Another word is needed, this one has become so baggy as to be meaningless. Capitalism has been the predominant economic system across the world for centuries now. It just means the accumulation of surpluses, creating economic growth. It has no a-priori about what’s done with the surpluses.
Just as the Gilded Age and today’s broligarchy were underpinned by capitalism, so were New Deal liberalism and 1980s Swedish social democracy. That last model in particular created a society that was freer and fairer (so: less evil) than any ostensibly “non-capitalist” one has ever been.
Capitalism is a doctrine that’s been created in the 19th century and is basically based on private property and accumulation of wealth. It does mean something very simple in fact. And it has nothing to do with democracy or oligarchy.
In French we call the precious system the old regime. It was based on privileges and heredity, not wealth and private property.
That’s the fundamentals of the organisation of the society. In Europe capitalism after ww2 was made less damaging to the society because communism was a threat and capitalism had to be seen as a good alternative.
But ultimately capitalism is a sickness that leads to the exact same kind of feudalism that the old regime did. Musk and Trump are merely using the system as intended: they leverage their wealth to get power.
I think the term fits fine. The surpluses go to the owners of the means of production (barring “state capitalism” I suppose). These surpluses are actually the true value of the workers’ labor that the owners take, which is why I think capitalism is immoral, but that’s not really related to my point. The system incentivizes the owners to maximize these surpluses, which means paying the workers as little as possible, and charging customers as much as possible. I.e. the system incentivizes greed.
Social democracies are absolutely better than unchecked capitalism, but it’s my opinion that they’ll never be able to stop from regressing (they have been, as I understand it). Because of the owners’ place in the hierarchy and outsized wealth and influence, they will always be able to push governments to their benefit, and then it just keeps snowballing as they gain more wealth and influence. Admittedly, very strong unions can counteract this, and were responsible for them becoming social democracies in the first place.
Yes, your theory about inevitable concentration sounds like the one of Thomas Piketty (where war functions to keep a lid on the concentration). Depressingly persuasive.
Personally, I find it hard to deny that capitalism has been incredibly successful at creating abundance seemingly out of nothing. I see it as a kind of ingenious roaring engine, the whole question is how to somehow harness it to good purposes.
And also how to turn it off. Because I think that the abundance does not come magically out of nowhere, as orthodox economics seem to believe. It comes from plundering the natural world, which the human economy sits on top of.
Capitalism did nothing. Scientific discoveries and the philosophy that extracted themselves from stagnating religions allowed for unparalleled progresses.
It’s good to be angry at capitalism, because capitalism holds unchecked capital acquisition as a foundational right. We know that doesn’t work in a globally connected world, if it ever worked.
Notice that there’s no right to accommodate infinite capital in the phrase I used. And there’s also no complete ban on private property.
The things that work are usually not any of the crap spouted by vocal greedy world leaders.
We need to clip the right that capitalism gives to billionaire, and then see where we stand in the rest of the rules, and decide together what we want to change. We’re likely to find a lot more confortable compromises, after the billionaires thumbs are off the scales.
Another word is needed, this one has become so baggy as to be meaningless. Capitalism has been the predominant economic system across the world for centuries now. It just means the accumulation of surpluses, creating economic growth. It has no a-priori about what’s done with the surpluses.
Just as the Gilded Age and today’s broligarchy were underpinned by capitalism, so were New Deal liberalism and 1980s Swedish social democracy. That last model in particular created a society that was freer and fairer (so: less evil) than any ostensibly “non-capitalist” one has ever been.
Capitalism is a doctrine that’s been created in the 19th century and is basically based on private property and accumulation of wealth. It does mean something very simple in fact. And it has nothing to do with democracy or oligarchy.
In French we call the precious system the old regime. It was based on privileges and heredity, not wealth and private property.
That’s the fundamentals of the organisation of the society. In Europe capitalism after ww2 was made less damaging to the society because communism was a threat and capitalism had to be seen as a good alternative.
But ultimately capitalism is a sickness that leads to the exact same kind of feudalism that the old regime did. Musk and Trump are merely using the system as intended: they leverage their wealth to get power.
I think the term fits fine. The surpluses go to the owners of the means of production (barring “state capitalism” I suppose). These surpluses are actually the true value of the workers’ labor that the owners take, which is why I think capitalism is immoral, but that’s not really related to my point. The system incentivizes the owners to maximize these surpluses, which means paying the workers as little as possible, and charging customers as much as possible. I.e. the system incentivizes greed.
Social democracies are absolutely better than unchecked capitalism, but it’s my opinion that they’ll never be able to stop from regressing (they have been, as I understand it). Because of the owners’ place in the hierarchy and outsized wealth and influence, they will always be able to push governments to their benefit, and then it just keeps snowballing as they gain more wealth and influence. Admittedly, very strong unions can counteract this, and were responsible for them becoming social democracies in the first place.
Yes, your theory about inevitable concentration sounds like the one of Thomas Piketty (where war functions to keep a lid on the concentration). Depressingly persuasive.
Personally, I find it hard to deny that capitalism has been incredibly successful at creating abundance seemingly out of nothing. I see it as a kind of ingenious roaring engine, the whole question is how to somehow harness it to good purposes.
And also how to turn it off. Because I think that the abundance does not come magically out of nowhere, as orthodox economics seem to believe. It comes from plundering the natural world, which the human economy sits on top of.
Capitalism did nothing. Scientific discoveries and the philosophy that extracted themselves from stagnating religions allowed for unparalleled progresses.
The target is well regulated free trade.
It’s good to be angry at capitalism, because capitalism holds unchecked capital acquisition as a foundational right. We know that doesn’t work in a globally connected world, if it ever worked.
Notice that there’s no right to accommodate infinite capital in the phrase I used. And there’s also no complete ban on private property.
The things that work are usually not any of the crap spouted by vocal greedy world leaders.
We need to clip the right that capitalism gives to billionaire, and then see where we stand in the rest of the rules, and decide together what we want to change. We’re likely to find a lot more confortable compromises, after the billionaires thumbs are off the scales.