On Why We See So Many Eulogies Of and For John McCain

By Adrian

Reading the various eulogies for and remembrances of John McCain, it’s difficult to escape the mainstream recollections of him as a man of service, as someone who worked on behalf of country and empire, sacrificing his own good for that of the commonweal. 

Capitalism, an economic order that resembles a pyramid, and the national systems built upon that economic order and which therefore reflect it, is not “equal” in the sense that people who exist within the order do not work equally, nor is their work rewarded equally. People who live in capitalistic societies therefore end up laboring unequally, based on how “the market” values their labor rather than how they value it, which is how I’m able to compose an essay about militarism rather than breaking my back in 110 degree weather picking melons in Texas, for example.

Political order is subordinated to economic interests, and follows from economy; is built upon it, rather than vice versa. This is why in times of economic hardship one finds reactionary government, led by violent psychopaths bent on cannibalistic reassignment of wealth from internal or external sources, and destruction, and murder, and in times of relative plenty, one sees a largely sedate society (such as, say, American society writ large today) wherein the majority of people focus on pursuing their own personal interests. Political order follows economic order, or lack thereof—not vice versa.

Therefore it is fair to say that overall, the political order of capitalistic countries resembles a pyramid, with an “elite”—meritocratic or aristocratic in nature (it almost doesn’t matter)—at the top.

Just as there is not economic “equality” in capitalism, there isn’t political “equality” in societies that base their political order on capitalistic formulations. A “vote” by a citizen doesn’t equal a “vote” by a state representative, or by a congressperson, or by the president. This probably feels as obvious to read as it does to write, but it also points to a great and fundamental truth on which eulogies for men like John McCain (there are women like John McCain, too) is based: a system that is inefficient with its political power requires people to give up some agency in order not to collapse in on itself.

Capitalistic societies require donations to survive—people to volunteer their time and energy (rather than extract value from the same) or else it would cease to function. In a purely transactional society, which is not difficult to imagine, there isn’t any particular reason anyone ought to “give” anything without getting something in return.

So in an economy that values everything—time, labor, social standing, education, even human life (in spite of humanism)—how might people be convinced to ask less for their work than it’s worth, or to work for free, in some cases? 

One way to get labor for free is through compulsion and exploitation, which are certainly tools that have been used in the past: most famously slavery in the US, ancient Athens, Great Britain, and Rome, or forced labor as in the US prison system, the USSR, and China, or throughout the developing world where workers are given far less than their labor would be valued in a corporation’s home land (Germany, the US, China, again). Generally speaking, compelling someone to work for nothing or less than the value of their labor is incompatible with humanism and human rights, but this does not stop people from making money this way.

Another way to convince people to work for nothing is to encourage that type of behavior through material incentives as well as through positive modeling. The Roman Empire survived as long as it did in part because of the extraordinary altruism of one man, Cincinnatus, an aristocratic landowner who seems truly not to have desired political power or wealth, and who was invoked as an avatar of good behavior centuries after his death.

John McCain would probably like to fit himself into the model of Cincinnatus: an Aristocratic Patrician who “served his country” because it was the correct thing to do, rather than using his time to amass personal wealth. This story is popular in part because the United States of America is built upon a capitalistic economy, and requires that people offer their time for less than it’s worth, or for nothing. Regardless of how factually accurate McCain’s service was—it’s far easier to volunteer one’s time and wear hierarchically appropriate suites, with bowties, when one’s wife is an independently wealthy heiress, and one’s own family has owned wealth for generations—the reason we see this type of story about him, a man of decency and integrity—is because our society and political order depends on them.