So today we're going to discuss

Nietzsche's criticisms of capitalism and

the sources are mostly found in human

multi-human books two and three entitled

assorted maxims and opinions and

Wanderer and his shadow

for some of you the content here may be

surprising you know how is it that

Nietzsche could write such things as to

argue that we should compensate the

proletariat for the abuses they've

suffered that the rich should hold

themselves responsible for being on the

guillotine's end of the Socialist

Revolution

and write that wealth is also a danger

well we've read a lot of ancient Greek

influences on Nietzsche and in the

ancient thinkers we almost always find

the same attitude towards wealth

wealth is almost always treated as a

danger

it is a danger to the unity of society

and a danger to the moral character of

all who hold it

the demand throughout Antiquity was that

only a man of the nobility

ought to hold property because they were

the only ones with the virtue to be

wealthy the strength not to become

corrupted by it and those who became

wealthy through private Enterprise were

therefore inherently distrusted because

the noble-spirited person has a task

they have a challenge higher than the

acquisition of wealth for him wealth is

only a means only perhaps a way of

displaying his what richness and

Splendor of spirit right but with the

person of the Mercantile background or

the successful Tradesmen or smallholder

there was always this suspicion that the

advancement of their material position

would start to become the ends

but wealth as a danger and advice can

never be the ends and that in fact the

ravenous Hunger for More and More wealth

is an indication in and of itself of a

weak-willed person and if such people

are allowed into the halls of power

Society will be severely threatened

we find this attitude in writers as

disparate in time and in their

viewpoints as for example Plato and

theogenous in Plato's Republic Socrates

argues that any society that allows the

unrestrained acquisition of wealth will

not be merely one Society but two

they're rich and the poor

they will be so Divergent in their

interests that other powers will

actually be able to unveagle them into

fighting one another and so they'll fail

to achieve the unity that is needed to

create the good State the philosopher

rulers in the warrior class that fights

to defend the Republic in Plato's Vision

they are supposed to live above the

pursuit of property for this very reason

they have to be a non-economic class of

men Plato believed this because he even

saw the Nobles of Sparta corrupted by

wealth insofar as the Spartan driving

ambition that they have right that

throws itself into the competition for

wealth and then we could look at the

attitude expressed by theogenous he's a

noble displaced by the revolutions and

the Ascension of a wealthy capitalist

class we could say so you know his

position is rather understandable for

him the mere attainment of wealth does

not make one Noble and he rails against

the character or lack thereof of the

nuvarish of his time

he perceives that in ages past the

aristocracy was a thing Sanctified by

religion and defined by its character by

its ability to sacrifice and renounce

pleasures

that attitude is formalized and

Aristotle who sees virtuous action as

expressed in the golden mean between two

extremes

he treats greed as one such extreme the

opposite extreme of laziness and that in

the case of greed and so the mediation

of which is something like a desire for

achievement or ambition

he also sees stinginess or you know

miserliness being cheap as one extreme

in contrast to extravagance right

spending ostentatiously and so the

mediating virtue between them is

something like a moderate liberality

right

um spending when you have to and saving

when you have to and so in other words

for Aristotle greed the desire for

wealth the extravagant spending that one

you know of the wealth that you already

hold

these are things that have to be

moderated or else you will fall into

Vice right

we might also look to the Romans the

Romans a test throughout the days of The

Early Republic that luxuria is a danger

and that wealth has what what's called

an innervating effect on the energy of

society such that wealth in and of

itself makes you soft and that again the

only way to avoid this is to be a person

of discipline and voluntarily subject

yourself to hardship and challenge which

is why the Romans campaign ceaselessly

in the early days of the Republic

the Roman attitude towards wealth I

think is particularly interesting

because they always regarded it as not

just a danger to the moral character of

the individual but to society as a whole

there's an old formulation of ciceros

that the health of the people should be

the supreme law Sallis populi Supreme

Alex Esto

the meaning here is not limited to

physical health but Health in the sense

of the overall functionality of society

its overall moral character what

Nietzsche might call its Vitality but it

could also be seen reflected in the

unity that Plato wished for in a society

which is certainly a part of what Cicero

is talking about and this is what the

North African philosopher IBN kaldoon

calls asabia

capacity within a given Society for

cooperation your ability to get people

to pay their taxes without any trouble

for these you know Grand projects of

building and so on and so forth the

health of the people might also be

reflected in a very real sense by what

concerns the likes of Machiavelli that

you know we could think of it in terms

of Martial Readiness a society's ability

when an external threat arrives to

muster Soldiers the ability to fight to

defend what is yours the health of the

people here means the strength of a

collective entity such as a nation-state

to preserve itself when a cataclysm

strikes to continue to hold its shape

and so Health here doesn't

it doesn't have to do with whether the

people are happy per se and it doesn't

refer to their comfort or the safety of

any individual person we might compare

the situation to that of an athlete may

make him happy to eat nothing but candy

bars but that's not what's good for him

he has to be able to play a sport run

the marathon or whatever it is he has to

be able to compete on the time for

competition comes up and if he can't do

that he'll lose so his Fitness isn't

determined by whether he's happy or

whether he's comfortable it's not a

sedate sense of Health right

uh it has to be an active sense of

Health which in truth is really the only

sense of health because life is moving

and active and that this is what the

state depends on for its existence

the polity has to be healthy in the

sense of being able to bring a

collective Cooperative power to Bear

when problems and situations arise right

so the argument from all the Ancients

then is that when luxuria becomes the

only motivating force of human behavior

the health of the people in this sense

is damaged

luxuria obviously translates to luxury

we could call it wealth or we could call

it the goods desired by the people right

and what is luxuria as a motivating

force other than really desire

and that's what capitalism is ultimately

about the Fulfillment of human desires

economics itself is ultimately concerned

with people's attempts to acquire their

wants and their needs the central

argument of capitalism in its own

defense is in some sense a utilitarian

one that capitalism has done the best

job of any other system at satisfying

our desires

Americans and our capitalist Paradise

can go to Walmart at four in the morning

and have a selection of 30 flavors of

chips and 40 kinds of soda and every

brand of frozen pizza right but given

the nutritional profile of a lot of that

high caloric American junk food I just

mentioned maybe you can see where I'm

going with this that capitalism is great

at giving us what we want

but the market itself doesn't

distinguish between what we want and

what we need

there's only the desire which is

reflected in the price

thus wants and needs are in some sense

leveled they're made equatable

and oftentimes choosing what you need is

hard when it goes against what you want

you know if you want to have a long

healthy life what you need to eat is

Whole Foods right meat vegetables fruit

nuts eggs

I know there's some debate about all

this but you know pretty much everyone

would agree avoid as much processed

stuff as possible as little additives

and preservatives and Seed oils and

trans fats and stuff like that but in

capitalism

we're not going to make that choice for

you we let you make the choice and the

only problem is we can now see clearly a

lot of people don't possess the capacity

to make the correct Choice quote unquote

they don't have the willpower to

overcome the pull of addictive products

loaded with sugar and salt designed to

be as palatable as possible and who can

blame the public at large these are

desires more powerful than anything

we've ever had access to out on the

Savannah or on the step or as the first

agriculturalists you know in the Golden

Crescent or wherever it might have been

for the first couple hundred thousand

years of human existence right we've

never had anything like this we've had

relatively little time since modern High

caloric food started being produced and

it is so powerful in stimulating our

desire for it that people can't overcome

that addiction

and so many people choose what they want

over what they need more often than not

and they become unhealthy and contract a

bunch of illnesses and die young

now on some level I could hear the

objection from like the people with a

more social darwinian points of view

like well some people are just

irresponsible right

um and they have to suffer the

consequences for that

the issue here is it's not just some

people right it's that capitalism is a

system of incentives like any other and

we always have to ask what it is that

capitalism incentivizes

what capitalism intends to do is satisfy

human desire and it's structured such

that it rewards the one who does this

with the greatest Capital efficiency so

we can say that capitalism selects for

efficiency here meaning speed immediacy

convenience in terms of Desire

satisfaction which Upon A Little Closer

reflection

it's often the most antithetical thing

to the health of the people that you

could

incentivize for and so perhaps the most

logical thing one could do with

industrial capitalism according to its

own incentives would be to just turn as

much of our productive forces as

possible to the task of creating vast

Soma factories right Soma is the drug

from Brave New World the use of which is

encouraged by the state in order to

further the complacent happiness of the

populace and when we look around we see

that in many respects our economy

already does that to a large extent I

mean what else is a factory that bottles

sugary corn syrupy bubbly soda but a

Soma Factory right what else other than

industrial capitalism manifest in that

they'll form entirely devoted to giving

people treats right to not just

satisfying desires but often

manufacturing desires and these desires

are now so powerful due to our level of

technological achievement that they're

designed to hack our physiology so that

we can't resist

so that when we eat some sugary junk

food our brain says wow this is the most

nutritious thing for me ever and

obviously I'm still trying to survive as

a hunter-gatherer on the Savannah ride

so give me more of this

and the result is massive numbers of

diabetes like we've never seen right and

that's not just in America that's

happening sweeping through China right

now

and so the literal health of the people

is damaged but we can see how there's a

deeper problem here right the

broader sense of society's health and

what it values and what it's optimizing

