At the moment i´m reading a lot about the rise/invention of capitalism.
What thus far amazes me the most is that capitalism was initially hailed as a civilising force.
It´s hard to draw the line exactly, as to where and when capitalism was born, but there have always been markets. The degree to wich markets have dominated society has changed though.

In medieval, feodal europe, society was definately much harder. Most people where more or less born as slaves in the sense that they belonged to the land owned by a master. People in city´s had a little more rights in the sense that they wheren´t 'owned' by anyone. But they could not choose their own profession or start their own busines.

When capitalism became more dominant, much in society changed. Power became more economy-based than military-based and the majority of intellectuals in europe agreed that capitalism would make people 'softer', more gentle and polite. Especially montesquieu, adam smith and david hume are very positive about this effect capitalism was supposed to have, but there are numerous less well-known thinkers who had the same views.

Another thing i noticed is that criticism towards capitalism has always been the strongest, during economically hard times. During boom-times, most people have more positive views about capitalism and criticism is hardly ever heard off.

I now think that it has to be said that capitalism is not a simple force of light or darkness. The truth is probably that capitalism has both positive and negative aspects, acting simultaneously. Most of the views people have on capitalism are too superficial: it´s either a force of evil or a divine system to most people.

I cannot say i have a view on capitalism myself, in the light of what i´m discovering. Most of my views up till now, i must admit, have been based on concern for the wellbeing of other people than myself: i cannot help noticing that many people realy like the fruits of capitalism, but not capitalism itself. People like wealth, but not labour, they like travelling but oppose the construction of new roads, railway´s or runways for airports, they like i-phones but disagree with slavery and they oppose the construction of new powerplants while they do like to watch TV or visit the DMT-nexus.

I think i don´t realy have a view on this, in the sense that i no longer believe that there is a clear answer to all of these dilemma´s. And most importantly....i think each of us just has to face these dilemma´s and answer them for ourselves.

I know the world is changing. That has been bothering me because i know that most people in the west aren´t ready for the changes that are coming...but at this moment i no longer see why i should be bothered because OTHER people cannot cope with the world the way it is and the way it is becoming.

There are a few things that concern me, like pollution, slavery and opression or the irrational behaviour of financial markets and i´m going to examine these things some more. But i no longer think that we can simply adress these issues as mere results of a rotten system...i think the system is more complicated than that. Capitalism is pretty neutral in itself and quite benign compared to most other economic systems (like the feodal system), it´s an interplay of different forces that causes it to escalate into disaster sometimes.

Of course! But very well elucidated polytrip. Too much misplaced anger and whiplash blame in the world IMO. Much must change, but in very many ways, things are as they should be (and changing as they should be.) if people would stop taking themselves out of the equation of NATURE this would be abundantly clear.

Thank you for a post that made a darkening corner of my day considerably brighter!

JBArk

Regardless of whether we are in a boom or a bust, capitalism is an inherently negative system. It is a system rooted in the exploitation of others and the creation of "surplus" through a variety of sinister means. The starting capital for American Imperialism/Capitalism was created through slavery and genocide. Competition has not always been the model through which progress is driven...cooperation is a far older, far longer-lasting and much more efficient engine for creating growth (and sustainable growth at that). The "wonders" of capitalism...all of them...come at the expense of your fellow humans, the numerous plants and animals around us and the planet as a whole. It is that simple.

Competition (vs cooperation) is DEEPLY rooted in us biologically--in terms of males gaining mates, for example. Even more deep is the generalized urge toward social hierarchy.

They won't be going away anytime soon--although one can imagine small groups of like-minded people attempting to overcome those impulses. Unfortunately, the history of such experimental groups is replete with examples of descent into authoritarianism.

Of course capitalism is negative, it's not natural. Life is simply the way it is, trying to "make something" out of it, or "give it value" is utter madness.

-In fact every aspect of society is WRONG!

Yes, SWIMfriend, that type of competition IS deeply ingrained. But, I would posit that it is a vastly different sort of competition than the competitive model of "I will horde food in my cellar, while you starve to death next door." As systemic models were the topic of discussion, my comments were meant within the context of the society, rather than the individual.

Let's say I start a business and am lucky enough to get to the point were I need to hire on additional help. I put an add in a local paper. One person reads my add and say's there's another capitalist trying to get rich off my hard labor...while another person say's, hell yes I'll gladly trade you some of my time for a paycheck...thank you.

