Selling capitalism to the feudal nobility

Steve Hsu is pessimistic about the terminal age of decadence in which we live:

"The empires Glubb studied had a lifespan of about ten human generations, or two hundred and fifty years, despite changing factors such as technology. Glubb describes a pattern of growth and decline, with six stages: the Ages of Pioneers, Conquest, Commerce, Affluence, Intellect and Decadence. He pointedly avoided writing about India or China, focusing rather on middle and western Eurasia, stating that his knowledge was inadequate to the task.

Note that six stages in 10 generations means that significant change can occur over one or two generations -- a nation can pass from one age to the next, as I believe we have in America during my lifetime.

... There does not appear to be any doubt that money is the agent which causes the decline of this strong, brave and self-confident people. The decline in courage, enterprise and a sense of duty is, however, gradual. The first direction in which wealth injures the nation is a moral one. Money replaces honour and adventure as the objective of the best young men. Moreover, men do not normally seek to make money for their country or their community, but for themselves.

Gradually, and almost imperceptibly, the Age of Affluence silences the voice of duty. The object of the young and the ambitious is no longer fame, honour or service, but cash. Education undergoes the same gradual transformation. No longer do schools aim at producing brave patriots ready to serve their country. [ Or to discover great things for all mankind! ] Parents and students alike seek the educational qualifications which will command the highest salaries. ...

Duty, Honor, Country:

The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.

The 21st century American reality (the Age of Decadence):

"Yeah, I calculated the NPV, and, you know, it's just not worth it for me. I really believe in your project, though. And, I share your passion. Good luck."

The description is of the decline of asabiyyah, as complacency and selfish individualism possess the elites. Yet there is still something superficial about this account.

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It seems plausible that Duty, Honor, Country are the paramount virtues of a vigorous and rising polity. They are communitarian traits as in Jonathan Haidt's MFT, almost the opposite of the value set of liberalism. Undoubtedly they base themselves on evolutionarily-ancient components of the human psyche, selected for group cohesion.

Pre-capitalist formations, such as the empires of antiquity and those of feudalism, codified and celebrated duty, honour and country/empire. The elites knew they had to hang together or they'd hang separately, given their explicit social position as oppressors. When social solidarity failed, rebellions soon followed. Peter Turchin has written books about this.

In capitalism it's somewhat different. Economic exploitation is hidden behind the veil of equal formal rights for all. Most people sign up to the elite idea that capitalism is not a class society. The elites do not generally rely upon the threat of explicit oppression, but on the atomisation of labour, free to flow where fluid capital requires it (in terms of geography, roles and skills).*

Liberal individualism is the soul of modern capitalism but it doesn't really stir the heart .. and it doesn't glue society together.

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I'm reading Charles Stross's The Bloodline Feud: The Family Trade and The Hidden Family (Merchant Princes Omnibus Book 1) where the heroine (a feisty tech journalist who is also feudal royalty) attempts to kickstart capitalism in a parallel feudal world. Stross is the pre-eminent writer of economics science-fiction and his book has received plaudits from leading economists such as Paul Krugman.

Amazon link

From a feudal point of view, capitalism as an overarching system looks incredibly weird. The world is run by merchants, who have no interests apart from enlarging their capital again and again?

'What then is life for?' they would ask**.

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* This is at the root of the 'somewheres' vs. 'anywheres' distinction we saw with Brexit. The Remainers cannot conceive how anyone could be opposed to their vision of a uniform transnational community of right-thinkers embracing an enlightened globalised capitalism; Leavers conversely can't understand why our hard-built and largely pleasant British island community should be subordinated to more powerful European nation-states with their own somewhat inimical interests.


** A quote I once heard: "No-one ever gave their life for IBM."