'What Caused Capitalism?'

[Abishai100]

Gauntlet Gondola


Every time you think about traveling to a gaming casino in Las Vegas, Nevada (USA), you realize that you care about the flow of money even in a thrilling or fun or entertaining way. Hence, the popularity of McDonald's Monopoly, Wheel of Fortune, etc.

Maybe feudalism was the beginning of capitalism, or maybe Italian bankers or Swiss banks formalized capitalism's pedagoguery.

Certainly, the advent of sea travel which catalyzed colonialism and globalization (and the 'founding') of the New World (the Americas) was the ancestral event preceding today's eTrade market.

Many have argued that the promotion of Federalism by economists such as Alexander Hamilton turned capitalism from simply a resource-based contract approach to economics into a global method to politicize corporations.

Why do we celebrate the English folk hero Robin Hood, the archer who stole from the rich and gave to the poor?

Whatever caused capitalism, it has certainly become a podium for 'gauntlet fantasies.'






Bugsy's Vegas

Batman: Almost Got 'Im

 

[Pksimon2007]

I think

Have had money since long before the Bible was written, so I'd think capitalism is natural and inevitible. Producers of goods and services others need or want will trade them for monies or other goods and services. Something for something in other words. I can't imagine communism came before where producers give things away for free, so capitalism woulda been first.

Wasa great old loony tunes cartoon about a shoemaker and elves that explained it well

Merrie Melodies - Yankee Dood It B99.TV

MP4 version.



Flash version

- I think you're making the mistake the author of the article identifies: defining capitalism so broadly as to make it meaningless.

Division of labor is probably inevitable, trade very probable. But capitalism? Far from inevitable, IMO. Capitalism certainly requires specific institutional structures which are far from foregone conclusions, and probably requires some form of imperialism in order either to spread market doctrine or to impose it by force.

 

[Pksimon2007]

Interesting article. By Jeremy Adelman | Foreign Affairs | 13th May 2015

Hopefully you can read this, I check them out through thebrowser.com.

What Caused Capitalism

Quotes only haphazardly related. lol But hopefully they will whet your appetite and help you see the complexity of economics in the modern world and lose the ideologies that often excuse the status quo.

"Most interactions with people that you trust, people that you love, or people that just need to cooperate with on an immediate basis, take the form of “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” It doesn’t matter if you’re working for the government, working for a corporation, or working in your family; if you need to fix the toilet because it’s leaking and you say “Hand me the wrench,” the other guy doesn’t say “What do I get for that?” It’s not an exchange; people act according to their abilities to chip in. Ironically communism is applied because it’s the only thing that works; it’s the most efficient way to allocate resources. Thus I like to say that you could argue that capitalism is just a bad way of organizing communism." David Graeber

Free Market Seductions: "The free market story is appealing. It references values like freedom, creativity, and beauty and counterposes itself against images of drudgery, dictatorship, and starvation. But the history of markets (and the firms that operate within them) is not a nature story.... Today, the dominant discourse governing discussion of markets, states, and companies is neoliberalism, and Mackey's [Whole Foods] free market business model and historical narrative fit neatly within this framework. In this vision, the economic sphere is "an autonomous, self-adjusting, and self-regulated system that [can] achieve a natural equilibrium spontaneously and produce increased wealth. "But the free market historical narrative lacks empirical weight. As economic historian Karl Polanyi argued decades ago, capitalist markets are a product of state engineering, not nature." p58 Nicole Aschoff, 'The New Prophets of Capital'

"Capitalism is the ownership and use of the concrete but dynamic elements in a society - what is commonly known as the means of production. A capitalist is someone who produces more capital through the production of the means he owns. This necessitates the periodic reinvestment of part of the capital earned into the repair, modernization and expansion of the means. Capitalism is therefore the ownership of an abstraction called capital, rendered concrete by its ownership of the means of production, which through actual production creates new capital.... However, capitalism as conceived today tends to revolve around something called the profit motive, even though profit is neither a cause of capitalism nor at the heart of the capitalist action. Profit is a useful result of the process, nothing more. As for the ownership of the means of production, this has been superseded by their management. And yet, to manage is to administer, which is a bureaucratic function. Alternately, there is a growing reliance upon the use of capital itself to produce new capital. But that is speculation, not production. Much of the development of the means of production is now rejected as unprofitable and, frankly, beneath the dignity of the modern manager, who would rather leave such labour and factory-intensive "dirty" work to Third World societies. Finally , the contemporary idea of capitalism grandly presents "service" as its new sophisticated manifestation. But the selling of one's own skills is not a capitalist art. And most of the jobs being created by the service industries are with the exception of the high-technology sector descendants of the pre-eighteenth-century commerce in trade and services." p360 'Voltaire's Bas_tards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West' John Ralston Saul

