We live in a mixed social system nowadays. Although there are not pure capitalist societies or such forms of nationalism as fascism some manifestations of these two ideologies have been survived nowadays. Generally speaking, nationalism is considered to be the ideology while capitalism is a social system but in our research we compare these two notions considering them as social systems. It seems that capitalism does not have any common with nationalisms but making our research we try to draw a parallel between them and provide their differences. Firstly, we are going to cast light upon each of these social systems separately and further on we are going to compare and contrast these notions.
Capitalism is a social system where all property is privately owned. The recognition of individual rights especially property rights is the basis of this system. The term “capitalism” was created by socialists in mid-nineteenth century and it was used incorrectly to denote “economic individualism”. Economic individualism presupposes the pursuit of personal interests and the rights for the personal property. As a result the main aim of the government is to protect individual rights and it may use the force against those who violate these rights. Individuals may decide how to use their money, where to invest and what to sell. There are no restrictions to their level of life and the level of their profits. There are no limits on the quantity of customers, employees and investors and the area of their work whether they work in local, regional or even international markets. The boundaries for business are open and the possibility to make money is available for everyone.
The notion of capitalism is often referred to the Puritan doctrine. The Puritans were the members of the religious sect in England in seventeen century who was oriented in their life with John Calvin’s doctrine. They invested their energy in hard working and modest living. The same values were observed among Jews and Japanese. England was the bright example of capitalism with its textile factories where the majority of employees were women and children. The exploitation of human forces for low wages, long working hours and bad working conditions were the preconditions of the development of individualism which factually denoted capitalism. This theory of individualism was developed by socialists. The main aims pursued by socialists were to provide individuals rights and do not restrain their economic activity that helped them to find happiness. Human possibilities should not be limited according to socialists. They pursued such ideals as brotherhood, social solidarity and community.
Capitalism became less popular with the propaganda of Karl Marx’s utopian socialism with economic equality, the end of specialization and extermination of poverty. England, America and Western Europe stopped to defend capitalism as far as they did not really understand the sense of this social structure and they considered “perfect” or “pure” competition to be the way to the social prosperity. Perfect competition presupposes the equality among firms that should product homogeneous products and the awareness of the consumers of all these products and their prices. As a result, there is no competition and no way to the further development.
There are rival companies fighting for sales and profits in capitalist society. This competition is like the incitement to look for new products and improve the old ones. As a result, capitalist society is the basis for development. With the development of capitalism, such notions as advertising, brand names and consumer protection came into use as far as rival companies did all their best to win at the market and get more profits. Companies who have a success at using these new techniques of manipulating and attracting new customers dominate at the market. The American companies of the nineteenth century were very aggressive and active at the competitions at the world market and they were known as great innovators.
According to Marxist philosopher, Herbert Marcuse, the main disadvantage of capitalism is prosperity that seduces workers with the items of comfort and makes them forget their primarily aim of overthrowing the capitalism. The dissatisfaction of workers is damped with the items of luxury. There is no wonder that capitalism is connected to mindless materialism. Material things, money and profits are the main values of the capitalist society. People begin to buy those things which are unnecessary for them. According to John Kenneth Galbraith the things that need to be advertised in order to be sold do not factually satisfy authentic human needs. Fighting with poverty capitalism intensifies it. People who do not have particular things of comfort are considered to be poor only because the society has decided it. The differences between authentic human needs and unnecessary things are vague. A capitalist society provides people a variety of new technologies, gadgets, appliances that cause envy among people who do not have them. As a result, people are not happy only because they do not have particular things. Human happiness is evaluated in the quantity of money in the capitalist society.
One of the main consequences of capitalism is globalization. Globalization is destructive for local economies and foreign cultures. People are oriented at their private property in the capitalist society and they leave all their property to their children. As a result, the public sector is impoverished while the major capital is in the hands of particular people who have the power in the society. More than that, it causes inadequate tax revenues. These taxes on wealth are justified as far as the majority of wealth is taken from the social capital. The existence of great corporations hampers the development of other companies. The whole market is in the hands of these great corporations. Factually the primarily aim of capitalism presupposing the freedom of economic activities has not been achieved as far as human activities are controlled and restrained by the government authority. Rich people have to pay to the government for their wealth and poor people do not have a lot of possibilities to make money. Rich people become richer and poor people become poorer and it is the result of the capitalism.
