@o_o@programming.dev asked “why are folks so anti-capitalist?” not long ago. It got quite a few comments. But I noticed a trend: a lot of people there didn’t agree on the definition of “capitalism”.

And the lack of common definition was hobbling the entire discussion. So I wanted to ask a precursor question. One that needs to be asked before anybody can even start talking about whether capitalism is helpful or good or necessary.

Main Question

  • What is capitalism?
  • Since your answer above likely included the word “capital”, what is capital?
  • And either,
    • A) How does capitalism empower people to own what they produce? or, (if you believe the opposite,)
    • B) How does capitalism strip people of their control over what they produce?

Bonus Questions (mix and match or take them all or ignore them altogether)

  1. Say you are an individual who sells something you create. Are you a capitalist?
  2. If you are the above person, can you exist in both capitalist society and one in which private property has been abolished?
  3. Say you create and sell some product regularly (as above), but have more orders than you can fulfill alone. Is there any way to expand your operation and meet demand without using capitalist methods (such as hiring wage workers or selling your recipes / process to local franchisees for a cut of their proceeds, etc)?
  4. Is the distinction between a worker cooperative and a more traditional business important? Why is the distinction important?
  • jmp242@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    Capitalism seems to be a system where people try to obtain ever larger amounts of some store of value, and use that store of value to enable that.

    I may have managed to avoid using capital above, but I think capital is a store of value that a person controls via ownership concepts.

    I think capitalism inherently enables people to earn what they produce, it seems like it’s almost a fundamental of it. The problem is just that people with more capital can coerce and rig the system against people with less capital. Therefore someone who already has capital gets more capital increase from a task than someone with less capital would get for the same task in many situations.

    Say you are an individual who sells something you create. Are you a capitalist? Yes If you are the above person, can you exist in both capitalist society and one in which private property has been abolished? Presumably no. If there’s no ownership or private property, how do you sell something? Can you sell something you don’t own or have permission from the owner to sell? Say you create and sell some product regularly (as above), but have more orders than you can fulfill alone. Is there any way to expand your operation and meet demand without using capitalist methods Probably not if you use a strict definition. The state, or other group could form to do so, but I’d argue it’s not you making that decision. Is the distinction between a worker cooperative and a more traditional business important? Define “important”. and Important to who?

    I’d say it’s meaningful because it is like democracy vs authoritarianism, but in terms of the actual real world pressures driving potentially similar behavior, I’m not sure how “important” it is. A worker cooperative might tend to treat employees better, might not choose some ways to compete that a traditional business would, and probably values other things than strictly make the most amount of profit for the investors. But does this rise to importance if the collective has to act in certain ways to remain competitive in the market? I would bet it depends on whether we’re talking from the perspective of the employees or customers or society or the market.

    • OwenEverbinde@reddthat.comOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      The problem is just that people with more capital can coerce and rig the system against people with less capital. Therefore someone who already has capital gets more capital increase from a task than someone with less capital would get for the same task in many situations.

      First of all, I love this description of the problem. I agree that this is the problem with a lot of societies. Foster Farms can wield their enormous capital and connections to underpay chicken farmers (and frankly, underpay them to a point where it might as well be considered theft). And that wielding of wealth is a huge problem.

      But would you be open to the idea that – to anti-capitalists, such as myself – the moment your store of wealth is used to coerce people with less wealth and earn more from that coerced person’s production of goods than the coerced person earns for themselves, that is the moment a system becomes capitalism? Whereas, before that point, it is simply a “market economy.”

      Would you be willing to entertain such a definition?

      • jmp242@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        I generally think a “market economy” == capitalism. Mostly because as far as I can tell, all capitalism requires is private ownership and abstracted stores of value. A market economy is already capitalism because human nature - as soon as someone can do bulk purchases, they’re going to try and get better prices, and I think many sellers would willingly give them a bulk discount. It doesn’t even start as coercive - but it sets you on the road to that, and so it’s a difference in scale and not kind IMHO.

        I also don’t think coercion is a requirement of capitalism. It’s something that I think will happen naturally, but you could still have capitalism with regulation reducing it / maybe preventing it. I’d argue that a lot of the problems in current capitalist societies are equally failures of the political system, or maybe a misunderstanding of humans such that large pluralities do not actually want to use their government to make life better for anyone or themselves, but instead to hurt an out-group.