Global Values

Americans enjoyed a similar reputation in the Old World — for the same reason. The U.S., which came into being as a melting pot comprised of immigrants from different cultures, never developed a dominant traditional society. Non-monetary rewards have always existed in ethnic communities, especially among recent immigrants. However, a uniform nationwide reward system was relatively weak. From the start, Americans became focused on money as a universal gauge of success. A large fortune was readily recognized everywhere in the country.

The focus on money and commerce, and relative freedom from the prejudices of a traditional society, helped America develop its formidable capitalist system, which proved vastly more efficient in producing goods and services. In turn, America’s military, economic and cultural dominance helped spread the money economy on a global scale, increasingly replacing traditional societies and cultures.

In Europe in the 18th and 19th century, universal fame and enormous professional success were not always associated with financial rewards. Mozart and Beethoven, for example, were both poor — because composers were still supposed to be rewarded by their patron’s largesse. Even in England, where capitalism took root early on, it was still possible to be a famous writer or a distinguished scientist, and be showered with titles and medals while remaining of very modest means.

Today, fame and celebrity are typically translated into financial rewards. You are not going get too many titles or medals if you’re O.J. Simpson, but you can always make the odd million as long as you’re famous.

The monetization of success can be readily traced in sports. A century ago, many top athletes were not even getting paid. They had to stay amateurs because money would have supposedly corrupted their sportsmanship. A few decades ago, even world-famous athletes made no better than a good living. Today, professional baseball, basketball and soccer stars earn well beyond what their economic contribution to their teams’ bottom line would suggest.

Money and its Discontents

Traditional societies have a deeply ingrained prejudice — if not fear — of money. Although more recently greed has been declared good, and even Chinese communists have said that “getting rich is glorious,” these notions remain suspect. We resist measuring human worth by one’s bank account. Yet, when compared to other systems of valuing human worth that have existed in history — such as birth and race — money does not look all that bad.

Nevertheless, in the past reaction against capitalism has sometimes been severe and violent. Karl Marx was the first to identify capitalism with alienation. It is, after all, a world in which the vision of society as a big happy family breaks down and the world becomes a marketplace of strangers. Each of us has to live by his wits and skills, and be judged according to his success in the economic arena, in terms of money earned. It is telling that Marx’s communist society of the future resembled nothing so much as an idealized feudal society of the past, in which people would work because they loved their job and money would disappear once again.

Americans have been remarkably successful in dealing with capitalism. As a counterweight to their dog-eat-dog workplace, they have stressed the family and religion.

Other developed nations have not been so lucky, succumbing to the two reactionary anti-capitalist ideologies of the 20th century, Communism and National Socialism. Communism collapsed only recently, and remains discredited — at least in polite company. But rapid advances of capitalism throughout the world have already given rise to a new reactionary ideology, radical Islam, which has taken root in the Muslim world. And, violent anti-globalism and neo-Nazism remain a serious threat even in industrial democracies.

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ALEXEI BAYER runs KAFAN FX Information Services, an economic consulting firm in New York. Reach him at [email protected].