Nowadays, the USA which was considered to be the place of the prosperity of capitalism has the mixed economy with some restrictions on human economic activities by the government. The formerly communist countries of Eastern Europe realize the difficulties to develop communism with its primary aim of economic freedom. There are benefits from the one hand that provide freedom to the human actions at the market and burdens on regulations of these actions from the other hand. Nevertheless, the process of competition at the world market has survived nowadays. It is considered that we live in mixed society with some remainders of capitalism.
Nationalism is another ideology based on the superiority of the nation above others. There are two perspectives to the definition of nationalism. The first one is called primordia list perspective that considers nationalism as the human need to unite with each other in certain groups which appeared during their evolution and the second perspective that is known as the modernist one describes nationalism as an integral phenomenon of the modern society to live in groups and unite with each other. Nation is the basic notion of the nationalism. There are different definitions of this notion that identify the essence of this ideology. Generally speaking, nation is the group of people living on the same territory, having the same roots and traditions, worshiping to one God and obeying one government or one ruler.
Before the development of nationalism in Europe there was loyalty to the particular ruler or city rather than to the whole nation. The term “nationalism” belonged to Johann Gottfried Herder. He coined this word in the late 1770s. The real roots of this ideology are quite difficult to determine. This notion is closely connected with the American Revolution and the French Revolution of 18th century and had its culmination in national revolutions captured Europe. Nationalism has become one of the most influential ideologies since that time and the peak of its popularity was in World war l and world War ll. Fascism is the extreme manifestation of nationalism propagandizing absolute faithfulness to one state where the interests of the nation is above all.
There are different types and forms of nationalism nowadays. They are civic nationalism, ethnocentrism, national purity, left-wing nationalism, territorial nationalism, pan-nationalism, proto-nationalism, ultra-nationalism and anti-colonial nationalism. Civic nationalism is known as the association of people obeying one and the same government and having the same politic interests. Factually, civic nationalists do not obligatory have the common ethnic ancestry. The political interests unite them into the nation. One of the representatives of civic nationalism, Ernest Renan defines the nation as a “daily referendum” based on common wills and interests. Equality, freedom, individual rights, tolerance are the main values of civic nationalism.
Ethnocentrism or ethnic nationalism is one of the extreme manifestations of nationalism when one nation feels the supremacy above the others. People are considered to be the nation only having the common ethnic ancestry. They consider their nation to be the dominant in the world and treat other nations with some humiliation. National purity is the form of nationalism that propagandizes ethnic, linguistic, historic, cultural and religious purity of the nation. There are some minorities which consider themselves to be the part of the nation but factually they are not and national purists seek to clean the nation. Left-wing nationalism which is also called socialist nationalism is any political movements that unite the basic principles of nationalism and left-wing politics. The examples of left-wing nationalisms are anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninism, Fidel Castro’s 26th of July movement, Wales’s Plaid Cymru, Ireland’s Sinn Fein and others. Territorial nationalism refers to the people living on the same territory and united with common values and traditions of population. The notion of citizenship is considered to be an ideal for the territorial nationalism. Pan-nationalism is connected rather with the particular groups of the nation. Proto-nationalism is considered to be a nation-less nationalism. Proto-nationalists’ unifications are based on their common values and beliefs not taking into account their ethnic identity.
Ultra nationalism is the most extreme form of nationalism. It is known for the reduction or prohibition of immigration, oppression of people belonging to other ethnic identities, the domination of the particular ethnic group, demagoguery of leadership and aggressive attitude to non-native populations. It is the main cause of conflicts and even war between people belonging to different ethnic groups. The extremist forms of ultra-nationalism are war, secession or genocide. Fascism is considered to be Palin genetic ultra-nationalism. The main characteristics of Palin genetic nationalism are totalitarianism, class collaboration, expansionism or irredentism. All these forms of nationalism may be observed nowadays in different levels of its manifestation.
Comparing nationalism with capitalism, we may conclude that the main value of capitalism is property and economic freedom while the ideal for nationalism is nation. Money and material things are the main aims in the capitalist society while nationalists consider spiritual values such as their nation, traditions and religion to be above all. The ideal for capitalism is the society with absolute freedom of economic activities without any restrictions from the government and the ideal for nationalism is a pure nation living on the same territory and preserving their traditions, culture and religion. The extreme form of capitalism is the society with the capital divided among people and the extreme form of nationalism is the dominant nation that rules the whole world as for example the ideology of fascism. Factually, both these systems have a lot of disadvantages. As for capitalism, it is unreal to realize this system as it was primarily imagined as far as the absolute freedom of economic activities destroys the whole social system. Nationalism is not preferable in our multicultural society as far as it may cause conflicts and even war.