Capitalism and Individualism in Robinson Crusoe Essay

In popular imagination Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe has be gravel an adventure story for children, for which the veritable novel is not responsible, but the abridged and bowdlerized versions must be blamed. A close reading of the original text reveals a novel of enormous signifi offerce. In m whatever ways the novel can be said to be defining the unexampled citizen of capitalistic society. It is as well widely regarded as being the initial modern novel. In f flake this latter claim is not unrelated to the previous proposition. The modern novel is not only a mirror to the modern psyche, but also bears an organic relationship to it. A general proposition is that literature was the means by which the modern psyche came into being, and the modern novel is specially instrumental in this sense. In this regard Robinson Crusoe not only bushels the agenda of modern capitalist economy and various(prenominal)ism, but was also a key phenomenon that helped bring or so its realization.The German sociologist Weber made the observation that the character of Robinson Crusoe was the ideal example of the Protestant ply ethic in action (118). In his desert island isolation Crusoe constitutes the discovery of beau ideal, and leavees personal communion with Him through his newly found faith and the aid of the volume. T here(predicate)fore he is the quintessential Protestant. Webers general dissertation was that the Protestant nurtures an ascetic relationship to work. In the absence of supporting church and societal structures, the Protestant falls upon his material activity to express his devotion.According to the doctrines set out by Luther and Calvin, the Protestant establishes a personal communion with God, justified by his faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior, and in the Bible as the word of God. This was the doctrine of justification by faith. It necessitated that the Protestant maintain an intense relationship to work, this being the only means by which to estab lish piety and purposefulness. This is what Weber calls the Protestant work ethic.There is no doubt that Robinson Crusoe exemplifies this principle. The overriding characteristic of the Protestant is his isolation and individualism. In normal circumstances we would consider of a Protestant as kernelually isolated. But in Crusoes tale this isolation is magnified and made tangible. He is physically isolated from society, isolated on a desert island, and his spiritual isolation comes in tandem. He discovers God in the worst depths of his despair, and it is a discovery born purely of his witness life circumstances, and the signs that God has transmitted to him therein.He comes to God in complete isolation, with his own experience and the words of the Bible al wholeness pointing the way. The rest of the novel can be seen as his continuing conversation with God. On Crusoes part the conversation is carried out through a constant strengthening of faith, along with persistence in his wo rk to maintain himself on the island. The responses of God are to be read in the improving circumstances of Crusoe, as he gradually becomes much and more master of his own dominion. This is exactly what the Protestant expects. Salvation is through work, which is a form of piety.Webers further contention is that modern capitalism is result of the Protestant work ethic. In the following passage he explains the adjoin whereby spiritual enthusiasm brings about sparing activityThose indexy phantasmal movements whose significance for scotch development lay primarily in their ascetic and educative impact, commonly only exhibited their full economic effect after the spicy point of purely spectral enthusiasm had already been passed when the convulsive search for the kingdom of God was gradually beginning to dissolve into sober, vocational virtue, the religious reference was slowly dying out and giving way to utilitarian worldliness. (Ibid)Diligence was the prime virtue of the Puri tan from the very beginning, even though it did not await to be capitalistic at prototypal. In the ahead of time days, after the Protestant Reformation, much of the Puritan zeal was transmitted into revolutionary activity. The English Civil War, the overcoming of monarchy, the uprooting of the gray aristocratic order, the annulment of organized religion, all this stemmed from Puritan zeal.Eventually the Whigs, the moderate Protestants, took over the reins of power and began to persecute the Puritans in turn for their zeal. In measure the religious enthusiasm mellowed and was channeled, as Weber describes, into sober, vocational virtue. Utilitarian worldliness was only the end product of this evolution, and in which form we key it as modern capitalism.Weber goes on to cite the Shakespearean scholar Edward Dowden, who places Defoes novel at exactly this point of sociological transition. It was where Bunyans Pilgrim, scurrying past Vanity Fair, filled with his lonely inward stri ving after the kingdom of heaven, was replaced in the popular imagination by Robinson Crusoe, the isolated economic man who pursues missionary work on the side (Ibid). Dowden tends to belittle the religious agent as false, and wants to define the character of Crusoe as unflinchingly and ruthlessly capitalistic. Weber, however, does not plant this mistake.Religion and worldly diligence go hand and hand, and is an attitude without which capitalism is impossible. Material greed does not deliver capitalism. Only if the profit-making endeavor is undertaken as an act of asceticism is it possible for all the gains to be ploughed back into industry and