Section 1: The Rise of Capitalism

Often capitalism is defined as an economic system, but viewing capitalism as a religion may lead to a better understanding of this system. Its first major victory was the European ethos, and although Europe has said and done much about capitalism, it has not refrained from mystifying it-as any religion mystifies its own existence. Even the Christians, socialist, and anarchists who are considered to be its opponents have contributed to this mystification. Eurocentric thought and reason is a school of thought in its own right, to which the “scientific method” has played a fundamental role. Its hegemony as a world-system began in the sixteenth century. In fact, the propagators of Eurocentric thought are more masterful in mystifying social reality than the Sumerian priests were in constructing gods.

I am not talking about a science that is cognizant of nature-including the human being. Science, as the common treasure of humanity, is so anonymous that it cannot be attributed to a single person, community, institution, or nation. If one must talk about divine sanctity at all, it may be the best to bestow the title of divine sanctity in this sense upon science. However, scientific method means something else in European terminology. It is the prototype, or rather the embryo, of the contemporary dictator in whichever totalitarian or authoritarian form. The term method means “procedure”, “path”, and “order.” Initially, it was a positive development and contributed to the ability of perception. However, it carries the risk of acquiring the role of a mental dictatorship if adhered to for too long. Persistence with method in the name of science may lead to the most dangerous dictatorships-as was the case with the fascism that resulted from the adherence to the scientific method by the advocates of German nation-statism. The true intellectual revolution that undoubtedly did take place in Western Europe cannot be blamed for eurocentrism. Besides, this revolution took all its precursors from intellectual developments outside Europe.

The sociology developed by Max Weber in his monumental work The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism played an important role in linking the development of capitalism to European rationalism. Although rationalism may have been one of the determining factors in the formation of capitalism, a reductionist explanation contributing its existence solely to rationality and laws is inadequate.

In the sociology of Karl Marx, the victory of capitalism as a system is attributed to its economic productivity: the fact that it has been more productive than any other modes of production, the development of surplus-value, and the ability to transform this into profit and capital, ensured its victory. However, this explanation does not sufficiently take into account other fundamental factors such as history, politics, ideology, law, geography, and civilization-culture. The danger of this fundamental shortcoming is that this school of thought can easily be transformed into economic reductionism. Of course, the analytical value of socio-economic explanations cannot be denied, but if their roles relative to the other fundamental factors are not sufficiently clarified, then there will always be the danger of sliding into dogmatism despite claims of being scientific. This has often been the case.

Others link capitalist development directly to power relations and its most visible judicialexpression, the modern state. The roots of power hierarchy are ingrained in our past,mainly due to its role in the administration of material life. But coercion alone cannotgenerate material life, economy, and its extreme derivation, capitalism. It has always hadthe roles of organization, development, and prevention intertwined. The fact that capitalismwon its victory in North Western rope illustrates the importance of geographical factors andlocation. Although Amsterdam is often pinpointed as the cradle of capitalism, the fill! ofgeography is limited, as is the role of any other factor. Thus, its rule should not beoveremphasized but should be sufficiently taken into account so that the value of itsmeaning becomes more visible.

The interpretive power of explanations based on civilizational and cultural factors areindisputable. For instance, I find the thesis that capitalism coincides with the decaying stageof civilizational development very valuable. In fact, the geographic location where the maincivilizational river pours into the ocean (symbolically enough the Atlantic Ocean at theshores of Amsterdam!) is also the temporal end of this system. Of course, the system hasbeen carried over to the other side of the ocean and has successfully climbed to the peak ofglobalization under the leadership of the new hegemonic power, the nation-state of theUSA. However, life has acquired a quality of excessive artificiality and pretentiousness. The“society of the spectacle” and consumption has become dominant. Instead of an economythat satisfies needs, it is an economy that inflames desires. In addition, power relations haveseeped into all societal relations. All these factors, including the fact that ideologues of thesystem talk about the end of history, evidently express the present level of decay and chaosof the system.

Realities cannot be conceptually divorced from history and time. Development, evolution, and the formation of diversity and differences can only manifest themselves within history. The “final word” can only he said in relation to a specific form –no single form has the privilege of becoming the eternal form. In the formation of societies, concepts such as eternity, till doomsday comes, the final prophet, permanent rules, continuous and eternal improvement develop due to the dogmatization of thoughts and beliefs, as efforts to become permanent rulers and the efforts of the privileged to perpetuate their advantages. For them such concepts are essential to win confidence and maintain their interests. Now liberalism, the central ideology of capitalism, claims to be the final word. It is the same old game in modern guise.

We should not define capitalism as a way of acting and thinking which has been created at a certain time, with a certain center, and is unchanging. Intrinsically, it should be understood as the action of opportunistic individuals and groups who, when they see the potential for the development of surplus goods, have established themselves in the fissures of society; their nibbling away of the social surplus becomes systemic. They never number more than one or two percent of a society. Their strength is in their opportunism and organizational skills. Their victory relies on their controlling the goods that are in demand and fluctuating prices at the point where supply and demand intersect. If they are not suppressed by the official forces of the society but instead the official forces of the society have become indebted to them and in return the profiteers are continuously supported through rendered favors, then these groups may legitimize themselves as the new masters of that society. Throughout the history of civilization, and especially in the Middle East, these usurers and profiteers have always existed at the margins of society. In the past, society’s hatred prevented them from coming out of the fissures they hid in. Not even the most despotic administrators dared to legitimize them. They were not only scorned but were seen as dangerously corruptive powers, the seed of malice. Their rise in Western Europe is unique in the history of humanity, as is the unrivaled number of wars, plunder, massacres, and exploitation that centered on this area over the last four hundred years-clearly a legacy of the hegemonic system.

But we should not forget that the fiercest counter-struggle has also been staged in this geographic area; thus, this area cannot be seen as a total loss to humanity. What I hope to do is to synthesize the gains made by humanity in the West with the ancient, positive values of the East in order to allow for a meaningful way out.