Bazingas when you mention capitalism outside of Hexbear
Me when multiple people in my life seem to think that Capitalism is the evolution of the barter system and was invented 4000 years ago. It must be so nice going through decades and decades of life blissfully knowing and learning nothing
They literally describe commerce, something that has existed all of recorded human history. They think that commerce and capitalism are synonymous. This is proof of how effective capitalist propaganda has been.
People don’t even associate capitalism with capital markets where ownership of productive capacity is commodified then bought and sold between owners totally alienated from production. It’s why they rant about how the problem is blackrock, vanguard, or wall street banks and fail to realize they are pointing at foundational institutions of capitalism that are working exactly as intended. Instead capitalism is apparently the very concept of markets and any market activity, basic commerce and trade that has existed in all economic systems not just capitalism.
Same people tend to think capitalism invented currency and if currency is involved, it’s capitalism happening… even though just like commerce, currency has existed all across human history where there is a sovereign, a city, or a state that can back its legitimacy as a store of value used in economic activity. Electronic transfers, paper notes, metal coins, colored beads… all the same.
Capitalism is when you buy things
the evolution of the barter system
Not doing an effortpost to explain the entire history of capitalism for them to ignore and aggressively misunderstand is apparently trolling
i saw they did the classic lemmy lib strategy of replying only to the shortest comments and ignoring the people answering their questions in an effort post. sometimes u just gotta bully
See the timestamps, the effortposts are my beautiful brigader hexbear comrades from this thread, I don’t think they’ve seen them yet.
good deal!
marx failed to consider that capitalism is actually when basic commodity exchange in a vacuum and therefore not badwhat I’ve always liked about Capital is that Marx does describe capitalism in a vacuum as the exchange of labor and commodities disconnected from what those commodities are and with an assumption no government regulations exist
and it’s still full of contradictions that make it fall apart
“Even if you were right, you’re still wrong” has got to be one of my favorite kinds of dunks
Me trading Pokemon cards on the playground? Capitalism in its truest form.
And when that one kid steals your shiny charizard card? That’s crony capitalism.
Seen this one enough times for a new entry in the libtionary:
True: adj. 1. Not true, but in a way that is conventionally accepted and will probably never get called outA spherical capitalism in a vacuum
True Capitalism was two cavemen swapping personal possessions before markets existed.
It has been a steady decline towards present day cRoNy CaPiTaLiSm ever since.
Barter is actually extremely rare. Most people at most times in most pre-modern societies exchanged goods on a gift/favor system. Like you’d invite all your neighbors for feasts, they’d do the same for you, then when you hit a rough year they’d invite you to more feasts to get you through it. Or kings would take turns exchanging fancy bullshit gifts, and perhaps go to war if they felt like they were getting too little out of it.
orthodox economists literally think innumerate tribespeople in central europe were keeping precise records of how many sheep everyone owed to everyone else
This is basically communal life
It’s still a type of exchange, just less formal and rigid than modern ideas of trade. It’s community life.
Yeah. Gift/favor economies are more social and less formal than a money economy, but that doesn’t mean they’re really better. These economies still routinely developed slavery, serfdom, and vassalage.
Sometimes I go outside and hope to see crows in my yard. I have this idea where I’ll give them food and they’ll give me little shiny trinkets they find. They’re so smart that they understand capitalism.
:nerd: Umm actually, that’s crow-ny capitalism.
i’m coming to your house to give you a high five or a swirly and i won’t know which it is until i arrive
The ‘capital’ in ‘capitalism’ means nothing and is there for no reason
liberals completely making up historical things that didn’t occur. They can’t see history as a sequence of class struggles at all. They think of the development of capitalism as an enlightened set of rules between people nodding and saying “I agree.” All historical development occurs when one or two smart and probably white guys make a declaration they’ve invented cool new ideas. Then everyone nods and says they agree, and their ideas manifest into reality.
Apparently the video is about how the Unity video game engine is going to charge everyone who uses it a fee based on the monthly revenue of the game being made, which is still normal everyday capitalism. They want to call it feudalism because this somehow violates the rules they made up for how capitalism is supposed to work.
not really related but the Unity debacle isn’t about Unity charging a fee based on project revenue, but on install numbers, as determined by them through some unspecified, hidden means. they just announced this last week and were met with immediate backlash from pretty much every dev who uses their tools.
Oh I see, thank you. I didn’t properly understand the situation, it’s such a debacle.
capitalism is when primitive barter economy
“Capitalism is bartering, even though that is not historically what commodities are produced to be exchanged for.”
newest hakim video is relevant lol
literally, and i don’t mean in the hyperbolic sense but merely in the definitional sense, what he described is fundamentally not capitalism.
the term capitalism, as defined in economics, is when the considerations of “what to produce”, “how to produce”, and “for whom to produce” are decided by whoever OWNS the capital (aka the capitalist) - and capital is machinery, equipment, tools, what are known as the “means of production”.
in feudalism, a lord owns the means of production as well as the land, and this ownership was determined by bloodline and birthright. They then needed to receive the labor of the peasantry in order to get any shit done; all too often they did that through force of violence. there were some occasions where they would attract the participation and compliance of the peasantry through rewarding them instead of punishing them, by, say, providing safety (instead of merely witholding their own violence), stability, amenities, etc…
The differences between a lord and a capitalist, however, are surprisingly few:
-
there is usually little religious ideology behind the transfer of ownership of capital and it doesn’t always flow down through inheritance.
-
a capitalist doesn’t always have access to the infliction of violence in order to coerce compliance in their labor force (but they definitely fucking will use violence if they CAN access it)
-
a capitalist doesn’t always directly own the land upon which their labor force lives (but they absolutely will use it to leverage compliance from their workforce if they CAN)
but for these few exceptions, capitalists otherwise ARE feudal lords.
the people who are today complaining that “this isn’t how capitalism is supposed to be!” on the contrary are now, in fact, for the first time perceiving what capitalism really is at its core all along:
Feudalism with Extra Steps.
-
