Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Will to Power, Bestowing Virtue, Capitalism

A classification of Will to Power as a 'Capitalist' doctrine, e. g. by some Randians, likely fails to take into account the section of Thus Spoke Zarathustra called Of The Bestowing Virtue.  There, the Bestowing Virtue, or, equivalently, the Empowering Virtue, which better expresses that it is a mode of Will to Power, is recognized as the "highest" virtue.  Nietzsche characterizes it as promoting the transition from "species to super-species", contrasting it with petty selfishness.  So, as applied to Purchase Power, expenditure that promotes the General Good is superior to acquisition that benefits the spender alone.  Accordingly, Nietzsche might approve of charitable giving or investment, as much as funding an overthrow of a regime that adheres to a doctrine that conceives the Human species as fixed.  That does not necessarily make Will to Power a Socialist doctrine, but it is clearly not reducible to a Capitalist one.

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