Juan Manuel de Prada's article, "The three ways of capitalism's anthropological devastation," presents a powerful diagnosis of the disintegration of human bonds in modernity. The author, drawing on a critique by G.K. Chesterton, argues that capitalism is the central agent of an "anthropological devastation." This destruction is said to occur through three main pathways: 1) the disintegration of the home and cultures through migratory flows driven by the search for cheap labor; 2) the incitement of a "commercial competition between the sexes" that promotes anti-natalism and weakens the family institution in favor of selfish individualism; and 3) the destruction of tradition by sowing discord between generations, primarily through a "pop culture" that isolates the young and prevents the transmission of values. In short, the text identifies the capitalist system as the driving force behind contemporary moral and social decay.
Although the diagnosis of the symptoms of decay—the disintegration of the family, cultural erosion, and social instability—is largely correct, the attribution of the cause to capitalism is a fundamental error. This analysis confuses the system of private property and voluntary exchange with the current statist Leviathan, which is the true entity responsible for this devastation. The phenomena described are not consequences of the free market but rather of the democratic welfare state, which systematically acts to destroy natural social structures to strengthen its own power.
🏚️ The Destruction of the Home by Forced Integration
The analysis that mass migratory flows destabilize cultures and corrode social coexistence points to a real problem but errs in identifying capitalism as its agent. In a social order strictly based on private property—a private property anarchy—there would be no such thing as "free immigration" in the current sense. All property, including streets, neighborhoods, and cities, would be privately owned. Consequently, entry into any territory would depend on an explicit invitation from the property owner. Migration would be a contractual act, not an invasion. Each community, each association of property owners, would have the right to establish its own criteria for admission and exclusion, creating a mosaic of communities with varying degrees of openness and homogeneity, thereby preventing the forced integration that generates social conflict (Hoppe, 2012, ch. 7).
The contemporary problem of mass immigration is a direct product of the democratic state. First, the existence of "public" property (streets, parks, buildings) creates the illusion of an unowned territory, through which anyone, including an immigrant admitted by the central government, can transit and settle without the consent of local property owners. Second, the welfare state acts as a magnet, attracting immigrants not for their productive capacity but for the promise of taxpayer-funded subsidies. The result is not free association but forced integration, a policy that imposes costs and disorder on local communities and destroys social capital. Therefore, it is not the economic calculation of the market that drives this devastation, but the political calculation of the democratic state, which seeks to expand its base of dependents and dilute cohesive local cultures that might resist its power (Hoppe, 2012, ch. 7, 9).
👨👩👧👦 The Erosion of the Family by the Welfare State
The thesis that there is a "commercial competition between the sexes" and an incentive for anti-natalism also diverts focus from the true culprit. It is not capitalism that needs anti-natalism to lower wages; it is the welfare state that produces it as an inevitable consequence of its policies. By socializing responsibility for education, health, security, and especially old age, the state breaks the intergenerational bond that is the foundation of the natural family.
The social security system, for example, transfers the responsibility of caring for the elderly from their children to an anonymous entity, the state. This makes children economically less "valuable" to parents and, at the same time, imposes a burden on the young to support a generation of elders with whom they have no direct ties. The result is a drastic drop in birth rates. Similarly, subsidies for single mothers and the facilitation of divorce lower the cost of family disintegration and penalize the traditional family structure. Exacerbated individualism and the perception of the family as a "prison" are not products of the market, but of the statist promise that the individual will be cared for from cradle to grave, making the family a redundant and optional institution (Hoppe, 2012, ch. 1, 4, 10). The state, to increase its power, needs to atomize society, and the most effective way to do so is by destroying the authority and function of the family.
🏛️ The Rupture of Tradition by Democratic Legislation
Finally, the idea that capitalism destroys the influence of parents through "pop culture" is superficial. The true cause of the rupture between generations is the replacement of law, as a body of immutable and discovered principles, with legislation, as an endless stream of arbitrary decrees created by the democratic government. A natural, conservative social order is based on voluntarily recognized hierarchies and authorities, with the family as its central unit. The democratic state, by its nature, is hostile to all intermediate authorities (family, church, natural elites) that stand between it and the individual (Hoppe, 2012, ch. 9, 10).
Public education is the state's primary tool for this purpose. By monopolizing education, the state removes from parents the responsibility for their children's formation and subjects them to indoctrination that promotes moral relativism, egalitarianism, and distrust of tradition. This creates isolated generations, disconnected from the past and trapped in a hedonistic presentism—the very essence of "pop culture." This culture is not a product of capitalism but of the process of de-civilization fostered by the state, which raises society's time preference, encouraging immediate consumption and irresponsibility at the expense of savings, long-term planning, and the transmission of a cultural legacy (Hoppe, 2012, ch. 1, 3).
In conclusion, the anthropological devastation the article describes is real, but its agent is not capitalism. It is the democratic state, with its policies of forced integration, its social welfare system, and its incessant legislative production. To attribute the blame to capitalism not only absolves the true criminal but also prevents the identification of the only viable solution: the abolition of the state and the restoration of a social order based on private property, family, and tradition.
📚 References
PRADA, Juan Manuel de. As três vias de devastação antropológica do capitalismo. Christo Nihil Præponere, 31 Jul. 2025.
HOPPE, Hans-Hermann. Monarquía, democracia y orden natural: una visión austriaca de la era americana. 2nd ed. Madrid: Unión Editorial, 2012.