for and the way that Cicero is talking

about that's also damaged but there's

something wasteful about human life

being devoted to the production and

consumption of desires which do nothing

to advance life but only make us

complacent and pacified

these incentives when they collide with

the psychology of the populace they're

not just going to pull some but the

majority of people in their direction

right the cumulative effect is to weaken

the social order itself

by affecting the vast majority of the

populace albeit mostly in small ways

right

this happens for a number of reasons the

person who can satisfy desires with the

greatest Capital efficiency they're

going to gain the greatest share of

whatever Market they're operating in

and in accordance with the positive

feedback loop of economic success

one success begets another one and one

failure begets another failure so one

can quickly Skyrocket to dominance in

certain contexts often from a myriad of

factors that you have no control over

yourself we might think of Amazon as it

was founded right it was just a website

to sell books online

but it was founded right at that sort of

precipice of online shopping becoming

the Behemoth that it is and so now it's

the apex predator and no online seller

can even remotely compete with them

because they basically get to set the

rules of the online Market

at least to a large extent because they

own most of that market right so as the

health of the people in both a literal

sense and in an extended broader sense

begins to suffer

what actually happens as we create these

systems of welfare to manage an

increasing number of people who are

ridden with disease and disability and

who become more and more dependent on

the state for their very existence the

state is incentivized to do this in

spite of the burden that it incurs

because it sort of justifies the state's

existence and its expansion and thus we

have the situation today where in some

places Walmart is taking a significant

amount of money out of the government

revenue of the areas they're operating

in because of the amount of food stamps

that their own employees are having to

draw from the system in order to survive

right

so the ensuing bureaucratic expansion

ends up eroding social cohesion even

further and it drives another wedge

between the property holders and society

and the property lists masses right

perhaps more importantly

we might notice something about the kind

of people whose main skill set is

satisfying desire most efficiently which

we might say that's the skill set of The

Merchant of the businessman right

and we might look at it in terms of what

we're not selecting for

for who we Elevate to the top of society

we're not selecting for moral character

we're not selecting for the ability to

fight or Express power in the physical

sense

we're not selecting for religious piety

we're not selecting for a sense of

fostering a Sabia the unity of the

people we're not even really selecting

for reason although you could argue you

know a very successful businessman is

going to be probably more intelligent

right and he's going to be good probably

at a set of technical skills technical

in the sense of specialized to the world

of business

um but in a system by which people at

large are sickened and their lives

ultimately made worse and Society driven

apart by inequality

the people look up and they see the

winners of the system

who don't reflect anything

extraordinary in themselves in terms of

their character and so as this process

continues the capacity for Collective

action begins to decline the conflict

turns inward and strife breaks out

between the classes they cease to cohere

as one Society with a shared Destiny and

begin to compete with one another more

so than against other collectives right

on the geopolitical level so the desire

for personal advancement at this point

has become all-encompassing because you

know the image of the elites suggests

that anyone could be one they don't

appear to be special people at least by

and large and whereas an ancient Roman

might have been willing to die for a

patrician commander who was himself

willing to sacrifice his life for his

own men we see the Romans became less

and less willing to do so

in proportion to the degree that the

patricians of Rome became less concerned

with self-sacrifice and virtue and more

concerned with who could throw the

biggest banquet

this destabilizing effect eventually

ends in the revolution against the state

and its overthrow

and that is usually motivated in times

both ancient and modern by an eventual

wholesale challenge to the property

relationships that are defended by the

state and established since time

immemorial property itself is eventually

seen as illegitimate

and it's because it's not something

that's bestowed on The Virtuous and we

couldn't blame Nietzsche therefore if he

didn't see anything really new in the

rise of socialism in the 19th century

insofar as it was simply a repetition of

the democratic uprisings in ancient

Greece which were described by Plutarch

by Aristotle by theogenous

and just as these ancient authors all

claimed Nietzsche shares in their

sentiment at the beginning of the

aristocratic downfall was that loss of

its spiritual and moral Authority the

loss of belief in its superiority the

blurring of distinctions between Noble

and common and in spite of what the

Communists might say

nothing can achieve this blurring of

class distinctions faster than

capitalism and I would also note that I

think that's actually in line with what

Mark said because capitalism is the

sublation of the feudal system right

capitalism progressed us beyond the

inevitable like intractable ties of

blood and land right but it it

introduced this ability for things like

sudden Acquisitions of wealth

for people to come out of nowhere and

become richer than the most prestigious

uh Patrician family

or you know allowed wealth to flow

through Society according to who can

perform a trade that could best satisfy

desire as we've been talking about right

and so there are very few people who'd

want to go back to like aristocracies of

blood these days and I am not one of

them but every way in which we advance

is always a trade-off

and so we have to ask ourselves has the

selection mechanism of capitalism been

any better or is it in some ways worse

and if it is worse then we have to think

about what to sublate it with right to

use the hegelian or Marxist term

um and Nietzsche doesn't agree with the

socialists that the next step should be

Socialism or communism but we'll get to

that as we continue

now capitalism obviously doesn't abolish

the hierarchy far from it

what it does as we've laid out is

introduce a new selection mechanism for

the hierarchy which in this case is

capital efficiency and capital in some

sense is your ability to satisfy desire

now if we were to contrast the selection

mechanisms that acted upon like fighting

aristocracies in the pre-capitalist age

we if we were to contract those

selection mechanisms with those acting

upon the capitalists we might note

several important differences so first

and foremost the capitalist doesn't make

war
capitalism is War by other means as it's

often said precisely because the various

captains of industry don't Marshal

armies and duel each other in the

streets right the CEO of Pepsi and Coke

don't shoot at each other like Mafia

Dons who are battling for territory

during the time of like alcohol

prohibition right and why is that well

because capitalism occurs within the

piece created by the state within the

freedom from the state of nature granted

by being brought under state power

that's the only way we can even really

rigorously imagine

the idea of capitalism that the market

is dependent on the state in some sense

because you need the state to defend

against things like fraud you have to

have a universal law or standard imposed

to prevent all the businesses from

defrauding one another but if you just

say well people just wash themselves and

we'll do it based on the honor System or

we'll let the market sort it out if you

let the market sort it out somebody

could defraud a lot of people for a lot

of money and then if there's no state to

step in and stop that yeah okay people

won't shop there anymore if they're

always getting defrauded right but

usually what happens is people just skip

town right with all the money and they

just get away with it if you let the

market sort it out because the market is

sort of the consequences that the market

imposes are always delayed right so in

any case

as our founding fathers wrote you know

here in America the government exists to

keep the poor from murdering the rich

the Republic the state exists for the

sake of the holders of capital because

the poor don't need that kind of

protection right they have nothing to

steal really and the rich fund most of

what you know the government is

so now obviously we we would regard it

as an innovation that our businessmen

don't act like Mafia Dons in 1920s

Chicago but thankfully for the ancient

Greeks right their aristocracies didn't

fight each other in the streets either

at least when there wasn't a civil war

going on

but just as the Greek revolutions played

out the Roman Civil Wars of the late

Republic for example Levy tells us these

were basically caused in large part by

luxuria by the greed of the Roman

Aristocrats overriding their sense of

Duty that the fighting aristocracies

developed martial qualities because they

were routinely tested in combat and as a

result they're sort of a selection

mechanism on the aristocracy just as

there was on the plebs you know the

proletariat is always being selected

upon because their daily existence is

like a struggle to make ends meet but

there was a time when this was true of

the nobility also that the Roman

patricians died in combat left and right

you know as a patrician you're expected

to lead the charge into battle that sort

of thing so not only did the nobility of

the aristocratic period have forces

pressing against

um them as a selection mechanism it made

them also heroes to the populace at

large and so

the sort of low quality people who can't

hack it in battle are cold away in this

process and the unity of the upper and

lower classes is sort of achieved by

engaging in Collective struggle with an

external enemy right so that's how you

achieve that class collaborationism that

the marxists are always so worried about

now what does the merchant do on the

other hand when the enemy soldiers are

at the door

while he flees right he pays other

people to fight for him

and modernity

capital is this means of obtaining

social influence and political influence

and we could say that the corporate

leaders are at the helm of our society

in many respects politically because

they have more power over the direction

of government than anyone else they

largely fund most of the agencies that

are supposed to regulate them which

creates a conflict of interest which

makes the regulation very mild and they

pay for the campaigns of the politicians

they hire lobbyists who by the way in

America at least the lobbyists actually

generally are the ones who write the

legislation so they're not elected

officials they're private individuals

and then they just sort of hand it in to

the whatever elected representative

they've bought and paid for

and so the way the capitalist elite

tends to exercise power in the world and

the set of skills that produce their

power right what are these skills well

they have to do with contracts with law

with guile and trickery with deception

and the maintenance of corporate secrets

with persuasion and public relations

with you know knowing the legal

contrivances in order to achieve Victory

through litigation engage in lawfare

neutralize a threat through arbitration

