Global Capitalism

[Iwannaplato]

No, you're right: I don't. They aren't.

Great. You're not a slippery slope fanatic.

No, the slippery slope is not appropriate here.

Where is it appropriate?

[Immanuel Can]

Great. You're not a slippery slope fanatic.

No, the slippery slope is not appropriate here.

Where is it appropriate?

Oh, there are definitely places where it is. It's not always a fallacy, anymore than an appeal to authority always is. There are some genuine authorities, after all. Even an ad hominem can be appropriate in situations in which the character of the speaker is being presented as the bona fides or evidence of an argument -- but not in other contexts, of course. So yeah, it can be very useful sometimes.

[Wizard22]

What I said was that the word was invented "about the time Marx wrote." I did not say Marx invented it. He borrowed it, as he did most of his ideas. And, what I said is perfectly true: before that, the word simply did not exist, apparently.

Of course, money existed. And private enterprise existed. And free markets existed. And private property existed. And investment, and interest, and profit -- all these existed. But none of these was pulled into an ideological term, "Capital-ism," because none of them was ever an ideology, or even part of an ideology.

Marx needed an ideological term. He needed to fool people into imagining the world as a deathly struggle between his Marx-ism and some enemy. And because Marx was an ideologue himself, he needed it to be ideological as well. He needed it to be quasi-religious and something associated with a whole creed or belief system -- just like his narcissistic and tragic Social-ism or Marx-ism. He need the world to be cast, not as a dispute between the free and the ideological devotees, but between rival aspirations. He needed to be seen as equivalent with what he was trying to eliminate.

So, once again, Marx invented a historical distortion, and then made it into a way people came to think about things. Many people today falsely imagine there is some "Capitalism" out there, a creed people follow, that worships profit at the expense of poor, suffering proles. And greedy and stupid people have clung to belief in this illusory battle of ideologies, because they think that ginning up that imaginary conflict will yield them welfare benefits, or food stamps, or free education and healthcare. Of course, it never does: Socialism, in every case, has produced nothing but misery, failure and death. Total economic collapse is a poor basis for "free" anything, we discover.

There is no such thing as "Capital-ism." Nobody worships capital. There is no Capitalist Manifesto, no creeds, no coordination of free markets, not plot to rob the helpless proles of their labour's "surplus value" (another of Marx's idiotic ideas). There are no capitalist clubs and societies. Nobody does phony scholarship premised on the worship of capital. Nobody ever ended up in a gulag or labour camp, or dead in a ditch because of some ideology of capital. But we can't say the same for Marxism.

There is no "Capitalism." There never has been. The choice is between totalitarian Marxism and free markets. And free markets have produced the most affluent and privileged societies in human history, and even raised the lot of the Developing World's poor faster than any force in history. It has made Westerners so rich and privileged that they have leisure to indulge in idiotic speculations like Marxism.

So there it is.

Nice refutation of Marxism, well said!

[FlashDangerpants]

What I said was that the word was invented "about the time Marx wrote." I did not say Marx invented it. He borrowed it, as he did most of his ideas. And, what I said is perfectly true: before that, the word simply did not exist, apparently.

Of course, money existed. And private enterprise existed. And free markets existed. And private property existed. And investment, and interest, and profit -- all these existed. But none of these was pulled into an ideological term, "Capital-ism," because none of them was ever an ideology, or even part of an ideology.

Marx needed an ideological term. He needed to fool people into imagining the world as a deathly struggle between his Marx-ism and some enemy. And because Marx was an ideologue himself, he needed it to be ideological as well. He needed it to be quasi-religious and something associated with a whole creed or belief system -- just like his narcissistic and tragic Social-ism or Marx-ism. He need the world to be cast, not as a dispute between the free and the ideological devotees, but between rival aspirations. He needed to be seen as equivalent with what he was trying to eliminate.

So, once again, Marx invented a historical distortion, and then made it into a way people came to think about things. Many people today falsely imagine there is some "Capitalism" out there, a creed people follow, that worships profit at the expense of poor, suffering proles. And greedy and stupid people have clung to belief in this illusory battle of ideologies, because they think that ginning up that imaginary conflict will yield them welfare benefits, or food stamps, or free education and healthcare. Of course, it never does: Socialism, in every case, has produced nothing but misery, failure and death. Total economic collapse is a poor basis for "free" anything, we discover.

There is no such thing as "Capital-ism." Nobody worships capital. There is no Capitalist Manifesto, no creeds, no coordination of free markets, not plot to rob the helpless proles of their labour's "surplus value" (another of Marx's idiotic ideas). There are no capitalist clubs and societies. Nobody does phony scholarship premised on the worship of capital. Nobody ever ended up in a gulag or labour camp, or dead in a ditch because of some ideology of capital. But we can't say the same for Marxism.

