Debating the Role of Intellectuals

June 14, 2008

I've blogged once already on Prophet of Innovation, the new biography about the economist Joseph Schumpeter. But one critique of intellectuals bothered me:

In the short run, it is impossible for people generally, and even intellectuals, to ignore what seem to be unreasonable "profits and inefficiencies." They therefore have difficulty in seeing long-range trends in which capitalism is benefiting society as a whole. Uniquely among economic systems, therefore, capitalism "creates, educates, and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest." With its bountiful production, it underwrites the education of a class of hostile intellectuals who have no "direct responsibility for practical affairs" and little experience in managing anything. [358]

The passage begins with a good point. Capitalism works itself out over a long span of time.. and the justness of spectacular and easy profits should be judged with consideration of the fact that new innovations will someday undermine this latest windfall. Capitalism requires a long historical view, but it is necessarily perceived by people who have a short view.. i.e. by people who see an individual making millions of dollars in profits and respond: "that's not fair!" So capitalism, Schumpeter concludes, will inherently face social unrest as the long term benefits of the system remain hidden to those who are protesting against it.

This puts capitalism in an odd position: it ends up funding and supporting institutions that are outright hostile to its survival. These intellectuals have no "responsibility for practical affairs" and no experience managing an institution.. and therefore the ideas of these intellectuals must be out of touch with the deeper working of the economic institution that supports them. This is a view of the academic world widely held among political conservatives, with varying shades of nuance. The central point is that intellectuals are something of a fifth column, intent on undermining the system yet dependent on the system at the same time. And for conservatives the conclusion is obvious: these intellectuals are 1) hypocrites for living in a society with which they disagree, and 2) parasites upon the properly running system.

I discovered an interesting counter-argument to this view of intellectuals in Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization by Barry Kemp. Here we get a similar sketch of the position of the intellectual vis-a-vis the state, but with a decidedly different emphasis:

The fact that I am writing and the reader reading, instead of both of us gathering wild cereal grains, is possible only because in past times kingdoms and empires carved out oases of leisure for the gifted and the learned. Without the will to coerce his neighbors man would live in a perpetual Stone Age.

This cannot be denied. Paradoxically, however, it is the development of those attitudes, institutions, and traditions which inhibit absolute power and prescribe a universal morality for the conduct of affairs, and in so doing undermine the cosy ancient paternalistic view of the ideal ruler, that offers the principal claim to the existence of progress in the history of civilization. But whereas the great ruler and his admirers take care of themselves, the forces of rational opposition require nurturing. [1st ed., pg. 319]

This passage first calls into question the notion that capitalism is somehow unique in allowing a role for hostile intellectuals. More importantly it sets out a genuine historical place for these intellectuals: they are the ones who modify and humanize the power structures that are connected to the rise of civilization. Yes, intellectuals could not exist without structures of power and hierarchy, but within these structures they are able to work in a hostile or undermining manner to moderate the structures. Intellectuals in every culture thus represent the force of "rational opposition".

Without the historical presence of a rational opposition, we would still be living in the naked power structures of the earliest civilizations. Without contemporary intellectual effort the "right" of the wealthy to grab and lock down the resources of the world would go unchallenged.