"....If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and collectivism, then libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. Society in fact requires both individualism and collectivism, both selfishness and altruism, to function. Like Marxism, libertarianism offers the fraudulent intellectual security of a complete a priori account of the political good without the effort of empirical investigation. Like Marxism, it aspires, overtly or covertly, to reduce social life to economics. And like Marxism, it has its historical myths and a genius for making its followers feel like an elect unbound by the moral rules of their society." Robert Locke Marxism of the Right The American Conservative

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." Abraham Lincoln (Marxist ?)

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone." John Maynard Keynes / E. Austin G. Robinson, As quoted in Michael Albert, Moving Forward: Programme for a Parlicipatory Economy (Edinburgh: AK, 2000)

"That was the future predicted by Karl Marx, who wrote that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. And it is the danger America faces today, as the 1 percent pulls away from everyone else and pursues an economic, political and social agenda that will increase that gap even further — ultimately destroying the open system that made America rich and allowed its 1 percent to thrive in the first place.

You can see America’s creeping Serrata [or the closure, see link below] in the growing social and, especially, educational chasm between those at the top and everyone else. At the bottom and in the middle, American society is fraying, and the children of these struggling families are lagging the rest of the world at school." http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/the-self-destruction-of-the-1-percent.html

"That was the future predicted by Karl Marx, who wrote that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. And it is the danger America faces today,

And Marx had it right, If anyone takes the time to actually read Marx people would see the history

- STATIST!!!

lol

Marx is coming back - not as a political force but as an intellectual one, retaking his rightful place as a classical economist and historical philosopher of brilliance and perception.

 

[Pksimon2007]

Interesting article. By Jeremy Adelman | Foreign Affairs | 13th May 2015

Hopefully you can read this, I check them out through thebrowser.com.

What Caused Capitalism

Quotes only haphazardly related. lol But hopefully they will whet your appetite and help you see the complexity of economics in the modern world and lose the ideologies that often excuse the status quo.

"Most interactions with people that you trust, people that you love, or people that just need to cooperate with on an immediate basis, take the form of “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” It doesn’t matter if you’re working for the government, working for a corporation, or working in your family; if you need to fix the toilet because it’s leaking and you say “Hand me the wrench,” the other guy doesn’t say “What do I get for that?” It’s not an exchange; people act according to their abilities to chip in. Ironically communism is applied because it’s the only thing that works; it’s the most efficient way to allocate resources. Thus I like to say that you could argue that capitalism is just a bad way of organizing communism." David Graeber

Free Market Seductions: "The free market story is appealing. It references values like freedom, creativity, and beauty and counterposes itself against images of drudgery, dictatorship, and starvation. But the history of markets (and the firms that operate within them) is not a nature story.... Today, the dominant discourse governing discussion of markets, states, and companies is neoliberalism, and Mackey's [Whole Foods] free market business model and historical narrative fit neatly within this framework. In this vision, the economic sphere is "an autonomous, self-adjusting, and self-regulated system that [can] achieve a natural equilibrium spontaneously and produce increased wealth. "But the free market historical narrative lacks empirical weight. As economic historian Karl Polanyi argued decades ago, capitalist markets are a product of state engineering, not nature." p58 Nicole Aschoff, 'The New Prophets of Capital'

"Capitalism is the ownership and use of the concrete but dynamic elements in a society - what is commonly known as the means of production. A capitalist is someone who produces more capital through the production of the means he owns. This necessitates the periodic reinvestment of part of the capital earned into the repair, modernization and expansion of the means. Capitalism is therefore the ownership of an abstraction called capital, rendered concrete by its ownership of the means of production, which through actual production creates new capital.... However, capitalism as conceived today tends to revolve around something called the profit motive, even though profit is neither a cause of capitalism nor at the heart of the capitalist action. Profit is a useful result of the process, nothing more. As for the ownership of the means of production, this has been superseded by their management. And yet, to manage is to administer, which is a bureaucratic function. Alternately, there is a growing reliance upon the use of capital itself to produce new capital. But that is speculation, not production. Much of the development of the means of production is now rejected as unprofitable and, frankly, beneath the dignity of the modern manager, who would rather leave such labour and factory-intensive "dirty" work to Third World societies. Finally , the contemporary idea of capitalism grandly presents "service" as its new sophisticated manifestation. But the selling of one's own skills is not a capitalist art. And most of the jobs being created by the service industries are with the exception of the high-technology sector descendants of the pre-eighteenth-century commerce in trade and services." p360 'Voltaire's Bas_tards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West' John Ralston Saul

