I have a bit of time to kill this morning so I'm going to draw out a few of my thoughts on this topic.
If we take the textbook definition of capitalism we get:
The way many of us tend to look at this is that we have ownership of land and property controlled by a few, to the exclusion of many who don't have access to direct profit generated by that land. Fair enough, but is there any other way of looking at capitalism as an economic model?
Lets backtrack a bit and recognize that the survival of any member or group of our species is contingent on the control of land. At no time in our history have we not been in competition for resources, except maybe when our population was so small that we were rarely in direct conflict with each other. IOW, conflict for resources is intrinsic to what it means to be a living thing in a world where those resources are finite. Put yet another way, property 'ownership' has been a thing long before capitalism as an economic model, but up until recently it wasn't quite as legalized, with no corresponding state apparatus.
This is where I like Max Weber's concept of rationalization. That is, the defining feature of our history is that we tend to increasingly rationalize, routinize, and organize how our cultures work. The routines we undergo throughout everyday life, more and more, become subject to calculation. What this can mean is that, in another light, capitalism as an economic model can also be seen as a new stage of rationalization in the organization of property. When there are an overwhelming number of people on the planet, we have to somehow devise a system that approaches fairness in who has access to property and who doesn't. Note, I'm not claiming that the current system is completely fair, but that our current economic model is an attempt at making it more meritocratic. And yes, there are a huge number of exceptions and gotchas and things that don't seem right when we talk property.
Put another way, now the fruits of our labor, market skills, and property can be protected, and accumulated toward the end of owning property. That doesn't mean that all of us are going to have an easy go at it, but at this point in history many are at least entrenched in a system where, in theory, we just have to gain some skills and everything we earn and own can be secured for us. This makes many of our lives more safe and secure, even if we aren't rich business owners.
Going back to the common way of looking at capitalism - that it concentrates power in the hands of the few - I have to wonder if economically we need to recognize that ideals only work in theory, and as a goal, and can't actually exist in practice. I believe Marx, fundamentally, had the right intent and the right (somewhat malformed) idea - that we need to increasingly work towards our communities working for everyone. However, I believe it's more realistic to let go of the idea that a 'perfect society' can actually be achieved. Rather than a hyper-focus on where we ought to be, we need to hyper-focus on knowing how things actually work in the present, so we can guide our economies into the future in a realistic way.
The Marxist stream of thought is what I'd call an 'equalization' philosophy, thought held by those who would benefit from an inversion of current power structures. It's a line of thought that's going to be present in an unequal world, but doesn't necessarily indicate a pragmatic way forward, and may just signify or symbolize current inequality.
That's about all I have for now. I'd love some critiques.
If we take the textbook definition of capitalism we get:
an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state
The way many of us tend to look at this is that we have ownership of land and property controlled by a few, to the exclusion of many who don't have access to direct profit generated by that land. Fair enough, but is there any other way of looking at capitalism as an economic model?
Lets backtrack a bit and recognize that the survival of any member or group of our species is contingent on the control of land. At no time in our history have we not been in competition for resources, except maybe when our population was so small that we were rarely in direct conflict with each other. IOW, conflict for resources is intrinsic to what it means to be a living thing in a world where those resources are finite. Put yet another way, property 'ownership' has been a thing long before capitalism as an economic model, but up until recently it wasn't quite as legalized, with no corresponding state apparatus.
This is where I like Max Weber's concept of rationalization. That is, the defining feature of our history is that we tend to increasingly rationalize, routinize, and organize how our cultures work. The routines we undergo throughout everyday life, more and more, become subject to calculation. What this can mean is that, in another light, capitalism as an economic model can also be seen as a new stage of rationalization in the organization of property. When there are an overwhelming number of people on the planet, we have to somehow devise a system that approaches fairness in who has access to property and who doesn't. Note, I'm not claiming that the current system is completely fair, but that our current economic model is an attempt at making it more meritocratic. And yes, there are a huge number of exceptions and gotchas and things that don't seem right when we talk property.
Put another way, now the fruits of our labor, market skills, and property can be protected, and accumulated toward the end of owning property. That doesn't mean that all of us are going to have an easy go at it, but at this point in history many are at least entrenched in a system where, in theory, we just have to gain some skills and everything we earn and own can be secured for us. This makes many of our lives more safe and secure, even if we aren't rich business owners.
Going back to the common way of looking at capitalism - that it concentrates power in the hands of the few - I have to wonder if economically we need to recognize that ideals only work in theory, and as a goal, and can't actually exist in practice. I believe Marx, fundamentally, had the right intent and the right (somewhat malformed) idea - that we need to increasingly work towards our communities working for everyone. However, I believe it's more realistic to let go of the idea that a 'perfect society' can actually be achieved. Rather than a hyper-focus on where we ought to be, we need to hyper-focus on knowing how things actually work in the present, so we can guide our economies into the future in a realistic way.
The Marxist stream of thought is what I'd call an 'equalization' philosophy, thought held by those who would benefit from an inversion of current power structures. It's a line of thought that's going to be present in an unequal world, but doesn't necessarily indicate a pragmatic way forward, and may just signify or symbolize current inequality.
That's about all I have for now. I'd love some critiques.