Once again, we speak of “modernity”, what it is, what comes after, and the possibility of another modernity. Last time we gave a definition of modernity, we emphasized the centrality of method, but, while this is true of modern philosophy and science, we now look at a parallel phenomenon. If modernity was preceded by the medieval world, and if the medieval world was economically organized around the estate system, then modernity is characterized, economically, by the emergence of the bourgeois. What are the bourgeois? Those private persons, who have sufficient capital to be independent of the landed aristocracy. Jurgen Habermas summarizes the shift as follows:
“With the emergence of early finance and trade capitalism, the elements of a new social order were taking shape. From the thirteenth century on they spread from the northern Italian city-states (Bruges, Luttich, Brussels, Ghent, etc.) and then of the great trade fairs at the cross-roads of long-distance trade. Initially, to be sure, they were integrated without much trouble by the old power structure…Early capitalism was very conservative not only as regards the economic mentality so vividly described by Sombart (a characteristic way of doing business typified by “honorable” gain) but also regards politics. As long as it lived from the fruits of the old mode of organization (the feudal organization of agriculture production involving an enserfed peasantry and the petty commodity production of the corporatively organized urban craftsman) without transforming it, it retained ambivalent characteristics. On the one hand this capitalism stabilized the power structure of a society organized in estates, an on the other hand it unleashed the very elements within which this power structure would one day dissolve. We are speaking of the elements of the new commercial relationships: the traffic in commodities and news created by early capitalist’s long-distance trade.
The towns, of course, had local markets from the beginning. In the hands of the guilds and the corporations, however, these remained strictly regulated, serving more as instruments for the domination of the surrounding areas than for free commodity exchange between town and country. With the rise of long-distance, for which—according to Pirenne’s observations—the town was only a base of operations, markets of a different sort arose. They became consolidated into periodic trade fairs and, with the development of techniques of capitalist financing (it is known that letters of credit and commissary notes were in use at the trade fairs of the Champagne as early as the thirteenth century), were established as stock exchanges. In 1531 Antwerp became a “permanent fair trade fair.” This commercial exchange developed according to rules which certainly manipulated by political power; yet a far-reaching network of horizontal economic dependencies emerged that in principle could no longer be accommodated by the vertical relationships of dependence characterizing the organization of household economy.”1
Over time, new modes of production, accompanied with new financing techniques, allowed towns to become, at first in principle, and then in actuality, independent from the existing estate system. Previously confined to the estates, ownership and financial independence expanded to what we now call the middle class, or, to say the same thing, the bourgeois. Note that modernity, if we identify it with the expansion of private property outside the exclusive control of the medieval estates, began (at least) around the 13th century. Modernization, then, is the process by which the financial enterprise expands past a certain point.
Whereas we have been critical of philosophical and scientific modernity, primarily for its rejection of the human subject, economic modernity is hardly something the right should oppose. Currently, those with financial independence are promoting cultural ideals opposed to Christianity and the Western inheritance. Those standing in defense of the Christian faith, and the Western inheritance, by which I mean the great literary canon beginning with Homer, are often, though not always, excluded from the capitalist franchise. Primarily the former middle-class, those naturally drawn to the right have the money, but neither the property, nor capital, to qualify as bourgeois. Yes, they may drive nice cars, or they may own local businesses, but they are dependent, not in a dissimilar way to serfs dependent on the manorial estates, on international corporations and their closely associated NGOs. Local businesses are dependent upon international, if not national, supply lines. Former members of the bourgeois have lost even their middle-class status because of the general policy of pointing the money spigot at companies like Walmart, Amazon, General Motors, etc. We exist, more or less, in a neo-feudal system.
Habermas’ use of the term “corporatively organized” is apt here, as it maps on to our corporatist economy. Instead of complete lassiez-faire, where production is privately owned, and instead of communism, where production is publicly owned, corporatism is the model in which privately owned production is guided towards public interests by means of subsidies, tax-cuts, and window guidance. Corporatism, understood in this sense, is merely a means to an end. Should the state be aligned with the aristocracy, then corporatism will be used as a means to edge out the bourgeois, as it is today. If there is a caveat, it is that “formerly bourgeois” is the more precise label. However, if the state is thoroughly middle class in orientation, which would be an apt description of a conservative state, then corporatism would be used as a means to protect the middle class against international forces. As the aristocracy of old used corporate structures to try and lock out the emerging bourgeois, so are the current international elites using the power of the purse to embolden companies like Walmart and Amazon, while doing all they can to crush mom-and-pop shops.
Yet, the neo-bourgeois have arrived, and they are bringing a second modernity. Many states, in light of Covid-19, have passed a number of bills subsidizing local farms, and local businesses. In mainstream conservative circles there is talk about empowering local communities, to such an extent that the pinkos over at Jacobin Magazine are becoming panicked. With the recent phenomena of friend-shoring, international trade is becoming more localized. Although this does not mean bringing back industry to America, (but does not exclude this possibility), it does mean that supply lines shorten, and cut out hostile foreign powers. AI too, which, to the dismay to a number of subscribers, I defended, has promising results for building up a new bourgeois, as it opens access for local businesses to a (free) team of secretaries that, formerly, only large corporations were able to afford. Your town hardware store, should the owner be introduced to a decent AI, can, with a few well-made prompts, maximize his profits by shifting where he gets his inventory from.
None of this guarantees a new modernity, but it gives evidence of its possibility. Should a second modernity come, it would require the conscious effort of many, in a diversity of fields.2 These neo-bourgeois will not be given keys to the kingdom, however. There are already signs of an aristocratic push-back. Twitter is quickly consolidating the online public sphere, evidenced by other social medias shilling for their survival on Twitter. I have heard it proposed, though I withhold judgement, that Musk’s Twitter is the antidote to China’ TikTok, but, regardless of unknown intent, it does seem to be true that the online public sphere is coming more and more under the control of Musk. Maybe we like Musk. From what I hear from people that known him, he seems like a decent guy. However likeable he may be, Twitter swallowing up Facebook, Gab, and other social media sites is a definitive regression back to pre-modernity. Social capital, as real as monetary capital, is being consolidated, and this is a loss for the neo-bourgeois.
Habermas, Jurgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. MIT Press, 1991. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 14, 15
For those interested, promoting the cause of local businesses and subsidiarity, in writing or in local politics, can go a long way.