You know that humans lived in communal societies for a long fuckin time before all the bullshit we know today, right?
Human nature is not greed. That’s capitalism.
Pretty sure humans have been bashing in each others heads over resources since the dawn of humanity.
Capitalism made it worse and more efficient tho.
Half the problem with capitalism is that we aren’t allowed to bash in the heads of the people who took all the resources.
And slavery isn’t capitalism? Or is that cooperative because the slaveholder says “I have a knife and will kill you” and the slave says “I don’t want to die” so it’s mutual collaboration where the slave doesn’t die but also is a slave?
Debt and slavery are not the same thing. Debt can be used to functionally enslave as capitalism does enslaving us to our wages so we can afford to exist, but again that is a feature of the coercive nature of capitalism and debt is just the enforcement mechanism in this instance. Debt and capitalism are two independent things that intersect in interesting ways.
Where did I say debt and slavery are the same thing?
I saw a half dozen messages in this thread about how humans used to be good or some bullshit, with no backing. I’m responding to that.
Prove your point with historical data or don’t, but don’t argue about some unrelated topic.
Apologies I responded to the wrong convo thinking it was the response to another comment. I think you are trying to make the point that modern day civilization is slavery due to the exploitation of capitalism but I’m not really sure of the point you are trying to make beyond that. Slavery is bad. Capitalism is slavery. Capitalism is bad.
I think we are agreeing unless you think I’m taking the position that slavery is good. Or are you trying to make the point that I am wrong because human beings have employed slavery in the past (and still do today)?
My point was simply that humans have been doing slavery for…pretty much as long as we have records. And that is in conflict with your view.
You said:
You know that humans lived in communal societies for a long fuckin time before all the bullshit we know today, right?
So what I’m saying is that for pretty much all of recorded human history we have documented proof that humans enslaved each other. Ie not communal. Slaveholding.
You then implied the ills of today’s society are tied to capitalism, an invention which came several tens of thousands of years after we invented slavery. Ie humans were shit to each other and abused each other in horrible ways long in advance of capitalism coming onto the scene.
There may not be capitalism in human nature, but enslaving people we view ourselves as being inferior to us is pretty much as human as apple pie.
Hopefully this makes more sense.
When you look at why people did the enslaving you will inevitably find someone who is creating hierarchies by abusing some facet of the material conditions of the time. Slavery is not a part of human nature.
So you will always find a person who is doing the enslaving but enslaving isn’t human nature? I dont know how to follow that logic.
Let’s take another class of slaves: domesticated animals. We’ve been doing that for a looooong time. We like them, but we don’t consider them our equals and will in general readily murder them or sacrifice them to meet our needs. Most of what you eat has about the intelligence of a toddler. Cats and dogs we enslave as our emotional support are also intelligent creatures.
Since resources are always finite all creatures default to exploitation as a survival system. Humans are good at making up stories for why it’s ok actually, but that doesn’t mean it is.
It’s in Human Nature to be violent, which I why I’ve made sure to arm my kindergarten class with knives. Because otherwise I would not be accounting for Human Nature.
(note: this is sarcastic, I did not arm a kindergarten class with knives)
you armed them with knives in a gun fight?!
They’re doing the best they can with a teacher’s salary
Welcome to todays episode of criticizing things you haven’t read:
Observing humans in capitalism and assuming greed is just human nature is like observing humans on the Titanic and assuming drowning is human nature.
One has to wonder how capitalism arose, if the traits which gave rise to it aren’t part of human nature.
Capitalism arose from European feudalism. Which in turn arose from Christianity. Which in turn became mandated by the Roman Empire right before it totally coincidentally collapsed. The decisions behind this progression were limited to a tiny subset of the local human population, the ruling class which back then was basically seen as a completely different (superior) race compared to the commoners and peasants, to the point they chose to breed with their own relatives instead of polluting their blood with that of the people below them. Therefore, they absolutely did not represent the wishes of most humans at the time and certainly did not represent the “nature” of most humans, just the ones most corrupted by power and exceptionalism in a system they created specifically to keep themselves in power and separate from the masses. They’re not human nature, they’re the societal cancer that actively rejected and suppressed real human nature.
So the ruling class, with all the wealth and power and ability to do whatever they wanted acted against their own natures to create a system which would create in humans the desire to hoard wealth and power?
Yes. When your rule is based on seizing wealth and power you’ll keep doing that perpetually so you don’t lose your place in the ruling class. The fact that they did that is more consistent with the Marxist notion that human “nature” is shaped by the material conditions they’re born into.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of peasants of that time fully accepted and even embraced their position due to all the religious brainwashing. Most had no real aspirations of power (supposedly despite their nature to desire power) because they’ve been taught their whole life that it’s better for that to be taken care of by someone else that “God” supposedly chose. If anything, our uncritical acceptance of our place within capitalism is closer to what the serfs thought.
