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> The so-called accumulation of capital which gave birth to the bourgeoisie changed the very conception of property and wealth: they were no longer considered t

> The so-called accumulation of capital which gave birth to the bourgeoisie changed the very conception of property and wealth: they were no longer considered to be the results of accumulation and acquisition but their beginnings; wealth became a never-ending process of getting wealthier. The classification of the bourgeoisie as an owning class is only superficially correct, for a characteristic of this class has been that everybody could belong to it who conceived of life as a process of perpetually becoming wealthier, and considered money as something sacrosanct which under no circumstances should be a mere commodity for consumption. [..] > [Hobbes] even, through sheer force of imagination, was able to outline the main psychological traits of the new type of man who would fit into such a society and its tyrannical body politic. He foresaw the necessary idolatry of power itself by this new human type, that he would be flattered at being called a power-thirsty animal, although actually society would force him to surrender all his natural forces, his virtues and his vices, and would make him the poor meek little fellow who has not even the right to rise against tyranny, and who, far from striving for power, submits to any existing government and does not stir even when his best friend falls an innocent victim to an incomprehensible raison d'etat. > For a Commonwealth based on the accumulated and monopolized power of all its individual members necessarily leaves each person powerless, deprived of his natural and human capacities. It leaves him degraded into a cog in the power-accumulating machine, free to console himself with sublime thoughts about the ultimate destiny of this machine, which itself is constructed in such a way that it can devour the globe simply by following its own inherent law. [..] > By "Victory or Death," the Leviathan can indeed overcome all political limitations that go with the existence of other peoples and can envelop the whole earth in its tyranny. But when the last war has come and every man has been provided for, no ultimate peace is established on earth: the power-accumulating machine, without which continual expansion would not have been achieved, needs more material to devour in its never-ending process. If the last victorious Commonwealth cannot proceed to "annex the planets," it can only proceed to destroy itself in order to begin anew the never-ending process of power generation. -- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism" Mind you, IIRC Arendt didn't argue that the above "leads to totalitarianism", it's just something she wrote about in that tome, too.

jariel 6y ago
"a Commonwealth based on the accumulated and monopolized power of all its individual members necessarily leaves each person powerless," ? It was like that way before the 'bourgeois' ever even existed. Roman Empire? Charlemagne? Louis XIV? Habsburgs? The problem with these Enlightenment era definitions is they fail to take into consideration that the quest for power has been there since the start, it was just never generally available to the merchant class. i.e. the notion that the Roman Empire wouldn't fit any of these social distinctions doesn't quite add up - it's just that those wanting power had to take on perfunctory civic roles and be involved in politics in order for their mercantile quests to thrive. The other thing missing from these quotes is ahem Adam Smith: trade, economies of scale, division of labour, comparative value etc. create enormous value and most of that value ends up in the hands of consumers. The Nobility were beaten by the Merchants because the Nobility were only interested in control, the Merchants created a lot of value.
- vidarh 6y ago
  > ? It was like that way before the 'bourgeois' ever even existed. None of the examples you gave had the means to wield "the accumulated and monopolized power of all its individual members", not least because technological limits alone introduced massive logistical challenges to central control that made any empire of the time very much decentralised and dependent on the extent to which local representatives had their own agendas. > The problem with these Enlightenment era definitions Arendts book was published in 1951. > it was just never generally available to the merchant class. It's much bigger a distinction than that. The big change brought by the growth of capitalism was disconnecting responsibility for the population from the accumulation of capital. A feudal lord could squeeze his population hard, sure, but cause them to die of starvation and his output would drop - his power and ability to accumulate it was tied to land and tied to keeping the population living on them able to produce. With capitalism accumulation was disconnected from that feedback loop - the capitalist can optimise away the workers in a way those dependent on at least the survival of the workers can't, and that is real reason why the nobility was beaten: The only way to beat the Merchants was to become one, and ditch the liability that having a notional responsibility for your workers provided. But that also changed the nature of accumulation for those at the top from one naturally limited by being tied to a scarce resource (land) to being a near unlimited thread-mill. It's natural to then look at the side effects of that. They're all bad, but they're also not all good.

jariel 6y ago

"a Commonwealth based on the accumulated and monopolized power of all its individual members necessarily leaves each person powerless," ? It was like that way before the 'bourgeois' ever even existed. Roman Empire? Charlemagne? Louis XIV? Habsburgs? The problem with these Enlightenment era definitions is they fail to take into consideration that the quest for power has been there since the start, it was just never generally available to the merchant class. i.e. the notion that the Roman Empire wouldn't fit any of these social distinctions doesn't quite add up - it's just that those wanting power had to take on perfunctory civic roles and be involved in politics in order for their mercantile quests to thrive. The other thing missing from these quotes is ahem Adam Smith: trade, economies of scale, division of labour, comparative value etc. create enormous value and most of that value ends up in the hands of consumers. The Nobility were beaten by the Merchants because the Nobility were only interested in control, the Merchants created a lot of value.

vidarh 6y ago
> ? It was like that way before the 'bourgeois' ever even existed. None of the examples you gave had the means to wield "the accumulated and monopolized power of all its individual members", not least because technological limits alone introduced massive logistical challenges to central control that made any empire of the time very much decentralised and dependent on the extent to which local representatives had their own agendas. > The problem with these Enlightenment era definitions Arendts book was published in 1951. > it was just never generally available to the merchant class. It's much bigger a distinction than that. The big change brought by the growth of capitalism was disconnecting responsibility for the population from the accumulation of capital. A feudal lord could squeeze his population hard, sure, but cause them to die of starvation and his output would drop - his power and ability to accumulate it was tied to land and tied to keeping the population living on them able to produce. With capitalism accumulation was disconnected from that feedback loop - the capitalist can optimise away the workers in a way those dependent on at least the survival of the workers can't, and that is real reason why the nobility was beaten: The only way to beat the Merchants was to become one, and ditch the liability that having a notional responsibility for your workers provided. But that also changed the nature of accumulation for those at the top from one naturally limited by being tied to a scarce resource (land) to being a near unlimited thread-mill. It's natural to then look at the side effects of that. They're all bad, but they're also not all good.