The only thing wrong in that scenario is the view of person A assuming that the business owner is only out to exploit them....when in reality nothing is really further from the truth. The business owner and the employee both benefit. Yes the business probably benefits more, but that doesn't usually stop people from accepting their offer does it?



If this is true then were is this great system of cooperation that is driving one of the world powers? Competition has been the driving force of evolution and human adaptation. War while very very destructive has also led to some remarkable technological advances.



Sure there are some evils in capitalism, but it's hardly all bad..or at the expense of your fellow humans. I'm pretty damned happy to have a job that I can receive a paycheck from. Sure my boss makes more, but then they took all the risk. I only show up and do my job.

It would seem that by your logic even taking a job is wrong. I mean you are just signing yourself up for exploitation right?

I know this. We have to have a system that works with the majority of people on the planet. Most people don't want to be equal. The guy that pissed off all the way through high school and never went to college could end up driving a garbage truck. On the other side of the coin is the kid that busted his ass all the way through high school to get a scholarship to university where he got an advanced degree in engineering and science. Who should be paid more? If you say they should be paid equal then I'd say, no one would ever strive to do anything more than they have to.

I guess instead of making all these assumptions I'd ask you how you think the world should be run. Then I'd ask you do you think the majority of the people on the planet will sign up for this plan? Will there be massive wars in the process? How much economic turmoil will there be?

Polytrip. You nailed it. capitalism is an inert force...it is no more dangerous than a gun. This isn't to say that capitalism hasn't been exploited or hasn't become 'evil', but the nature of capitalism is freedom and not oppression....it is in fact what drove people to invent capitalism in the first place.

Well...but what I'm saying is that I don't think a societal model that DIDN'T include some form of inherent competition/hierarchy could get..."traction" with people. I think people would just respond with "Huh?"

Joe, your model ignores (as it has in the past) where all the resources for all the stuff that you use at your job come from. The minerals and plastics and the tools which they are used to create have an explicit toll on your fellow human beings and the Earth. You just happen to have separation between yourself and the place from which they carry out the atrocities that make such inventions possible. It's nice to be shielded from those horrors, I guess...but it doesn't mean they're not happening.

For me, you point to exactly the crux of the issue--and, for me, that is so-called CRONY capitalism. For me it's not the capitalist system per se, but the collusion of government with corporations (or, in the past, "barons" ) that creates the unfairness and misuse of people.

SWIMfriend, I hear what you're saying, but for me, that distinction doesn't exist because of how capitalism has been practiced historically. For me, theory loses validity when the circumstances it requires cannot manifest in the real world. Imo, capitalism cannot exist independently of crony capitalism because of how it is structured. Regulating agencies or other protective barriers against capitalism 'degrading' into *crony* capitalism are nonsensical to me as, according to capitalist logic, they will inevitable wind up being 'for sale'. Therefore, (just as with trickle-down theories of economics) while someone may be able to write entire dissertations on why such theory is valid, in the real world such theories are not viable as we have repeatedly observed their failure (due to simple mechanics that are, imo, readily apparent). A few questions if I may about your specific definition:

Was American slavery the result of crony capitalism?
Was the genocide and land grab against Native Americans the result of crony capitalism?
Can an individual (whether peasant, merchant or monarch) stand in for a corporation in your definition?

^^That's difficult to disagree with.

The way the world exists today is severely UNFAIR for many. A solution to that may not exist--except perhaps incremental empowerment for those who currently have the least fair situation.

No need to take it personal.

I't still very much like to hear your ideas on changing this for the better. I mean you seem so adept at pointing out all my so called fallacies, but then you don't actually present any workable solution?


So what is your plan?

I'm not taking it personally, sorry if my post came off that way, it was not my intention. I added the emphasis to "you" to drive a point home...that "you" is just as much me in many senses.

My ideal is for an end to industrialization...an end to illegitimate states and their governments...an end to manufactured scarcity...an end to private (not personal) property...something built on principles of direct democracy and participation...something that doesn't create urban and rural wastelands.

What that actually looks like in finality...or even in significant progress...I don't know. I don't know because it's not a world I can create by myself and there are numerous problems that we as human beings would have to tackle together. However, the difficulties of grappling with those problems...with meager to adequate but sustainable food/clothes/shelter...with communities built of people we know and care about...in an environment that's not being ravaged for the sole purpose of higher numbers in someone's ledger...to me, that's worth scrapping this system of opulence for the few at the expense of poverty for the masses.

