Can this man's actions be attributed to capitalism just like Stalin's actions can be attributed to Communism?

And none did oppose Stalin using Communist arguments?

An all powerful government that owns all the land in a state with no free market taking stuff from people at gunpoint "for the greater good" sounds pretty socialist.

Yeah they did

Yes.

There was no government
Congo was the private property of Leo II, it wasn't the extension of the Belgian state until later.

Leopold WAS the government of the "Congolese Free State". A state by definition has a government.

Attributing the actions of a sociopathic dictator onto an ideology is a weak argument. The best arguments come.from explaining why systems are flawed. Also using the general trend of people or governments that profess this ideology can be useful but it also has alot more factors that effect it. Which is why only the general trend can be useful.

And the conditions of the average Congolese did improve significantly when the state took over.

Most of them died.

How can one grasp their rightful property without their hands? He did not respect the property rights of the natives thus could not have been capitalist.

He did however believe the means of production (rubber trees and laborers) should be seized from its owners and redistributed by a representative of "the people" (himself). Is this capitalism? What is it?

>all these gymnastics to justify CFS not being capitalist

This. Capitalism specifically spells out strong property rights, a free market, and wage labor. The Congo Free State had none of that. It's like saying Attila the Hun was a capitalist because he liked enslaving people and stealing stuff.

>Capitalism specifically spells out
Where?

Didn't Stalin also contradict a lot of the requirements of communism though?

Leopold thought that kings should have absolute power, he hated being a constitutional monarch. He loved being in control of this remote colony and dreamed of making Belgium into an empire.

The project had more to do with personal vanity and nationalistic ambition than economics.

>being an ideological prescriptivist
shiggy diggy doo

It's a basic tenent of the ideology, literally the definition of capitalism.

>Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system, and competitive markets.[4][5] In a capitalist market economy, decision-making and investment is determined by the owners of the factors of production in financial and capital markets, and prices and the distribution of goods are mainly determined by competition in the market.[6][7]

Where were the wages? Where was the free market? Where was the competition? There was none. Everything was owned by the all powerful government and everyone but the monarch and his cronies were slaves.

They were in Europe, requiring people like Leopold doing the dirty work somewhere else to others.

>They were in Europe

So you're literally admitting that the Congo Free State was not capitalist? Thanks for the concession.

>requiring people like Leopold doing the dirty work somewhere else to others

Nothing required him to do this. In fact enslaving and killing off 50% of the population, in addition to being against capitalist thought, was an inefficient way to extract resources.

So all the history of monarchy, authoritarism and really tribal domination it wasn't actually a state or a form of government, it was just the private property of someone
You should write a book and prove wrong those centuries of intellectuals, you must be some kind of genius

It technically was though
You know what feudalism implies, right?

I am not saying it was capitalist, just that it can be attributed to Capitalism.

>I am not saying it was capitalist, just that it can be attributed to Capitalism.

How is an autocratic government which forcefully seizes all resources of its citizens and stomps down on any potential form of competition capitalist? By this definition literally anything done for the motivation of profit is capitalist. Attila the Hun was a capitalist. Blackbeard was a capitalist. Stalin? Capitalist. Cortez? Capitalist. Chav mugger in Liverpool? Capitalist.

Certainly not private property in the sense we have today considering all the obligations the nobles had from one level to another.

I don't think you understand what the word "capitalism" means.

Protip: it doesn't mean "whatever I don't like".

No, because those weren't backed in any way by capitalists. Congo was a result of capitalists being in demand for new resources for their growing industries.

The Congo Free State was his personal property exploited for profit, so yes.

>Congo was a result of capitalists being in demand for new resources for their growing industries.

No it wasn't. By this logic the USA was "Socialist" because it traded with the USSR.

but the USSR was state capitalism user

So when the USSR ruined Uzbekistan, it was really because of its capitalist, not because imperialism is a behaviour displayed in any and every system of government in an agressive quest for ressources.
Really firing up my neurons

It was only called a "state" because Leopold named it so. Are the only differences between private ownership and state ownership what the owner calls his property and what he calls himself?