this is the character of the successful

businessman right these are his skills

and so in this portrait of him we

understand why the Ancients all said

never let this guy be in charge

we find that the capitalist class is

more or less entirely a class that

thrives on dishonesty relies on the

state for its protection has relatively

short-term goals at least compared to

the old monarchies right who had their

sights on what their legacy would be in

a thousand years the businessmen however

have to keep their focus trained on the

Here and Now

in this world the business world events

evolve quickly and one's eye is always

trained on what is right over the

horizon in order to react accordingly

you know there's that famous saying of

Keynes that in the long term we're all

dead so there's an extent to which the

entire capitalist project and the

enthusiasm for it depends on the

capitalist constantly and immediately

delivering on the satisfaction of all

desire there's an immediacy to it and

that includes the desires not just which

are sold in the market but the desires

that incentivize those who do the

selling right it includes the desire of

the businessman for a higher quality of

life that's the lure which pulls him

upwards in the the ranks of his you know

bureaucratic corporate structure and he

makes more money as he climbs upward and

that means he can afford more pleasures

we are lured constantly along with

pleasure and thus the total picture is

this

a capitalist Society becomes a society

of pleasure seeking and accordingly the

issues of greatest attention become

those of self-preservation medical

health the Market's ability to continue

functioning unimpeded at all times we

begin to optimize for the greatest

convenience you know just in time

delivery as like this sort of zenith of

capitalist global capitalism right

and any interruption in that ability to

seek pleasure is really damning for the

system and causes Mass outrage as we saw

with the supply chain crisis right and

so then the man who Rises to the top in

this capitalist culture is a reflection

of that culture as we see it all around

us he is shallow he's materialistic he's

narrow-minded he's typically short-term

he's deceitful treacherous fake and

above all hedonistic

when we look up to the top of the

pyramid we see ourselves

we see all of our own flaws and this is

truer than ever now that we have

celebrity gossip magazines and tabloids

right we know that they're rich and

Powerful have all the same vices and

desires that we do and you know I would

say

while there are people who are idolized

we still have the term of someone being

an idol most people don't even have

Heroes these days right

and with that falling away the entire

idea of hierarchy is called into

question something which in Practical

terms can't actually be done away with

every attempt to subvert the hierarchy

merely rearranges it or adjusts its

incentive structure it always ends up

creating a new one and so the only

choice is how to select the people who

find their way to the top of the

hierarchy are there better and worse

ways

and so what does this anti-capitalist

diatribe that I've given you for the

first 30 minutes of the episode have to

do with Nietzsche right some of you may

be asking well now we're going to get

into the textual evidence for these

positions because this is roughly

speaking Nietzsche's opinion of

capitalism and what it truly is

um this is the critique a non-marxist

critique of capitalism it's a critique

inspired out of classical Antiquity as

Nietzsche sees it

so we'll look at those handful of

passages from uh sorted maxims and

opinions and then the wander in his

shadow

and uh these

kind of cover the topic of private

property

the character of the rich as we've been

talking about the advancement of

democracy and its advancement in

relation to the rise of socialism

so in the following quote from the

maxims

Nietzsche addresses the wealthy man of

today

and remember from our previous episode

Nietzsche sort of believes that the

socialistic energy is building to a

fever pitch in Europe and that's some

kind of conflict or reconciliation one

or the other is going to be required

between these parties of the rich and

the poor and that means that the

democratization and socialization of

Europe is in some sense inevitable and

really the only questions that remain is

how it's going to play out

so he speaks here to the rich and really

I think he's speaking to the super rich

and he gives them his advice in light of

this this is aphorism 304 quote

the revolution spirit and The Possession

spirit

the only remedy against socialism that

still lies in your power is to avoid

provoking socialism in other words to

live in moderation and contentment

to prevent as far as possible all lavish

display and to Aid the state as far as

possible in its taxing of all

superfluities and luxuries

you do not like this remedy

then you rich Bourgeois who call

yourselves liberals confess that it is

your own inclination that you find so

terrible and menacing in socialists

but allow to Prevail in yourselves as

unavoidable as if with you it were

something different

as you are constituted if you had not

your fortune and the cares of

maintaining it this bent of yours would

make socialists of you

possession alone differentiates you from

them

if you wish to conquer the assailants of

your Prosperity you must first conquer

yourselves

and if that Prosperity only meant

well-being it would not be so external

and provocative of Envy it would be more

generous more benevolent more

compensatory more helpful

but the spurious histrionic elements in

your pleasures which lie more in the

feeling of contrast

because others have them not and feel

envious then in feelings of realized and

heightened power
your houses dresses carriages shops and

the demands of your pallets and your

tables your noisy operatic and musical

enthusiasm

lastly your women formed and fashioned

but of Base metal gilded but without the

Ring of gold chosen by you for show and

considering themselves meant for show

these are the things that spread the

poison of that National disease which

seizes the masses ever more and more as

a socialistic hardage but has its origin

and breeding place in you

who shall now arrest this epidemic

end quote

so who is to blame for socialism

the rich are

and not simply by the fact of their

being rich but by the fact of their

being unvirtuous the socialistic hard

itch has its origin in its breeding

place in the rich what does that mean

means that the extravagant habits the

ostentatious spending of the rich their

obvious Hedonism all of these things

combine to form an outward image of them

which indicates a relatively low quality

person

it's been said about Americans that we

are all temporarily embarrassed

millionaires we're all convinced that we

could be rich if only Lady Luck Smiled

On Us right and the rich of today

completely fulfill that truism

they lead the average person to think

that the rich are no different than I am

right and while this may Inspire some

people to work hard and save their money

with the goal of eventually becoming

rich themselves it also has that effect

of demystifying the aristocracy there's

no special quality about these people

there's nothing about them that's heroic

or divine

the elite of today are mostly just some

Elite's kids who had connections right

the law defends their wealth and the

corporate Empires that they have defend

their wealth they don't have to defend

it I mean it's like again they don't

have to take up arms right the law does

that for them and to a large extent you

know you we look up to the rich and we

see a bunch of playboys they have no

taste or education when you listen to

your average average like Rich celebrity

talk right like listen to an act famous

actor or musician they usually sound

like morons
and so the more damning critique of the

rich here though is this line

quote possession alone differentiates

you from them

end quote so Nietzsche is saying to the

rich of today

if Lady Luck turned her back on you

let's say completely unexpected

disasters happen and you know the market

tanks your stocks crash your company's

um you know they're suddenly evaluated

in the gutter your savings is gone and

suddenly you find yourself destitute

right just as Americans can all be

temporarily embarrassed millionaires

that you as a millionaire might just be

a temporarily lucky uh hobo right you

never know that might be your fate

and so suddenly you find yourself

with no property Nietzsche is saying you

would be a socialist just like the rest

of them if that happened to you

and what proves this is that you're

solely driven by the desire to possess

since you have no higher calling right

uh than to chase your own hedonic

desires you would find yourself in the

ranks of those who wish to possess but

don't

so the only way you can ward off the

danger of socialism is by being truly

better human beings

you have to Aspire to some higher Duty

and learn how to sacrifice and renounce

and project virtue

and I should note here that what

Nietzsche is arguing

is somewhat backed up by historical

analysis both in the work of IBN kaldoon

and in the work of Peter turchin

Nietzsche mentions for example quote

your houses dresses carriages shops the

demand of your pallets and your tables

your noisy operatic and musical

enthusiasm

quote he says that these things

establish pleasure in the rich person

because it's a form of contrasting

themselves with the poor it's actually

very insightful because this is a

pattern that we see evidence for as

economic inequality accelerates in a

given system and especially as Elite

overproduction occurs

to explain what Elite overproduction is

as straightforwardly as I can in every

society there are a limited number of

elite positions they always have to be

limited because their exclusivity is

what makes them Elite positions to some

extent right so if we look back to

ancient China they had the ministerial

exams at Chong on you know and the

children of rich rich land holders would

go and study for these exams they would

undergo them in order to become one of

the ministers and to enter into that

hierarchy of Elites that was the route

to power and influence but it was

limited by the exams and by their design

that not everyone could pass them I mean

that's exactly the same with our own

University accreditation system of today

you have to reject a certain percentage

of candidates you have to fail a certain

number of students or else the

university loses its prestige

we might consider titles of nobility in

the feudal systems right there are only

So Many Lands only so many ways that the

land can be divided up and while

occasionally you can split up a plot of

land or merge them and borders get

shifted through Warfare and so on and so

forth

there's a limited number of titles you

can award that can advance someone into

or upwards through the Patricia

in our society today those Elite

positions might be doctors lawyers a job

at a large financial institution or the

upper echelons of the federal government

right

to get into any of these firms or

institutions you always need extensive

schooling or really extensive

credentials right but the schooling to

get those credentials is expensive and

the number of people who can obtain a

degree from a top educational

institution is always limited one of the

ways you can measure the degree of

wealth inequality in America is looking

at how affordable a college like Yale is

relative to the real wages of a

blue-collar worker like say a

manufacturing worker what we find is

as inequality in society accelerates

going to Yale or going to medical school

or any something some Prestige

institution like that becomes

prohibitively more expensive

so if you express the tuition needed to

