Clash of Ideologies? (Olavo de Carvalho)

Clash of Ideologies? (Olavo de Carvalho)

To qualify the struggle between capitalism and socialism in this way is a linguistic vice. If you want to assess the extent of the hypnotic hold that Marxist habits still exercise over the neuronal system of people who supposedly are immune to any Marxist contamination, just see that these people, when arguing in favor of capitalism, admit to sticking on their own foreheads the label of defenders of a certain “ideology.”
An ideology is, by definition, a simulacrum of scientific theory. It is, according to Marx’s own correct expression, a “dress of ideas” that conceals interests or desires. By accepting to define themselves in the language of their adversary, the modern liberal assumes the role imposed on him: confessing to be a spokesperson for the interests of the rich. That the confession is false does not make it any less effective. Transferred from the objective confrontation of doctrines to the field of competition of interests, the struggle now seems to oppose the exploited to the exploiter. No matter how elegant the latter’s argumentation, he will always be condemned to personify the villain of the story.
To describe the confrontation between capitalism and socialism as a “clash of ideologies” is to accept a rigged game, in which one side dictates the rules, deals the cards, and predetermines the outcome.
Capitalism is not an ideology. It is an economic system that existed and proved its virtues two centuries before anyone thought of putting it into words. And the first to outline this formulation, Adam Smith, is by no means an ideologue, an inventor of rhetorical symbols to build futures in the air in favor of such or such class ambitions. He is a man of science in the full extent of the term, sketching hypotheses to describe and explain an existing reality. Socialism, by contrast, millennia before even existing as a concrete political strategy, already had its ideologues, its beautifiers of delusions, its stylists of the resentful and ambitious group interests. Therefore, the confrontation between socialists and liberals does not oppose ideology to ideology: the defense of socialism is always the ideological self-attribution of imaginary merits of a possible future, capitalism’s is always the scientific analysis of existing economic processes and the objective means to increase their efficiency. Despite everything that can be alleged against it in other aspects (and I myself have not ceased to allege it), capitalism not only generated incalculable wealth, but put into motion practical means to distribute it to the people and created institutions such as parliamentary democracy, freedom of the press, human rights, whereas socialism has only so far promised a better future while reintroducing slave labor banned by capitalism, suppressing all known civil and political rights, reducing more than one billion people to distressing misery and, to sustain itself in power, resorting to means of almost unthinkable cruelty, such as impalement and flaying of prisoners — a resource much used during Lenin’s government.
Capitalism is not an ideology — it is a reality continuously improved by science. Ideology is socialism — the dress of ideas that covers the sociopathic ambitions of power-hungry semi-intellectuals.
And one more proof that this is so may be given by any socialist reactions to this article, which, like all contestations to my previous articles, will not be able and indeed will not even try to challenge the truthfulness of any of its claims, but will limit themselves to expressing dissatisfaction and outrage at its publication.