Beyond Goods and Services: Toward a Nietzschean Critique of Capitalism

Abstract

In this article, I examine an underexplored area of Nietzsche's thought, namely his comments regarding several integral aspects of capitalism. In particular, I argue against the interpretation of Nietzsche as a bourgeois ideologue, by showing how his claims about money-making, money itself, work, workers, pleasure, and the marketplace amount to a critical view of capitalism's essential features. In addition, I distinguish his critical standpoint from more familiar critiques of capitalism such as that of Marx, using Nietzsche's own criticisms of socialism to propose that, in contrast, Nietzsche's perspective vis-à-vis capitalism is what I call aristocratic. By "aristocratic" I refer to the attitude or "pathos of distance" Nietzsche possesses in relation to such things as money-making, work, and the marketplace, rather than some literal aristocracy that he supposedly defends. Finally, I offer a brief discussion of how Nietzsche's aristocratic perspective can assist the Marxist critique today by rejecting one of capitalism's strongest ideological supports, that is, the myth of capitalists as great individuals. All great things occur away from glory and the marketplace: the inventors of new values have always lived away from glory and the marketplace.-F. Nietzsche 1 n this article, I examine an underexplored area of Nietzsche's thought, namely his comments regarding several integral aspects of capitalism. In particular, I argue against the interpretation of Nietzsche as a bourgeois ideologue, 2 by showing how his claims about money-making, money itself, work, workers, pleasure, and the marketplace amount to a critical view of capitalism's essential features. This view differs, however, from more familiar critiques of capitalism such as that of Marx. Thus I also distinguish the socialist critique of capitalism from what I call Nietzsche's aristocratic critique, using Nietzsche's own criticisms of socialism as my guide. By Nietzsche's 1 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. by R. J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin Books, 1969), 79. 2 I attribute this reading of Nietzsche primarily to Ayn Rand and Francis Fukuyama. I directly characterize, and challenge, their appropriation of Nietzsche in the final section.