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I think you are conflating a few things. The idea of property came into existence long before capitalism, which seems to be the linchpin of your take. Are you s
by jshen 4y ago
I think you are conflating a few things. The idea of property came into existence long before capitalism, which seems to be the linchpin of your take. Are you suggesting we return to being hunter gatherers? If not, I’m not sure what you are proposing.
- Supermancho 4y ago> The idea of property came into existence long before capitalism, which seems to be the linchpin of your take. That is not what I understood. I understood a simplified definition of property under modern capitalism. Capitalist property value is overwhelmingly limited to physical utility and not to consequence of consumption. There are a few exceptions, in various countries and industry, notwithstanding. I did not see a suggestion as to what to do about this.
- jshen 4y agoPrior to capitalism, I know of no system where “consequence of consumption” was a major aspect of the system. I’m trying to figure out where capitalism becomes a factor here.
- otikik 4y agoWell if you hunted in the King’s forest, they chopped your head off. That’s a clear consequence of consumption.
- abstrctComp 4y agoCapitalism is a composition of prior cognitive ideas. A required parameter is value assignment in relative to some shared value store. The root of the problem is assigning authority to a minority. Consolidation of logistics has real resource wins, but we keep empowering grown children who think they’re beating a direct path to Star Trek TNG, or some other vague “greater good”, usually wrapped in memes of forever human prosperity and expansion. Never mind no theory of science says it’s actually achievable with the resources available on Earth. The morality of handing an aristocracies demands of fealty off to the future is suspect as well. I’m sure it’s merely a coincidence billions are spent selling that hype. Oh wait, behavioral economics is the intentional study of manufacturing consent; we manipulate the quirks of biology religion happened upon. My mistake. Giving stocks value relative to dollars is optional. Let them keep ownership via ephemeral objects. I don’t think Tesla or MS shares are worth anything. But I’m trapped in a police state where my agency has to comply with the billions who believe otherwise.
- aussiesnack 4y agoThe modern capitalist concept of property is abstracted a long way from its roots. > Are you suggesting we return to being hunter gatherers? If not, I’m not sure what you are proposing. I'm not proposing anything. I'm just describing our current system of organising the world, but in physical rather than the usual virtual terms. As a physical process, our current political/economic systems are dismantling the systems we live within. That doesn't mean I (not being a Nobel prize candidate!) could magically come up with a system to manage billions of people and an entire planet! I'm not particularly sanguine about anyone (or any collective) being able to. The destructive mechanisms are pushing us into emergency territory requiring fairly quick action, and H. Sapiens' cognitive/affective/conative capacities don't seem well adapted to the task of managing an entire planet. Given that evolution can't anticipate, why would they be?
- jshen 4y agoI think you are implying that it’s “the modern system” that’s ruining the world. What’s the possibility that it’s just human nature, and the system is kinda secondary?
- aussiesnack 4y agoI would guess that's unknowable. The old proximate vs distal cause problem is hard enough for simple cases, let alone something like the interactions between thousands of ecosystems, 7 billion chunks of primate psychology, and global civilisation. I am sure that capitalism is incompatible with the continuing existence of healthy living ecosystems. So (for me) your question comes down to: is capitalism inevitable (& even if it wasn't, are we now stuck with it for historical reasons?). We can look at some things that seem salient. When you look at human societies over time and space, the vast differences in cultures are astonishing. Most people have little idea of just how different cultures have been, so their concept of 'human nature' actually just labels their own culture (I'm not suggesting that's how you're using 'human nature'). Even the subset of contemporary 'capitalist' nations are greatly variable, not the least in their levels of ecosystem destruction. Then capitalism itself, variation notwithstanding, does depend on the metaphor of growth (I insist on 'metaphor' because nothing defensibly 'grows' in the process of deconstructing complex evolved circular systems to build simple technological ones requiring ongoing inputs). Some think this can be fixed by building 'circular economies', but I've seen nothing to suggest that this is possible at all, let alone on a relevant timescale. We know for certain that the 'growth' metaphor/ideology doesn't spring cleanly/directly from human nature, as there's no shortage of human societies that have lived in a relatively steady relationship with their environment (here in Australia for 60,000 years or more). So who knows? Perhaps H. Sapiens can get free of the system it has made, perhaps not. If it can, it's not going to be in a hurry, so we'd need to slow down the rate of destruction while still capitalists. I do think that's possible with appropriate application of tech, "electrify everything", tough corporate regulation, land set-asides, urban greening, etc. But because of compounding, even slow dismantling of ecosystems eventually destroys them. So H Sapiens still needs to ditch capitalism at some point. There's certainly no guarantee that it can, because evolution, in making the species, wasn't looking to the future (and certainly not to a destiny).