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Why does the idea that capitalism has co-existed with civilization perturb you? Not criticizing, just honestly curious.
by vannevar 5y ago
Why does the idea that capitalism has co-existed with civilization perturb you? Not criticizing, just honestly curious.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pram 5y agoNot what I said at all lol
- vannevar 5y agoIt looks like what you said: >I've also long been perturbed by the definition of capitalism largely focusing on markets, private property, and even entrepreneurship. Since those are like, as old as human civilization probably. It seems like you want another definition of capitalism that would reflect a more recent development of it. Again, I'm not criticizing at all, just wondering what the perturbing aspect is.
- netcan 5y agoCapitalism, as the term has been most over 200 years of its existence, refers to something that emerges in the industrial era.
- pram 5y agoHuman civilization goes back further than the 18th century jfyi
- vannevar 5y agoOf course. How is that related to the point you're trying to make?
- pram 5y agoThe point being the things I listed are pre-capitalist sociological and economic structures.
- vannevar 5y agoThanks. I guess that goes along with the discussion in the thread above about just when capitalism emerged. I would argue that it was essentially there at the beginning of private property, but that it was overshadowed by government until the 18th century, when it became relevant to talk about capital apart from government because it was now capable of creating change in society at a scale formerly only associated with the state.
- netcan 5y ago(I'm the GP, not P) .. It perturbs me because it's usually a (imo) dirty rhetorical trick. The argument never really sticks to a "just markets & property" definition of capitalism. The way it usually works is: (step 1) define capitalism in a way that applies to most societies at most times; (step 2) proceed with the rest of the argument with a much more specific definition. In this case, what the paper actually means by capitalism isn't just "Markets & Property," even though they do define things this way. What they actually mean by capitalism is privatisation and other major policies adopted post Yugoslav and Soviet dissolution. None of the paper makes sense otherwise. If we're discussing history (the original context for the term "capitalism") the uber-broad definition doesn't work either. Capitalism has something to do with the industrial era, the ascendancy of merchants over medieval aristocracies & such. No one actually sticks to a definition of capitalism where the early stock markets of Amsterdam & London are not more capitalistic than feudal systems or whatnot. It's just disingenuous, basically. If that's the definition of capitalism, there's not much to discuss. Most systems are capitalism. It's also ahistorical, since it ignore most usages of the term.
- vannevar 5y agoThe dictionary definition is pretty straightforward: "An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state." But wasn't that true in many ancient civilizations? Haven't individual merchants and property owners been around for a long time? I think the significance of industrialization for capitalism was that it marked the first time that an individual could rapidly amass a large fortune within their own lifetime. Prior to that era, you had to be affiliated with the government in some way, able to raise taxes from a large number of subjects, to pull in that kind of money so quickly. The gap between the royals and the serfs began to fill with a middle class. Once capital became disentangled from government, people started talking about it more as an independent entity. It wasn't so much that capitalism emerged as phenomenon in the 18th century so much as it emerged into the public consciousness then.