Yes. Any objections to it are "USSR wasn't real communism guys"-tier.

>Private ownership of property enforced by the state.
Leopold's ownership of The Congo was basically private, and his right to administrate it was upheld by the Belgian parliament.
>Voluntary wage labor.
Wage labor is typically not voluntary, but performed under some level of coercion, be it under threat of economic consequences or violence. Leopold's Congo was an extreme case, but no different from others before or after it.
>A generally free market with prices.
Like it or not, monopolies are part of the whole free market thing. They form naturally in businesses with very high barriers to entry, like rubber and ivory production in the 19th century.

>an absolute monarchy is not a state
>everything is the private property of the king
>absolute monarchy is capitalist

really fires my neurons.

You think corps don't have subsidiaries? Main difference is that they can't make up the law and use agression to enforce it, because the state doesn't like competition on it's turf.

>Leopold's ownership of The Congo was basically private

No it wasn't. King Leopold was the government of the Congo Free State.

>Wage labor is typically not voluntary, but performed under some level of coercion, be it under threat of economic consequences or violence. Leopold's Congo was an extreme case, but no different from others before or after it.

Yes it was, because there was no wages. Everyone was a slave.

>Like it or not, monopolies are part of the whole free market thing

So you're not even going to try explaining how exactly the government owning everything and taking resources from people at gunpoint is a "free market".

So since capitalims is just colonization/conquest for ressources and goods, does it mean it has always existed since the dawn of time when tribes waged small wars against one another for women, water spot and hunting grounds?
Does it mean capitalism really is part of human nature after all, and not a social construct that appeared in the last few centuries?

Belgium was a constitutional monarchy, retard.

this

>Belgium

The thread is about the Congo Free State, not Belgium.

I'm arguing against ancapism. Ancapistan would be a patchwork of absolute monarchies* that wouldn't like to be called "kings".

(not feudalism; telecomms would largely do away with the need for vassal lords, since the top dog could just call up every single tenant to remind those to pay ta-I mean rent)

> voluntary wage labor
HAHAHAHA
Dude, do you even 19th century industry?

No, capitalism is what displaced mercantilism.

>No it wasn't. King Leopold was the government of the Congo Free State.
Which was managed and treated as if it was private property, yes. Calling something a state doesn't make it a state.

>Yes it was, because there was no wages. Everyone was a slave.
The workers were (in theory, at least) supposed to be compensated in the currency of the Congo Free State, which was basically like giving them company dollars to spend at the company store, not an uncommon practice at that time.

>So you're not even going to try explaining how exactly the government owning everything and taking resources from people at gunpoint is a "free market".
Because it wasn't a government, it was a company taking resources from people at gunpoint.

>Which was managed and treated as if it was private property, yes. Calling something a state doesn't make it a state.

Being a state makes it a state. It was a state and internationally recognized as such. It was run as an absolute monarchy where the king effectively had all the power.

>The workers were (in theory, at least) supposed to be compensated in the currency of the Congo Free State, which was basically like giving them company dollars to spend at the company store, not an uncommon practice at that time.

They were not though. They were slaves.

>Because it wasn't a government

Yes it was. If the "company" actually runs the state, which it did, then they're the government.

In a capitalist system, you'd see a weaker government, workers compensated with wages, and a free market with competition instead of everything being owned by the government.

>Yes it was. If the "company" actually runs the state, which it did, then they're the government.
>In a capitalist system, you'd see a weaker government, workers compensated with wages, and a free market with competition instead of everything being owned by the government.
say it with me
P U R E

>Calling something a state doesn't make it a state.
So the US government was actually a corporation this whole time? Damn, they got me.

States are corporations with local legal monopolies on violence and compulsory stakeholdership.

Well yes, that whole debate about personnal property/state doesn't make sense because it's the same thing.

What did the USSR do to Uzbekistan, not trying to argue just wondering