Right, which is why I said “in our timeline.” The concept of capitalism is not inherently racist, but historically racism has always been part of it. Kind of like how the fact that communist countries have failed historically does not mean that communism itself is always doomed to fail.
Only one communist country “failed” and that was the USSR. Every other communist revolution is still in existence. And even when we say the USSR “failed” we mean that it succeeded in so many ways, including successfully overthrowing an empire, poverty alleviation, famine alleviation, military victory over the Third Reich, educational advancement, medical advancement, space exploration advancement, and on and on.
Right, which is why I said “in our timeline.” The concept of capitalism is not inherently racist, but historically racism has always been part of it.
What you said was “In our timeline, it’s mostly white dudes.” What I said was that the foundation of capitalism rested on violent human trafficking, violent slavery, and violent extraction. While we could potentially develop a concept of capitalism that isn’t racist, I don’t know that we’ve proven that. It’s obviously possible to talk about capitalism and ignore racism, just like it’s possible to talk about the US and ignore indigenous genocide, but I don’t think we can develop a concept of the US that doesn’t inherently have indigenous genocide in it.
Capitalism required substantial accumulation of extreme wealth, which seems like it may have only been possible through extreme exploitation and it’s unclear whether such extreme exploitation is possible without something like racism to divide the world’s people into those that can be exploited without limit and those that reap the benefits.
I don’t think we can develop a concept of the US that doesn’t inherently have indigenous genocide in it.
The US is a physical place. Capitalism is not a physical thing.
it’s unclear whether such extreme exploitation is possible without something like racism to divide the world’s people into those that can be exploited without limit and those that reap the benefits.
Capitalism is a historical process that emerged from specific physical conditions on the planet we call earth and is the physical and logical relationship between real physical things in real physical human society.
Again, academically we can try to abstract it into a concept and then mentally divorce it from its history, but physically speaking it’s a physical phenomenon, just as history is a physical phenomenon.
That’s why I said it’s more like being able to talk about the USA while ignoring genocide but can’t truly conceptualize a USA without genocide. We can talk about capitalism as though it’s abstract but what we’re really doing is ignoring history when we do that. I don’t think it’s possible to conceive of capitalism without racism, I think it’s only possible to talk about capitalism without racism.
I don’t think it’s possible to conceive of capitalism without racism, I think it’s only possible to talk about capitalism without racism.
The reason I’m pushing back so much on this is that people do the exact same thing with communism. It has a history that includes violence and suffering, so they assume it inherently must lead to violence and suffering. That is not the case. Nor is it the case that capitalism must lead to racism, or that it must utilize racism, even though I agree that’s how it has happened in our world. We can acknowledge our shitty history while also leaving room to imagine a better future.
Capital is a physical thing. The people who engage in capitalism, the products bought and sold, typically are physical things. Capitalism itself is not.
That’s a good challenge. I think there’s a difference. You’re challenge will force me to wrestle with it. I am grateful for the dialog.
Let’s start with capitalism as a totalizing system versus communism as a non-totalizing system.
Attempt 1
The Chinese movement for communism is historically posterior to Russian communism. That is true. However, Russian communism and Chinese communism did not become a single Communism, they maintained a boundary and eventually had a formal break. Capitalism, on the other hand, is international. It started in Holland, but the superstructural components (usually laws) were easily to replicate and harmonize, and the concentrative nature of capitalism meant that a single dominant capitalist regime induced harmonization in every other polity attempting to participate in the wealth distribution.
There is one capitalism in the world today, but there are 5 communisms (China, Vietnam, Laos, DPRK, Cuba). These 5 communisms do not compose a single system, they are 5 distinct historical processes. There is only one historical process of capitalism in the world today. And even the communisms are deeply integrated into that global process of capitalism, because it is a totalizing global process that controls incentives across all global commodities.
Attempt 2
Capitalism emerged in physics (or in practice) first and later was described by theory. In contrast, communism starts from theory and later emerges in physics (in practice). That is to say the theory of capitalism is descriptive, and the theory of communism is prescriptive.