My plan is to be involved in whatever consciousness raising and direct actions I can be a part of to undermine this system and hopefully bring it down. I see no other course of action that I could undertake and still be able to function. I have friends with children...I have young cousins...the odds that this system will be functional for the survival of them (say...20 years from now?) or their children are infinitesimal. They will face severe resource inequality and ecological disaster. It is highly unlikely that I will ever get to see the type of world I dream of, but I'm fine with that as long as these ideas continue to propagate and provide hope and mental nourishment for those in the generations to come.

I'm trying to do all I can to end something I perceive to end a root cause global injustice and catastrophe...but I'm only one person among many. Whether I like it or not, my actions are, to some degree, dictated by the people I can work with and, imo, the more the merrier...it's time to build the world we want to see, in the realest sense possible. The world's largest currently existing empire was forged in a revolutionary furnace...I'd be willing to bet it can be melted down in a revolutionary furnace as well.

I suspect you and I agree more than we disagree based on this post.

I also agree that our system is in systemic mode. The patient is terminal. What I'm not so sure about is how to take a whole world of malignancy and fix it?

I know this, the world has never been a friendly place...well at least as far as history is concerned. Right now today there are more people doing well than at any other time in recorded history (ok that could be debatable...)

How do we convince everyone that they need to work as a cohesive unit? I think a lot of us around here want to believe that the world is as rational as we are....and yes I honestly believe that the Nexus has some of the most rational people around. We are all questioning everything about our reality. How do we get joe six pack to quit rooting for which ever political party he roots for, or how do we get sally who thinks all non christians are going to hell to open up and accept another religions. These are the really hard problems. We have an entire system that has been totally high jacked by business interests and in the process our politicians have learned the art of misinformation and deception. For christs sake we have entire groups of people that want to remove science from education because it doesn't agree with their preacher. This is a HUGE problem...and it all comes back to the mindstream of each individual...and collectively as our society.

I think you are spot on with regards to personal property, but not private property, but I also know that we are two, oh I hate to use this words, relatively enlightened, people that can make this jump in consciousness, but most people can't or won't I don't think.

I also agree that we need a real democracy and not a republic of representatives. I think if we could start from a true, one voice, one vote solution we would have a shot at fixing it. Every person votes on every issue. If the issue isn't important then you chose not to vote. I also think a taxation system that allowed people to chose were their tax dollars go would be a far better solution. Joe doesn't like abortion then joe doesn't have to contribute tax dollars to healthcare. Lindsey thinks Nasa is a waste of money could elect to not support Nasa, etc ,etc. No money in government. Businesses are not people, they can't donate money to elections and they can't lobby.

But even with those changes in place we'd still have a whole world of malignant thinking to overcome.

A part of me doesn't really believe it can be fixed, because the problem is us...meaning our society, our way of thinking. It's a balance. There has to be yang to counter the yin.

One thing seems pretty sure to me. We are going to see quite a bit more upheaval in our lifetimes.

Peace

I think that most of the problems adressed are much more complicated in the sense that simply the word 'capitalism' cannot be used as an explanation for them.

On of the things that intruiges me for instance, because i believe that no economic theory has ever adressed, it is the fact that economic wealth often leads to political power.

I can see that from the point of view of economists, this is not realy a subject to dig into: a scientist likes to isolate his subject as much as possible while here, the market spills over into politics and viceversa. There is a close relation between wealth and political power.....wich distorts the market. Markets can distort themselves in many ways, but distortion through politic´s is something that is hugely overlooked by economists.

People have the tendency to both cooperate and to be competitive. I´m intruiged by why it sometimes goes right and why it sometimes goes wrong.

I think that psychological factors are much more important here than purely economic incentives. I believe for instance that some types of busines like the trade and manufacturing of weapons atract a certain type of people: people who would NOT act in a certain way because of moral objections are, i think, less likely to work in such busineses (because they are more likely to have moral objections against working there in the first place) because they are less likely to look for jobs there and as a result will be less likely to be hired as well, since people tend to hire like-minded people.

I think those kind of mechanisms can help explain the hugely unethical way in wich some sectors function, as people generally tend to be more cooperative than competitive.

Many people, in high percentage here on the Nexus, have a bad habit of linking their anger towards the world's problems to capitalism. If you'd taken 2 minutes of your time actually figuring out the exact source of shittiness in the world you would perhaps be surprised to find out that, summed up in a sentence:

capitalism is systemized peace, as it only holds that the initiation of force shoud be illegal.