So then it’s not capitalism which causes in humans the desire to hoard wealth and power?
Any system predicated on obtaining as much wealth or power as possible will see people fixating on that and eventually divorcing the wealth/power itself from the material conditions that they arose from. Why do you think so many corporations turn into death spirals where they try to increase profits at all costs, abandoning their actual products and customers, and then act all shocked when they inevetably go bankrupt due to no longer having a customer base because they alienated everyone with their shitty profit oriented practices? The only way to solve this is to change the system people live under.
If it’s not in human nature to hoard wealth and power, then how do systems arise which are predicated on obtaining as much wealth or power as possible?
It’s just rejecting your responsibility in the way you behave. “It’s not me, it’s the nature”
Anyone ever commenting “human nature” should be forced to explain how: (a) some behavior is an inevitable result of brain physiology, and, (b) why examples of people who don’t exhibit that behavior exist. The absence of those explanations disprove like 95%+ of “human nature” arguments. Like, “oh, religion is human nature, we must believe in a higher power because we crave meaning” - which part of the brain mandates that thought, and why do atheists and agnostics exist then?
Liberal doomerism based on imaginary restrictions, how new.
it’s not just imaginary, humans thrived of mutual cooperation for tens of thousands of years while capitalism has only existed for a few hundred, but somehow that it’s became the default position of everyone.
Definitions of “capitalism” are variable but I think it’s totally inaccurate to say that it’s only existed for a few hundred years. You look at ancient Roman/Greek society, they have privately owned businesses with shareholder type structures. One of the key influences on Western legal systems today (something hinted at by half our legal terms being in Latin). Something similar about the economic structure can be said about many historical empires, older than a few hundred years. Where does the line get drawn on what’s “capitalism” or “capitalism-like” vs. what’s not. The basic idea of monopolizing control over production etc. in order to privately benefit, is not particularly hard for people to arrive at. Heck, it goes hand in hand with “empire”, because when you have a structure based on elevating a huge number of people against a huge number of other people, it’s not a stretch to have the same structure occurring within the society, because you already have one type of inequality normalized.
Could you explain where you got your information on the historical conditions of capitalism? Is this just you interpreting what you’ve seen passively, or have you gone through the effort to find historians who have spent careers answering this question?
Seems like your comment only seeks to discredit and not address the issue. Waste of time to go down this path. My claim’s simply “something like this did in fact exist a lot longer ago than only a few hundred years back”, which is just a fact.
Yes, and it would be exhausting to entirely explain how flawed and ahistorical this is. For starters, you ignore social and property relations entirely when you imagine capitalism as “wealthy hoard money, empire make money.” Wealth disparity and imperialism are certainly elements in capitalism, but do you think all these scholars are just big dumdums who didn’t think of Rome?
I instead chose to encourage you to consider how you know what you know and that maybe you don’t actually know enough. You should consider now if that level of self-accountability is a waste of time.
My description wasn’t “wealthy hoard money, empire make money.” And I didn’t say anything about anyone else’s work. Honestly, I don’t know what ax you have to grind here, but I really don’t care. I assume you think you’re arguing against someone who’s trying to say it’s the “natural and best way” and all that, but you’re not, I’m literally just saying that these kinds of structures have occurred for millennia and seem to recur alongside broader imperial structures.
I think you’ve missed that the assuming is kinda your whole problem here.
😂😂😂
Speaking of not reading books… holy shit where did you go to school, Florida?
I’ll leave you with this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery
Few hundred years 😂😂
and it’s clear that you went to school at trump university or prager u you since you’re responding with a very maga talking point that tries to conflate ordinary slavery with the american slave trade.
on the off chance that you’re genuinely ignore of it; i would recommend googling or asking chatgpt why the transatlantic slave trade was different that ordinary slavery.
Wow that’s an interesting leap. So before we continue can we clarify: are you defending slavery (pre-triangle)? Are you saying it’s actually a good thing? I really need to know.
If so, your opinion no longer is relevant to any conversation.
If not, why are you bringing up the British/dutch slave system? It doesn’t particularly matter that stomach cancer is worse than colon cancer.
not a leap at all and my opinion is fact that addresses the reality of the propaganda.
your prager u talking point is the opinion that’s not relevant to this conversation.
Your opinion is fact and you’re apparently pro slavery. Got it, bye.
