The Spectator's Notes

30 July 2011

Why do those of us who support capitalism use that word? It was designed by our enemies.

Why do those of us who support capitalism use that word? It was designed by our enemies. Capital, of course, is a vital component of an economy, and capitalism could be defined as the separation of the provision of capital from its management — a good idea in principle since it makes it possible to create and diffuse wealth much more widely. But it is a bad word because most people lack notable capital of their own, and therefore believe that the -ism advanced in its name can do nothing for them. As I argued in last Saturday’s Daily Telegraph, the actions of governments, bankers and central bankers have made this scepticism seem vindicated. The link between the generation of wealth and general prosperity was what enabled us to beat Soviet communism. For more than ten years now, that link has been fraying. When it breaks, so will our freedoms, our comforts and even our basic decencies.

We keep being invited to decide whether Anders Breivik is a deranged loner or an extreme-right ideologue. Why can’t he be both? Isn’t it an important factor in the success of left or right extremism that it gives an apparent logic to people’s personal hatreds and inadequacies? A Muslim stole your girlfriend (as seems to have happened to Breivik), so you are attracted to a theory which suggests that Muslims are stealing your civilisation. In a reasonably harmonious society, such theories will have few takers, so Breivik is probably wrong to think he can set Norway ablaze. But in large parts of the Muslim world, where many young men feel disfranchised, ‘psycho’ tendencies can more easily be reified, even deified. Perhaps those declaring Breivik ‘mad’ are unconsciously resisting the modern doctrine that one must ‘engage’ with extremists. Certainly, if the logic of our multicultural public policy were followed in the case of Breivik, British government, police and educational agencies would already be seeking meetings with Nick Griffin and other BNP ‘community leaders’, ‘dialoguing’ in Right Now magazine and seeing if more couldn’t be done to allow the teaching of (non-violent) Nordic racial superiority in state schools. It is right to shy away from such an approach. But when Boris Johnson writes that Breivik is ‘a narcissist and egomaniac’ and should therefore be dismissed, he misses the vital historical fact that narcissists and egomaniacs are quite capable of taking over the world unless their theories are challenged, rather than placated or ignored.

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