"....If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and collectivism, then libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. Society in fact requires both individualism and collectivism, both selfishness and altruism, to function. Like Marxism, libertarianism offers the fraudulent intellectual security of a complete a priori account of the political good without the effort of empirical investigation. Like Marxism, it aspires, overtly or covertly, to reduce social life to economics. And like Marxism, it has its historical myths and a genius for making its followers feel like an elect unbound by the moral rules of their society." Robert Locke Marxism of the Right The American Conservative

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." Abraham Lincoln (Marxist ?)

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone." John Maynard Keynes / E. Austin G. Robinson, As quoted in Michael Albert, Moving Forward: Programme for a Parlicipatory Economy (Edinburgh: AK, 2000)

"That was the future predicted by Karl Marx, who wrote that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. And it is the danger America faces today, as the 1 percent pulls away from everyone else and pursues an economic, political and social agenda that will increase that gap even further — ultimately destroying the open system that made America rich and allowed its 1 percent to thrive in the first place.

You can see America’s creeping Serrata [or the closure, see link below] in the growing social and, especially, educational chasm between those at the top and everyone else. At the bottom and in the middle, American society is fraying, and the children of these struggling families are lagging the rest of the world at school." http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/the-self-destruction-of-the-1-percent.html

"That was the future predicted by Karl Marx, who wrote that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. And it is the danger America faces today,

And Marx had it right, If anyone takes the time to actually read Marx people would see the history

And another forum idiot self-identifies.

^^^^

Another white southern inbreed

- We white southern inbreeds resent being compared to that Ilk.

 

[Pksimon2007]

Interesting article. By Jeremy Adelman | Foreign Affairs | 13th May 2015

Hopefully you can read this, I check them out through thebrowser.com.

What Caused Capitalism

Quotes only haphazardly related. lol But hopefully they will whet your appetite and help you see the complexity of economics in the modern world and lose the ideologies that often excuse the status quo.

"Most interactions with people that you trust, people that you love, or people that just need to cooperate with on an immediate basis, take the form of “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” It doesn’t matter if you’re working for the government, working for a corporation, or working in your family; if you need to fix the toilet because it’s leaking and you say “Hand me the wrench,” the other guy doesn’t say “What do I get for that?” It’s not an exchange; people act according to their abilities to chip in. Ironically communism is applied because it’s the only thing that works; it’s the most efficient way to allocate resources. Thus I like to say that you could argue that capitalism is just a bad way of organizing communism." David Graeber

Free Market Seductions: "The free market story is appealing. It references values like freedom, creativity, and beauty and counterposes itself against images of drudgery, dictatorship, and starvation. But the history of markets (and the firms that operate within them) is not a nature story.... Today, the dominant discourse governing discussion of markets, states, and companies is neoliberalism, and Mackey's [Whole Foods] free market business model and historical narrative fit neatly within this framework. In this vision, the economic sphere is "an autonomous, self-adjusting, and self-regulated system that [can] achieve a natural equilibrium spontaneously and produce increased wealth. "But the free market historical narrative lacks empirical weight. As economic historian Karl Polanyi argued decades ago, capitalist markets are a product of state engineering, not nature." p58 Nicole Aschoff, 'The New Prophets of Capital'

"Capitalism is the ownership and use of the concrete but dynamic elements in a society - what is commonly known as the means of production. A capitalist is someone who produces more capital through the production of the means he owns. This necessitates the periodic reinvestment of part of the capital earned into the repair, modernization and expansion of the means. Capitalism is therefore the ownership of an abstraction called capital, rendered concrete by its ownership of the means of production, which through actual production creates new capital.... However, capitalism as conceived today tends to revolve around something called the profit motive, even though profit is neither a cause of capitalism nor at the heart of the capitalist action. Profit is a useful result of the process, nothing more. As for the ownership of the means of production, this has been superseded by their management. And yet, to manage is to administer, which is a bureaucratic function. Alternately, there is a growing reliance upon the use of capital itself to produce new capital. But that is speculation, not production. Much of the development of the means of production is now rejected as unprofitable and, frankly, beneath the dignity of the modern manager, who would rather leave such labour and factory-intensive "dirty" work to Third World societies. Finally , the contemporary idea of capitalism grandly presents "service" as its new sophisticated manifestation. But the selling of one's own skills is not a capitalist art. And most of the jobs being created by the service industries are with the exception of the high-technology sector descendants of the pre-eighteenth-century commerce in trade and services." p360 'Voltaire's Bas_tards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West' John Ralston Saul

