“wage” is not a magic word that makes something capitalism. Did you read the entire cites or just my quoted bits.
I refuse to be drawn into your hijack.
Yes, but that doesnt mean it cant be modified, for example Scandinavian Democratic Socialism. It works. Yes, there is capitalism, but also socialism and democracy.
The fact that I quoted bits you didn’t should tell you what you need to know.
You’re the one who brought up Rome. The fact that the specifics of its slave-based economy were in no way capitalist is only a hijack if you define “hijack” as “inconvenient facts”. I was responding to your bad argument. If there’s a hijack here (and I don’t think there is) it starts with you.
There seems to be a very big disconnect about the very definition of capitalism, so we’re very far from getting to thew point of the OP, which is what could replace capitalism.
The good Dr seems to equate “making money, making a profit” with capitalism. And for the purpose of this thread, since there is no consensus about what capitalism actually is, I guess that definition is as good or bad as anything else. I think it’s bad, for reasons coming anon, but others may think it’s perfectly valid.
My take is that capitalism, in the modern sense, is putting money to work. That can mean trade, making a profit, investing ASF. But the essential part is that the input of the capitalist is, you know, capital, i.e. funds.
With that definition capitalism is about 400 years old, invented in the Netherlands
Another point could be the invention of modern banking in Italy in the 14th and 15th century.
I find that in these debates, many Americans are pre-disposed to think as Capitalism = natural, innate, good and above else American. And any kind of what they perceive as Socialism = Soviet Gulags.
In case it wasn’t clear from my own posts, I think what could replace capitalism is a move to co-ownership and syndicates. Not primarily state-controlled enterprises, but more of the kind of examples I’ve already given here of co-ops and mutual financial institutions, as well as worker-owned companies, open-source projects and the like. More of those, less of the capitalist-owned ones. A gradual change in the governance structure people prefer their companies to have, not a complete economic revolution.
And not because people will suddenly change their minds or become altruistic, but because they will become aware of the truth - those structures are better for them overall, just like unions are better than exploitation, just like credit unions did better than traditional banks in the last financial crisis, just like co-op grocers in Scandinavia are better at providing sustainable and healthy products… if selfishness is what motivates many people, they need to realise that co-ops are actually the better option for selfish reasons too.
Expanding co-op membership from 1 billion people to many more is attainable, I think.
Excellent point. We’ve disagreed on other matters, but here I agree. IMHO the single biggest reason we (non-Scandinavian western countries) have our current version of capitalism is because part of the proletariat has decided* that their own interests are served by siding with the wealthiest members of the bourgeoisie against the educated professionals and the lumpenproletariat. If they could somehow be convinced to realize that they are in fact voting against their own best interests, things would improve.
How would things look if we do get to that point? I think your idea is one option. Another, the one I advocate for, is a system where the very wealthy, especially those making their wealth via capital gains rather than their own labor, pay a very high tax rate. But since we don’t actually have either of those systems, I’m not sure that mine would actually work out better than what you’re proposing, and I’d be open to trying what you suggest.
*. The reasons why have been explained to me in numerous threads, and typically include statements about “the loss of white privilege” and other such stuff. Intellectually I understand that is likely to be the case. Emotionally I don’t understand how anyone can care about such nonsense.
Oh, you’re certainly correct. Capitalism can include slaves and all sorts of injustice for example, but most of us would agree that it’s better when we get rid of those. I often point out to those who criticize capitalism and point to the Scandinavians that they have capitalism as well.
Then why are we not still on Windows 1.0?
If Microsoft had no intent to develop or acquire new software, Apple or Google or AWS or any number of other software companies, old and new, would be more than happy to continue developing software that will continue to erode Microsoft’s market share.
Because we don’t live in Microsoft’s ideal world. Yet.
But unless you’re in denial, you’d have to agree that Microsoft has been following a long term process of eliminating competition in its field. As far as they’re concerned the ideal “number of other software companies” appears to be zero.
If Microsoft had been able to control the marketplace back in the eighties, I have no doubt they would still be selling Windows 1.0. Of course, they would have it designed to delete itself unless customers bought a new extension every two years.
No, that is where capitalism starts. Call it “ur-capitalism”.
Not bad, but then that includes the Romans, who did exactly that.
So by your definition our current economy is not capitalist then, as a minority of it is dependent on slave labour.
