Capitalism, an innovative and viable system?

From Noam Chomsky's blog:

Has great science, art, music, etc., been produced by people working for money? Is that what was driving Einstein when he was working on relativity theory in the Swiss patent office, or later at the Institute for Advanced Study? Or artists struggling for years on crusts of bread in garrets? Or artisans throughout history, and today, trying to create objects of beauty and perfection? Or parents devoting time and energy to raise their children properly (creating “human capital,” in the terminology of economists, a major factor in economic growth)? Or in fact just about anything worthwhile or constructive? The unargued claims...are apparently being put forth by people who do have not had even the slightest experience, direct or indirect, with creative work, now and in the past—and by “creative” I do not mean only the peaks of human creativity, but the lives of most decent people who are not utterly pathological.

Click here for the rest.

A couple of years ago when I was teaching high school I had a student whose father is, of all things, a good old-fashioned socialist, which is quite weird given the rather conservative nature of Baytown. Anyway, discussing her father's politics on one particular occasion gave rise to an interesting, though very short lived, debate. We were talking about the relationship between labor and capital, exploitation, wealth, that sort of thing, when she offhandedly suggested that everybody wanted to make as much money as they could, and that's why people work. I came back with an assertion of my belief that, even though people need money to live, most people work in order to provide meaning to their lives. She was utterly unable to accept this proposition, suggested that I was foolish for believing such a thing, and then, when the bell rang, left for her next class.

The exchange made me realize just how profoundly we have all been socialized to believe that our primary function is to make money. This belief is so ingrained that it seems crazy to suggest otherwise. Certainly, a number of Americans are driven relentlessly by a desire to acquire ever more wealth, and will stop at nothing to get what they want, and probably an equal number of people would sit around watching television and playing video games for decades of their lives if someone else was paying the bills, but it seems like a no-brainer to me that most people want more than money and/or goof-off time. In other words, people want to live interesting, meaningful lives, contributing to society, helping out their families, friends, and communities. Ultimately, work provides the ability to do just that. Life devoted solely to self is void and pointless, and I believe that most people understand that fact instinctively if not intellectually.

Of course, capitalist philosophy, along with its twisted sister, consumerist philosophy, confuses the hell out of people, making them think that happiness and meaning can be found in making money and spending it on crap at the mall. Thus, we have a nation full of unhappy people, playing with their Play Stations, watching DVDs, feeling like there should be more, but not really being able to conceptualize what it is they're missing out on. I've gone on and on here at Real Art for two years now about how corporate capitalism exploits the helpless, destroys the environment, and rips off most ordinary Americans like you and me, but I've not written nearly enough about what may be even worse: capitalism screws with people's heads in a major way, twisting their priorities, tearing them apart, and destroying any sense of community that human beings have enjoyed for tens of thousands of years.

I really ought to explore this idea further.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$