4 ms·

The 13th amendment to the US constitution outlawed slavery, the buying, selling, and ownership of human beings. Is that anti-capitalist?

• EliRivers 10y ago
  I suppose it is, yes. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production, and given that people can make things, outlawing the ownership of people is anti-capitalist.
  • dmm 10y ago
    In that case it must sometimes be necessary to accept anti-capitalist things to preserve important freedoms.
    • Nevermark 10y ago
      Capitalism means free enterprise. People are agents who can sell their services or property or not as they see fit. Unless someone agreed to sell themselves into slavery, slavery is not capitalist. Capitalism doesn't mean money rules, although abuse of a capitalist system often involves money being used to corrupt capitalism. Paying politicians, judges, controlling the media, and other forms of corruption or fraud are often labeled "Capitalist" by anti-capitalists, but those things are not capitalist but abuses. An example of a genuine critique of capitalism (or the limits of it), is to point out that each of us has benefited from our governments social investment in us, such as education, and we should therefore all contribute to educating the next generation. This is not a capitalist arrangement in the sense that individuals are being both given education and required to pay for the next generation without express agreement with each individual. But recognizing the usefulness of some non-capitalist arrangements is not the same as being anti-capitalist. Most people who say they want capitalism to overrule all other concerns are actually people who want their money to overrule other concerns and are deceptively using the name "capitalism" to hide their parasitic agenda.
  • AndrewUnmuted 10y ago
    I think you need to check your premise. People are not a means of production. The means of production are the things that support a producer's ability to produce. Owning a human being means owning the fruits of that person's productive labor, which would imply a non-private ownership of the means of that person's productive achievement.
• kefka 10y ago
  It absolutely did ~NOT~ outlaw slavery. What it says is the following: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." A free man cannot become a slave. But if you were tried and found guilty of a crime, then the 13th amendment no longer protects you. And all people of "X Attribute" are criminals; they just didn't know it yet.
  • philovivero 10y ago
    This is one of the most interesting and insidious realities around slavery that exists. It seems very little-known.