once more material needs are covered. And capitalism got our backs.
Yes, capitalism enables the race for profit and always cheaper consumer goods. Some companies use neuroscience to optimize their advertising efficiency, hacking your brain to keep you hooked to your screen and to keep drinking their shitty soda. But that's merely a side effect.
My pet theory is that materialism comes from a scarcity mindset: if you're used to not getting your basic needs, you'll always be trying to compensate, signaling (to yourself or to others) that you're not in that place anymore. That explains why many rappers boast gold necklaces and fast cars.
Capitalism, on the other hand, also enables self-actualization, the race to the best meditation app, cheap travel all around the globe, easy ways to keep in touch with your acquaintances, global access to art such as music, film, and literature, or education on virtually any topic.
Materialism is not ingrained in capitalism, but growth is. It's the system that can satisfy our primary needs. And once that's done, people will start to require beauty, healthier civilizations, faster transportation, space exploration... and capitalism will adjust for that. Because capitalism answers to our needs, not the other way around.
Open questions to explore:
Why is mental illness on the rise in liberal societies?
Is mental illness really on the rise?
Is waste an important issue?
How easy is it to fix waste?
Am I conflating capitalism with something else?