go to Yale in terms of what percentage

of your annual wages you need to make as

a manufacturing worker or what you would

need to pay as a as a percentage of your

annual wages you'd see that today you

need roughly 70 percent of what you make

in a year to send your kid to Yale for

one semester for example right so that's

far higher than it's been in the past

for example in 1960 you could send your

kid to Yale for a semester for a third

of your annual salary still very

expensive right from that uh that kind

of material position but it's you know

um almost twice it's more than twice as

much uh more prohibitive now in terms of

the number of people that it just prices

out of being able to advance

and so to explain this what's actually

happening is that as inequality

continues to increase more people are

pushed down into the proletariat but

also more people Ascend upwards into the

Patricia there's that uh truism or

aphorism or Rising tide lifts all boats

but

which is true but that doesn't actually

smooth the inequality it heightens it

if you're already at a higher level you

get lifted even faster and there are

again sort of structural economic

reasons for this such as the Peter

Principle which I've sort of made

reference to and arguing for that I

think in any detail would take us a

little too far afield

but this has been measured right you

know as the Patricia expands eventually

you hit a point

where there are more aspirant Elites

jockeying for a position than there are

open positions within the elite this

happens because the elite the amount of

total amount of wealth in society is

expanding but

um the elite is always trying to limit

the number of people who can get in and

so more and more

aspirant Elites don't make it and they

become what's called counter Elites now

to return to Nietzsche the phenomenon

that Nietzsche is describing here is

that among the class of the rich their

spending becomes more ostentatious and

they have all of these ways of

expressing that they're part of the

higher upper class culture

why does this happen well because it's

one way of socially limiting the

Patricia as more and more people become

10 millionaires or 100 millionaires the

only way for you as a billionaire to

distinguish yourself from them is to

outspend them begin to display your

wealth in such a way that no 100

millionaire could ever do it right but

distinguish yourself from them right buy

a bigger yacht

and so Nietzsche also quite rightly says

of this type of ostentatious wealth

display quote

these are the things that spread the

poison of that National disease end

quote insofar as these accelerating

displays of extravagant wealth erodes

Social Capital that is a judgment that

IBN caldoon makes

it creates that perception that there

are two competing societies that

Socrates talks about the counter Elite

are able to point to all these

ostentatious examples of spending

to you know anger the proletariat

and while you know in past ages the

gentleman historians always sort of saw

this as rabble rousing we might note

that during the process of accelerating

inequality that also means a lot of

people are being going to be pushed down

or at least shut out they're going to

feel a sense of precarity right as the

middle is sort of hollowed out

and so again Nietzsche is not treating

socialism therefore as a Justified or

good thing that he supports happening

fact it's what he's using as the harms

of capitalism to argue against it and so

understand that socialism here is seen

as the inevitable result of capitalism

that this is a necessary end that

happens when capitalism begins to take

root in a society

kind of the same thing Marx said yet

again the difference being that whereas

Marx said okay let's bring the

revolution forth Nietzsche is saying

this is the death of society

because in Nietzsche's view it's

apocalyptic right but again we have to

understand

he is still sourcing the if we're going

to place responsibility on anyone it's

the lack of self-discipline of the rich

that causes it that's where it all

begins that's what generates that

resentment right and so to repeat his

words his call to Virtue to them quote

if you wish to conquer the assailants of

your Prosperity you must first conquer

yourselves

end quote now these considerations lead

into Nietzsche's argument in the passage

entitled danger and wealth which appears

in human all to human book two aphorism

number 310. quote

danger and wealth only a man of spirit

should hold property otherwise property

is a public danger for the owner not

knowing how to make use of the Leisure

which his possessions might secure to

him we'll continue to strive after more

property

this Strife will be his occupation his

strategy in the war with on we

such wealth then is the glittering

outcrop of intellectual dependence and

poverty but it looks quite different

from what its humble origin might lead

one to expect because it can mask itself

with culture and art it can in fact

purchase the mask

by this means they arouse Envy in the

poorer and the uncultivated who at

bottom are envious of culture and fail

to recognize the masks as masks and

gradually prepare a social Revolution

for gilded vulgarity and histrionic

self-inflation in a supposed enjoyment

of culture instill into the latter the

idea it is only a matter of money

whereas while it is to some extent a

matter of money it is much more a matter

of spirit end quote

now a word on the phrasing a man of

spirit or a matter of spirit in German

this word implies just as much the soul

as it does the intellect

such that you could read it as only a

man of intellect should hold property or

it's to some extent a matter of money

but it is much more a matter of

intellect but intellect unfortunately

has its limitations just as the term

Spirit does it's one-sided it only

includes the cognition leaving aside the

sense in which we might say someone is

Spirited there's an element Niche is

describing which we might call in

English a state of mind or like an

aspect of one's will power or something

like that so property or wealth or

luxuria whatever we call it ultimately

what it represents is power

and so we're allowing power to be

dispersed among people with no willpower

or no great intelligence no great

spiritedness

and that's ill-advised capitalism as

we've discussed it doesn't ensure that

the people who make great sums of money

will necessarily be intelligent or

spirited
so with this more complete picture of

what Nietzsche has in mind that the

person who holds property should be both

educated but also possessed The

Willpower to act and behave morally he

tells us what a man lacking in this

quality will do with property once he

attains it he will simply use it to

acquire more property

that will be his war with on we right as

Nietzsche calls it anwe is the sort of

French existential form of boredom

confrontation with the meaninglessness

of existence in those moments where

there is nothing to do

so without a sense of the higher calling

right something to sacrifice yourself

for or sacrifice your resources for

um the modern man can simply quote

purchase the mask they can Adorn

themselves with the artifacts of culture

because this is see-through the populace

at large will say to themselves oh being

cultured is simply a matter of money

High culture is something I can purchase

Nietzsche says this in schopenhauer as

educator as well he says not to mistake

the uh these four types for the ideal he

says the businessman the worshiper of

the state the person who's obsessed with

the outward forms of culture like

etiquette and then the intellectuals

within you know the academy

uh these are not these should not none

of those four should be used as are

ideal

the man of outward culture of etiquette

of current Fashions and popular art as a

status symbol right

seems to us rather see through because

everyone knows that this person displays

culture in a way that can just be

purchased with money and so I can also

buy a tailored suit I can purchase a

ticket to the Opera I can purchase fine

art for my foyer right that's what the

Higher Culture now appears to be

something you can just buy your way into

and so it's no longer appears as

something mysterious it's no longer

something Superior

um okay so now we'll look at some of the

political writings on this topic found

in Wanderer and his shadow book 3 of

human all to Human

Nietzsche is critical of democracy he's

critical of egalitarianism but if we

remember from his comments in the

section a glance at the state he sees

these forces as irresistible and he sees

at least some benefit in so far as it's

creating perhaps even inadvertently this

new pan-european culture

that's made possible for the new

European man the good European rather

than simply a good Frenchman or a good

Englishman or good German

and so he writes in aphorism 275 of that

text quote

the democratization of Europe is a

resistless force

even he who would stem the tide uses

those very means that Democratic thought

first put into men's hands and he makes

these means more handy and workable

the most inveterate enemies of democracy

I mean the spirits of upheaval

seem only to exist in order by the fear

they Inspire to drive forward the

different parties faster and faster on

the Democratic course

now we may well feel sorry for those who

are working consciously and honorably

for this future

there is something dreary and monotonous

in their faces and the gray dust seems

to have been wafted into their very

brains nevertheless posterity may

possibly someday laugh at our anxiety

and see in the Democratic work of

several Generations what we see in the

building of stone dams and walls an

activity that necessarily covers clothes

and faces with a great deal of dust and

perhaps unavoidably makes the workmen

too a little dull-witted but who would

on that account desire such work undone

seems that the democratization of Europe

is a link in the chain of those Mighty

prophylactic principles which are the

thought of the modern era and whereby we

rise up and revolt against the Middle

Ages now and only now is the age of

cyclopian building a final Security in

the foundations that the future may

build on them without danger henceforth

an impossibility of the Orchards of

culture being once more destroyed

overnight by wild senseless Mountain

torrents dams and walls against

barbarians against plagues against

physical and spiritual serfdom

quote

so

um

democracy again here treated in more

conciliatory notes as a spiritual

Rebellion against the world feeling of

the Middle Ages against that sense of

serfdom and bondage and sort of breaking

down those provincial ties of land into

a grander prod project that is

self-consciously aimed at science art

and culture

um the way this passage ties in with the

critique of capitalism is in Nietzsche's

argument that democracy has placed us

into this age of cyclopian building it's

a Time allowing for the construction of

great projects great Collective projects

that's what's being made possible by the

democratization of Europe we might think

of the Great Pyramids of Giza the Roman

Pantheon the Notre Dame Cathedral these

great artistic Expressions rendered in

huge imposing Stone which represented

the collective power of a given age that

some living not living but is still

standing Monument to their asabia right

the democratization of Europe here is

considered as Unstoppable

and it's been the driving force of this

pan-european project that has the

possibility of preserving European

civilization in the an analogical way of

erecting walls of culture right so it

could be protected as never before from

barbarism Invasion and plague

and Nietzsche therefore sort of is

taking that principle from Machiavelli

again that it is permanence that gives

the opportunity for political greatness

