It’s in our genetics to engage in a perpetual exponential quarterly growth and make our decisions based on the benefit it brings to our investors. Any caveman could tell you that smh…
No, cavemen were very egalitarian. This is because back then, you couldn’t hoard much of anything - food spoils quickly, sex requires your partner to like you, and personal possessions were things like tools or the odd bit of clothing. It was when wealth could be preserved, such as livestock, stored grain, jewelry, and eventually coinage, that wealth became an hereditary thing.
This is why a future economic system has to be designed to prevent the excessive hoarding of wealth. Not too little, nor too much. Humans weren’t evolved to be free of consequence, especially from each other.
Very frequently, but it is exactly just as likely it would have moved on to Socialism and eventually Communism, or retained feudalism, it all depends on when in development.
Fantastic question! The answer is no, not necessarily. The PRC is Socialist, and never had a true “Capitalist” phase. It currently has a Socialist Market Economy, but never really had a stage dominated entirely by Capitalism.
There are also reversions. Russia reverted to Capitalism, and Germany almost became Communist, but was stopped by the Nazi Party coming to power.
However, all of that being said, history does generally progress alongside technological development, and the Mode of Production follows suit.
Far less often than we end up with communalist hunter gatherers and early agrarian communes and evidently for a much shorter time. Does that mean feudalism can never work? Capitalism is never at any point of productive development possible?
If you’ve never studied an economics text (a real, materialist one, not fucking graphs with ad-hoc rules that never seem to apply and zero fucking statistics) then try not to speak so authoritatively on economics.
You’re obviously looking for an angle where you can point to your “common sense” leading to the conclusion you started with.
If you wanna talk psychology, the ultracompetitive demands of modern capitalism have to be drilled into each of us from birth, and most of us resist it all the same. Mark Fisher elaborates on this in Capitalist Realism, this learned behavior is in large part responsible for the mental health crisis in the world.
You’re assuming way too much about my motives. I haven’t even stated a conclusion. But from what I gather, you think our behavior is (almost?) fully formed from external forces. That’s a valid take, but, I believe to be highly debatable, which I have no answer or conclusion for.
You’re right, I got confused and assumed you were the guy arguing that it was against human nature. I apologize for the mistake and have edited my comment.
Behavior is learned, but as far as anyone can tell, if there’s such a thing as “human nature” we seem to be wired very much in favor of empathy and cooperation with other humans, Matthew Lieberman has a book on the subject which I admittedly haven’t read yet.
It’s in our genetics to engage in a perpetual exponential quarterly growth and make our decisions based on the benefit it brings to our investors. Any caveman could tell you that smh…
No, cavemen were very egalitarian. This is because back then, you couldn’t hoard much of anything - food spoils quickly, sex requires your partner to like you, and personal possessions were things like tools or the odd bit of clothing. It was when wealth could be preserved, such as livestock, stored grain, jewelry, and eventually coinage, that wealth became an hereditary thing.
This is why a future economic system has to be designed to prevent the excessive hoarding of wealth. Not too little, nor too much. Humans weren’t evolved to be free of consequence, especially from each other.
No, but greed and envy is. That’s why humans have written so much in the last thousand years about greed and envy.
If you ran humanity in thousands of simulations how often would we end up in the same capitalistic situation?
Very frequently, but it is exactly just as likely it would have moved on to Socialism and eventually Communism, or retained feudalism, it all depends on when in development.
Is it always a linear path?
Fantastic question! The answer is no, not necessarily. The PRC is Socialist, and never had a true “Capitalist” phase. It currently has a Socialist Market Economy, but never really had a stage dominated entirely by Capitalism.
There are also reversions. Russia reverted to Capitalism, and Germany almost became Communist, but was stopped by the Nazi Party coming to power.
However, all of that being said, history does generally progress alongside technological development, and the Mode of Production follows suit.
this rather shows the untestability of the hypothesis. this is no test at all.
What an interesting question. I have no idea what the answer is, but the question is bloody great.
So many it would be hard to count, at least 4 or 5. But numbers don’t really go much higher than that. Any caveman could tell you that.
Far less often than we end up with communalist hunter gatherers and early agrarian communes and evidently for a much shorter time. Does that mean feudalism can never work? Capitalism is never at any point of productive development possible?
If you’ve never studied an economics text (a real, materialist one, not fucking graphs with ad-hoc rules that never seem to apply and zero fucking statistics) then try not to speak so authoritatively on economics.
Your words make no sense to me. If you want to convey ideas use the common tongue. It feels like you have some neat ideas though.
people share goods and culture naturally. the prevailing historical models are cooperative. anticooperative, competitive societies are rare.
Thanks man. So this guy is an expert on economies but not on psychologies. Is that fair?
You’re obviously looking for an angle where you can point to your “common sense” leading to the conclusion you started with.
If you wanna talk psychology, the ultracompetitive demands of modern capitalism have to be drilled into each of us from birth, and most of us resist it all the same. Mark Fisher elaborates on this in Capitalist Realism, this learned behavior is in large part responsible for the mental health crisis in the world.
You’re assuming way too much about my motives. I haven’t even stated a conclusion. But from what I gather, you think our behavior is (almost?) fully formed from external forces. That’s a valid take, but, I believe to be highly debatable, which I have no answer or conclusion for.
You’re right, I got confused and assumed you were the guy arguing that it was against human nature. I apologize for the mistake and have edited my comment.
Behavior is learned, but as far as anyone can tell, if there’s such a thing as “human nature” we seem to be wired very much in favor of empathy and cooperation with other humans, Matthew Lieberman has a book on the subject which I admittedly haven’t read yet.