Here are a few concepts that you might want to look closer at to re-direct your anger.

Corporatism - that which enables big companies to lobby government officials into granting unfair benefits or monopolies resulting in what might appear something evil spawned by capitalism, but actually would never be possible without the violence of the state.

Materialism: having capitalism as base for society does in no way imply that people should conform to the material grind. Capitalism happens to have the property of meeting demand in society, so if people like shitty stuff, that's what they'll get. Thus, the materialism that so many in the psychedelic community are opposed to has its source in the culture, not the system. If you want to change people away from being materialists, then go out and talk to them directly, don't advocate a system change that entails a fascist regime where everyone is denied the right to basic obvious human rights.

Big government: small ups and downs are natural for an economy, but the boom and bust cycles that we've seen over the years can always be attributed to government intervention (the absurd belief that a few dozen people in the state are wize enough to understand and know when/how to act on markets involving millions and billions of people).

Central banks / money monopoly / inflation: real capitalism has a stable monetary system that encourages saving and anti-materialism. Central banks, yet again state enabled, dictates that money can just be printed out of thin air, resulting in ever speeding inflation, i.e. your money decreasing in value every day. When your money is worth less next year than this year, you're inclined to spend them right away. When you hear people talking about "stimulating the economy" you know the state and its central banks are starting the printing press, BUT this has nothing to do with capitalism.

"Capitalism exploits poor people": This is a touchy aspect of the discussion. The claim is usually that starving africans are being exploited by stealing their natural resources (or something the like). If we abstract out from this scenario the essensial we see that the major issues are in fact not related to capitalism, but rather:
1. African country X does not protect the freedom of its individuals
2. The people accused of stealing the natural resources (if this is indeed the case), are not capitalists (capitalism bans the intitiation of force, remember), they are criminals.

I hope I've inspired at least a few people reading this to change their views on capitalism, because it's actually pretty great on its own, undeniably bettering peoples lives. Hating capitalism is like hating the eco-system of the earth, when it's actually the vultures you are angry about.

I don´t think capitalism is entirely unproblematic either. I also don´t think that the system could actually function without any form of government. Sometimes, government intervention is actually better for the economy and deregulation of financial markets has played a huge role in the crisis that have taken place. A company like goldman sachs, for instance, has sold products that they speculated against, themselves (without notifying the persons they sold it to). This is criminal type of behaviour that can only take place because governments allow it to (because goldman sachs is the former employer of half of almost every administration from bush to clinton to bush to obama?). A little more 'government' would actually have prevented a lot of problems there.

Anyway, i don´t think a perfect system actually exists, so any system will always need to allow some minor violations of it´s main principles. Ideological purity for or against 'capitalism' or 'big government' is counterproductive, most of the times.

At this moment, the world is changing fast. If you want things to stay the same, you will have to change everything. I think that most political debates taking place right now are actually boiling down to that simple fact. Whether it´s the occupy movement or the teaparty, they all want things to stay the same and they all disagree about what needs to change in order to ensure this.

What used to worry me, is that most people don´t want anything to change, and the more the world is changing so the more people NEED to change anything if they want to keep what they have, the less willing they are to comply.

I no longer worry about that. The changes will come anyway and people will adapt or they won´t. It´s up to each person individually to see and accept changes.

If people desperately want to keep everything they have in spite of all the changes taking place, they will loose it all. That may be sad, but it´s reality and i no longer see why that should be my problem: each person can do the maths for himself. If people don´t want to do the maths, it´s their problem.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by 'force'?

Force, to my way of thinking, need not necessarily mean the use of armaments and the like; demanding that 'free-trade' exists, the process of usury, and protectionism, can have the effect of force which can be as comparably destructive as armed hostilities but without the immediate gory bloodshed.

Good thread!

I should probably have used 'violence'. Violence is to deliberately prevent someone from controlling their own lives, hereunder body and property. Thus, violence includes physical harm, threats, fraud, robbery, physical infringements without physical harm (like rape) while leaving out accidents, mutually agreed upon scenarios like BDSM or karate fights etc.

It follows that the use of armaments against someone is violence.
Protectionism is violence since it is being enforced by the state which is being tax-funded with the threat of imprisonment if you don't pay up.
The 'free' in 'free-trade' means merely the absense of violence in trade.

Usury is a historically loaded term, but if we extract the general principle: charging interest for loaning out money, then this is not violence as long as it's mutually agreed upon.