There is no "Capitalism." There never has been. The choice is between totalitarian Marxism and free markets. And free markets have produced the most affluent and privileged societies in human history, and even raised the lot of the Developing World's poor faster than any force in history. It has made Westerners so rich and privileged that they have leisure to indulge in idiotic speculations like Marxism.

So there it is.

Nice refutation of Marxism, well said!

Why do so many morons seem to fall for IC's inveterate bullshit? The term Capitalists emerged hundreds of before Marx was born. Converting such terms into "isms" was a new-ish trend in his time, but capitalism wasn't new at all. If we accept mister Can's foolishness here, then "Feudalism" had stopped existing in the West of Europe before it began to exist, in the only place that used the term.

IC is an incredibly biased idealogue, his criticism of Marx for being that same thing and needing enemies because of it applies equally to himself which must be beyond obvious to anybody but himself. He blames everything in the world on the left in the same way that you do on the Jews because you are all deeply shallow, cursed idealogues.

This absurd bullshit about needing to worship something before you can have an "ism" about it is obviously insane. Nobody should need my help noticing this. Your own faculties ought to provide you with blatantly obvious counterexamples such as "epiphenomenalism"... who the fuck worships epiphenomena? Imperialism, another totally useful word with meaning, nobody "worships" it.

If you don't enough mojo to see through Immanuel Can you really aren't up to any of this. If philosophy were a video game, IC would be the end of tutorial boss at best, and not that one from Elden Ring.

There is, incidentally, quite literally a book called the The Capitalist Manifesto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Capit ... dler_book)

For other capitalist manifestos I would direct you to Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, Joseph Schumpeter' Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, or the more fun, but somewhat madder Antony Flew's The Politics of Procrustes which seems difficult to find these days, but I recommend simply because the legend of Procrustes is here deployed in a very useful way, and more people should consider it every day.

[Immanuel Can]

The term Capitalists emerged hundreds of before Marx was born.

You're out of luck. It's the term "CapitalISM," i.e., the belief that "capital" can be an ideology, that we are debating. Look above.

Now, I know you're never going to have thought about this in any depth, because if you had, you wouldn't make that mistake. But let me help you out. Here are some words:

violinist, parachutist, florist

But does that imply there is an ideology called "violinism"? How about "parachutism"? Is your florist practicing "florism"?

Once you see the difference, you can't unsee it.

[Gary Childress]

The term Capitalists emerged hundreds of before Marx was born.

You're out of luck. It's the term "CapitalISM," i.e., the belief that "capital" can be an ideology, that we are debating. Look above.

Now, I know you're never going to have thought about this in any depth, because if you had, you wouldn't make that mistake. But let me help you out. Here are some words:

violinist, parachutist, florist

But does that imply there is an ideology called "violinism"? How about "parachutism"? Is your florist practicing "florism"?

Once you see the difference, you can't unsee it.

So what is "socialism" if there is no such thing as "capitalism"? If I can't call a market where private individuals run large-scale social institutions for the purpose of their own profit "capitalism", then does "socialism" (a market where public agencies run large-scale social institutions for the purpose of being more democratic) not exist either? Or what is the purpose of having a label for "socialism" but not for "capitalism"? We humans cannot create a term for something that we observe in the world? Things in the world that we observe cannot be called something by humans?

[Immanuel Can]

The term Capitalists emerged hundreds of before Marx was born.

You're out of luck. It's the term "CapitalISM," i.e., the belief that "capital" can be an ideology, that we are debating. Look above.

Now, I know you're never going to have thought about this in any depth, because if you had, you wouldn't make that mistake. But let me help you out. Here are some words:

violinist, parachutist, florist

But does that imply there is an ideology called "violinism"? How about "parachutism"? Is your florist practicing "florism"?

Once you see the difference, you can't unsee it.

So what is "socialism" if there is no such thing as "capitalism"?

Socialism IS an ideology, and one that loudly proclaims itself so. "Capitalism" is a nonsense word, invented to give an enemy to Socialism that didn't expose its ideological bent.

I say again: nobody subscribes to "Capitalism." There's no "Capitalist" manifesto. There are no "Capitalist" theories. There are no people groups who collect around the advancement of "Capitalism." It has no secret police, no gulags, no torture chambers that serve its purposes. It has no single economic plan -- Libertarians, centrist liberals, conservatives, and even social welfare advocates can be "capitalists," in the small "c" sense, and there's no ideology involved. These groups are widely different in their aims and the methods they advocate, but they all use free markets, investment, profit margins and private property as key elements in what they aim to achieve. They have no ideology.