and so that should be the ultimate goal

of the political project

he also expresses that idea in the Greek

state that the value of the state is

just insofar as it preserves culture

from destruction that it prevents the

will from discharging itself in such a

destructive you know lightning flash

that creates these wildfires that

swallow up culture you know by creating

things like the the Greek aegon and the

competition within in a way that's not a

war of annihilation but just a war of

competition between friends and Rivals

right it's a it's all a means of

creating culture in a way that it

doesn't just get destroyed so that

there's no ultimate lasting meaning from

it

and it's notable here that Nietzsche

makes perhaps The Stranger Mark that

democracy is quote a thing to come

he says it's a long-standing project

which is not itself even the goal

as to what the goal is he suggested at

the end of this passage he says quote

after all no one yet sees the gardener

and the fruit for whose sake the fence

exists

end quote so the fence it's the walls

the dams different ways of talking about

this sort of enclosure of culture that

can happen but interpreting Nietzsche

through his other statements the fruit

seems to be those Productions of culture

we can't see what fruit this new

pan-european culture will bear because

it's you know hundreds of years in the

making right

uh you you have to sort of turn your eye

to the long game when you're looking to

the creation of a space for genius to

flourish and mutually incite and entice

one another that's the point of the

polity for Nietzsche and so creating

this European Supra State this

Transcendence of the nationalistic goals

and the creation of a great unified

civilization it creates these

opportunities for the greatest most

large-scale fruits of Genius that have

ever been possible on earth right that's

our own period of cyclopean building

analogous to that of the Egyptians where

we can produce our equivalent of the

Great Pyramids that people still go

Marvel at the Great Pyramids today and

that society's been dead for thousands

of years

what I'd like to call to mind here are

Nietzsche's comments that only a man

with children should have a share in the

political franchise we have to turn our

attention to the long term to the Legacy

that will be left behind in hundreds or

in thousands of years for our political

impact to really have any lasting

meaning

that one should distrust the person of

short-term goals or the person whose

only concerns are with their own lives

and their own fleeting pleasures

but that is exactly what capitalism

attempts to turn our attention towards

and 286 Nietzsche writes that our

liberalized Market incentivizes Those

Who quote only consider the moment and

exploit the immediate opportunity end

quote

um a good ruler he says will quote look

to the permanence of all conditions and

thus also keep in view the well-being of

the worker his physical and spiritual

contentment end quote

so bring the worker in

to this vast project of cyclopean

building as a partner so to speak but we

might note that required for this you

know this Grand this understanding of

society that Nietzsche is promoting to

actually be realized

we would have to introduce some

competing value

some value in our economic

considerations

which is set against Capital efficiency

it doesn't make sense within that one

value of capital efficiency

efficiency and desire satisfaction to

have these long-term goals or to

maintain the spiritual contentment of

the worker that just uh that doesn't

make any sense from if you're purely

operating on that value

and that's not because Nietzsche

necessarily has great compassion for the

workers it's because healthy committed

workers they're the very people that are

needed for building those great dams and

walls of culture

um and so the laborer has to be treated

well as he writes again in Wanderer 286

quote

an order that he and his posterity may

work well for our posterity and become

trustworthy for longer periods than the

individual span of human life

end quote

so by turning our attention to a grand

European project of culture Nietzsche is

giving us an alternative value

um and thus an alternative direction

towards which we could harness the

energies of liberal liberalization and

democracy

um just as one harnesses Steam for

production or transportation

um and so he writes about this in

Wanderer 292 quote

all political Powers today nowadays

attempt to exploit the fear of socialism

for their own strengthening

get in the long run democracy alone

gains the advantage for all parties are

now compelled to flatter the masses and

Grant them facilities and Liberties of

all kinds with the result that the

masses finally become omnipotent

the masses are as far as possible

removed from socialism as a doctrine of

altering the acquisition of property

if once they get the steering wheel into

their hands through great majorities in

their parliaments they will attack with

progressive taxation the whole dominant

system of capitalists merchants and

financiers and will in fact slowly

create a middle class which may forget

socialism like a disease that has been

overcome

end quote

so it's a very fascinating passage

because he begins with this idea of how

socialism is being used by all the

different parties for their own

strengthening

um and I think this means not only in

the sense of democratic principles being

able to easily appeal to socialist

principles in order to Curry votes but

also in the sense that he talks about

that uh you know do anarchists harm

princes right that uh Maxim in Twilight

of Idols well he says

um they actually help princes and so far

as the prince has to be shot at in order

to secure his authority on the throne

right him being shot at justifies his

superiority right

um and so um you know Niche is drawing

an analogy that we immoralists are we

harming morality well the moral of the

story is perhaps that morality itself

needs to be shot at but it's kind of a

tangent for from what we're on here the

same way he's thinking that the

Socialists the anarchists all these

people who are wanting to sort of attack

the hierarchical structure of society

are even useful to the people who oppose

those goals who can then use the

Socialists as like a boogeyman to

rile up their own voters in order to go

vote against the Socialists so

but it's also fascinating because he

seems to sort of waver on his idea of

socialism as this inevitable cataclysm

because he's suggesting that perhaps

because of the power of democracy we

don't actually need to worry about

socialism in the long run being this

thing that brings down Society because

it will be overcome and absorbed by the

welfare state within liberal democracy

that once the Socialists take power

they'll be able to implement Democratic

uh you know measures to Simply attack

the capitalists and take their wealth

through means like progressive taxation

and that that will become feasible uh

you know far far before overthrowing the

government becomes feasible that these

socialists in government will just

become part of the establishment then

and seek to preserve it and historically

speaking it seems that Nietzsche was

fairly prescient about this because FDR

successfully diffused the socialistic

uprising that seemed almost destined to

occur in America if you were looking at

how its history was playing out in the

1920s

FDR comes along and implements this

robust welfare program

and the social democracies of Northern

Europe did much the same thing

we might consider that period after FDR

and the decades leading up to the 70s

and 80s where the labor unions in the

United States became rather powerful

I mean that started to reverse in the

70s but part of that is perhaps because

all of those developments had that

effect of actually diffusing the

Socialist energy and therefore making

socialism no longer a threat

functionally speaking

Nietzsche continues in this section

quote the Practical result of this

increasing democratization will be a

European League of Nations and which

each individual Nation delimited by the

proper geographical Frontiers has the

position of a Canton with its separate

rights end quote

so another correct prediction about the

future of politics from a continental

philosopher right Nietzsche predicts the

European Union in much the same way that

Kant does and when he brings up the

example of a Canton he's undoubtedly

thinking of the cantons of Switzerland

Nietzsche spent his Summers there he's

somewhat familiar with their system

right the cantons are like U.S states

they're autonomous on many matters and

they might even have different languages

and cultures from one another you know

there's four official languages in

Switzerland uh although I don't think

ramanche has really spoken except by

like very few people who are like really

extremely rural but you know ultimately

they're sort of

there's a great deal of diversity of

culture and language and even belief

it's Switzerland just sort of has

Catholics and Protestants and Calvinists

right

um but ultimately all of these for

whatever Regional or local autonomy they

have they're subsumed under the power of

Switzerland as a nation-state

so he's predicting this transnational

Europe that the conflicts of the future

he says will not be the task of generals

but rather quote the task of future

diplomats who will have to be at the

same time students of civilization

agriculturalists

commercial experts with no armies but

motives and utilities at their back end

quote

so Nietzsche sees the potential in

democracy while critiquing it

and he understands the root causes of

socialism as contained in capitalism

itself while still warning of its fatal

dangers

because Nietzsche believes war is

essential for mankind the peace created

by this new European transnational state

will have to represent something very

different from kant's Perpetual piece

however and at many times throughout his

writings and even here Nietzsche wonders

about the potential for a struggle with

Russia as a means of invigorating Europe

which is again oddly prescient given how

the 20th century played out and how this

is even recurring again today after you

know decades in which the Cold War

seemed to be over

the theme which is informative yet again

is that if the capitalist mindset is

bringing on the socialistic hardage

because the capitalist holds the market

to be this purely voluntarist thing and

solely driven by the industriousness and

intelligence and resourcefulness of the

people acting within it

um it blinds him to the fact that the

property question and especially the

origins of the property distribution

have always had a problem in their model

because if property as it is distributed

now is a direct result of how property

was unjustly divvied up in the past

which the origins of property how could

anyone deny it was means of by means of

conquest and enslavement and domination

and so on and so that means that

property as it is divided up now is

still unjustly distributed in so far as

the way those relations

affect the distribution of property to

some extent today because people inherit

things right and since there's no

fundamental difference between our Elite

and common person

in a moral sense or in a spiritual sense

which is the conception of them that the

rich themselves are responsible for

fostering

then that means that there's an

underlying logic within liberal

democracy

for redistributing the wealth and

ameliorating this original Injustice

so of course the Eternal question is how

to address that and how to ameliorate it

and since we're ameliorating the

injustices of people long dead and

punishing and rewarding the living in

their stead won't this create further

Injustice and so nature discusses these

complications in Wanderer and his shadow

292.

