A Possible Logical Connection Between Capitalism, Nationalism, Fundamentalism and Populism

Undoubtedly, the whole world is in chaos now. In the US, the right extremism, nationalism, fundamentalism and populism have pushed their new present onto the stage, who seems to be going to turn the whole country into a dictatorship. In the meanwhile, the far-right parties in Europe are also gaining popularity. Violence between different opinions created conflict among friends, in a family and community, and dividing people more and more. It seems that the whole world is broken.

I have also heard a lot of voices blaming the political parties telling the lie. I have heard a lot of voices online, blaming the uneducated people believing the lies told by those parties.

I was also the one who believed that those uneducated people were to be blamed, since they had too much uncertainties, which led to being easily brainwashed once they saw any kinds of hope. But I realized that I was probably wrong, and the blame on the uneducated people is probably also not 100% right. Because those so-called "uneducated people" are probably the victims in the first place.

Capitalism

I always believe, human civilization is constantly moving towards a direction where more and more people will have the freedom to realize their meaning of life.

But in reality, human-being society has never been fully equal. The longer a society runs, the more obvious will the conflict between the classes in the society be. The class, being suppressed for a long time tends to become a group of revolutionists fighting for their rights, while the class suppressing other people either yields its control or are beaten by the revolutionists. A new society will be created in the conflict with a new mechanism allowing more people to realize the meaning of their lives.

And the conflict that we are currently facing in capitalism is not only between the educated or the uneducated, it is not only between the left and right, it is not only between the capitalists and workers. But it is between two groups of people, where one group can efficiently create values for the capitalist society, and the other one cannot.

The best example could be the people driving trucks collecting the garbage on the street, versus the people sitting in the office doing software development. Who actually contributes more to society? To be honest I don't know. Both occupations are equally important. Besides, I clearly know if the garbage truck driver skips his shift, the whole street will stink like garbage. But if the programmer skips his shift, it is only the software delivery going to be delayed, or even not delayed at all.

But the capitalist society has a clear answer for this question — it is the software developer who contributes more to the society. Because there is a single measurement of the society — how efficiently can one help the society to gather capital.

The group of people who can help the society gather capital is changing from time to time. In the IT area, several years ago, it was the software developers, and then the cloud experts, and then the embedded developers, and then the data analysts, and now it is the AI experts. Several decades ago, it might have been the scientists, but now, it is exactly the opposite. Government has cut the fund for the researching projects, and even the existing researching projects shall also be monetizable. The people who don't create any actual practical value for the society, e.g. the influencers, are being considered creating the most value for the society, since people are willing to pay for them.

But several groups of people are always able to stay productive in terms of creating values for the capitalist society, e.g. politicians and capitalists.

And the problem of capitalism that I have seen in the modern world is not that the capitalists trying to exploit labor from workers according to Karl Marx, but rather the elite class, i.e. the people who are good at creating values for the society, trying to suppress the non-elite class, who are not good at it, and trying to alienate them.

From the point of view of the economy, the non-elite class are extremely vulnerable to the ups and downs of the economy, for the fact that they don't get much payment for their jobs. They don't have the money, or they don't have the access to good education, thus it is hard for them to think rationally and critically. Psychologically, they are constantly being discriminated against by the elite class over decades, for being uneducated, knowing nothing about the society, etc.

Moreover, the movement of the society is completely out of the pattern which they have been already used to. The capitalist starts to hire cheaper labor from the other countries, or even outsource the jobs, making them even more economically vulnerable. And there are LGBTQ+ movement, or environmental movement, making them even more alienated.

Think about that. How many times have we rejected the opinions of the non-elite people, by accusing their opinions being uneducated nonsense? How many times have we called those who lost their jobs as "lazy people", although we don't even know what they have actually done in their daily working routine? How many times we are calling those people who are obsessed with the researches as nerds or weirdo? The logic behind the capitalism is that, if you can't help the society gather captial effectively, no matter what sort of a decent job you are doing, you are a loser.

In the end, this suppression from the elite class to the non-elite class became a conflict, and made the non-elite class a group of revolutionists.

Fundamentalism

The problem with this group of revolutionists is that they don't have a clear direction, a plan or a philosophy. Actually, they might not even understand, or probably only halfway understand who their enemies are.

But, this lack of orientation plus the fact that the members of the elite class has been shifting over years, one of the reasonable consequences could be, they will develop a fundamentalist ideology.

Since the consistency of the elite class is shifting, a group of people could be in the elite class one day, and fall out of it tomorrow. Just think about the fact how the competition in the software development industry is getting harder and harder, and how many jobs have been outsourced to countries like India, China, Bangladesh, East-European countries and South-American countries.

The blue collar workers might have played an important role in society several decades ago, now the world is changing, but they are getting aged. They don't get the motivation or the chance or the money to take the training once again. This will make their already hard life even harder. At this point, they might be thinking, what if society can go back to ... and that is probably how fundamentalism is coming from.

And the changes (especially the environmental movement) created by the elite class are making them even more unsettled. Without the proper education and the proper channel to get the unbiased information. The changes will turn to fear, thus urging those people even more focused on the past.

Nationalism

One of the go-to phrases that is always being said by the non-elite class is always "they have stolen our jobs". This is not completely wrong, the jobs are indeed being taken by the cheap labor from other countries. However, they didn't intend to steal the jobs. It is just that hiring them can create more value for society.