"....If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and collectivism, then libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. Society in fact requires both individualism and collectivism, both selfishness and altruism, to function. Like Marxism, libertarianism offers the fraudulent intellectual security of a complete a priori account of the political good without the effort of empirical investigation. Like Marxism, it aspires, overtly or covertly, to reduce social life to economics. And like Marxism, it has its historical myths and a genius for making its followers feel like an elect unbound by the moral rules of their society." Robert Locke Marxism of the Right The American Conservative

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." Abraham Lincoln (Marxist ?)

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone." John Maynard Keynes / E. Austin G. Robinson, As quoted in Michael Albert, Moving Forward: Programme for a Parlicipatory Economy (Edinburgh: AK, 2000)

"That was the future predicted by Karl Marx, who wrote that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. And it is the danger America faces today, as the 1 percent pulls away from everyone else and pursues an economic, political and social agenda that will increase that gap even further — ultimately destroying the open system that made America rich and allowed its 1 percent to thrive in the first place.

You can see America’s creeping Serrata [or the closure, see link below] in the growing social and, especially, educational chasm between those at the top and everyone else. At the bottom and in the middle, American society is fraying, and the children of these struggling families are lagging the rest of the world at school." http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/the-self-destruction-of-the-1-percent.html

Marxist propaganda.

Interesting article. By Jeremy Adelman | Foreign Affairs | 13th May 2015

Hopefully you can read this, I check them out through thebrowser.com.

What Caused Capitalism

Quotes only haphazardly related. lol But hopefully they will whet your appetite and help you see the complexity of economics in the modern world and lose the ideologies that often excuse the status quo.

"Most interactions with people that you trust, people that you love, or people that just need to cooperate with on an immediate basis, take the form of “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” It doesn’t matter if you’re working for the government, working for a corporation, or working in your family; if you need to fix the toilet because it’s leaking and you say “Hand me the wrench,” the other guy doesn’t say “What do I get for that?” It’s not an exchange; people act according to their abilities to chip in. Ironically communism is applied because it’s the only thing that works; it’s the most efficient way to allocate resources. Thus I like to say that you could argue that capitalism is just a bad way of organizing communism." David Graeber

Mod Edit:

• Copyright. Link Each "Copy & Paste" to It's Source. Only paste a small to medium section of the material.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/the-self-destruction-of-the-1-percent.html

- The author makes a good point that "internalists" define capitalism so broadly as to make the term meaningless.

There is a categorical difference between manufacture and trade prior to the emergence of joint stock companies. I think that provides a dividing line between capitalism and what came before.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Marx is coming back - not as a political force but as an intellectual one, retaking his rightful place as a classical economist and historical philosopher of brilliance and perception.

yes who else in human history was responsible for slowly killing 120 million human beings!!! It is no wonder that our liberals spied for the Stalin Marxist and gave him the bomb! Liberals get everything right!!

 

[bripat9643]

Interesting article. By Jeremy Adelman | Foreign Affairs | 13th May 2015

Hopefully you can read this, I check them out through thebrowser.com.

What Caused Capitalism

Quotes only haphazardly related. lol But hopefully they will whet your appetite and help you see the complexity of economics in the modern world and lose the ideologies that often excuse the status quo.

"Most interactions with people that you trust, people that you love, or people that just need to cooperate with on an immediate basis, take the form of “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” It doesn’t matter if you’re working for the government, working for a corporation, or working in your family; if you need to fix the toilet because it’s leaking and you say “Hand me the wrench,” the other guy doesn’t say “What do I get for that?” It’s not an exchange; people act according to their abilities to chip in. Ironically communism is applied because it’s the only thing that works; it’s the most efficient way to allocate resources. Thus I like to say that you could argue that capitalism is just a bad way of organizing communism." David Graeber

Free Market Seductions: "The free market story is appealing. It references values like freedom, creativity, and beauty and counterposes itself against images of drudgery, dictatorship, and starvation. But the history of markets (and the firms that operate within them) is not a nature story.... Today, the dominant discourse governing discussion of markets, states, and companies is neoliberalism, and Mackey's [Whole Foods] free market business model and historical narrative fit neatly within this framework. In this vision, the economic sphere is "an autonomous, self-adjusting, and self-regulated system that [can] achieve a natural equilibrium spontaneously and produce increased wealth. "But the free market historical narrative lacks empirical weight. As economic historian Karl Polanyi argued decades ago, capitalist markets are a product of state engineering, not nature." p58 Nicole Aschoff, 'The New Prophets of Capital'