quote

when the Injustice of property is

strongly felt in the hand of the great

clock is once more at this place

we formulate two methods of relieving

this Injustice

either an equal distribution or an

abolition of private possession and a

return of State ownership

the latter method is especially clear to

the hearts of our socialists who are

angry with that primitive Jew for saying

Thou shalt not steal and their view the

eighth commandment should rather run

Thou shalt not possess

the former method was frequently tried

in Antiquity always indeed on a small

scale and yet with poor success

from this failure we we too May learn

equal plots of land is easily enough

said but how much bitterness is aroused

by the necessary Division and Separation

by the loss of time-honored possessions

how much piety is wounded and sacrificed

we uproot the foundation of morality

when we uproot boundary stones for there

never have been two really equal plots

of land and if there were man's Envy of

his of his neighbor would prevent him

from believing and their equality end

quote

there's so much here

um for one the hand of the grid clock is

once more at this place we have to

always contextualize these passages

within Nietzsche's understanding of

history is somewhat cyclical and

inevitable even though there are ways

which we can see he's clearly trying to

figure out how through reason we might

avoid the clock from coming back to that

that position again right but he sees

that this has happened so many times in

the ancient world he references it here

the idea of Thou shalt not steal being

made equivalent to Thou shalt not

possess we might think of the saying

property as theft right that's how the

Socialists have interpreted the property

question by interpreting property as

essentially theft

but Nietzsche notice he doesn't really

attack that any of those ideas he simply

it attacks it on the matter of

practicality

um it's another way in which Nietzsche

criticizes both capitalism and socialism

actually in a way reminiscent of some of

his attacks in both Free Will and

determinism because they're both

reflections of the same underlying mode

of thought which is utilitarianism

rendered into a political form and you

could just say that socialism is the

further progression of utilitarianism

that is necessarily contained within the

premises that capitalism operates upon

so his solution for capitalism can never

be socialism right that's why he is

going against it here because

it it can't be socialism not just

because he thinks it's a bad thing but

it doesn't make sense to call it the

solution to the problem of capitalism

that if you're thinking about it in that

sense it's almost the wrong way to think

about it because socialism is a function

and an outgrowth of capitalism it is

implied by it right

so we could also recall

his metaphysical critique in section one

of human all to human where he calls it

a falsification of the world to equate

unequal things well Nietzsche questions

the ability of capital to do that to

equate unequal things which is what

capital has to do or at least we must

accept that it does this in order for

the market to function

this is because Capital that's the

quantity that's measured in the price of

a good the market puts a price on

everything a quantity and then within

this Universal measure you can say that

20 Big Macs is equivalent to one copy of

the new Sports Illustrated magazine and

this car is one-fifth the value of that

house and so on and so forth but none of

these things is actually quote unquote

equal and land is a great example

um people have ties to their land the

land has sentimental value and this

problem is exacerbated when we go back

to ancient Greece where they have this

sort of religious tie to the land

but I mean imagine I mean that's the

sort of ancestral or religious ties to

land we can't just kind of hand wave

that away with like a socialist solution

because look at Israel and Palestine

um you know that's like a long-standing

religious dispute over who owns uh these

lands that have deep religious value but

even

just you know the territorial dispute

between Armenia and Azerbaijan where

they fought like a little war over it um

I think they're still technically

fighting over it right and this land

from all accounts I mean it's not really

that valuable it's it's the sentimental

value right

um so in any case

uh you know the no piece of land is

exactly the same as any other just even

on a practical level

any plot of land is going to have

countless little differences from any

one that you compare it to even if

they're right next to each other you

know in the Contours of the earth and in

the soil composition and what plants and

animals live on it and

um you know whether there's water

underneath it whether there's a river

whether there are Hills whether there's

you know trees or woods whether there's

oil underneath it right

how to evaluate all that is going to

change from person to person

and so this critique of capital's

equating ability

is why the Socialist can't just

redistribute the land and create Justice

they've just added Injustice to

Injustice because it's still based on

this equation of unequal things and

since Nietzsche's thinking is so

pragmatic here

he seems mostly concerned with what

effect that will have on society how

redistribution of hard Capital will

further erode the social capital and he

draws in the examples of the Revolutions

of antiquity as evidence for why

this never works right

now furthermore shy of implementing a

command economy

we would see that the distribution of

land if made perfectly equal would

quickly become unequal through the

continuing iterations of the capitalist

game of trading and buying right so if

one is seeking socialism through you

know if they're looking for a persistent

end to the class war total

egalitarianism through

land redistribution it'll never work

nature writes quote

in a few Generations by inheritance here

one plot would come to five owners there

are five plots to one

even supposing that men acquiesced in

such abuses through the enactment of

stern laws of inheritance the same equal

plots would indeed exist but there would

also be needy malcontents owning nothing

but dislike of their Kinsmen and

neighbors and longing for a general

upheaval end quote

all of these considerations I think are

Why by the way and many socialists

listening to this are probably yelling

this aloud at this point that Marxism

aimed at the abolition of property

altogether and not it's equal

distribution

I think maybe what Nietzsche is saying

here could maybe be seen as more of a

response to how he would see the

progressive taxation regime of the

Socialists realized through the

Democratic

um you know process how that could also

go wrong even though he does say that if

they actually successfully implemented

it they could just forget socialism like

a disease here he would seem to think

that that's not possible so again

here as in everywhere else in each's

political thought we find contradictions

but

he talks about the other option quote

restore ownership to the community and

make the individual but a temporary

tenant end quote but he says that's

equally untenable

Nietzsche doesn't really answer Marks

here however he turns his attention to

Plato quote

when Plato declares that self-seeking

would be removed with the abolition of

property we may answer him that if

self-seeking be taken away men will no

longer possess the four cardinal virtues

either

as we may say that the most deadly

plague could not injure mankind so

terribly as if vanity were one day to

disappear

without vanity and self-seeking what are

human virtues by this I am far from

meaning that these virtues are but

varied names and masks for these two

qualities Plato's utopian refrain which

is still sung by socialists rests upon a

deficient knowledge of men end quote

so the the idea of envy right in

Nietzsche's mind it's a basic part of

human nature and we can't remove that

element of contest and competition from

human life and the more the Socialists

attempt to stop it from emerging the

more it will manifest itself in the

subtlest ways in other domains

we might draw for example in what we saw

in the Socialist command economies that

were actually implemented in the 20th

century the polyp bureaus didn't

represent these pristine Democratic

institutions either in China or in

Russia but became completely closed off

Patricia's Rife with paranoia and

Corruption and they use the possessions

of others rather flippantly because men

always treat property that's not their

own as rather cheap

and for the same reason Nietzsche

doesn't think people can simply be given

property to solve the property question

because quote

man is opposed to all that that is only

a transitory possession unblessed with

his own care and sacrifice

with such property he behaves in free

Booter fashion as robber or as worthless

spendthrift end quote

so Nietzsche has criticized capitalism

throughout but he hasn't held back on

socialism either because as we've said

if he sees socialism as the inevitable

and necessary end of capitalism

capitalism is bad but it's because it's

bad because the end it always drives

that which is socialism and so in

contrast to this Nietzsche hasn't really

given us an affirmative idea or a

political program of his own when it

comes to man's economic life he simply

argued that capitalism as it stands now

is for one

a sort of degradation on what came

before it's an inferior way to create a

hierarchy but second

that the Socialist answer to it is a

cataclysm that can't be avoided except

by sort of forestalling with it or maybe

bargaining with it or maybe perhaps in

some you know points he seems to suggest

maybe it'll merge with it and sort of

allow the social Ascend to power whereby

they will become the establishment

but in any of those cases

capitalism in the laissez-faire sense

always contains the seeds of its own

destruction

and that's where Nietzsche is somewhat

conciliatory remarks toward democracy

become interesting in concert with these

ideas because he's similarly two-sided

about democracy as this resistless Force

we have to accept and make our peace

with even learn to harness

but it's also like a degradation on the

political system of yesteryear for its

selection of mediocrity

but again there might be positive ways

to use Democratic energy and so here in

this rather unusual passage and I say

this solely because it's unusual solely

because it came from the hand of nature

right we have Nietzsche's proposed

limitations or regulations on Democracy

in order to combat the danger caused by

this corrupting effect

of allowing men who succeeded within the

capitalist selection mechanism to hold

power

or allowing the socialistic tendency to

grow and grow and grow unchecked and

then eventually overwhelm the state

this is in Wanderer and his shadow 293

quote

democracy tries to create and guarantee

it Independence for as many as possible

in their opinions way of life and

occupation

for this purpose democracy must withhold

the political suffrage both from those

who have nothing and from those who are

really rich as being the two intolerable

classes of men

at the removal of these classes it must

always work because they are continually

calling its task into question

and the same way democracy must prevent

all measures that seem to aim at party

organization

for the three great foes of Independence

and that threefold sense are the

have-nots the rich and the parties end

quote

so this is a conditional imperative

right it's not a categorical imperative

Nietzsche is not throwing his lot in

with the Democrats wholesale

describing what democrats should do if

they want the democratic system to

preserve itself in the long term it has

to recognize three dangers the parties

the rich and the poor

and you rarely get such free advice from

Nietzsche so any small D Democrats out

there listen closely the reason why

parties are a danger we discussed last

time they make everyone narrow

hedonistic average in their values they

make communication and articulation of

our principles stupid and simplistic the

obligation of the parties is to tailor

their message to the most people

um and that means communicating to the

lowest common denominator which means

disseminating stupidity into society so

you can have democracy but if you want

to preserve it you have to limit the

power of the parties or find ways to

stop them from forming in the first

place or just exclude them ban them

right the founding fathers warned about

the same thing but alas I don't think we

found an effective means of running

democracy without political parties at

least not yet

but here Nietzsche adds to the list of

dangers the rich and the poor

and really by the rich I don't think

he's talking about your average

millionaire he means the halls of the

elite the super rich the corporate

Chiefs the people who really run Society

his argument is as follows Democratic

systems of government if they are to

survive have to expel these people

because they're the destabilizing

elements of the system

the elites they're not any better than

the average person in terms of their

courage or their Spirit they're just

hungry to acquire more wealth and they

will use the state to get that

they're just following their desires and

the Socialists are exactly like them

they're just coming from the other side

they're coming from a position of no

power

both are sort of a mirror image of one

another and they'll both attack the

health of the community for their own

personal gain

Nietzsche even goes farther here in

terms of the regulations he would place

on the economy this is 285 of Wanderer