Socialism is nothing but an ideology. It is a totalitarian economic, political and social belief system. Really, it's an insane pseudo-religious creed, ginned into its worst form by Marx and his successors, and the single biggest cause of human suffering, murder and starvation in human history...statistically speaking...by orders of magnitude.

[Gary Childress]

You're out of luck. It's the term "CapitalISM," i.e., the belief that "capital" can be an ideology, that we are debating. Look above.

Now, I know you're never going to have thought about this in any depth, because if you had, you wouldn't make that mistake. But let me help you out. Here are some words:

violinist, parachutist, florist

But does that imply there is an ideology called "violinism"? How about "parachutism"? Is your florist practicing "florism"?

Once you see the difference, you can't unsee it.

So what is "socialism" if there is no such thing as "capitalism"?

Socialism IS an ideology, and one that loudly proclaims itself so. "Capitalism" is a nonsense word, invented to give an enemy to Socialism that didn't expose its ideological bent.

I say again: nobody subscribes to "Capitalism." There's no "Capitalist" manifesto. There are no "Capitalist" theories. There are no people groups who collect around the advancement of "Capitalism." It has no secret police, no gulags, no torture chambers that serve its purposes. It has no single economic plan -- Libertarians, centrist liberals, conservatives, and even social welfare advocates can be "capitalists," in the small "c" sense, and there's no ideology involved. These groups are widely different in their aims and the methods they advocate, but they all use free markets, investment, profit margins and private property as key elements in what they aim to achieve. They have no ideology.

Socialism is nothing but an ideology. It is a totalitarian economic, political and social belief system. Really, it's an insane pseudo-religious creed, ginned into its worst form by Marx and his successors, and the single biggest cause of human suffering, murder and starvation in human history...statistically speaking...by orders of magnitude.

So what do you call a situation in which large scale social institutions (post offices, factories, etc.) are owned and operated by private individuals for the purpose of profit for themselves and their shareholders? Do you call it something other than "capitalism" or do you not think such situations exist in economies?

[Immanuel Can]

So what is "socialism" if there is no such thing as "capitalism"?

Socialism IS an ideology, and one that loudly proclaims itself so. "Capitalism" is a nonsense word, invented to give an enemy to Socialism that didn't expose its ideological bent.

I say again: nobody subscribes to "Capitalism." There's no "Capitalist" manifesto. There are no "Capitalist" theories. There are no people groups who collect around the advancement of "Capitalism." It has no secret police, no gulags, no torture chambers that serve its purposes. It has no single economic plan -- Libertarians, centrist liberals, conservatives, and even social welfare advocates can be "capitalists," in the small "c" sense, and there's no ideology involved. These groups are widely different in their aims and the methods they advocate, but they all use free markets, investment, profit margins and private property as key elements in what they aim to achieve. They have no ideology.

Socialism is nothing but an ideology. It is a totalitarian economic, political and social belief system. Really, it's an insane pseudo-religious creed, ginned into its worst form by Marx and his successors, and the single biggest cause of human suffering, murder and starvation in human history...statistically speaking...by orders of magnitude.

So what do you call a situation in which large scale social institutions (post offices, factories, etc.) are owned and operated by private individuals for the purpose of profit for themselves and their shareholders? Do you call it something other than "capitalism" or do you not think such situations exist in economies?

That's called "free enterprise." And it's the situation we presently have: for the government run post office has to compete with FedEX, and Purolator, and all the new private delivery companies. Under Socialism, the government-run post office is all you'd have. Their employees would be paid a flat wage, whether they did any work or not, and if the post office didn't deliver, there'd be no other service you could turn to. You'd just have to accept that your mail would be slow, or damaged, or lost, if the employees saw no reason to be quick or careful. And given that they couldn't be paid more, and they're a monopoly, why should they care what happens to your mail?

But I'm surprised you think a "factory" is something sinister. All it means is a place where people are employed to make things. That can be a very good thing. In fact, the US is pretty short of factories these days, especially for important commodities.

[Gary Childress]

Socialism IS an ideology, and one that loudly proclaims itself so. "Capitalism" is a nonsense word, invented to give an enemy to Socialism that didn't expose its ideological bent.

I say again: nobody subscribes to "Capitalism." There's no "Capitalist" manifesto. There are no "Capitalist" theories. There are no people groups who collect around the advancement of "Capitalism." It has no secret police, no gulags, no torture chambers that serve its purposes. It has no single economic plan -- Libertarians, centrist liberals, conservatives, and even social welfare advocates can be "capitalists," in the small "c" sense, and there's no ideology involved. These groups are widely different in their aims and the methods they advocate, but they all use free markets, investment, profit margins and private property as key elements in what they aim to achieve. They have no ideology.