thereby keep the machine of capitalism in motion. Weber made a thorough analysis of all the major civilizations in order to show that they were not capable of producing capitalism because the ascetic relationship to work was absent. Any magnetic dip in this direction would be defeated by the ills bred by covetousness and greed.Karl Marx wa s also tempted to jettison the religion of Crusoe and analyze him in name of being an economic man alone. Of his prayers and the like we take no aim, he says, since they are a source of pleasure to him, and he looks upon them as so much recreation (Marx 47). It is a lead followed by many modern economists. For example Peter Mathias describes it as a sophisticated myth of the ascent of man, of economic growth by dint of the work ethic, of the imperative of improvement and the determination to master nature (17).It is plain to see why economists are tempted to invade the island of Crusoe. It is because the analysis of economics is restricted to personal of necessity and their fulfillment. The only cognizance made towards the existence of society is in the introduction of the swap mechanism, so that the surplus product of ones labors can be exchanged with that of anothers to mutual benefit. In this process society is minimized and personal needs are maximized. The obsession of the e conomist is with personal desires, and so he is happy to push society to the distance. In Robinson Crusoes plight Defoe has created a locating which attracts the gaze of the economist compulsively.Defoe does not disappoint along with the religious awakening of Crusoe we are also given a meticulous account of his economic situation. Once set on his task of survival he surveys his situation dispassionately, seeing himself as a creature of needs, placed on an island of limited resources, and his own capacity of labor to transform the resources into products of use, i.e. commodities that are able to meet his needs. He cultivates close to land to plant barley and rice. He makes a fishing rod to catch fish from the sea. After a few years of much(prenominal) effort he gets the measure of things and realizes that he should avoid being wasteful.He calculates that he cannot consume more than forty bushels of barley and rice in one year, and settles thus the amount that should be planted fo r harvest each year. I had no competitor, none to dispute sovereignty or command with me I might have raised ship-loadings of corn, but I had no use for it so I let as little grow as I approximation enough for my occasion (Defoe 118). But a bad crop one year makes him reproach himself for his laziness, and he duly plans for insurance against future disasters. I resolved for the future to have two or three years corn beforehand so that, whatever might come, I might not survive for want of bread (Ibid 144).But apart from this there is little of economic analysis to be pursued in his situation. This is because, beyond future insurance, he has no need for surplus production, and more importantly, because there is no exchange. After he recovers gold coins from the wreck of the ship he realizes the intrinsic futility of money when it has no exchange value. This has led Rich Whately to comment that Robinson Crusoe is in a position of which Political Economy takes no cognizance (5). Whil e this is true, the fascination for the economist still holds.This is credibly because Crusoe exemplifies the inner heart of capitalism, that which political economy tries to overlook or deny. For example, societal cost is a concept that has only recently forced its way into the discussion of political economy, and only after degradation of the global environment on a massive scale. But to Crusoe it appears immediately. After he has cut down some wild vines he musesI thought those beautiful vines and those slender young trees were free goods they belonged to nobody. I thought the costs were all external. But I didnt realize that when I cut them down, I would be depriving myself of this intangible source of pleasure. Since I am the only one on the island and will be here for some time then it is clear that I did not correctly evaluate my true costs of production. (Ibid 91).Crusoe also exemplifies the ascetic impulse involved in capitalism, that which totally escapes the scrutiny of political economics. While he has become seemingly immersed into the world, he makes contrary claims, saying that he now sees the world as something remote. I had nothing indeed to do with it, nor was ever likely to have, so I thought it looked, as we may perhaps look upon it hereafter viz. as a place I had lived in, but was come out of it (Ibid 117). Through his isolation, and his discovery of God, he has found a purpose that lies beyond the confines of the world. If he was yet physically in it, his diligence was but an expression of his piety.Without this otherworldly presence he would be consumed by greed and covetousness. Crusoe is always conscious of the event that he has escaped these evils by being distanced from society. He sees the hands of Providence in this design, that he should be marooned on a desert island, outback(a) from all the wickedness of the world here, in order that his soul be saved (Ibid). He comes to see the island as a veritable Eden, capable of cleanup position sin from anyone who finds himself in his own situation The most covetous, griping miser in the world would have been cured of the vice of covetousness if he had been in my case for I possessed infinitely more than I knew what to do with (Ibid 118).Another aspect of modern capitalism is the inalienable justs of the human, which we also find delineated in the novel. Locke has completed