This explains why it’s possible for multiple communisms to exist but not multiple capitalisms. Capitalism happened. It took over the world. And then people described it in the abstract.
Communism was described in the abstract. It was described by people analyzing capitalism and prescribing an alternative. Then people tried to put it into practice.
In this way, communisms can independently emerge whereas capitalisms cannot. In the future when communism has taken over the world, we can agree that the specific communism that exists at that time will be inextricable from the historical processes that produced it. But Cuban communism was not produced by nor produced Vietnamese communism. They are distinct historical processes that share a common ideological history but do not share a material history. By contrast, the capitalism in China is 100% the same capitalism as the rest of the world, which is why it needs to be subservient to the party. If the party didn’t dominate the capitalism in China. Then the incentives in total would be set by the West. With the party dominant, incentives set by the West can be counteracted.
I believe this demonstrates how there is materially only one capitalism but materially multiple communisms.
Attempt 3
Even if we grant that capitalism can be fully abstracted into a theoretical construct, I think that capitalism theoretically can only happen with a massive concentration of wealth held by an ultraminority that the supermajority relies on but does not control. Capitalism requires capital in the form of hoarded liquidity. Without hoarded liquidity, capitalism can never materialize. If that’s the case, the question becomes “how can such a hoard be amassed?”. I would contend that the empirical record shows that the only way to amass that much wealth concentration is the exploitation of a huge portion of the world’s population - specifically a larger portion of the world’s population than any single nation contains. That means that capitalism requires transnational exploitation, which is exactly what we see with the East India Company.
If that’s the case, a given that humans are imbued with empathy by virtue of their neurology, it would seem that, to produce capitalism it becomes necessary to create some system that overrides innate empathy for other human beings.
In this formulation, I can concede that abstract capitalism doesn’t rely on concrete EuroRacism, but from a functional perspective, it will always require something functionally equivalent to EuroRacism as long as we’re talking about Planet Earth, with all of its various starting conditions. Maybe there’s another physics where capitalism doesn’t require it, but I am unaware of any theory along these lines.
Done
So that’s all I got. Thanks again for the challenge. I’m not entirely satisfied with my response, but it’s an initial set of approaches that I think point in the direction I’m facing.
I apologize for losing my patience yesterday. You seem very knowledgeable and I like what you’re trying to do.
I think that capitalism theoretically can only happen with a massive concentration of wealth held by an ultraminority that the supermajority relies on but does not control.
Out of curiosity, could a version of capitalism with limits potentially prevent exploitation? Currently, the rich are able to use their resources to influence laws that keep the wealth gap growing. But what if the laws were written to prevent grotesque wealth accumulation, or if technology was somehow applied to create a currency that reports every transaction (like a non-mineable cryptocurrency) where each person is allotted a certain amount and is not allowed to exceed a certain cap? The purchasing power could be adjusted based on the population size. Something where every person could afford a home, but no one can purchase a mansion, for example.
Downsides might include a lack of privacy, every transaction would have to be on record. And if you purchase a house and it counts as part of your wealth, what happens if it gets destroyed in a storm? Maybe the government would appraise the damage and either reclaim the materials and refund the owner, or restore the house to its valued amount. I don’t have a clear vision, just some scattered ideas.
Thanks again for the challenge.
You are welcome. Thank you for the thoughtful responses.
I’m not entirely satisfied with my response, but it’s an initial set of approaches that I think point in the direction I’m facing.
The part that has me thinking is the distinction between capitalism as descriptive and communism as prescriptive. But history is complicated, sometimes it is difficult to draw a line between the start and end of events or processes. I think of communalism as being similar to communism, and multiple tribes from around the world naturally discovered it. Is communism a new phenomenon, or a return to what we had before? Maybe humanity is undoing a long-standing mistake.
Personally, I wonder whether we could develop a society with no need for money. If the average person could understand that cooperation is better for us all, we could share workloads and resources with no currency to hoard. We already have sufficient technology to track need and production, the internet allows humans all over the world to communicate almost instantly with each other. We would want to be very careful about how we quantify needs and deeds, but maybe something like that could work.
