I explore and live at the intersection of spirituality and revolution. I write meditations in the mornings, and scathing critiques of capitalism by night. I’m a misfit. I do not consider myself a Christian, but I view the life and teachings of Jesus as significant to both spirituality and revolution. Hence, my fifth book, Inner Anarchy. Today I read a short book entitled: A Pagan Anti-Capitalist Primer by Alley Valkyrie and Rhyd Wildermuth.
For those of you who might feel like “Pagan” is a dirty word, read this.
For those of you who think the topic of Capitalism has nothing to do with spirituality, read this.
A Pagan Anti-Capitalist Primer offers a very practical, easy-to-understand critique of capitalism. You don’t need a PhD in economics to understand it.
The book describes Capitalism as follows,
A Capitalist is a person who invests their money (Capital) by employing people without money (workers) to produce products or services on their behalf. That is, under Capitalism, one (small) group of people has money while the rest of the world has to work for them in order to have money. Who decided that this was going to be the way the world should work?
And
You’re a worker, part of what Anarchists and Marxists call ‘The Proletariat.’ But don’t worry. So are we. You’re not alone—actually, we’re all subjects of Capitalism, even the Capitalists themselves. But… we suffer a bit more. Being a worker means you’ve got no access to ‘the means of production’, which is just a weird way of saying that you can’t make a living without working for someone else. Ever have the feeling when you don’t have a job and have no money and feel like you’ve suddenly become a pariah to society? A nobody? Almost invisible and definitely ‘useless?’ This is because you’ve got no means of your own production.
And
Capitalism is a social arrangement where the majority of people in any society have only one way to make a living: by working for others. Consider your own situation. Unless you are independently wealthy, you probably have a job. In fact, you need to have one in order to pay rent and buy food, two things which are essential to your survival. If you don’t have a job, you don’t get money, and if you don’t have money, you can’t eat or pay rent. That is, you’ll starve and be homeless unless you’ve got friends to stay with and either get food assistance from the government or go to a food bank. It could be said, then, that you don’t actually have a choice: you must have a job.
The book debunks the typical arguments in favor of capitalism by expounding on the following points: (1) capitalism is not a natural system; (2) capitalism has not always been around; (3) capitalism is not democratic; (4) capitalism creates inequality; (5) capitalism is not progress.
With Capitalism came Industrialization, the worst thing that has ever happened to Nature. INDUSTRIALIZATION is the process of organizing human labor in such a way that productivity goes as high as possible with human input becoming minimal. The ‘promise’ of industrialization was that workers would need to put in less time to make products, and humans would have more free time. But it never, ever happened this way, because the excess profits derived from factory labor and automation wasn’t shared with the workers, it went to the owners. Capitalism requires both infinite growth and infinite resources, which conflicts with the simple fact that our resources on this planet are finite and that abusively depleting those resources affects the health and well-being of all life forms on this planet as well as the planet itself.
And
We Pagans are trying to re-enchant the world, to bring back the magic of the forests and the mountains. We are trying to hear and revere the wild places, the sacred forgotten places, the spirits of ocean and rivers and lakes. And yet Capitalism is always poisoning these places because it considers nothing sacred except profit, nothing holy except wealth.
There is a discussion of alternatives to Capitalism in the concluding section of the book:
The most common questions we get from people after explaining how horrible, destructive, and really mean Capitalism can be, is ‘what next?’ What do we do about it? It’s difficult to answer this question as an anarchist. One of the primary tenets of Anarchism is that no one should ever have power-over anyone else, nor should anyone tell anyone else what to do. Thus, being asked “what should I do?” presents a huge problem for us. Also, there’s another matter. Grand programs and one-size-fits-all solutions don’t work. Soviet and Chinese Communism both operated this way, and besides the many other problems they caused, the one-size-fits-all model led to massacres, gulags, and wars.
Some useful principles the authors offer as a path forward include:
Building Community
Capitalism has caused the destruction of community in every place its taken root. As a matter of fact, it needs to do this, since alienation is one of the mechanisms it uses to keep workers and consumers competing against each other, rather than co-operating.
People who co-operate with each other learn to trust each other and are more likely to help each other through ‘extra-economic’ means. Consider: let’s say you catch a really nasty flu. You cannot go to work, you cannot take care of yourself, you can’t make yourself food or do things for your children.
If you have no community, you must rely on ‘the market’ for your needs. You would have to hire someone to watch your children, order food delivered to your door, and you’ll find yourself spending even more money than you might have if you were well. It may also take you longer to feel better.
This same situation changes radically if you are part of a community. When you let friends, family, and neighbors know that you are ill, they naturally offer to help. A relative might offer to watch your children for a few days, neighbors might bring you food, friends might go pick up medicine for you and come by to help you tidy your place or watch movies with you. And the most radical thing of all? None of them would even think to charge you for these ‘services.’
Communities like this don’t spring up overnight—they take years to cultivate. They can’t be bought, and if they’re strong enough and communicate well, they can’t be bought-out. Groups of neighbors fighting against developers or polluters, building community gardens and co-operative child-care networks are all essential ways of resisting.
Make Common Cause with Others
Make common cause as much as possible, across every racial, ethnic, political, and religious background you can. Find ways to support similar struggles in other countries, on indigenous land in the Americas, and in your own cities and towns. While building community around you, always look for ways to connect your community to other communities, even (and especially!) if those people appear to look and act nothing like you. Resist Capitalist alienation by resisting personal alienation.
Invest in Each Other, Divest from Capitalism
There are many, many more ways in which we ‘invest’ ourselves in the perpetuation of Capitalism. Sometimes these are not our fault, other times they are. Our life choices and desired ‘standard of living’ have much to do with how much we’ll need Capitalism to succeed. If we think we ‘need’ a swimming pool and two cars to be happy, we’ll definitely need the companies we work for to succeed. If we need less, we have less to lose, which is why the poor are always more likely to revolt than the middle-classes.
Do you have credit cards? If so, do you really need them? Credit and debt not only benefit capitalism, but purchasing items that you don’t really need on credit keeps you forever tied to the system.
Do you keep your money in a bank? If so, why? Banks are for-profit institutions that use your money to make more money off the very systems that are destroying our ability to live on this planet. Credit unions, on the other hand, perform the same functions as banks but are non-profit institutions that keep your money in the community. The bank needs you much more than you need the bank. Ditching the bank is a small but significant divestment from capitalism.
Consume Less, Create More
So, when looking at your consumption, always keep in mind that what you buy through the Capitalist system sustains, supports, and perpetuates Capitalism, no matter the product. Consume as little of these things as you can, and learn to create what the market sells back to you.
Resist Often and Everywhere
Capitalism infects all of our social relationships, so every social relationship is a potential place of Revolution.
Consider the way you ‘value’ your friends and experiences with them. Do you sometimes calculate what can be gotten from them versus what you return? You learned this from Capitalism. You should unlearn it.
Think about your relationship to the place you live. Is it a place you ‘use’ or is it a world you inhabit and cherish and care for?
Consider the way you look at strangers. Do you fear them, or try to see the divine in them? Resist fear at every opportunity, and build trust. Remember, competition and fear are central tenets of Capitalism, and the opposite of them is Love and Joy.
Educate Yourself
At the end of the book there is a useful list of additional resources to look into and explore.
You can read a PDF version of the book in its entirety here. You can also check out the authors’ website – Gods & Radicals.
Is the economic system of capitalism a violation of our higher awareness, and is it one of those root issues that need to be addressed if we plan to live in peace and harmony with one another and the planet? To me, this is a question at the intersection of spirituality and revolution, and something we should be exploring.
