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Capitalism and Human Nature

Conservatives and Liberals tend to defend capitalism by asserting that it is natural if not a reflection of human nature.
However when it is placed under any degree of scrutiny, this assertion reveals itself to be completly false!
Capitalism is a fairly recent phenomenon. Centuries before the Industrial Revolution precolonial and indigenious populations followed socialist and anarchist principles.
Even putting that aside human behaviour is diverse and has varied so much over the course of our history that the concept of calling any set of characteristics "Human Nature" is absurd.
The only consistent characteristic has been the abillity to adapt to our circumstances.
Therefore if the current system incentivizes greed people are logically going to be more greedy.
It stands to reason, then, that if humanity will adapt to the circumstances it is put under, we should adopt a system that would provide the most good to the most people.
As we have seen throughout it's existance Capitalism is not that system!

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MasterLee · 56-60, M

Socialism means everyone starves.

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Slade · 56-60, M

@ViciDraco And...

CountScrofula · 41-45, M

@MasterLee LMAOOOOO

What the fuck is anti-trust laws if not "interference"?

MasterLee · 56-60, M

@CountScrofula never said it wasn't

CountScrofula · 41-45, M

Literally when liberalism started and was challenging monarchies, people COULD NOT think of a way to organize a country without a king. It was an impossible thought.

Capitalism, like every other economic and political system, will have its tim eand we'll move to something out. The key is what else and if it will be better and more just.

TryingtoLava

@CountScrofula hmmm i dont wana dictatorship but i think i could be a helpful princess that gives advice

independentone · M

@TryingtoLava I'll vote for Lava for princess!

TryingtoLava

@independentone aweeeeee <3 thanks indi

TinyViolins · 31-35, M

Capitalism is such a moronic economic system. It's the equivalent of running on a hamster wheel and thinking you're getting somewhere.

Capitalists are like: "Keep buying things you don't need or we could all starve and lose our houses"

How about we just go back to learning how to take care of each other?

ViciDraco · 36-40, M

@TinyViolins when we had little, it was a great tool for innovation. But we started innovating too well and people started putting themselves out of business by selling things that would last if taken care of.

That was the end of the useful life of capitalism. That is when we should have looked for new economic models.

Instead, we decided that to protect capitalism we needed to start engineering failure and limited lifespan into our products and solutions.

And so we come to today.

SW-User

Capitalism as we know it is a recent phenomenon precisely because of the industrial revolution and the vast progress we have made in the past 200-300 years. As an economic system, it is still relatively new in that it doesn't go back more than 400 years. To that extent, you simply can't compare capitalism to systems that were in place prior to the last four centuries.

We live in a vastly different era with very different needs, desires, and expectations.

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SW-User

I do understand why we evolved away from feudalism. Historically Capitalism was an important step away from feudal society but it's time to change our current system to one benefitting all since we need to do that in order for mother nature and mankind to strive

Ryannnnnn · 31-35, M

@SW-User Exactly. If you run life like monopoly it has the same results. A small percent who have everything and a giant percentage who have next to nothing. It's further exacerbated and illustrated clearly by what energy and oil companies are doing atm, raking in billions of record profits while people can't afford to heat their homes or feed their kids.

This is what capitalism leads to, while somebody builds a superyacht for hundreds of millions, others starve and lose their homes due to inflation and wage freezes so those company owners can be rich. This isn't a society, it's a shell of a society that is extracting money from the poorest to give to the richest. They have the power to withhold resources and pressure politicians for the policies and tax breaks they want even though they don't need them, it's broken and it's been broken since it started. Even as a younger person it was obvious to me, so many people just think it's the way its "supposed" to be because they've been brainwashed.

Ryannnnnn · 31-35, M

@SW-User It's insane to me that people think this is the end all be all system we're going to live by forever, it fucking breaks every few years 🤣

hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M

Where did you dream that nonsense? Serious question. The free market has been a feature of mankind going back to the stone age. Likewise those who amassed wealth hired other people to work for them since the beginning or historical records. Communism socialism has been around for just as long. Those cultures that practiced communism/socialism tended to become poorer than those cultures that did not practice communism socialism. Something about the individual looking after his own best interest gets lost when the community (communism/socialism) dominate.

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

It's an organising principle that has survived due to human limitations and the thus far failure of alternatives.