Socialism is nothing but an ideology. It is a totalitarian economic, political and social belief system. Really, it's an insane pseudo-religious creed, ginned into its worst form by Marx and his successors, and the single biggest cause of human suffering, murder and starvation in human history...statistically speaking...by orders of magnitude.

So what do you call a situation in which large scale social institutions (post offices, factories, etc.) are owned and operated by private individuals for the purpose of profit for themselves and their shareholders? Do you call it something other than "capitalism" or do you not think such situations exist in economies?

That's called "free enterprise." And it's the situation we presently have: for the government run post office has to compete with FedEX, and Purolator, and all the new private delivery companies. Under Socialism, the government-run post office is all you'd have. Their employees would be paid a flat wage, whether they did any work or not, and if the post office didn't deliver, there'd be no other service you could turn to. You'd just have to accept that your mail would be slow, or damaged, or lost, if the employees saw no reason to be quick or careful. And given that they couldn't be paid more, and they're a monopoly, why should they care what happens to your mail?

But I'm surprised you think a "factory" is something sinister. All it means is a place where people are employed to make things. That can be a very good thing. In fact, the US is pretty short of factories these days, especially for important commodities.

Where did I say a factory is something "sinister"? Or are you alluding to my contention that factories can also be publicly owned and operated?

[Immanuel Can]

So what do you call a situation in which large scale social institutions (post offices, factories, etc.) are owned and operated by private individuals for the purpose of profit for themselves and their shareholders? Do you call it something other than "capitalism" or do you not think such situations exist in economies?

That's called "free enterprise." And it's the situation we presently have: for the government run post office has to compete with FedEX, and Purolator, and all the new private delivery companies. Under Socialism, the government-run post office is all you'd have. Their employees would be paid a flat wage, whether they did any work or not, and if the post office didn't deliver, there'd be no other service you could turn to. You'd just have to accept that your mail would be slow, or damaged, or lost, if the employees saw no reason to be quick or careful. And given that they couldn't be paid more, and they're a monopoly, why should they care what happens to your mail?

But I'm surprised you think a "factory" is something sinister. All it means is a place where people are employed to make things. That can be a very good thing. In fact, the US is pretty short of factories these days, especially for important commodities.

Where did I say a factory is something "sinister"? Or are you alluding to my contention that factories can also be publicly owned and operated?

I mean, there's nothing wrong with a factory being owned by somebody. I don't see why that's even a question, unless you're supposing that private ownership is evil in some way.

[MikeNovack]

I mean, there's nothing wrong with a factory being owned by somebody. I don't see why that's even a question, unless you're supposing that private ownership is evil in some way.

But then WHY do you consider something wrong if that factory is owned by its workers?

You don't get to define socialism as Marxism. I suggest you read "left-Wing Communism; An Infantile Disorder" AND writings by some of the people Lenin is criticizing in it.

While utopian visioning might not be of use on the path, it can be useful to define what we are or are not talking about. Thus.

Envision a society where the primary social group is the commune, say 50-200 people who live together in primitive communism. However these groups interact with each other in the free market. Well picture a well regulated free market, standards for goods, etc. Except besides this, neighboring communes, communes that considered themselves kin related, might act toward each other less strictly on a business basis.

Enterprises too large for communes of this size would be "enterprises" communes could take a share in or not or would have a share in (not optional) for those of state scale.

IC, WHAT would you call a system like that?

[Immanuel Can]

I mean, there's nothing wrong with a factory being owned by somebody. I don't see why that's even a question, unless you're supposing that private ownership is evil in some way.

But then WHY do you consider something wrong if that factory is owned by its workers?

I don't. There's nothing immoral about either arrangement. But there may be things that are impractical. After all, factory ownership is a complex matter. And it's much more complex than, say, Marx ever realized...or was ever willing to admit.

We should recall, perhaps, that factories were one of the things Marx criticized harshly, because they create "division of labour," and "alienate" the worker from "the products of his labour," Marx thought. So he wasn't keen on that. But let's ignore Marx (which is always a good thing to do), and pretend that's not a problem.

How would such ownership work, in your view? Are you talking about workers buying out an existing owner, or are you thinking of a group of workers starting their own factory. Those would be quite different situations, of course.

[Impenitent]

paycheck? no, you get dividends

group ownership is fantastic...

of course you get to pay business tax as well...

-Imp

[Wizard22]

D pants is so Normified, that he doesn't even understand Capitalism versus Marxism, Western Civilization versus East, nor where he himself fits into the grand scheme of geo-politics and cultural revolution ...a sad, wasted mind.