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Farrenkopf Spengler.Pdf 402 global modernization. Spengler, on the other hand, as an anti-modern- ist thinker, never sought to deny the highly exploitative features of Western imperialism. He attempted to legitimize his own imperialist program for Germany by arguing, in conformance with his extreme his- torical determinism, the inevitability of Western empire-building, but also, by tirelessly asserting the putative, Social Darwinistic nature of international political competition. Capitalism's collapse? Turning our attention from imperialism to the related historical phe- nomenon of capitalism, Spengler offers some provocative ideas about the future evolution of capitalism that have hardly been appreciated in the critical literature on his thought.33 He appears to have been influ- enced by Brentano's critical posture toward British classical economic theory and Sombart's historical and cultural approach to understand- ing modern capitalism. Spengler believed that the epoch-making indus- trial revolution was not primarily a consequence of the desire to satisfy universal human material needs as did Smith, Cobden, and Marx, but the product of the psychological idiosyncracies of Western culture. He expressed this idea explicitly in a lecture delivered in 1926, "the impulse for this radical revolution of all economic relationships derived neither from a practical necessity or in any way from the praxis itself, but from a psychological drive, which initially lay entirely outside of the economy."34Capitalism, he declares in The Decline of the West,should be understood as "the objectification of something thoroughly spiritual, the concretization of an idea in a living, historical form."35 Modern capitalism is the mechanistic, materialistic, and utilitarian expression, during the phase of Zivilisation, of the extraordinarily dynamic ethos of Western culture as originally embodied in Germanic-Catholic Chris- tianity. Spengler's ideas on the relation between capitalism and Chris- tianity stand in sharp contrast to those of his acquaintance Weber, with whom he publicly debated in the Munich Rathaus in February, 1920 the philosophy advanced in the first volume of The Decline of the West. While Weber championed the now widely-held, but nonetheless con- troversial idea, that the ethical precepts of Catholicism were antagonis- tic to the rise of the capitalistic ethos, Spengler views the fundament of Germanic-Catholic Christianity as being indispensable to the later emergence of capitalism. The relation between capitalism and religion the latter posits is the reverse of Marx's position, who argued that reli- gion was merely an ideological form superstructurally dependent upon the economic base of society. 403 According to Spengler's bold philosophy of history, the crises that periodically befall modern capitalism will become more acute, con- tributing to the G6tterddmmerung of civilization as we know it. He believed that the intermittently unstable qualities of capitalistic inter- action were permanently rooted in the dynamic, spiritual fundament of Western culture and that this tendency to instability would eventually become dominant and dangerous. Despite his admiration for indus- trialists and the intimate contacts he cultivated with the German busi- ness elite during the Weimar years, Spengler was gripped by the intri- guing idea that the spectacular rise of the modern world economy since the onset of the industrial revolution was "fantastical,""dangerous," and "almost desperate."36 Consequently, neither was capitalism to endure more or less indefinitely as many bourgeois economists sanguinely imagined, nor was it to be supplanted by a superior, socialistic form of industrial civilization in a final, transcendent epoch of social revolution as Marx optimistically prophesied. Spengler maintained that modern capitalism, in the twilight phase of Western Zivilisation, manifested extreme dynamism in materialistic and highly complex form and would become increasingly unstable and ultimately impossible to manage effectively by macroeconomic policies. He rejects the debatable and reassuring tenet of neoclassical economics that capitalism has robust, self-corrective tendencies that will help facilitate its ongoing existence. Spengler formulates the challenging idea, arguably anticipatory of the Great Depression and the current, unfolding crisis of the global economy: the quantity of work of all cultures grows by a monstrous amount, and so there develops at the beginning of every civilization an intensity of economic activity, which is excessive in its tension and constantly in danger and no- where can be maintained for very long.37 Spengler became aware, over time, of the very considerable limitations of any philosophy of history, including his own, with respect to en- abling one to predetermine major historical developments with speci- ficity. Thus he declines to hazard a prediction of when the modern international economy will collapse. One gains the impression from his writings that he viewed this ultimate crisis of capitalism as a lengthy process, which would reach its conclusion in the early part of the coming millennium. Spengler argued that fierce economic competition emanating from non-Western economies would constitute a key factor in the final breakdown of the global economy.38 He predicted the cata- strophic undermining of the very foundation of the Western economies 404 due to the progressive loss of their international economic competitive- ness. This stunning decline in competitiveness would result from the eventual stagnation of the Western technological and scientific niveau (caused largely by an increasing disinterest among youth and their turning to new life-styles), much lower wage-scales and a stronger work ethic in the non-Western world, and the disastrous diffusion of technol- ogy by the West in the non-Western world ("the betrayal of technics").39 Global ecological crisis Ecological issues have dramatically grown in importance in inter- national affairs since the 1960s, most recently emerging as the focal point of discussion at the largest gathering in history of the world's leaders at the Earth Summit in Brazil in 1992. Spengler's frequently unappreciated philosophy of history is of relevance here. After putting the finishing touches to The Decline of the West, which focused on advanced civilizations since the agricultural revolution, he immersed himself in the study of prehistory and early civilizational history, thanks in large part to the influence of the gifted and unorthodox ethnologist and cultural philosopher, Leo Frobenius. The boundaries of his histori- cal universe significantly expanded, Spengler came to see all of world history as being far more tragic than he originally believed. It was dominated by an awesome, self-destructive struggle between man and nature since the dawn of prehistory. World history becomes for Spengler the saga of the tragic and hopeless struggle between man, the "inventive beast of prey,"and nature, one that will be waged to its bitter end.4" The human race "plunders" and "poisons" nature in Spengler's view.41Focusing his attention on Western civilization, he observed that it has audaciously challenged the natural world by extracting its secrets in order to facilitate its thoroughgoing exploitation. Thus, it is adjudged to be the most tragic of all civilizations. The Faustian, West European culture is perhaps not the last, but certainly the mightiest, most passionate, through its inner contrast between compre- hensive intellectualization and deepest, spiritual turmoil, the most tragic of all. It is possible that a feeble straggler comes along yet, somewhere on the plain between the Vistula and the Amur and in the next millennium. But, here is the struggle between nature and man, who through his historical existence has rebelled against her, practically fought to its end.42 Locke, Smith, Kant, Hegel, Ranke, and Marx lacked sensitivity to the dark side of humankind's intensive interaction with the natural world, 405 of which the global ecological crisis in the late twentieth century has profoundly raised our consciousness. Bourgeois and communist expo- nents of the idea of progress alike revelled in the phenomenal ability of the human species to unlock the secrets of nature, to exploit its natural resources, and to harness its energy. Spengler, as the heir in German cultural pessimism to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, hammers home the thesis of the profound irrationality of modern civilization. Spengler grasps the irrational and extremely dangerous quality of humankind's extraordinary sophisticated, yet ultimately brutal mastery of the envi- ronment. In 1931 he prophetically wrote, The mechanization of the world has entered into a stage of most dangerous, excessive tension. The face of the earth with its plants, animals and men has been altered. In a few decades most of the great forests have disappeared, have been transformed into newspaper and consequently climatic changes have occured, which threaten the agriculture of entire populations; countless species like the buffalo have been completely or almost completely wiped out, entire races of men like the North American Indians and the Australian aborigines have been brought virtually to a state of extinction.43 Nearing the end of this century, one can easily fill in Spengler's imper- fect sketch of a global ecological crisis with alarming details. The list of environmental concerns is already depressingly long and expands relentlessly - the preservation of
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