Thank you for your patience. You don’t have to dive too deeply into my hypotheticals, they might not hold any weight and I don’t want to waste your time.
Right, which is why I said “in our timeline.” The concept of capitalism is not inherently racist, but historically racism has always been part of it. Kind of like how the fact that communist countries have failed historically does not mean that communism itself is always doomed to fail.
Only one communist country “failed” and that was the USSR. Every other communist revolution is still in existence. And even when we say the USSR “failed” we mean that it succeeded in so many ways, including successfully overthrowing an empire, poverty alleviation, famine alleviation, military victory over the Third Reich, educational advancement, medical advancement, space exploration advancement, and on and on.
What you said was “In our timeline, it’s mostly white dudes.” What I said was that the foundation of capitalism rested on violent human trafficking, violent slavery, and violent extraction. While we could potentially develop a concept of capitalism that isn’t racist, I don’t know that we’ve proven that. It’s obviously possible to talk about capitalism and ignore racism, just like it’s possible to talk about the US and ignore indigenous genocide, but I don’t think we can develop a concept of the US that doesn’t inherently have indigenous genocide in it.
Capitalism required substantial accumulation of extreme wealth, which seems like it may have only been possible through extreme exploitation and it’s unclear whether such extreme exploitation is possible without something like racism to divide the world’s people into those that can be exploited without limit and those that reap the benefits.
The US is a physical place. Capitalism is not a physical thing.
…in our timeline.
Either way, thank you for the history lessons.
On this we disagree.
It literally is not a physical thing.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalism
The fuck is wrong with you?Define “capitalism,”, please.(ETA strikethrough to unwarranted rudeness. Sorry for losing my patience.)
Capitalism is a historical process that emerged from specific physical conditions on the planet we call earth and is the physical and logical relationship between real physical things in real physical human society.
Again, academically we can try to abstract it into a concept and then mentally divorce it from its history, but physically speaking it’s a physical phenomenon, just as history is a physical phenomenon.
That’s why I said it’s more like being able to talk about the USA while ignoring genocide but can’t truly conceptualize a USA without genocide. We can talk about capitalism as though it’s abstract but what we’re really doing is ignoring history when we do that. I don’t think it’s possible to conceive of capitalism without racism, I think it’s only possible to talk about capitalism without racism.
The reason I’m pushing back so much on this is that people do the exact same thing with communism. It has a history that includes violence and suffering, so they assume it inherently must lead to violence and suffering. That is not the case. Nor is it the case that capitalism must lead to racism, or that it must utilize racism, even though I agree that’s how it has happened in our world. We can acknowledge our shitty history while also leaving room to imagine a better future.
Capital is a physical thing. The people who engage in capitalism, the products bought and sold, typically are physical things. Capitalism itself is not.
That’s a good challenge. I think there’s a difference. You’re challenge will force me to wrestle with it. I am grateful for the dialog.
Let’s start with capitalism as a totalizing system versus communism as a non-totalizing system.
Attempt 1
The Chinese movement for communism is historically posterior to Russian communism. That is true. However, Russian communism and Chinese communism did not become a single Communism, they maintained a boundary and eventually had a formal break. Capitalism, on the other hand, is international. It started in Holland, but the superstructural components (usually laws) were easily to replicate and harmonize, and the concentrative nature of capitalism meant that a single dominant capitalist regime induced harmonization in every other polity attempting to participate in the wealth distribution.
There is one capitalism in the world today, but there are 5 communisms (China, Vietnam, Laos, DPRK, Cuba). These 5 communisms do not compose a single system, they are 5 distinct historical processes. There is only one historical process of capitalism in the world today. And even the communisms are deeply integrated into that global process of capitalism, because it is a totalizing global process that controls incentives across all global commodities.
Attempt 2
Capitalism emerged in physics (or in practice) first and later was described by theory. In contrast, communism starts from theory and later emerges in physics (in practice). That is to say the theory of capitalism is descriptive, and the theory of communism is prescriptive.
