Opinion Sur
Economic history shows that there is no society in the capitalist era that has developed from the mandates of the free market.
The famous allegory of the cave is a narrative of pedagogical and philosophical intentions, used by Plato (Athens, 427-347 BC) at the beginning of the seventh book of The Republic, his best known and most influential work. Basically, an allegory is a literary figure in which the story has a symbolic meaning.
In the allegory of the cave, the illustrious Greek philosopher provides a metaphorical explanation of the situation in which, according to his interpretation, the human being finds himself in front of knowledge in general, distinguishing between a sensible world (the one that is reached through the senses) and an intelligible world (the one we know through reason).
This famous allegory begins by describing a cave inside which were a number of men chained from their early childhood. The restraint was such that the prisoners could not move even to turn their heads, so that the only thing they could observe were the objects in front of them. Behind these captive men was a wall with a corridor at the top and then, and in order of proximity to the men, a bonfire and the entrance of the cave that faced the outside.
Through the corridor of the wall circulated men carrying all kinds of objects whose shadows, thanks to the lighting of the bonfire, were projected on the wall that the prisoners could see in front of them. Since the only thing that these chained men visualized throughout their lives was the projection of these shadows, they formed in their consciences the only possible reality since they could not even imagine anything of what happened behind their backs.
The story goes on to tell how one of these men is freed and forced to turn to the light of the bonfire contemplating, in this way, a new reality. A deeper and more complex reality since this is the cause and foundation of the first, which is composed only of sensible appearances. Once this man manages to assimilate this new situation, he is forced to go out of the cave finally appreciating the outside world, the foundation of the previous realities.
The allegory ends with the prisoner re-entering the cavern to free his former companions from chains. However, after trying, he only manages to make those who were still captive laugh at him, since the narration of his experience was absolutely absurd and incomprehensible, because he was outside any paradigm known to them.
When the man who had been freed tries to untie and raise his former companions to the light so that they would contemplate the outside world with their own eyes, Plato concludes the story by asserting that the prisoners would be able to kill whoever tried to free them and that, indeed, they would do so as soon as they had the opportunity.
Economic relations
This allegory is very useful and interesting to rethink the way in which society observes the world and interprets the economic relations that take place in it. In a hyperconnected and technological daily life, the mass media and the most widespread social networks project the shadows of a discourse specially constructed to reproduce the current power relations.
What it shows is a representation of reality, deliberately designed to make the rules of the free market appear pure, unalterable, and fundamentally convenient. However, these projections are constructed by the most favored and best-off actors in the market to defend their own interests, even if they strive to shout that they do so in the name of the general interest.
The historical development of capitalism has taken place in the central countries from the growth of large-scale industry and the consequent constitution of integrated national industrial systems. The introduction of machinery has enabled the application of science to the general product of social development. That is, to the immediate production process enhancing the value generated by the workers.
Thus, as technological innovations consolidate in a given sector, they tend to spread to the rest of the industries, emerging as the general socially prevailing form in the production process and forming an integrated industrial system.
The productive framework is constituted as the material support that allows capital to guide the development of the productive forces through technological innovation derived from the social accumulation of knowledge. In this way, the developed countries obtained their privileged positions on the basis of recipes that go against the liberal creed, since to develop their productive schemes, they appealed to protectionist and subsidy schemes, discriminated against foreign investment, created state enterprises, promoted education and scientific development.
Economic planning
Contrary to what is repeated in the media, the available statistics show that the countries with the highest incomes and the best standard of living are those with the largest states and the highest levels of tax collection in relation to GDP. This does not mean that a high level of public spending or a high tax burden are sufficient to achieve development alone.
Economic history shows that there is no society in the capitalist era that has developed from the mandates of the free market. On the contrary, it has always been state regulation and economic planning that allowed the current global powers to develop through education, science, and productive innovation.
To replicate the success achieved by societies with better living standards, it is essential to know what recipes they have used to achieve that degree of development, bearing in mind that they have nothing to do with the policies of the free market that some insist on projecting in front of us.
It is not a question here of constructing a new story, but on the contrary, it is about inviting everyone to seek in the most reliable way possible that reinterpretation of what is presented to us as real, with critical thinking as a fundamental standard at all times.
The only way to leave the world of shadows cast in front of us is to embrace the scientific method, with its general laws of experimentally testable and predictive capacity. However, once this goal is achieved, the difficult task of convincing colleagues that their beliefs are not reliable, but a mere fiction, will remain.
As Mark Twain’s well-known phrase goes: “It is easier to deceive people than to convince them that they have been deceived.” But it is exactly in this task of persuasion, argumentation, and demonstration where energies must be focused to collectively leave behind the chains that subject us to an unreal and inconvenient perspective for society as a whole.
Published in Pagina 12‘s Cash supplement, May 2021
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