BTW, if you are interested in nature (all senses of the word) and socialism: Kim Stabley Robinson's new book is a masterclass. I'm reading it now.

Northwest · M

I realize you're trying to make point, but the point needs to be historically accurate.

Objectively speaking, socialism, as it applies to entire societies, not capitalism, is a fairly recent phenomenon. Humanity developed as a progressively larger set of tribes, where "chiefs" got to keep most of the wealth, followed by their Lieutenants, and the little people lived off their table scraps. There was camaraderie among the among people, out of necessity, and that went away when they went up the social ladder.

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Northwest · M

@SW-User

You are refering to stratified tribal societies that existed in India and China who yes indeed had early class building.

No, I am referring to humans, period, going all the way back to the dawn of humanity.

SW-User

@Northwest Hunter gatherer societies were egalitarian and tribal societies had limited instances of social rank and prestige

Northwest · M

@SW-User https://aeon.co/essays/not-all-early-human-societies-were-small-scale-egalitarian-bands

Slade · 56-60, M

Groan👎

UnderLockDown · M

@Slade 🤣🤣

Eternity · 26-30, M

Communialism is the oldest recorded "economic" model. And it was so stable that it allowed humanity to prosper long enough for other models to form.

Ynotisay · M

Capitalism is far from my perfect but I'm not sure there's another working alternative in the world that is more attractive. The only real difference are the levels of Socialism (and in some cases communism) that are built in to different nations. When it first came to be there were FAR fewer people. We could never have the systems in the past for that reason alone. Greed exists in humankind. That can't be eliminated. But the laws around greed, in concert with the laws around voting, have created the increasing disparity we see today. That's a very new element and one that needs to be tackled. At least in the U.S..

Ryannnnnn · 31-35, M

Well I agree, more and more people are tired of rampant capitalism and it's inherent failures and flaws that only increase over time. Life isn't monopoly and it shouldn't be lived as such.

Convivial · 26-30, F

What we have now, especially in the states,, is a capitalist based aristocracy almost.. Capitalism is this for incentives but it needs a firm hand in control... My opinion

BizSuitStacy · M

Snore. Virtually every economy in existence in the world today is market based, i.e. capitalist. Capitalism is the greatest wealth producer there is...and everyone benefits. Everyone. The greediest of the greedy are government's insatiable appetite for other people's money. Government know suck green donkey dicks at running economies. It's why governments given up on communism. Much easier to simply steal from those who produce.

Ozymandiaz

I suspect what they really mean is that greed is part of human nature.

SW-User

@Ozymandiaz Yes they seem to believe greed as part of human nature lead to Capitalism but it's exactly the other way round.

Jackaloftheazuresand · 26-30, M

What good is doing good? Honestly what's the endgame? When you die, whether you were happy or sad, there was no point to it

BlueVeins · 22-25

@Jackaloftheazuresand the point is to enjoy the experience itself.

Jackaloftheazuresand · 26-30, M

@BlueVeins why?

ChipmunkErnie · 70-79, M

I suppose it depends on how you define capitalism. Personally I think most definitions of economic systems render down to most people are greedy and how will a society deal with that greed.

ViciDraco · 36-40, M

I haven't seen a ton of posts from you but given the few I have seen, I absolutely love your mind.

I have been saying lately that capitalism is like a tool. And like all tools it has its time and place. But at some point you reach the time to put down the tool and pick up another so you can get to the next step. As much as you may like using a handsaw, it just isn't going to work well when it becomes time to use a chisel or a drill.

Capitalism got us through some stuff. But we've reached the useful end of it as a tool. We're now at a point where capitalism is making things worse because we keep using it. Back to the saw analogy, we're starting to cut too much off and about to ruin the project because we like our saw too much.

Really · 80-89, M

@ViciDraco

I haven't seen a ton of posts from you but given the few I have seen, I absolutely love your mind.

Well thanks; back at you!

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

tend to defend capitalism by asserting that it is natural

That's not a defence. Lots of things are natural but we do away with them nonetheless because they do us harm.

Tres13 · 51-55, M

The biggest gun wins always

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ViciDraco · 36-40, M

@swirlie We had a pretty nice thing going after FDR, just needed to stomp out the racial discrimination and get the policies applied more evenly.

Our addiction to getting involved in foreign wars was unfortunate, but it gave us boons and banes alike.

The lean towards Thatcherism that was Americanized into Reagonimcs is really what set up our downfall though.

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