This explains why it’s possible for multiple communisms to exist but not multiple capitalisms. Capitalism happened. It took over the world. And then people described it in the abstract.
Communism was described in the abstract. It was described by people analyzing capitalism and prescribing an alternative. Then people tried to put it into practice.
In this way, communisms can independently emerge whereas capitalisms cannot. In the future when communism has taken over the world, we can agree that the specific communism that exists at that time will be inextricable from the historical processes that produced it. But Cuban communism was not produced by nor produced Vietnamese communism. They are distinct historical processes that share a common ideological history but do not share a material history. By contrast, the capitalism in China is 100% the same capitalism as the rest of the world, which is why it needs to be subservient to the party. If the party didn’t dominate the capitalism in China. Then the incentives in total would be set by the West. With the party dominant, incentives set by the West can be counteracted.
I believe this demonstrates how there is materially only one capitalism but materially multiple communisms.
Attempt 3
Even if we grant that capitalism can be fully abstracted into a theoretical construct, I think that capitalism theoretically can only happen with a massive concentration of wealth held by an ultraminority that the supermajority relies on but does not control. Capitalism requires capital in the form of hoarded liquidity. Without hoarded liquidity, capitalism can never materialize. If that’s the case, the question becomes “how can such a hoard be amassed?”. I would contend that the empirical record shows that the only way to amass that much wealth concentration is the exploitation of a huge portion of the world’s population - specifically a larger portion of the world’s population than any single nation contains. That means that capitalism requires transnational exploitation, which is exactly what we see with the East India Company.
If that’s the case, a given that humans are imbued with empathy by virtue of their neurology, it would seem that, to produce capitalism it becomes necessary to create some system that overrides innate empathy for other human beings.
In this formulation, I can concede that abstract capitalism doesn’t rely on concrete EuroRacism, but from a functional perspective, it will always require something functionally equivalent to EuroRacism as long as we’re talking about Planet Earth, with all of its various starting conditions. Maybe there’s another physics where capitalism doesn’t require it, but I am unaware of any theory along these lines.
Done
So that’s all I got. Thanks again for the challenge. I’m not entirely satisfied with my response, but it’s an initial set of approaches that I think point in the direction I’m facing.
I apologize for losing my patience yesterday. You seem very knowledgeable and I like what you’re trying to do.
Out of curiosity, could a version of capitalism with limits potentially prevent exploitation? Currently, the rich are able to use their resources to influence laws that keep the wealth gap growing. But what if the laws were written to prevent grotesque wealth accumulation, or if technology was somehow applied to create a currency that reports every transaction (like a non-mineable cryptocurrency) where each person is allotted a certain amount and is not allowed to exceed a certain cap? The purchasing power could be adjusted based on the population size. Something where every person could afford a home, but no one can purchase a mansion, for example.
Downsides might include a lack of privacy, every transaction would have to be on record. And if you purchase a house and it counts as part of your wealth, what happens if it gets destroyed in a storm? Maybe the government would appraise the damage and either reclaim the materials and refund the owner, or restore the house to its valued amount. I don’t have a clear vision, just some scattered ideas.
You are welcome. Thank you for the thoughtful responses.
The part that has me thinking is the distinction between capitalism as descriptive and communism as prescriptive. But history is complicated, sometimes it is difficult to draw a line between the start and end of events or processes. I think of communalism as being similar to communism, and multiple tribes from around the world naturally discovered it. Is communism a new phenomenon, or a return to what we had before? Maybe humanity is undoing a long-standing mistake.
Personally, I wonder whether we could develop a society with no need for money. If the average person could understand that cooperation is better for us all, we could share workloads and resources with no currency to hoard. We already have sufficient technology to track need and production, the internet allows humans all over the world to communicate almost instantly with each other. We would want to be very careful about how we quantify needs and deeds, but maybe something like that could work.
Thank you for your patience. You don’t have to dive too deeply into my hypotheticals, they might not hold any weight and I don’t want to waste your time.