and his shadow quote

in order that property May henceforth

Inspire more confidence and become more

moral we should keep open all Paths of

work for small fortunes but should

prevent the effortless and sudden

acquisition of wealth

accordingly we should take all the

branches of transport and trade which

favor the accumulation of large fortunes

especially there for the money market

out of the hands of private persons or

private companies and look upon those

who own too much just as upon those who

own nothing as types fraught with danger

to the community

end quote

so if we want to preserve democracy we

should look upon the super rich just as

we look upon the destitute as dangerous

people

we should regard them with suspicion

I and it's you know to say that we

should regard both that way is somewhat

radical because if you think about it

people who tend to regard the super rich

with suspicion typically view the poor

with compassion whereas those on the

right who might look to the super rich

as Role Models might view the poor with

suspicion right in each's view we need

to see the danger in both and take legal

steps to protect ourselves against both

a Democratic Society of what if it

wishes to endure

it has to maintain it has to hold the

center right or it will be destabilized

because in some sense the weakness of

liberal Society is in the market and in

the liberalization of the market and in

the extreme swings in wealth and

material advantage that can be

unpredictable and again

where there's no incentive towards

things like societal Unity or morality

or you know anything like that

now the advantage of the market being

liberalized is that it seems like a

necessary step to distribute opportunity

to make more freedom possible Right but

it's such a powerful

selection mechanism for the very reason

that what it's driven by is hedonistic

pleasure which people are so susceptible

to and its logic is so persuasive since

most people

I mean at least these days most people

act like utilitarians even if they don't

know what the word utilitarianism means

but Capital as Nietzsche has shown

contains its own death drive it's the

negation of itself within it it always

leads to excesses to the unmasking of

its hierarchy as illegitimate at least

insofar as our own morality would regard

it

but given the outsized power of the

super rich if they're not curbed there's

no way to reform it to make it

legitimate

and if you trust the destitute masses

you know the Socialists to just the

spirits of upheaval as Nietzsche calls

them to just

um put a shock to the system and try and

tear down the whole thing that doesn't

reform the system either right

it just it's just the swelling sentiment

to tear it down

and so what does Nietzsche suggest well

for one he says that we should

nationalize the financial sector

that's what he's saying in so many words

which is really a radical idea make it

illegal to suddenly acquire great wealth

cut off all the Avenues in which someone

could come from very little to a great

deal of money

which is basically all Financial

speculation

so you know abolish the stock market or

have the federal government just take

control over it you know right perhaps

even have some sort of test or Gauntlet

someone has to be passed to be qualified

to become a wealthy person right

um perhaps some sort of expectation that

they act as a public servant to some

extent maybe something like that a

social or legal obligation these would

all be actually wonderful ideas I think

um I think some of them might actually

wreck Society faster than a socialistic

revolution like abolishing the stock

market but I still think it should be

tried

um nature then goes on to make some

fascinating comments about the value of

Labor which is also defiant against

Marxist analysis as much as it is

against the considerations of say an

Adam Smith type person who thinks

capitalism will

you know if implemented reasonably and

fairly will necessarily improve human

well-being

Sunita writes in Wanderer 286 quote

if we try to determine the value of

Labor by the amount of time industry

good or bad will constraint

inventiveness or laziness honesty or

make-believe bestowed upon it the

valuation can never be a just one for

the whole personality would have to be

thrown on the scale and this is

impossible

here the motto is Judge not but after

all the cry for justice is the cry we

now hear from those who are dissatisfied

with the present valuation of Labor

if we reflect further we find every

person non-responsible for his product

the labor hence Merit can never be

derived there from and every labor is as

good or as bad as it must be through

this or that necessary concatenation of

forces and weaknesses abilities and

desires the worker is not at Liberty to

say whether he shall work or not or to

decide how he shall work only the

standpoints of usefulness wider and

narrower have created the valuation of

Labor end quote

so every person is non-responsible for

his product the labor that might be a

puzzling remark but it makes sense in

light of Nietzsche's rejection of Free

Will which begins here in human all to

human nature can take such a

dispassionate approach to these issues

because he doesn't see anyone as morally

responsible for whatever good or ill

they do in society

all of our actions are faded all of our

actions are necessary they flow out of

who and what we are and so the laborer

is not responsible for how industrious

or lazy or how conscientious or

inattentive he is

these are aspects of his own nature

which he did not choose right he didn't

choose his nature and thus the

meritocracy doesn't actually select for

merit in the moral sense

um it's we might say it's still laudable

or admirable because somebody

you know contributed more but they

didn't really have a choice as to how

productive they are it might still make

sense to select for people of Greater

Merit

um but just as means of a practical

incentive structure right but it's not

actually a moral reflection of them as

people it doesn't actually indicate that

they quote unquote deserve anything

Sonica says that the market incentives

what he calls here the standpoints of

usefulness
or we might say utility determine the

value of Labor what the market is

willing to pay based on what the average

person is willing to pay to satisfy a

given desire

the State of Affairs can also as it

unfolds seem more industrious small

business owners you know they could lose

to an undisciplined and unintelligent

business owner who simply begins with

far more capital in the competition

right

or the factory worker could lose out to

automation because there's no reason why

the thing producing the product needs to

be a human being

the value of Labor can't be thought of

as a reward for one's hard work

therefore it's merely a transaction that

rewards how valuable one is at

satisfying desires to the owner of the

means of Productions right how valuable

are you to the guy who owns the machine

or you're working

if and if a machine can do it better

without a person at all he'll always

pick the machine and he'll do so exactly

at the point at which it becomes cheaper

to maintain the machine than to pay a

worker
a great example of this is actually the

example of horses which we used to ride

and have pull all our carriages

horses used to be an integral part of

human economies for thousands of years

and they didn't decline in importance uh

you know over the centuries of

technological advancement they became

even more important as a lot of that

technology allowed the population to

swell Medical Science to advance and

transport became more Global horses

became more the more important

and the horse population of the world

became huge and to look particularly at

America

um you know they're we're using them

economically as transport trade

incredibly valuable and then the

Horseless Carriage comes in and whoops

the horse is no longer so valuable and

this took time right it was a process

a lot of people use the analogy of buggy

whips right they're like oh we don't

need to worry about automation just

because the guy who makes buggy whips no

longer you know that he's out of

business but we often forget that this

also included as part of this process a

huge reduction in the population of

horses because we just didn't need as

many of them

we only began to you know do horse

riding as a sort of like Legacy activity

it's now it's just a sport right and

that's not because the horses got worse

at their job

there was just there was a machine that

came along that could do it better

and so the economy doesn't select for

the health of horses but maybe that

Insight should lead us to the

understanding that it doesn't select for

the health of humans either

so at no point in this selection process

does virtue hard work or industriousness

actually enter into the value of Labor

Labor's only valuable insofar as what it

can produce Nietzsche takes this out of

a moral consideration as to like whether

the person deserves it or not

and as such who succeeds and fails in

the business world

I mean it's anyone will tell you there's

an element of Randomness here but

Nietzsche is even saying that in the

element of whether or not you're an

effective worker or whether you're an

effective businessman or whatever it may

be not even that is like a product of

your own free will and so he's taking

away that moral justification for the

system in at least one sense in this

passage

Nisha goes on to suggest one way in

which these incentives of the market

will lead to an overall decline in the

quality of goods

this is related to The increased

importance of appearance in a market

economy this is 280 quote

and the competition of production and

sale the public is a judge of the

product but the public has no special

knowledge and judges by the appearance

of the Wares

in Consequence the art of appearance

perhaps The Taste for it must increase

under the dominance of competition while

on the other hand the quality of every

product must deteriorate end quote

from this we get another affirmative

suggestion that Nietzsche offers that's

not a whole political program but just

sort of one policy prescription he

offers we could compare the approach

that he is about to give to the guild

systems of the Middle Ages in Europe

perhaps something that could return

through maybe a new period of

unionization Nietzsche argues for quote

masters of The Craft end quote to be the

only judges of the quality of a product

and that accordingly we can't just let

anyone produce what they want and let

the public decide whether it's a good

product because the public isn't

qualified to decide

continues In this passage quote only the

master of the craft should pronounce a

verdict on the work and the public

should be dependent on the belief and

the personality of the judge and his

honesty accordingly no Anonymous work

end quote

and so

it's funny Nietzsche doesn't talk about

abolishing property or the mark economy

where he's attacking the system first of

all is in its financialization so the

big holders of capital who steer the

economy without producing anything

themselves only by providing funding by

speculating and so on

and here he attacks the system insofar

as mass production of goods opens the

way to

Goods of low quality into frauds and

hucksters and people who will acquire

great wealth while cheating their

customers

and so everyone will then suffer from

the inferior workmanship that it's

another way in which so the

liberalization of the press leads to an

overall averageness and mediocrity and

decline in information and the quality

of communication and knowledge

here

workmanship and the quality of goods

suffers from that same process right

it's basically again because of the fact

that the public at large is not a very

good judge of quality and so the quality

will inherently go down our desires will

I mean think about it like this right

um I'll go to fast food again right

McDonald's Taco Bell Subway these are

the most successful quote unquote

restaurant franchises in the country

but you could argue that quality wise

it's not like McDonald's tastes bad

right obviously it doesn't it obviously

tastes very good and palatable to a lot

of people

but in terms of like what your actual

taste experiences and the textures and

the flavor profile like everyone knows

like

this is mass produced and cheap and it's

like very like crude your experience

with like the food and the flavor of

what it does for you it's just sort of

crude tasty calories

um it's very different experience to

have like a home-cooked meal right I'm

not even talking about like some like

Rich five course gourmet meal I just

mean like a home-cooked meal where

you're not like overloaded with salt and

butter and sugar and everything you

actually like taste the individual

ingredients right that not a very high

standard

um but that's what our capitalist system

has selected for like the top of the

restaurant game right is we see what

comes to the top what the most popular

food that appeals to the most common

denominator is

so it's like even in terms of

and you could apply that you say you

could say the same thing applies to

quality of goods right where do people

buy most of their retail shopping from

Big Box store chains right and it's not

always like low quality but again it's

the most sort of like average mediocre

goods and it's not like they're high

quality either right

um okay so then Nietzsche even goes so

far as to sort of attack early

industrial attempts at automation here

which is very interesting he says quote

the cheapness of an article is for the

Layman another kind of Illusion and

deceit since only durability can decide

that a thing is cheap and to what an