But the thing is, the non-elite class, who are already at a bad position against the change of the society, could probably do nothing at their position. People are accusing them of being lazy and ignorant. But if they are already in a bad financial position, who is going to pay for their training to take another occupation? Who is going to take care of their children and family, while they are going for further education?

As a result, it seems that they are being locked to wherever they were, without money and social welfare, they are never going to jump out from their cage. As a result, they will accuse the people who seemingly caused the situation — the foreigners. As a result, it is almost guaranteed to see non-elite class against the foreigners.

Populism

Populism in the right-extremist dictionary almost always means anti-elitism, or anti-authority. This is not completely wrong, because the people who have this ideology are the ones being suppressed by the elite class.

I tend to see populism as an inevitable result of the suppression, but not the solution.

As I have mentioned before, it is hard for us to measure how much a programmer and a garbage truck driver contribute to society. We can't say a programmer necessarily contributes more to society, but we can't say he is contributing less either. Different occupations are just divisions of labor of society. I don't think it is moral to put an emphasis on any one of them, and trying to measure the importance using how much value they have created for the society is impossible and wrong. In this case, to put emphasis on the non-elite class solely is wrong TOO. People are all part of the society, different occupations have their own requirements, which means, the so-called elite class and the non-elite class should be actually equal.

A sentence in Tao Te Ching is touching me deeply regarding this topic — "not to value men of superior ability is the way to keep the people from rivalry among themselves (不尚贤，使民不争)". And two scholars who wrote the explanations of this sentence revealed it's deep meaning perfectly — "value men of superior ability make the other people feel embarrassed of their inability, thus rivalry comes (尚贤，则民耻於不若而至於争)". And another explanation goes like this — "simple hire people who are able to do the job, why bother valuing them? (唯能是任，尚也曷为)". That's exactly my point. Some people are naturally curious about the secrets of society and nature. They are going to study a lot and be scholars or scientists, why should we value them? Some people are naturally satisfied by the clean streets and clean room, they are going to become garbage truck drivers and janitors, why should we devalue them?

Far-Right? Right-Extremism? The Real Problem

By far, it seems that I'm on the far-right or even the right-extremist side, and showing empathy for them. But actually I am not. In this part, I'd like to explain why.

I don't think the non-elite class, who are being suppressed, are wrong. The problem is the opportunists, who are trying to manipulate the non-elite class, to turn their anger against the elite class as a powerful weapon against their personal enemies.

Nowadays, the so-called "right-extremism" has already lost most of its content to be part of the right-wing. Traditionally, the right-wing has a natural view about the inequality in society and is usually protective of the established classes and structures. But the populist ideology of non-elite class indicates that they are not part of the right-wing at all. In the contrast, we are talking about a group of people who desperately want to break the current division of classes. They aren't right-wing at all. Fundamentalism is not their goal, but a safe harbour for them to escape from their uncertainties.

Actually, if we examine this closely, we would easily know that the non-elite class is a group of people who need the social security and the society-welfare the most. Actually what they are longing for can be provided by the socialist society. But the fact is, in the capitalist framework, no matter whether right-wing or left-wing, their main goal has to be to protect the value of the capitalist society, which is to ensure the performance of gathering the capital for the society. Thus, this group of people have been long forgotten by both right-wing and left-wing. That's why an alternative force — the opportunists — come into play.

The fundamentalist, nationalist and populist ideologies are being weaponized by the opportunists, so that they can win the non-elite class' trust. The non-elite class will bite the hook, because this is exactly what they need after being suppressed and alienated for decades. What they are currently looking for isn't a solution anymore, but rather a strong approval or confirmation in front of their fake enemies being created by fundamentalism, nationalism and populism will be eliminated. Then slowly, this will become a strong and blind trust, since they feel good with this approval or confirmation. I have already written most of my thoughts about this point in my previous article — Different Opinions, Self-Definition and Mutual Existence.

The opportunists find those people convenient, because their voice is loud, and they can be easily manipulated, and they have the same enemies — the people in elite class. For the non-elite class, elite class is the one who suppressed them. But for the opportunists, elite class is the road blocker between them and their wild ambitions. Besides that, even if the opportunists messed everything up, they will have a group of people who are a perfect target, which can block the bullets for them, since they are discriminated against by the elite class people, and being accused as fouls and the uneducated.

So, I guess even if the opportunists were actually being voted for by the people in the non-elite class, we can't blame them. They are being manipulated. And no matter how many lies those opportunists have told, the suffering of the non-elite class, and the suppression from elite class to non-elite class is true. Only by knowing that, we can, together with the right group of people, solve the long existing conflict in society properly.

Update: 2025-04-16

Some Discussions

My friends have read this article. One of them has pointed out, "the inequality can't be eliminated, they will always exist." I totally agree with this point, but I don't think this conflicts with the ideas written in this article. Indeed the perfect equality cannot be achieved, but it doesn't mean that we cannot eliminate the current conflict between the elite class and the non-elite class. New inequality might be created, but that will be the question for us in the future. As I have mentioned earlier in the article, as the civilization goes forward, there will be more and more people who is going to enjoy the freedom to realise their meaning of lives, instead of fighting for survival. So our goal is not create a utopia, but rather push the society forward.