the concept of human rights on a philosophical basis through his Two Treatises on Government. The premise to his analysis was the individual as an isolated element in society, and therefore he works on the basis of Protestantism. That which Locke derives through philosophy, Defoe presents to us in natural narrative form through the situation of Robinson Crusoe. The first step is his removal from society, and the second step is his removal from the world, through his discovery of God, and the realization that his diligence is but a means of worshipping God, and beyond this he had no truck wi th material existence.But the more and more diligent he becomes, therefore, the more and more he strengthens his communion with God, the more and more conscious does he become of his mastery over his own dominion. As Philip Zaleski puts it, This conversion does not go unrequited as Robinson surrenders to God, the island surrenders to him (40). His purposefulness is otherworldly, but the worldly mark of it is the right of will power that he establishes over his territory. It is part of the conversation that the Protestant establishes with God. If he is justified by his faith, and that alone, God will convey this message to him through his worldly circumstances.In many points of the novel we find Crusoe becoming conscious of his inalienable rights, and marveling at what he possesses by the grace of God. In one guarded moment, piece ambling through a scenic valley, he rejoices in his sense of possession I was king and lord of all this country indefensibly, and had a right of possessi on and if I could convey it, I might have it in inheritance as completely as any lord of a manor in England (Defoe 92) This is indeed a novel conception of right, and one that was overtaking the feudal and aristocratic rights of old, rooted in primogeniture. Only through his pious diligence has Crusoe come to possess this piece of land. The example of Crusoe is a microcosm of capitalism staking its right over the commodity products of capitalistic diligence.This sense of mastery and possession eventually extends to people too. He saves a prisoner of the cannibals, who occasionally visit the island to ritually consume their captives. He enslaves him in turn, calls him Friday, converts him to Christianity, and more importantly, teaches him awe towards European civilization, and thereby establishes between them the colonial master-slave relationship. most(prenominal) modern commentators find this aspect of the novel hard to stomach. James Joyce said of Robinson Crusoe, He is the true prototype of the British colonist The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit is in Crusoe the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity (qtd. in Phillips 33).The feminist critic Ulla Grapard comments that the self-sufficiency of Crusoe is misleading, for it fails to take into account the slavery he imposes on Friday. There is also the suggestion that civilization is the product of European man and his communion with god, with the exclusion of women and others, and therefore imposes boundaries separating those who belong in economic discourse from those who do not (Grapard 33). These are all valid complaints, but fail to take into account that colonialism and male-centeredness are inextricably part of capitalism.not only the contents of Robinson Crusoe, but the middling itself was a revolutionary phenomenon. The novel form was an innovation that proved ideal to capture the spirit of individuali sm, as sound as portray the plight of the individual in context of capitalistic modernity. According to Chesterton, the novel concerns itself with relationships. He also calls it a feminine medium, because understanding sociable relationship is the forte of women (39).Many consider Aphra Behn to be the first novelist, who published a generation before Defoe. But Oroonoko does not dissect social relationships to any extent, and is more intent on plain narrative, even though long. When the novel came of age in the Victorian era the female practitioners of the form advanced the medium greatly, among them Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. But there is good reason to call Robinson Crusoe the first novel, even though it is set far from human society, and therefore cannot deal with human relationships greatly.Defoes effort is the first novel because it considers the relationship that precedes all others, which is the relationship between man and God. Because of his physical isolation and instinct for survival, Coleridge saw in the character of Robinson Crusoe the usual representative, the person for whom every reader could substitute himself (qtd. in Keane 51). For a novel to succeed the reader must be able to identify with the protagonist in some way. In the case of Crusoe the readers identification is not only universal, but also works at a very primeval level.Walter Allen call it a dramatization of the inescapable solitariness of each man in his relation to God and the universe (28). It is something that the individual must come to terms with before he can relate to others. Weber contends that Protestantism gave birth to the individual of modern capitalism, and identifies the Protestant work ethic as the means by which this became the social norm. But he fails to recognize the extent to which literature was also the instrument.Even before the advent of the novel literature was thoroughly engaged in the process of creating a secular instrument of creative expres sion. In the Christian era literature was overwhelmingly devotional, and even then limited by the parameters of Church doctrine. same Bruno, Savonarola and Galileo, many