The Enlightenment & Capitalism — today

Teodor Tița
Jul 21, 2017 · 3 min read

It is indeed a peculiar topic thinking how much of our world’s status at the current time, do we actually owe to the Enlightenment? There are numerous perspectives on this philosophic ideology, ranging from the one of its francophone “core” to the one from the shores of North America (especially in the time of the American Revolution). Later on from its beginnings, we will have been familiarized ourselves with this new economic system, one which might seem unanimously agreed upon when it comes to barely scratching the surface of its ideals: capitalism.

While partly true, how saddening is it truly?

Now that we managed to put together a brief pseudo-base to build on, it is time to take a look behind, on this philosophic movement's true significance to the world when it first emerged.

Heated debates have been in existence for a long time in order to pinpoint, as precisely as possible, the moment when the Age of Enlightenment began. While there are many opinions on this subject, we shall present the year 1715, when Louis XV rose to power, as its start. Lots of things to be taken into consideration have happened several decades later from that year in France, such as the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.

The point is that people began to think of kings as nuisances due to them having within grasp a far too great power for a single person, which is technically called “absolute monarchy.” The rulers however, did not bother at first to take a closer look at this ever-growing issue at that time as they thought highly of the so-called “divine right” to rule over the people.

(by Ed McGuinness)

Slowly but surely, such regimes all over the world started to fade away, in both violent and more peaceful manners.

Most notably though, Vatican City and Saudi Arabia are absolute monarchies up to this moment.

Now it is high time we present some aspects of capitalism, the economic system where money alone is at the centre of it all.


A great man — Martin Luther King Jr. walked up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the summer of 1963 in front of tens of thousand of souls, confessing he has “a dream.” Regardless of the greatness of his dream, particularly in terms of anti-discrimination, in the sanctuary of capitalism there was one dream shared by even more, by tens of millions throughout generations: The American Dream. J.T. Adams stated in his book dedicated to this national ideal that “life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” That, dear reader, is an extremely concentrated burst of liberalism.

The specificity of liberalism on an economical level is best expressed, especially in the United States, via capitalism. That means the country’s industry itself is owned privately, instead of state ownership as in the case of authoritarian regimes (North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba to name a few). It symbolizes the bare fact that money ≥ power, while this fact’s morality is intensely debated up to this day all over the world.

Living in the era of free-market capitalism, being the very child of the Age of Enlightenment, can be seen either as a blessing or as a curse depending on the individual’s orientation upon the political spectrum. Speaking ideologically, this motif of light strode towards reason, but remember — people alone strode towards light.

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Teodor Tița

Written by

With an affinity towards political philosophy, the francophone world and playing an old piano.

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