Work

Hegel, and later Marx, felt that the basic act, the inherent characteristic, that defined man and allowed him to define himself, was work. Work. This is a bit different than the earlier notion that man worked to stave off the pain and terror of hunger or cold. There is in Hegel a notion of success as well, a rising above your contemporaries, but he felt that achievement was quite attainable even among the poor and the downtrodden in the very act of their work.

Capitalism has always had a production bias but, when seen in the context of Hegel, it could be just an accident of our predisposition. There is a theory that the Reformation flavored capitalism with just enough self-sacrifice and tight-fistedness to allow it to flourish in the West. This idea also draws on similar qualities in the Japanese feudal culture and implies that the capitalism success in these two cultures is no accident.

If that notion is true, however, we might be in some general trouble. As the strict self-control of Protestantism and Calvinism fade in the West and as the feudal ideals are eclipsed in Japan, what is left to motivate the capitalist?

Consumption, a part of the overall economic equation--and a famous debilitating disease.