No, and I’ve bolded why:
Moderating
I really understand that question that went viral about “how often do men think about the Roman Empire.” And everyone else in this thread too, apparently!
Let’s drop the slavery sidetrack.
Googling “types of capitalism” returns results of 4, 5, 6 distinct types or more. The common denominator is private ownership and free markets. I can’t imagine that ever going away, not should we want it to. Society is fundamentally better off if anyone can take a good idea and make a business out of it, even if it threatens the status quo.
But capitalism needs to be constrained with laws and good regulatory oversight. The problem with capitalism as I see it is that it abstracts everything out to numbers on a ledger. The overriding concern driving every decision becomes “is this profitable?”. Doesn’t matter if those numbers represent stocks, bonds, drugs, guns, slaves, 5 year old miners (minors?), or crappy mortgages. Some 28 year old analyst at Blackrock may not even know what those numbers represent outside of some vague representation of assets in a fund.
IME, that’s the libertarians, who think everything will work just fine without the government getting into it because their self-interest will lead to them all being nice to each other. It’s the liberals and leftists who tend to think that, without government control, many people will not be nice to other people.
Depends on who precisely you’re talking to, of course.
I’m not sure how to design such systems either – but community reputation can, in most people’s lives, go a hell of a long way. Praise and respect are what most people are after – accumulating more money than needed to live on comfortably is, for many, a way to get that in this society; which often respects those with high monetary wealth for that reason specifically.
I have no idea how to get this society to quit doing that. There are certainly individuals within this society who don’t do that; so the issue isn’t just one of “human nature”; but once the society’s in that form, how to get back out of it is a lot less clear.
– I think a lot of the argument in this thread is about different definitions of capitalism.
I would be inclined to say this:
– that is, that capitalism is a system in which a significant portion of the economy is kept going by people who input primarily or only money. I would include the management of money, as such, to be part of inputting money.
We’ve probably had trade as long as we’ve been human and maybe before. We’ve probably had some form of token of exchange, in at least some places, for nearly as long. But for most of the time we’ve been human, the main focus of most production has been the production; not what it was worth in terms of an abstract medium of exchange, but in terms of whether it kept the immediate community alive, comfortable, and/or interested.
A long time ago I read an observation made by Joseph Heller: money doesn’t go where it’s needed, it goes where it can grow.
Even though he was speaking metaphorically, of course, it was interesting to take him literally. Money as a life force, bartering with itself with furs and dried fish in its infancy; learning to inhabit rocks that don’t rust or dissolve; moving on to abstract thought with checks and credit, stocks and bonds; trades for commodities’ futures and proposals at the rate of thousands, even millions per second. Past the point where any human exertion can control it. Some humans get mega yachts and spaceships while others starve, but money sees that as marginal to its dynamic.
Will the end of Capitalism be when money, like HAL or Skynet, becomes self-aware, but unlike them decides it needs us and becomes our benefactor as a means of self-discipline, like the way some of us use our dogs’ daily walk as our own exercise?
As you can probably guess from some of my posts, I would disagree with idea that free market competition is an inherent part of capitalism. There’s too much real world evidence to the contrary. The goal of a capitalist is making money and it’s obvious you can make more money when you’re the only person selling a good or service.
So a free market does not arise from within capitalism itself. It’s an external factor that needs to be introduced into capitalism and then maintained to stay in capitalism. This is one of the reasons why a libertarian “hands off” approach to capitalism is a bad idea.
This is a a Just-So story that doesn’t match current anthropological thinking. Barter comes later, first there was gift economy and reciprocal exchange network and social chains of debt. Then a commodity economy (barter) developes.
Right. Investing is also an important part.
Cite? I mean, in a family grouping sure, but outside that?
DEBT - The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber, Chs. 2 (The Myth of Barter) and 3 (Primordial Debts) especially.
Here, I’ll give you a free sample, but I encourage reading the whole thing.
The definitive anthropological work on barter, by Caroline Humphrey, of Cambridge, could not be more definitive in its conclusions:
"No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the emergence from it of money; all available ethnography suggests that there never has been such a thing. "
Now, all this hardly means that barter does not exist-or even that it’s never practiced by the sort of people that Smith would refer to as “savages.” It just means that it’s almost never employed, as Smith imagined, between fellow villagers. Ordinarily, it takes place between strangers, even enemies
There’s one thing you and I can agree on: an appreciation for David Graeber.