Capitalism, since its consolidation through the Industrial Revolution, has not only introduced a new economic, social, political form or the like into our society, but it has introduced something that is above all of these, and that is essentially subordinated to what has been mentioned, and that is — a new spirit. Every human organization, whether it’s a complex society, a tribal society, or a simple neighborhood or street organization, is guided by a spirit that directs the entire functioning of that human organization, and that spirit is the higher ideas that act upon the organization, which can be dispersed and chaotic ideas or ideas consolidated into a single body, such as a worldview or simply a doctrine. Every person or civilization is guided by a spirit of their époque, which underlies all the actions and measures taken by a human organization, which takes certain measures in view of a set of higher thoughts that order its actions and Being in certain situations of time and space. Nothing could be different when we talk about capitalism, which is no exception to what has been said so far, dear reader. We have observed that much has been said about capitalism from countless perspectives and sides, mainly – given the nature of the thing – from the economic side, but much has been ignored by those who analyze capitalism purely in this way (emphasis on the “purely”), that the economic side is only one of the sides of this system that is in force and governs our entire economic, social and, above all, ethical and moral functioning.

In fact, since its emergence, capitalism has brought with it a new spirit and all the consequences of capitalism are ultimately derived from this spirit. This spirit is responsible for the essence of capitalism, from which everything else is derived, and is the basis on which the capitalist method of production functions, that is, the accumulation of capital, which we can translate as producing and acting with the aim of maximizing capital in its constant dynamic of self-valorization. If the spirit of socialism in general (regardless of its type) is the spirit of communitarianism, mutualism and voluntary solidarity, the capitalist spirit, on the other hand, is not only individualistic and materialistic, but above all mammonistic. And what do we understand and define by “mammonism”? To repeat the words of the founder of our worldview, Gottfried Feder, Mammonism is “[…] a mentality that has seized the widest circle of peoples; the insatiable desire for profit, the purely worldly orientation of the concept of life, which has already led to a frightening decline of all moral concepts and must continue to do so” [1], and Mammonism manifests itself in practice through the “[…] overwhelming internationalism overwhelming international monetary powers supranational financial power enthroned above any right of self-determination of peoples, international big business, or purely Golden International” [2].

The term “Mammonism” comes from “Mammon”, which in turn comes from the Aramaic word “mammon” ( מָמוֹנָא ), meaning “possession” or even “goods”, but it is more commonly used to mean money and wealth and is described in some religious passages, such as Biblical texts in which “Mammon” in such a context would be a god or a demon. For example, we have the following very famous passage from the Bible, from the Gospel of Matthew:

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. – Matthew 6:24

Other translations of the Bible have simply replaced “Mammon” with “wealth” or even “money. It should be noted, however, that Mammon is not simply the god of money, but the god of the cult of money and wealth in general, and is associated in Christian theology with the sin of greed or avarice (one of the seven deadly sins) in its purest form. Based on this, the term “Mammonism” was created to emphasize the Spirit of Greed, however, we don’t know who was the first user of the term and under what circumstances it was first used, what we do know so far is that its use was quite common on the part of some 19th century authors, such as the Scottish essayist and philosopher Thomas Carlyle in his literary essay “Past and Present” originally published in England in 1843 and later in the United States. Among other things, he explained Mammonism as follows[3]:

“Yes, O Sauerteig, it is very singular. If we do not ‘succeed,’ where is the use of us? We had better never have been born. “Tremble intensely,” as our friend the Emperor of China says: there is the black Bottomless of Terror; what Sauerteig calls the ‘Hell of the English!’-But indeed this Hell belongs naturally to the Gospel of Mammonism, which also has its corresponding Heaven. For there is one Reality among so many Phantasms; about one thing we are entirely in earnest: The making of money. Working Mammonism does divide the world with idle game-preserving Dilettantism: — thank Heaven that there is even Mammonism, anything we are in earnest about! Idleness is worst, Idleness alone is without hope: work earnestly at anything, you will by degrees learn to work at almost all things. There is endless hope in work, where it even works at making money.”

Furthermore, the term “Mammonism” can be found in numerous other works and writings from the 19th century, including a work by James Glentworth Butler on the Old Testament[4]:

“The perils of mammonism threaten those who make little money as well as those who make much money. The spirit which leads to over-value and over-love of money is independent of amount. Safety lies in placing one’s self in a right moral relation to money. The man who feels himself drifting on to the quicksands of mammonism will find an anchor, sure and steadfast, in cheerful and prompt obedience to the apostolic precept: “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him.” Recognize your stewardship: “honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first-fruits of all thine increase,;” let the first act of worship on every Sabbath be a setting aside of a portion of the week’s proceeds for religious and philanthropic purposes, and you are safe from the perils of mammonism”.

Indeed, the American author Josiah Strong already identified in his own epoch that everything around him was being subverted in favor of Mammonism[5]:

“Mammonism is corrupting popular morals in many ways. Sunday amusements of every kind — horse-racing, baseball, theaters, beer-gardens, steamboat and railroad excursions are all provided because there is money in them. Licentious literature floods the land, poisoning the minds of the young and polluting their lives, because there is money in it. Gambling flourishes in spite of the law, and actually under its license, because there is money in it. And that great abomination of desolation, that triumph of Satan, that more than ten Egyptian plagues in one-the liquor traffic-grows and thrives at the expense of every human interest, because there is money in it. Ever since greed of gold sold the Christ and raffled for his garments, it has crucified every form of virtue between thieves. And, while Mammonism corrupts morals, it blocks reforms. Men who have favors to ask of the public are slow to follow their convictions into any unpopular reform movement. They can render only a surreptitious service. Their discipleship must be secret, “for fear of the customers or clients or patients. It is Mammonism which makes most men invertebrates”.

