ABSTRACT
This question of “What conception of human flourishing does capitalism promote?” has received less attention. While multiple conceptions of flourishing may exist under capitalism – and sometimes claims are even made that capitalism provides space for whatever conception of flourishing people happen to hold – we should ask whether certain types of conception are promoted by capitalism and more in harmony with it, rather than simply able to co-exist with it. For, with reference to conceptions of well-being as pleasure or satisfaction or fulfillment of substantive needs, the third section of this chapter will suggest that capitalism does not fit any of them very well. Instead, its unending drives for expansion and destruction may fit an activist conception of well-being. The fourth section examines this further. Yet paradoxically, the typical conception of work under capitalism is as a cost, for the capitalist must pay for it. We should reflect on the categorization of costs and benefits under capitalism. There are fundamental implications of extending capitalist accounting categories from the level of the individual capitalist enterprise to that of an entire society. The highly questionable results which this extension produces in the case of discounting of future costs and benefits have been extensively discussed. The comparable extension of capitalist categories for the treatment of paid work time may produce major distortions in policy evaluation, given the considerable evidence that for many people work is one of the major sources of fulfillment. The chapter’s fifth section raises this issue. It ends by asking how alternative conceptualizations of work might contribute to a more adequate treatment of human flourishing. I have framed the issues in terms of a pair of vast and vague general notions: capitalism and human flourishing. I should explain why, and what I mean by them.
