Trying to understand the world order through the spirit of capitalism

If you wish, let us start the subject with the British thinker Max Weber. Weber is known as a thinker who analyzes social actions by interpreting and understanding them, and by breaking down the course and consequences of actions through individual behavior.

In his work, "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism," Weber analyzed how religious beliefs (especially Calvinism) shaped economic behaviors and provided a "spirit" or motivation for the birth of modern capitalism, stating that the essence of modern capitalism contains rationality and "foresight."

At this point, capitalism has brought forth two approaches that can be called "Possessive Individualism" and "Arrogant Brutality or Hubris (Hybris)."

What is Possessive Individualism?

In Possessive Individualism, an individual exists only to the extent that they possess goods and services; the more they possess, the more they believe they have realized their own potential.

In other words, an understanding where one owes nothing to society, views it only as a tool, and believes that goods and services belong solely to oneself can be defined as "Possessive Individualism."

What Does Arrogant Brutality or Hubris Mean?

Hubris emerges in situations where a person displays excessive pride, confidence, and conceit—such as by grossly exaggerating one's abilities or refusing to believe that one could make a mistake—or as an arrogant brutality that leads to disregarding the limits placed on human action in the universe.

These two approaches have brought the individual to the point of believing that nature belongs to them; in other words, to the point of exploiting everything that belongs to the "other" for themselves—for example, animals, plants, forests, agricultural lands, seas, water resources, and the vast majority who live by their labor—in short, to the point of destroying the world.

In short, at the root of the order currently existing in the world lies the capitalist mode of production and its relations, shaped by the "Possessive Individualism" and Arrogant Brutality or "Hubris" created by the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, as well as Orientalism.

And Orientalism

It has many definitions, but in my opinion, the most important one is that Orientalism is "a Western discourse developed for the purpose of establishing dominance over the East, restructuring it in line with one's own interests, and gaining authority, and further, for the seizure of the East's people and lands by the West—in other words, for imperialism."

Here, it is also necessary to state that imperialism, which is the output of capitalism, has a connection with hidden and open (overt) or scientific racism.

Hidden racism assumes that backwardness in terms of civilization can and should be cured with the help of the imperialist "civilizing mission." Open (overt) or scientific racism focuses on physiological/genetic characteristics because it tends to view these second-class characteristics as unchangeable.

In the Orientalist approach, human communities have been classified as civilized (civilized, Western Europeans and whites), barbaric (the Ottoman Empire, China, Siam, and Japan, and the yellows), and savage (Africa, Australia, and New Zealanders, and blacks).

An Example from Turkey on Orientalism through the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

In Turkey, on February 13, 2024, 9 workers were left under the soil in a landslide that occurred at the gold mine in the İliç district of Erzincan, operated by Anagold Madencilik San. ve Tic. A.Ş., which is backed by Canadian and United States capital.

Furthermore, is the destruction caused along the valley extending to the Euphrates River by the waste pile, which contains cyanide and sulfuric acid and holds toxic heavy metals that are extremely dangerous to human health, not the result of what we observe as "let them perish, let them die" for the others of Orientalism?

Why does the West, while trying to prevent initiatives that would destroy nature in their own countries, carry out investments that lead to the destruction of nature in countries like Turkey?

Is this not, in its essence, the "Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism"?

How Should We Interpret Donald Trump through the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism?

The United States was, at times, applying the Orientalist practices that the West hid behind the language of diplomacy.

However, Donald Trump did not even feel the need for this. He is now pursuing an economic policy based on the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism in its most naked form. Here, he sees the interests of the US as superior to those of other capitalist countries as well.

Let us give examples.

Does he not want Canada and Greenland from other capitalist countries?

Does he not say, "I threw the UN system in the trash!"?

Did he not remain silent about the death of, according to some, sixty thousand people in Gaza? Or rather, did he not support Israel's policy of annihilation?

Did he not launch attacks on Iran to dominate the Middle East and to prevent China's development?

Did he not cause the death of 190 young girls in Iran?

While dragging the world economy into a deadlock, what was it that drove him to this?

Let us reiterate: are all of Donald Trump's behaviors and practices not indicators of the arrogant brutality we mentioned above?

Let us summarize.

Without opposing the two approaches of capitalism that can be called "Possessive Individualism" and "Arrogant Brutality or Hubris," or more accurately, without understanding the capitalist mode of production and its relations, it is not possible to oppose income inequality and imperialism, both in our country and in the world.

I say that without seeking a new egalitarian order against the capitalist order, words like "We Will Govern Better" are "like a crocodile shedding tears and are deceptive."

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Wishing to realize a world without exploitation, I celebrate our May 1st Labor and Solidarity Day.

May 1, 2026