Continuing, the author even managed to identify Mammonism in the American elections themselves[6]:

“Mammonism is also corrupting the ballot-box. The two great political parties are nearly equal in strength. The vast majority of voters on both sides are party men, who vote the same way year after year. The result of the election is determined by the floating vote. Of this, a comparatively small portion is thoroughly intelligent and conscientious; the remainder is, for the most part, without convictions, without principle and thoroughly venal; hence the great temptation to bribery, to which both parties yield”.

Moreover, the term was also used in some American periodicals, including Brownson’s Quarterly Review[7]:

“If the condition of the English poor is lamentable, that of the Irish is still more wretched. Systematically plundered and oppressed for ages, the Irish peasantry have no reasonable incentive to industry; for if they improve their holdings by enterprising industry, the fruits of their toil are snatched from them and their children by that remorseless cormorant and engine of Mammonism, the English law”.

In addition to American authors, we also found correspondence from German authors[8]:

“Of such a moral and juridical worldview and social or State human order, corresponding to the equality and charity of all men and preached by Christ, which we want to call truly Christian or socialist (cooperative), in contrast to the mammonist, or that social or juridical view and order which loves God or the natural order of the world less than “mammon”, and therefore wants the latter, that is, unjustified possessive domination and selfishness, and not the former, that is, truth and justice, to reign […]”

We also found the following correspondence from another German author[9]:

“Mammonism is the religion of the majority on Earth. It makes no difference whether he is dressed in royal purple or in the banker’s tuxedo, whether he wears the poet’s laurel or the drunkard’s rags. In the same way, it doesn’t matter whether mammonism presents itself as a desire for money or a desire for honor or a desire for pleasure. The essence is the same: the person is dominated by the spirit of this world.”

Generally speaking, the term “Mammonism” was characterized by a series of principles that always revolved around greed for money, except that this greed for money was not simply the desire to get more money than one really needed, but to make money its own god and the operating principle of all things.

Capitalism, by its principles and assumptions, was founded on this spirit. Capitalism is a system of economic organization aimed at the accumulation of capital through mechanical laws, mechanical laws being those laws that enable capitalism to function and operate based on the purpose of financial and monetary acquisition. In addition, one of the characteristics of capitalism is large-scale production or production on an industrial scale, because if production is not carried out with the principle and purpose of satisfying the basic needs of each individual, then production cannot be carried out taking into account individual desires, If consumption is standardized for an entire society and does not take into account individual desires, then production will be carried out on an industrial or large scale, because only large-scale production will satisfy the desires to satisfy the Mammonist spirit of the capitalist system, because in capitalist production or mode of production, the following logic is followed: Maximum production for maximum consumption for maximum profit. In all these operations, profit is taken as the premise and purpose, and here we must also make a distinction between profit and simple gain. Gain is simply any financial return over and above what has been spent, so if a producer has made a financial return over and above what he has invested in a particular production or sale, that is gain and can also be income. Profit, on the other hand, becomes something systematized, it starts from the assumption of profit and income itself, but on a larger scale, on an industrial scale, in fact. Profit is part of the essence of capitalism, it is the guiding principle of all the operations of this system. That’s why when socialists say they want to abolish the idea of profit, it’s not the idea of abolishing the income or revenue from the production or sale of goods and services, but it’s the abolition of the idea that serves as the basis for the accumulation of capital in capitalism, and aristocratic socialism confirms and accepts this idea as its own. In order for the idea of profit and capital accumulation to function and be maintained, it is necessary, a priori, that the mentality and spirit of the time of a given social organization be subverted in favor of a new spirit, so that there is no social rejection of the system and so that the social organization itself is generally convenient with such a system. Large-scale industrial production, profit as a goal, and so on and so forth, all these ideas survive not only for their own sake, but because of something greater than themselves, which is the very spirit embedded in the roots of the capitalist system.

The “hidden” roots of why capitalism works in a certain way A or B are not of a purely economic nature, but are truly of a psychological or spiritual nature, so that the nature of the system is not simply found in the idea of financial acquisition superimposed on the ideas of satisfying demand, but, in fact, finds all its foundations in a single nature that encompasses all capitalist ideas, and this nature is the spirit of Mammonism. Therefore, every individual who consciously or unconsciously accepts the assumptions of the capitalist system and binds himself to it becomes a Mammonist.

Mammonism therefore becomes an important factor, however much it is ignored in many analyses and in the understanding of capitalism, because we don’t understand capitalism only as na act, but we understand capitalism through its true causes and roots, which are timeless, because it is not only the cause of the system that is still in force today, but it is completely inherent in the system itself in all its actions and practices and in the individuals who identify with this system, especially those who directly participate in its maintenance, including the big national and international industrialists and bankers.

 

Bibliographical notes

[1] Gottfried Feder. Das Manifest zur Brechung der Zinsknechtschaft des Geldes, Verlag Jos. C. Huber, Diessen vor München, 1919, p.5

[2] idem, p.5

[3] Thomas Carlyle. Past and Present, Second Edition, Chapman & Hall, 1843, p.198

[4] J. Glentworth Butler. The Bible Work, The Old Testament, Vol.VI, New York Butler Bible-Work Company, 1892, p.476

[5] J. Strong. Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, The Baker & Taylor co. , 9 Bond st. , New York, 1885, p.118

[6] idem p.119

[7] Brownson’s Quarterly Review, New York Series, Volume III, 1858, p.165

[8] Hermann Stolp. Die Reformation des Eigentumsrechts zur Lösung der sozialen Frage oder Mammonismus und Sozialismus, 1886, p.5-6

[9] Otto Funcke. Verwandlungen, oder: wie ein Sehender blind und ein Blinder sehend wird, Bremen, 1873, p.31