A binary society: Hegel’s dialectic in a capitalist world
“While the master position presents debt as liberating — one can invest the money wisely, pay for education, strive to make a living — it is the ultimate mechanism of economic slavery.”
From Dan Martin
“Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
When I was a high school student some years ago, my History teacher asked the class if we thought Ancient Greek societies were perfect. We had studied their customs, their democracies (rather superficially I would say), their architecture and their art - I was astonished. “Why wouldn’t they be?” I asked. My teacher answered “Slavery”.
My younger self had gotten so lost in the Athenian ‘democracy’ ideal (which of course, wasn’t a democracy at all), that I forgot about the unseen masses of people that suffered to make ‘real’ Athenians be able to sustain such leisurely lifestyles.
A historical and social analysis of society will always show a dichotomy between two opposing forces. This dialectical relationship is present in every aspect of our lives. In culture, it is the distinction between high culture and popular culture. In economy, it is the division of people into classes based on their wealth. In society, it is the frequent exclusion or marginalization of different individuals. In philosophy, it is illustrated by Hegel’s master-slave dialectic and Sartre’s relationship theory. Although these two philosophers have two different goals – Hegel’s dialectic is an ontological parable while Sartre’s theory structures the social norm of his existentialism – they both arrive at the same end: once an individual reaches the position of the master, he realizes that he cannot realize himself fully because of what the slave represents and reminds him of.
There are a few interesting considerations to be made from this relationship when you apply it to a sociological approach to class society. The first is that there is always a struggle to reach the position of the master. Struggle is inherent by human nature and that can be reflected in our modern capital societies, after all, capitalism is natural selection applied to economy. This means that our most primitive human nature is capitalist by default, because our first instinct is survival.
The second is that throughout human history we have witnessed that once an individual or collective reaches the position of master they are not able to realize themselves fully. They always seek more power, more wealth, more control. Why else would Hitler try to invade Russia? Why would the Roman Empire waste so much manpower in Northern Europe? Tactical decisions aside, there is always a fundamental lust for power behind expansionist and imperialist actions.
In modern societies this inability to self-realize can still translate on the other. The agglomeration of capital under a handful of individuals is unjustified. Why does Jeff Bezos need so much money? The answer is simple: he doesn’t. He wants it. The reason for such a desire can be psychoanalytical, but the fact remains that the master position is one of emotional and psychological impotence.
The third, in opposition, is that the slave has a purpose and a sense of realization through the projection of his experience in the future. As he becomes the slave and the undermined entity, his resentment for the master gives him purpose. The reality of Hegel’s dialectic is here transformed by the shape of our modern societies: the slave realizes himself in his work and through his own reconfiguration of reality – his work brings him purpose. He finds in the capitalist system a means of conformity that allows him to adapt and survive the new status quo - the hegemony of the upper class. Modern capital societies offer the possibility for both, but contemporary cultural and social devices have also created a reality where the slave doesn’t realize or doesn’t care about his situation.
A dialectical relation is naturally completed through a synthesis, and the synthesis between slaves and masters in our economic reality is the middle class. The middle class is the neutral center: part slave, part slaver. Its role is ambiguous because of its circumstance. It operates as a defense mechanism for the masters, to put as much distance between them and the slaves, and it can symbolically represent a goal for the slaves as a way out of their slavery. But this dream can be fickle – the change of a society of Estates to a society of classes was of little significance to the poorest.
The middle class also ideologically opposes the working class. Because they are closer to grasping the position of masters themselves, they deny and resent the slaves. Zygmunt Bauman argued that socially institutionalized disdain and fear of refugees came from the fact that they reminded us how easily our situation can change – they were us. In the same way, the middle class despises the working class because it reminds them that one economic crisis stands between them.
The way the middle class perceives this master-slave dialectic is in itself controlled by the master, which could make the case that class functions in a direct hierarchical relation in which the upper class also control the middle class. Nonetheless, their perception of this phenomenon enshrines the masters and condemns the slaves. Neoliberal societies function a lot like the advice Atticus gives Scout in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Everyone is free to shoot at the bluejays, but it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. In capitalist societies it’s a sin to take aim at the 1%.
Of course this dichotomy can also be constructed as the natural hegemony of the upper class. This very line from To Kill a Mockingbird shows it. Gramsci understood that a hegemonic relation is directed by a struggle, a negotiation between both sides, even though the weaker side is systematically beaten. Could not a struggle in ideology take place within this sentence? In a binary society the roles of the mockingbird and the bluejay are always present. The struggle is over who gets to be who, and in capital societies where materialism is the highest principle, the upper class will always be able to define the roles.
There seems to be something missing. What about the people who don’t follow these rules? The marginal percentage that refuses to be the master or the slave? Our liberal societies do allow them some liberties. For example, there is a vast network of ‘vagabonds’ across both Europe and America. People who voluntarily leave their homes and current situations to live on the fringes of society. This culture is not associated with homelessness or vagrancy. These people choose to not play the game.
But I could argue that they are somewhat still in play. Even if they do not contribute to the masters' hegemony actively and directly through their work, they are still complacent to it. By not acting against it and not moving to change the status quo, they find themselves playing an ideological part in the binary structure of society. Because concepts are partly defined by their opposites, and the fringe masses are opposite to the masters, they are therefore categorized as slaves, even if they don’t economically subscribe to that role. Their role as slaves is a symbolic, ideological and cultural one.
Another interesting materialization of the master/slave dialectic in our societies is the modern digitalization and mechanization of debt. The concept of debt existed much prior to capital societies, in fact, it can be found in indigenous tribes even today. Marcel Mauss in The Gift describes such a feeling of debt in these tribes as an unspoken agreement where tribe members live in a chain of back and forth gift giving. The problem erupts when these unspoken debts of small items transform into unsurmountable financial debt which is controlled by immaterial digital entities - the invisible and untouchable structures who track your financial data, such as banks and insurance companies.
The existence of these non-entities brings up an interesting articulation of power and liquidity in modern societies. A society that is liquid is one which is light, agile, and where the structures of power are no longer dependent on the constraints of space. Liquid modernity, as Bauman sees it, is much more erratic and time-based than a solid modernity, which is grounded and space-based.
The transition of banks and financial institutions into digital workspaces marks a shift from a solid modernity into a liquid modernity. As globalization allowed our individual selves to become more mobile and fluid, so did it allow information to become more agile and rapid. As a result, finance transitioned to a mobile structure of power, using banks and the economy as its devices.
Any man who contracts debt in a society of capital is at once imprisoned and enslaved. In a globalized and digitalized world where debt follows you around the globe, debtors become global prisoners. While the master position presents debt as liberating — one can invest the money wisely, pay for education, strive to make a living — it is the ultimate mechanism of economic slavery. It is the chain around the neck of any working man trying to play by the rules of a capitalist economy, a violent and aggressive attempt at human freedom.
A master/slave dialectic is present in every aspect of our natural selection societies. That is how they are constructed to function. Humanity is built that way through a nasty and cruel process of survival of the fittest and adaptation, but the way this simple concept has exploded and taken over every single piece of our society is astounding.
My high school self didn’t recognize slavery because it was too focused on the appeal of the master. But societies as we know them aren’t equal, and there is always a dichotomy present. Both sides to the same coin. Our society is binary. Its structure is ones and zeros. Wolves and sheep, popular and unpopular, famous and unknown, rich and poor, masters and slaves.
Dan Martin
Undergraduate in Communication Sciences at the New University of Lisbon. Interested in philosophy and structural approaches to society and politics.