"Capitalism is the ownership and use of the concrete but dynamic elements in a society - what is commonly known as the means of production. A capitalist is someone who produces more capital through the production of the means he owns. This necessitates the periodic reinvestment of part of the capital earned into the repair, modernization and expansion of the means. Capitalism is therefore the ownership of an abstraction called capital, rendered concrete by its ownership of the means of production, which through actual production creates new capital.... However, capitalism as conceived today tends to revolve around something called the profit motive, even though profit is neither a cause of capitalism nor at the heart of the capitalist action. Profit is a useful result of the process, nothing more. As for the ownership of the means of production, this has been superseded by their management. And yet, to manage is to administer, which is a bureaucratic function. Alternately, there is a growing reliance upon the use of capital itself to produce new capital. But that is speculation, not production. Much of the development of the means of production is now rejected as unprofitable and, frankly, beneath the dignity of the modern manager, who would rather leave such labour and factory-intensive "dirty" work to Third World societies. Finally , the contemporary idea of capitalism grandly presents "service" as its new sophisticated manifestation. But the selling of one's own skills is not a capitalist art. And most of the jobs being created by the service industries are with the exception of the high-technology sector descendants of the pre-eighteenth-century commerce in trade and services." p360 'Voltaire's Bas_tards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West' John Ralston Saul

"....If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and collectivism, then libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. Society in fact requires both individualism and collectivism, both selfishness and altruism, to function. Like Marxism, libertarianism offers the fraudulent intellectual security of a complete a priori account of the political good without the effort of empirical investigation. Like Marxism, it aspires, overtly or covertly, to reduce social life to economics. And like Marxism, it has its historical myths and a genius for making its followers feel like an elect unbound by the moral rules of their society." Robert Locke Marxism of the Right The American Conservative

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." Abraham Lincoln (Marxist ?)

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone." John Maynard Keynes / E. Austin G. Robinson, As quoted in Michael Albert, Moving Forward: Programme for a Parlicipatory Economy (Edinburgh: AK, 2000)

"That was the future predicted by Karl Marx, who wrote that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. And it is the danger America faces today, as the 1 percent pulls away from everyone else and pursues an economic, political and social agenda that will increase that gap even further — ultimately destroying the open system that made America rich and allowed its 1 percent to thrive in the first place.

You can see America’s creeping Serrata [or the closure, see link below] in the growing social and, especially, educational chasm between those at the top and everyone else. At the bottom and in the middle, American society is fraying, and the children of these struggling families are lagging the rest of the world at school." http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/the-self-destruction-of-the-1-percent.html

"That was the future predicted by Karl Marx, who wrote that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. And it is the danger America faces today,

And Marx had it right, If anyone takes the time to actually read Marx people would see the history

- STATIST!!!

lol

Marx is coming back - not as a political force but as an intellectual one, retaking his rightful place as a classical economist and historical philosopher of brilliance and perception.

That's a sure sign that civilization is swirling down the drain.

 

[Abishai100]

Factory Ring


Imagine if a certain creative company (called Gnome Goods) sold bottled spring water as well as miniature model train sets.

It's like imagining that Perrier (the popular spring water company) suddenly branched out to marketing toys (i.e., model train sets). Why would Perrier make such a bold venture? Perhaps it's because in recent times element-themed toys such as water-guns have been referenced by eco-activists as well as society critics.

Capitalism in other words seems to breed its own kind of odd (albeit opportunistic) creativity.

Maybe what 'caused' capitalism was the basic urge to turn mercantilism into pedestrian culture (i.e., eBay).




Lionel Kiddie City

 

[regent]

Has any economist caused a greater stir in the world than Marx? Think of the millions of lives and money Marx has cost the world. Marx and communism should have been studied and discussed in most econ and history classes in America; instead we seemed afraid to mention his name.
I had a college course one time and when we got to Marx, the instructor suggested we put a cover on the small Marx book or risk being called a communist.
Marx is still used to strike fear in our political and economic lives.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Marx and communism should have been studied and discussed in most econ and history classes in America; instead we seemed afraid to mention his name.

dear, he is discussed very widely in fact 90% of college professors are very very liberal or Marxist. What planet have you been on??