Is there? I think we can give credit to Jeff Bezos for Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook, and Jack Dorsey for Twitter. But other than them, who can we point to? Elon Musk didn’t personally invent the electric car. Steve Jobs didn’t personally invent the iPhone. Tim Cook didn’t invent the Apple Watch. Bill Gates didn’t personally invent the PC. The COVID-19 vaccines weren’t invented by the major stockholders or CEO of Pfizer and Moderna. The sneaker wasn’t invented by Phil Knight. I’m certain that if I kept going, the first list would be a lot shorter than the second list.
Having literally engaged in discussions on this topic for more than 50 years, sometimes as part of my job, sometimes for fun, I recommend this article Age of Economics as a starting point for anyone who wants to think more productively about defining capitalism. At point 6 in the piece, the authors, both economists, define it as a system around for 200 years or so, with three elements:
- The conversion of all kinds of human activities and their products into commodities, that is, as goods for sale on the market
- The endless accumulation of money as an end in itself that drives the system
- The hierarchy of people in the workplace—bosses and their control over work and workers
They also note “you can’t really use the tools of economics to explain capitalism, because economics [the discipline] is kind of within capitalism. The categories of economics are really specific to capitalism…Capitalism…it’s just one way of organizing human activity.”
There is much more there, and it may be of some use to those keen to continue this discussion.
I believe at one time there where lot of priests and Church’s very anti capitalism and supporting communism because of the class hierarchy of homeless, poor, low income, middle income, upper middle income, upper income, rich, really rich and supper rich and so on and hoarding of large very large amounts of money. But when the USSR, North Korea and China became evil and anti religion many priests and Church’s started supporting conservative as only way to preserve religion as even liberals well preserve capitalism seemed beyond the Church and that scared many priests and Church’s around.
It’s worth mentioning that it was invented as a defense project to create a survivable military communications system in the case of a nuclear war. This is probably not the best example of a government-funded innovation to promote human thriving.
There is a point to be had about government having a higher tolerance for pure research that’s not guaranteed profitable (again we can point to military tech that’s not intended to be profitable). And likewise that capitalism is more than happy to freeload off those innovations.
But it’s laughable to suggest that the public sector does more pure innovation than the private sector, there’s just no evidence to support even the most general form of that claim. If you want to claim that (for example) iPhones aren’t “pure innovation” because they wouldn’t work without the defense-funded Internet, then I would suggest that definition of “pure innovation” is of purely argumentative benefit, and disregards the fact that the economic impact of the internet was almost entirely realized by private development.
Instead of a future paradise where every red-diaper baby shares his or her bippy with every other baby, slobber mingled in class solidarity:
Resources are held in public trust, processed for consumption in a constitutionally managed manner. Individual innovators are rewarded modestly, and given access to the resources by powers beholden to the public at large.
As it is now, we live in a world turned upside down. In the USSR, it may have taken you years of waiting for a radio, and it could be taken away if you listened to Radio Free Europe on it; but you and only you owned the damn thing. Here in 2023, the “radio” that I’m typing on right now will turn into a dead glass tile if I don’t pay into an endless subscription sceme. Where’s all the private property we ducked under our desks during the Cold War to preserve?
Our economy (our American dream) was kept stable by the mass of capital held in middle class and working class hands in home ownership, and savings accounts. Now we let Blackrock hold all that capital concentrated. Supposedly they can manage it better that we all can. And those savings accounts need to be “put to use” in an active economy. The money in the mattresses was there in case of disaster, but if we just keep it flowing instead, there’ll never be a disaster. Right? Right?
So yes, the Gold Standard sucked: it kept economic power in as few hands as possible. But now we’re on the Debt Standard. In thirty years there will be ten billion people who need the resources from an overheated planet. And the decisions are made by billionaires who only care about their own skin. “ It’s as if they want to build a car that goes fast enough to escape from its own exhaust.”
But they made a lot of money because of those innovations! Even if they didn’t personally do it. It’s that motivation – to make lots of money – that encouraged them to put together the systems that developed those innovations.
I’m not saying this is necessarily just, or even the best way to accomplish innovation – I’m saying that it worked as a system to encourage innovation. And any replacement should also have some sort of way to similarly encourage innovation, and IMO the possibility of personal profit probably works best.
So by far the most likely way I see capitalism ending is with the collapse of society due to environmental damage or some other reason. Much to the chagrin of all the anarcho-capitalists (and everyone else who’s not a fan of starving to death) we’ll see that rather than a natural state of being, capitalism is entirely reliant on a functioning government and its ability to enforce laws and maintain infrastructure.
But there’s the counter-argument I discussed in a previous post. Capitalism can be a powerful force for innovation. But paradoxically, it can also be a strong force for stifling innovation. Microsoft, for example, may have been a strong force for developing software technology in the eighties. But do you think Microsoft has any serious interest in developing new software technology today? The ideal scenario for Microsoft would be for people to still be using Windows 11 for the next fifty years. They control their market now; new software technology might take that control away and kill their business. So their goal now is not innovation; it’s preventing innovation.