extent

but it is difficult and for a Layman

impossible to judge of its durability

hence that which produces an effect on

the eye and costs little at present

gains the advantage this being naturally

machine made work again Machinery that

is to say the cause of the greatest

rapidity in facility and production

favors the most salable kind of article

otherwise it involves no tangible profit

and would be too little used and too

often stand idle end quote

so again the pattern in each is thought

most successful political party appeals

to most people most successful salable

good appeals to the most customers mass

production rather than specialized

workmanship is where the market will

inevitably turn which means it will turn

away from quality and towards quantity

toward from specialization to automation

which is necessary because these means

of production these machines are

expensive they can't just sit there and

take up space so we have a counter

incentive against any specialization or

deviation from the mass-produced article

and though the system that Rewards

the satisfaction of most desires of the

most people is rather successful at that

in some sense what we get is the most

mediocre most average sense of

satisfaction right and

um the

quality of goods as tied to like I guess

what Nietzsche is talking about because

he says there are ways of improving

property and making it more moral right

and so in a sense he's appealing to our

sense for

um making someone's Merit in their

industriousness or their skill as a

craft Craftsman more directly tied to

the profit that they actually make that

you know he's pointing out in so many

words nothing about the economy actually

correlates hard work with the amount of

capital that you can amass

that it might appear to play out that

way

relative to like you know you might look

around in your office and it seems like

all these people who exist on this

relatively the same level of work to

Capital like input and output right

um it might seem like work correlates

with how much Capital you're able to

amass but you're just comparing

yourselves to people who are all

relatively in the same category you're

not considering yourself relative to the

entirety of the economy in which case if

you look at the entire financial sector

and you look at like every economic

actor going on you would find that uh

hard work does not directly correspond

to economic success I mean a great

example of this for example would be

people who go take a job like um

uh or who enlist in the military right

the military doesn't make a lot of money

it's like that are you gonna say that's

not hard work

um obviously it's hard work right so you

know and indeed some of the hardest jobs

are you know they're not necessarily the

most well-paying now you could say to

some extent it selects for it but

I don't know I think when we look at the

whole economy it that that idea that

these things are somehow correlated like

stops making sense the more

comprehensive your view is which means

it's not a really good principle

and so in any case what happens is the

laborers value Falls he becomes an

interchangeable commodity rather than an

individual Craftsman with his own skills

and characteristics and such people just

simply can't compete against the

mass-produced mass distributed Goods at

least as a general rule and so the

market incentives push you to

conglomerate to act in the form of these

giant corporations or else be absorbed

into them

perhaps the most anti-capitalist no to

the most stringent anti-capitalist note

that Nietzsche sounds throughout is in

Wanderer 286 where he writes quote

the exploitation of the worker was as we

Now understand a piece of folly a

robbery at the expense of the future a

jeopardization of society

we almost have the war now

and in any case the expense of

maintaining peace of concluding treaties

and winning confidence will henceforth

be very great because the Folly of the

exploiters was very great and long

lasting

end quote

given all we've discussed perhaps these

surprising words from Nietzsche might be

comprehensible to us the robbery at the

expense of the future is the short-term

mindset of the capitalist system

and we all have this mindset because we

haven't selected for Noble individuals

nobility of spirit we might say right

and with these people homing Society we

get what we deserve

unfortunately in Nietzsche's time as in

our own those in power are not so much

interested in curing the disease that

causes socialism as they are in

vilifying the symptoms they hear the

signal from the system that there's

something wrong and their response is to

sort of yell at the signal and while in

Nietzsche's time it was dynastic

governments in our own time we might

consider the entrenched party structures

powerful media conglomerates

multinational corporations big Tech big

Pharma the permanent governance of

intelligence agencies and bureaucracies

all the people with inherited wealth who

have found themselves among the most

powerful people in the world due to an

accident of birth Nietzsche argues that

when these people worry the masses about

the threat of socialism it is only to

their own advantage and this is because

for some section of the populace that

will drive them into arms it'll work

they'll take up arms against socialism

in hopes of being protected from their

tiny little share of wealth in

comparison being taken and so Nietzsche

writes in 316 quote

the socialistic movements are nowadays

becoming more and more agreeable rather

than terrifying to the dynastic

governments

because by these movements they are

provided with a right and a weapon for

making exceptional rules

and can thus attack their real bogeys

Democrats and anti-dynists

towards all that such governments

professedly detest they feel a secret

cordiality and inclination

they are compelled to draw the veil over

their soul
end quote sorry

so that's a tendency we recognize today

and it's not just with socialism but any

bogeyman movement among the populace

it becomes absorbed into that language

of the political parties and represented

in giant frescoes of stupidity right

and just think about how that's always

used right

um during the bush era the threat of

terrorism incredibly useful for making

exceptional rules

um in our own time there's a lot of

worry about like populism and like

domestic terrorism and the trumpers and

Q Anon people and stuff but that allowed

the Capitol Police to receive

unprecedented funding and expanded

powers and you know this has happened

throughout U.S history we could go back

to the days of McCarthyism when it was

quite literally socialism that allowed

them to establish the house on American

Activities Committee and

ruin people and cancel them

you know that was the one of the first

cancelings was the Red Scare right

now in conclusion

if we're to try and summarize what

Nietzsche's problem with capitalism is

so that it uplifts people into Power via

mechanisms

of in so many words the slave morality

capitalism prizes or rewards the

intellectual power to do things like

manipulate the law or the guile to call

an authority to punish competitors for

you by a means of the legal system or

the will to deception to misrepresent

who and what you are

to

um you know successfully craft your

Public Image to successfully keep your

corporate Secrets the capitalist power

is also the power of the priest in some

sense

to promise to the common man that his

own Hinterland his own heaven lies in

this very product to redirect the

consumer's will into the pursuit of

hedonic Pleasures often with the idea

that this will fundamentally reshape his

life

and we could do a whole episode on

advertising and how the first Serious

Mass marketers were influenced by

psychoanalysis that the advertisers

realized that in selling things to you

they're not attempting to persuade you

logically the goal isn't to inform you

or to engage with you intellectually

it's to hook you on the level of your

libido the level of your impulses

so in my own formulation the great

capitalists in our modern system sort of

the high priest of our utilitarianism

because ultimately it's the same value

system that of measuring Pleasure and

Pain as the determinant of whether life

is good or not

that Lies Beneath both capitalism and

utilitarianism and I know the

capitalists don't want to hear that

because they probably

and somewhat rightly understand that

utilitarianism

is often a useful ideology for the left

because you can justify any state

intervention on the basis of

utilitarianism

but until in terms of just like reducing

everything down to to man's life just

requiring pleasure that's both the

utilitarian moral landscape of a Sam

Harris and the capitalist realism of a

Stephen Pinker I don't know that either

man is properly speaking left or right

but they're sort of

you know I feel like Sam's sort of a

little closer to the left and pinker's a

little closer to the right they're both

Centrist sort of like reasonable

sounding advocates for utilitarianism

albeit just in different language right

and Pinker is a great example

because his book Enlightenment now

essentially makes a utilitarian argument

for why modern society

modern society being liberal democracy

with capitalism as its economic basis

that's all just fine because look at how

comfortable and safe we are and how much

pleasure we can have how much pain we

can avoid capitalism has done this for

us it just needs a modern welfare system

to accompany it in order to sort of

shore up at the edges right that's the

Fuller expression of liberalism of

capitalism of socialism that we're

coming into today

now if hierarchy is inevitable or if at

least for the moment we can't get away

from it then we should at least be sure

to select for the leaders of best

possible character and arguably Humanity

has never really figured this out

but the recurrent theme of Nietzsche's

work is not to attack the hierarchy

itself but to examine what it selects

if it selects for aspects that undermine

power in the long term your Society will

fall it's only a matter of time and so

Nietzsche stands

in contradiction to the traditions of

anarchists and Libertarians and

objectivists who think that capitalism

actually creates this rule by the best

that capitalism is a form of aristocracy

these passages make should make it clear

Nietzsche doesn't believe that

and so we shouldn't mistake Friedrich

Nietzsche for Ein Rand someone to whom

he's often compared or conflated

Nietzsche would in fact oppose Rand in

many respects for her failure to see

that individualism is not opposed to the

state but created by it now capitalism

overwhelms all individuals with the

incentives that drive the masses to

Hedonism and within this hedonistic

value system only the most Craven and

manipulative individuals managed to rise

to the top but they don't maintain their

individuality purely within the

capitalist model I mean far from it

they're still just driven by the pursuit

of pleasure like everyone else we all

become pleasure-seeking machines it

requires some values outside of that in

order to create what Nietzsche would

consider to be to be an actual

individual someone who you know is able

to produce or enter into the realm of

culture into the dialogue of culture or

something along those lines and so

this is Nietzsche's most damning point

to the super rich

the Socialists are you

in this most damning point to the

Socialists you are the super rich it's

why the idea of a champagne socialist is

not unheard of because the Socialist on

the on an individual level can often be

found pursuing their own material

advancement just as vigorously as

everyone else

Nietzsche would also differ from from

irand and his view that the state is not

a completely extraneous or unjust

institution upon humans who would

otherwise be free or that the state

should be as minimally

um applied to human life as possible

that there's some sort of contradiction

between market and state whenever the

state enters the economic realm and of

course Ein Rand would support the state

insofar as it defends your freedom and

liberty that's really all the state is

supposed to do is just create the space

for the market to function and whenever

it interferes there in the market that's

unjust in some way right

um but for Nietzsche the state is the

objectification of instinct it's the

creation of a naturally occurring

hierarchy merely in the political sphere

so he thinks the state actually has a

purpose it has a function Beyond simply

defending with the individuals within it

so they can do capitalism

he thinks that culture is real and that

there's a social order that exists

independently of any one person

and this makes Society inexplicable as a

mere collection of individuals

that the state serves a function Beyond

capitalism beyond the acquisition of

Desire or material needs that the market

should only ever be a means just as the

state should only ever be a means

and so what does Nietzsche offer instead

for the state to do for the state to

create for the state to defend instead

of capitalism

well
for better for worse I think that is a

question that Nietzsche mostly leaves to

the philosophers of the future

next week we're going to talk about

Nietzsche's views on socialism

and by now it should be obvious why he

would sort of oppose socialism in many

respects

um and but we're going to elaborate on

that more next week and so yet again

it's very difficult to say with

exactitude what Nietzsche was for

politically

but we're going to continue next week in

outlining what he was against

and so join me next time for Nietzsche

Contra socialism

signing off

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