were the martyrs and victims to the cause of self-expression. With the Protestant Reformation the authority of the Church was overcome, resulting in the emancipation of literature. It did not just express individualism, but was the means by which the individual discovered a new voice.For example, instead of composing paeans to the saints, Ben Jonson wrote flattering poetry aimed at his aristocratic patrons, and meant only for circulation in aristocratic circles. Even when the content was religious there was bound to be a personal or metaphysical element associated, as we find in the poetry of John Donne and George Herbert. The specific generation of the novel can be traced to the search for scientific clarity and objectivity in literature. The Royal Society of London, apart from fostering scientific experimentation , also further a style of writing that reflected scientific precision. The trend emerged of keeping diaries and journals such a process was thought to mimic the procedure of scientific and empirical observation.The early members of the Royal Society were avid keepers of diaries, notable among them Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn. Diaries of prominent people were published posthumously. These served as the blueprints for the first novels. We notice that in Robinson Crusoe, Defoe is straining to follow the journal format in order to infuse credibility to his tale. There is even a section which is strictly in the diary format, which Defoe abandons after a point, with the plea that Crusoe had run out of paper and ink. In truth it is a desperate attempt at realism, and Defoe only discards it when he sees that it is impeding the flow of the narrative, and that the last is more important.It must be kept in mind that Robinson Crusoe is not yet a novel, but is striving to become one. The grea test effort is made to mask the fictional aspect. The frontispiece of the original edition emblazons the word LIFE from the full title, which reads The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner. To Defoe it was vital that the work be read as memorial. The coveted effect was realism, and to achieve this Defoe employs the style of the diarist.David Marshall comments From the outset, the narrative is preoccupied with autobiography itself as Robinson Crusoe engages in repeated and at times almost compulsive acts of autobiography (899). Believability and the willingness of the reader to identify with the protagonist is crucial. To the modern novelist this comes naturally, for he creates his characters and immediately engages in their mutual relationships, which makes them both identifiable and believable. But for Defoe such a technique was not to hand. Nor did the circumstances of his protagonist allow for such. He has no option but to strive for rea lism through the context of autobiography.However, even the most vivid realism would not have made Robinson Crusoe a novel, if it was not for the continuing conversation that Crusoe establishes with God. This is the accidental feature that qualifies this work of literature as a novel. non only this, but because the relationship that it considers is the most fundamental one, it becomes the protean novel, i.e. that starting point from which all other novels stem. It accomplishes the most difficult task, which is to establish the individual though his relationship with God and the universe.After this all subsequent novels can engage in the simpler task of exploring the relationships between individuals. This is why the mood of the novel is extremely dismal throughout. It has led Charles Dickens to comment Robinson Crusoe should be the only instance of a universally popular book that could make no one laugh and could make no one cry (599). It is too serious for the ordinary emotions. Dickens himself wrote novels that made the nation laugh and cry with abandon, and such is what we normally expect from the medium.In conclusion, in Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe has created a character that establishes the individual of modern capitalism. In his circumstance of isolation on a deserted island, and also in his discovery of God therein, Defoe finds the opportunity to demonstrate the Protestant work ethic in action.Through the portrayal of the work ethic we discover the emergence of capitalism and individualism, both pass on in tandem. As Crusoe strengthens his communion with God he discovers his individual self, and at the same time senses more and more his mastery and possession over the island. At the same time we notice the emergence of a new literary form, the novel. It is not only the ideal medium for the expression of capitalistic individualism, but was also historically the means by which it came to be established.Works CitedAllen, Walter Ernest. The English No vel A Short Critical History. Boston Dutton, 1955.Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. The Victorian Age in Literature. Oxford, UK Oxford University Press, 1966.Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. ICON Group International, 2006.Dickens, Charles. Selected Journalism, 1850-1870. Ed. David Pascoe. New York Penguin Classics, 1997.Grapard, Ulla. Robinson Crusoe The quintessential economic man? Feminist Economics.1.1 (March 1995) 33-52.Keane, Patrick J. Coleridges Submerged Politics The Ancient Mariner and Robinson Crusoe. Ann Arbor University of Missouri Press, 1994.Marx, Karl. dandy An Abridged Edition. Contributor David McLellan. Oxford, UK Oxford University Press, 1999.Marshall, David. Autobiographical Acts in Robinson Crusoe. ELH. 71.4 (Winter 2004) 899-920.Mathias, Peter. 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