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2016
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(2016): What (if Anything) Is Wrong with Capitalism?. Dysfunctionality, Exploitation and Alienation: Three Approaches to the Critique of Capitalism. In: The Southern Journal of Philosophy 54, S. 44-65. DOI: 10.1111/sjp.12188
Abstract: What is the problem with capitalism? Is it wrong, unjust, irrational, or bad? Is it evil or dumbor is it just not working? While critiques of capitalism have become commonplaceparticularly since the most recent global economic crisisit is often unclear what exactly is being condemned. Likewise, the normative presuppositions and criteria of such criticisms have been left unspecified. In this paper, I distinguish between three approaches to the critique of capitalism, distinguishing a functional, a moral, and an ethical argumentative strategy and paying special attention to the distinctive types of argumentation they mobilize. First, I consider the functional critique, typically directed against capitalism's straightforward dysfunctions or crises. We will find, however, that this sort of criticism presupposes a normative criterion that is frequently unarticulated, namely: the implied purpose of a well-functioning economic system. Second, I examine a common moral critique, that is, that capitalism is premised on exploitation. Yet, the concept of exploitation, too, introduces certain difficulties, since the kind of moral wrong associated with itunequal exchangeis hardly obvious to everyday observation and must be derived systematically. Third, I introduce and address the ethical critique, broadly, that capitalism constitutes a bad form-of-life. However, while I object to some of the forms this criticism has takenin particular, I argue that much alienation diagnosis is tainted by nostalgia and naiveteI nonetheless recommend developing a critique of capitalism as a form-of-life that would include ethical and functional criteria. I conclude with some remarks in this direction.
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