Section 4 – The Time of Capitalist Modernity

It is not wrong to divide the history of civilization into three sections: Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the New Era. Often the substance of the definitions rather than the divisions themselves is disputed. I hope that my explanation of them is understandable and the content is enlightening. I have discussed whether capitalism can be considered a civilization or not. I see civilization as a whole, having a flow similar to that of a “main stream,” and this view forms the essence of my discourse on civilization. The advance of this civilization is dependent on the triangle formed by the city, class, and the state. The form of the triangle also determines the form of the civilization. We may, therefore, regard the Sumerian and Egyptian Civilizations as the initial classical form; the Greco-Roman, Islamic, and Christian Civilizations as the period of maturity; and, the European Civilization as the period of disintegration and chaos.

I must also distinguish from all of this the Democratic Civilization. Although it is included within the central civilization, it cannot be equated with it. Indeed, civilization itself is quite a contradictory whole.

The fundamental contradiction is between the civilization with state monopoly and the democratic civilization of stateless society. This difference between the state civilization and civilization with democracy can best be seen in the two ancient Greek cities of Sparta, administered by monarchy, and Athens, administered by democracy. As the European civilization developed, there was an intense contradiction similar to this. The conflicts experienced between the state and the city democracies between the fourteenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries were in essence conflicts between state civilizations and democratic civilizations.

An important short-coming of Marxism is its narrow class-centered perspective in evaluating this conflict. The direct conflict between classes is an abstraction. The concrete conflict occurs between societal blocks: the society of the state and democratic societies. We are all aware of the consequences of a narrow class perspective. For classes, whose strict borders can never be drawn and where there is an ongoing mobility between them, the important thing is their consciousness and the culture that they are in. A class that cannot identify its own civilization or is unable to create one already has a non-existent status. In the absence of civilization there can be no class struggle. The Soviet experience showed us what a terrible error the thesis of the struggle of two classes in a single civilization is. A unique Soviet civilization could not be established because the molds of European state civilization could not be transcended and it largely based itself on capitalist modernity’s moulds –and as a result could not avoid being like them. Many similar examples can be found in history. If you fight with others’ weapons (civilization’s lifestyle), then you shall be like them. Such a situation arises only because revolutions fall short in determining their own forms of civilization.

It is from this perspective that we can see that capitalist civilization is a very narrow concept. However, it would also be quite wrong to view European civilization as the joint civilization of two classes (workers and capitalists). This is because there are very strong democratic elements within European civilization. It may be more instructive to distinguish between a democratic and a capitalist Europe, instead of taking the view that there is a single European civilization. The current EU model is one that is trying to be developed into a Europe of civilizations that have reached a compromise. it is an Interesting experiment and certainly worth examining. The need for Europe to counterbalance its strict state civilization with very strong democratic traditions, as well as that of softer forces such as reason and law, is in line with our definition (the interrelatedness of civilization and crisis) of the final period of state civilization. The four hundred years of intense warfare is another proof of the inherent crisis in the structure. The Soviet system may also be seen as a supportive example. The discussions on the structure and future of the EU alone is enough to reflect that the modernity is undecided and unable to escape the crisis.

The structure of capitalist monopoly has led me to such a judgment. Marx proved in his monumental work, Das Kapital, that the crisis is related to capital, that is, it is structural where a monopoly is concerned. Profit and accumulation of capital cannot be achieved without crisis. Therefore, since capital cannot be content with no profit there must also be crisis. The reason why revolutions, struggles for democratization, and human rights are continuously on the agenda is not only due to the need to find solutions to the crisis, but also due to its internal problems. This is because the world is ungovernable. Global capital did not always rule the world: it fought with the world. Because of the inherent crisis in its nature, wars became wide-spread around the world. Since the birth of the civilization there have always been professional armies and wars. State civilization cannot advance, in accordance with its essence, without establishing its domination over the society. Domination is power and power cannot be achieved without establishing its control, which in turn cannot be achieved without force. This is why Hegel likened history to a bloody “slaughterhouse.”

The difference between capitalism and the two preceding civilizations relates to the relative size of the structures of class, city, and state. Cities were small, classes were limited, and there were only a few states and they were small. Therefore, there were fewer wars and they were of a limited duration. In any case, violence is inherent in the civilization’s structural character. In capitalism, the city, class, and state engulf not only the society but also the environment, as well as the wealth above and below the ground. The chaotic situations envelope not only the society but also the environment. Immanuel Wallerstein writes that capitalism entered its structural crisis after the 1970’s and predicts that such a crisis may continue for the next 25 to 50 years. As he points out, that outcome is to be determined by the nature of science, organization, and action, he is partially correctly describing their relationship. I think he still has not rid himself of the Marxist concept of cyclical crisis. I believe it to be more correct to assume the existence of crisis at all times in capitalism. In this section I will attempt to divide capitalism into several parts in order to briefly discuss its structure, its state of crisis, and problems associated with the changes it has gone through.