Very often I find that leftist tend to blame social ills on capitalism. It might be sexism, racist, inequality, pollution, slvery, etc., etc., but it’s either an unintended side effect or sometimes the goal of capitalism. I’ve sometimes wondered what makes them so sure there won’t be homophobia within a more communcal organization? What makes them think the People’s Committee of Tractor Factor #37 will be more concerned with fulfilling the tractor order of the Central Committee than they are with the amount of pollution they’re dumping in the river?
Yes very much so. At any point in time in the history of the soviet union working in a mine in Western Europe or the US was not much fun, but it was a barrel of laughs compared to an equivalent mine in the soviet union. Immediately prior to the collapse of the soviet union it was 24x more dangerous, and that definitely was not the worst time to work in a mine in the USSR.
Not to mention of course, as a miner in the UK, France, US, etc. if you weren’t happy with your conditions you could join a union, which you could not do in the USSR ironically enough.
That’s a good point. So presumably, regulators should step in to ensure that can’t happen. But I’m far from an expert.
Thank you. My point is what you said; capitalism needs regulation by an outside authority that’s answerable to society as a whole. We can’t just take the libertarian approach and allow capitalists to do whatever is best for themselves and assume that the results will also somehow benefit society.
As I’ve pointed out in the past, Al Capone was a capitalist.
Which tells you little about economics .
You did- with your quote about anarchy from a famous anarchist.
I was a treasury agent that examined CU and banks. They are quite capitalistic. They get capital for initial investment, invest said capital, and pay out dividends to the members.
Yep, CU do this.
Again, CU do this also.
Lets go back to ancient times.
Did they have * Capital accumulation: production for profit and accumulation as the implicit purpose of all or most of production, constriction or elimination of production formerly carried out on a common social or private household basis.
- Commodity production: production for exchange on a market; to maximize exchange-value instead of use-value.
- Private ownership of the means of production:
- High levels of wage labor.
- The investment of money to make a profit.?
All yes. And more.
https://digitalworks.union.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1697&context=theses#:~:text=Both%20Ancient%20Athens%20and%20Ancient,as%20middle%20and%20lower%20classes.
Capitalism in Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece:
Risk and Unethical Business
In Rome nearing the end of the Republic, huge profits were achieved through the
systematic process of “tax farming.” Many of Rome’s finest and most well respected
nobility took part in farming debt from provinces, and various constituencies that
spanned across the extended territories of the Roman Republic. Just as many investors
and entrepreneurs were hungry to achieve great fortune and status in Athens, many
Roman politicians and aristocrats sought ways to accumulate sizable wealth in an attempt
to climb the social ladder in Rome as well. Just as a wide variety of men attempted to
exploit the lucrative returns on maritime finance in Athens by incurring great portions of
risk, Roman investors essentially bullied large groups of debtors out of their money with
the help of the Roman army. In both scenarios we see that even the most reputable of
names from antiquity could be seduced into making reckless and or corrupted business
decisions, in the hope of becoming wealthy and prosperous along with the desire to be
perceived at the top of the social-hierarchy.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/590734
Now, sure I kinda doubt that in the pre civilization they actually had capitalism as we know it today, so I am not claiming capitalism “dates back millenia.” Well, two, maybe three millennia.
But the Ancient Romans were capitalists. Okay, not exactly like todays, but those article all agree that the later Romans had a form of capitalism.
What was the economic system of early hunter-gatherers? Some sort of trade, we know that. Likely not anarchy or communism. Nor anarcho -communism which is what MrDibble seems to be promoting. (Unless I misunderstand him entirely)
I tend to feel that was an effect rather than a cause.
The old political system was based on having the right ancestors. Some people who existed outside of the political system because they didn’t have the right ancestors worked on becoming rich. And after a while these rich businessmen began to resent the fact that the aristocracy held all the political power and began to demand a share (and a chance to shape government policies that favored rich businessmen as well as aristocrats).
Archaeology … tells one little about economics?
Ha!
A quote about anarchism.
… other than the “owned by the members” bit.
The CUs I’m aware of are not-for-profits.
Most Roman and Greek labour was slave labour. Most Roman and Greek economic production was household and agrarian. A lot of commodity allocation was by the State, not private.
Just because some Romans got rich at economic activities didn’t make them capitalists.
The demographic collapse with the Black Death was a cause, not an effect. There just weren’t enough nobles around to sustain their previous bully regime. Rule by violence takes more manpower than rule by coinpurse.
Sure. Not profits, but the profits are shared by the members.
How is a credit union different than a bank? | MyCreditUnion.gov.
Profits made by credit unions are returned back to members in the form of reduced fees, higher savings rates and lower loan rates .
My cites say different.
So, not capital accumulation, then.
You need cites that Rome and Greece were slave economies?
This is the line I replied to-
No, my cites proved Romans had a form of capitalism.
If they had a slave economy, which you don’t seem to dispute, then the majority of their workers weren’t wage earners. They did not have “high levels of wage labor”
Those rich Romans were aristocratic slave owners (or investors in slave-centered businesses like latifundia and shipping), not capitalist employers of (nominally) free labour.
When you did have free labour, such as skilled artisans, you know what they did? They banded into civic collegia. You know what a collegium is, don’t you? It’s not a corporation…
But they did, despite slavery.
In any case, my cites prove my case. Your cites are non-existent.