On living for the means of happiness alone

Just like us today, a society where money has the highest value is not happy, because people live for the means of happiness,

SHIN BOK-RYONGThe author is a former chair professor of history at Konkuk University. Whether you like it or not, we live in a capitalist society. German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920) was pessimistic about the future of capitalism. He worried that capitalism would struggle for the following reasons.

The first is the unreasonable demands of the workers. It is rare that the working class purely demands higher wages. A Samsung Economic Research Institute report calculated that the cost of social discord from strikes and walkouts, construction suspension, facility occupation, environmental controversy, compensation for damages, demands for attracting companies, and undesirable facilities in Korea amounts to 27 percent of Korea’s gross national product. This is equivalent to the combined profits of Samsung (21 percent) and LG (7.7 percent).

The second reason is the untrained burst of free will. The crowd — reminiscent of the psychology of the Jacobin period associated with extreme egalitarianism and violence shortly after the French Revolution — shows a complicated pattern with dash, anger, vengeance, anti-Japan sentiments, chants, and desires for upward social mobility.

They feel with their hearts and do not think with their brains. There are countless examples of liberty violating liberty in human history. They get furious in the name of restoring justice. They equality, but there is no period in history when the two values of liberty and equality have coexisted. The French Revolution, in which the people attempted to achieve liberty, equality and fraternity at the same time was an illusion.

The third reason is the greed of the capitalists. Adam Smith’s biggest mistake was adhering to the theory that humans are good by nature. The world, through his eyes, was rosy. He believed that capitalists would live by conscience and mercy in the age of capitalism, and could not foresee how humans could be heartless before money.

Smith could not see what Marx had seen. In that sense, he was a good predictor, but not a wise prophet. Just like us today, a society where money has the highest value is not happy, because people live for the means of happiness, not for happiness itself.