Democratic Capitalism
Foshan, Guangdong Province, China, January 20, 2013
Salaroche


We humans can rarely manage to live in constant solitude and, since therefore social life is, to varying degrees, essential to living a consistent and pleasant existence, the theme of happiness raises some general thoughts about the variety of existing socio/polítical/economic systems that can either foster it or limit it. For example:

Democratic Capitalism, with all its faults and imperfections, and also within the range of ways in which it can be implemented, is the socio/political/economic system which best solves the issue of the pursuit of happiness. Primarily, Democratic Capitalism is the system that best allows individuals to realize their personal natural desire to excel in every possible field and endeavor of their choice.

Different versions of Democratic Capitalism currently exist in the world, i.e., American capitalism, Canadian, Costa Rican, German, French, English, Danish, etc., whose existence continue corroborating the relative success of such system when compared to all the other systems that have come to exist in the last sixty years, i.e., communism, right-wing totalitarianism (fascism / Nazism), Chinese-style totalitarianism/authoritarianism, dictatorships of any kind, etc.

In its basic concept, Democratic Capitalism has no current viable alternative that can ensure the same levels of progress, and hence the same levels of personal satisfaction, that Democratic Capitalism has thus far managed to ensure the world. At present, no such alternative is foreseeable.

But Democratic Capitalism is not a perfect system in any way. In fact, nothing in this world can be considered as perfect because everything that we may conceive or express has to be first perceived or expressed through our senses and means of communication and, second, it has to be conceived in our minds, none of which is perfect.

The beauty of Democratic Capitalism is also its greatest flaw, as those of us who live in such a system have the capacity to practice it either way: As something beautiful or as something flawed. In other words, and as it is with most things pertaining to humanity, the bottom line is that no system is in itself laudable or reprehensible, but the beings who practice it one way or the other.

As we all know, to implement any state of being in an atmosphere of total individual freedom would be a very dangerous thing to do from the standpoint of society, as our inability to control our own natural instincts would eventually cause such social environment to degrade into a chaotic system. Laws and rules are necessary to live in society. In fact, without laws or rules the concept of civilization is inconceivable.

The essential component of liberal laws embedded in Democratic Capitalism ensures with no doubt that it is the present socio/political/economic system providing individuals with the most personal freedoms. That is perhaps the most commendable part of Western Capitalism, but it is its greatest shrotcoming as well, since a good number of individuals who practice it do not know how to live well within systems that ensure such degree of personal freedom and usually end up corrupting and abusing the system somewhere down the line.

And it is in observing these defects that many people have wrongly thought in the past and continue to think in the present that it is necessary to curb the natural instincts of human society through political systems that subjugate the will of the people under regimes that deny our strongest natural instinct: The need of freedom to procure ourselves with the highest level of comfort possible, i.e., our natural instinct to achieve the most perfect state of "living well".

And it is in trying to define the concept of "living well" that the concepts of happiness and pleasure come into play. Human beings always seek the highest level of satisfaction at the lowest cost, and the idea of "lowest cost" can often mean a calculated risk that sometimes turns out to be more expensive than we had thought. But even so, risk is always something considered by many to be part of the game of the pursuit of happiness.

Then there is the matter of the difference between happiness and pleasure. Many of us do not seem to know the difference between one and the other. Many of us have come to think that these two terms are synonymous, and that's where capitalism itself gives us no guidance. Capitalism tells us that the pursuit of material progress will eventually lead us to find fulfillment and personal happiness, i.e., a good level of “living well”, but it gives us no measure to assess whether we have attained the level of happiness needed for “living well”.

On the other hand, to demand such guidance from the part of any social system would be equal to demanding the impossible. No measure of the degree of happiness obtainable by any of us can ever be determined by any socio/political/economic system, but by the individuals who practice such system themselves. The individual is the sole responsible for conceiving their own idea of ​​living well, not the political system within which we live, hence the reason that communism, totalitarianisms, and dictatorships of any kind have always failed.

So what is the meaning of happiness or the good life? To repeat, happiness is not the same as pleasure. A certain degree of pleasure is often necessary to be happy, but the one is not equivalent to the other. Happiness is supposed to be much more durable than pleasure. Happiness is a state of being; pleasure is a state of body or mind, or both. Happiness has its limits in time as well, but it's always supposed to be more durable than pleasure.

The happiness we get in sharing some daily moments of joy or intimacy with our loved ones, or the comfort given to us in knowing we have some constant affinity of thought with someone else, or the serene happiness we feel when knowing we have achieved something that had seemed almost impossible to attain just a few years ago, or knowing that we have emotional and intellectual correspondence with people whom we appreciate in similar ways, etc., these are things that resemble much more the concept of happiness or living well that some of us have.

No doubt that to live well it is necessary to have a certain degree of material comfort, just as it is also necessary to have a certain degree of mutual affection with some other people. Above, or at the base, of it all, we also need to satisfy certain natural instincts such as the sexual instinct and maybe also obtaining a certain level of social recognition as honest and responsible beings.

Beyond that, however, many of those other things that many of us strive to acquire on a daily basis may often be but searching for ephemeral goals which, once we get them, may cause intense momentary pleasure to us, but whose addiction to them may most likely only provide us with discomfort. Still, such quests are up to each of us to pursue or not.

Democratic Capitalism, therefore, is only an ideological and pragmatic vehicle that allows us to express and implement our natural desire to excel within a framework of liberal laws that protect in different degrees the personal security of the individual without imposing restrictions that repress them to the point of hindering the creative impetus of their natural instincts.

Democratic Capitalism has plenty of defects, but these defects spring mostly from the people who practice it and not from its primary and essential concept. Put another way, the defects of capitalism arise from the inability of a number of us to clearly conceive and implement the concept of “living well”, which, even though some of us may not often stop to think of it, is the main reason for our daily activities.

In contrast, Authoritarian Capitalism of the sort we have in China or in Singapore, are presently enjoying plenty of success, particularly the former case, but it still has many miles to go before it is able to compete in providing the full range of possibilities of living well that Democratic Capitalism can offer to the world.

As for Mafia Capitalism of the sort we have in the Russian Federation, well, I guess its shortcomings are not even worth mentioning, as they are all but evident to the naked eye.

May you all be well

Salaroche