Cry the Corrupted Country

Abstract

As capitalism declines as an economic power capable of satisfying its promise of material fulfillment, its moral pretense, what Marx would have referred to as its ‘ideology’, also declines. In fact, as ideology is so deeply embodied in the socio-economic structure, it could not be otherwise. Originally, bourgeois thinkers like Adam Smith could forward an argument for capitalism that rested on what seemed to him sound logical principles whose application would lead to the greatest well-being of the greatest number. But by the time of Weber, it was clear that capitalism had led from the ‘invisible hand’ to the ‘iron cage’. This despair, internalized in the members of late capitalist society, leads to a generalized immorality split between fanaticism and relativism. As Yeats put it: Things fall apart; the center cannot hold... The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.