Implying Capitalism has a central organization or philosophy behind it

This is as fucking stupid as the cunt here that told me that "Capitalism has always been with us" by citing barter trade and gift economy of prehistoric/tribal societies as an example.

There's a reason why historians don't label earlier societies' economies as fucking capitalistic, bub.

>>implying property rights didn't exist during the entire human history
Implying that's relevant

>>implying property rights were just invented in time for Capitalism.
Implying I implied that

If your definition of capitalism is "evolutionary notions of reciprocity" then sure, capitalism is human nature. But nobody calls that capitalism except you.

No, but they label it as market economy.

>All States must be nation-state

>Guy writes a book on how to play music X way
>Guy invents X music
FTFY

Not the same fucking thing.

Nope, just market economy and that people prefer to make their own economical choices.
Capitalism is a communist spook to describe normal human economical behavior in a industrialized society setting.

Nope

Market economy becomes automatically Capitalism as soon as you enter the Industrial age apparently.

So property rights where pretty much guaranteed since the beginning of civilization? Thats what you are trying to say? Even way before modern states and Industry existed? Wow, interesting, I wonder why?

Sure, it is ust Market economy and not Capitalism, because capitalism can only exist in a modern setting.
So basically they did everything exactly the same as in modern capitalism, just without modern science and industry.

So, who invented Capitalism then? What date?

>mfw OP reveals that his understanding of capitalism, property rights and the distinction of private and personal property rights is as exactly as shallow and memetic as his first post
No, considering previously most property were defended by the owner's force/violence before the State did it for them

>most property were defended by the owner's force/violence before the State did it for them
what kind of property?

As mentioned, property rights where guaranteed form the begining of civilization. Feel free to post a pre "State" (whatever you think this is) example where property rights were not guaranteed.

Personal

Are you asking a rhetorical question to be spiteful or genuinely ignorant and yet willfully peddling your opinions?

Bring an example of a society where property was not protected by law.
>you cant

>property rights where guaranteed form the begining of civilization
Guaranteed by whom? God? Or a tip of a spear?

>capitalism is human nature
>market economy is human nature
>private property is human nature
>rule of law is human nature
What's next, the internet?

The law in place at the time. It's not that private property rights where just invented in the 18th century. You can find sales contracts from the Sumerians and pretty much everyone else.
So yes, market economy since the bronze age, property rights since bronze age.

>So basically they did everything exactly the same as in modern capitalism, just without modern science and industry.
Oh yes, everyone knows the roman and incas, by example, were successful capitalists

>Having property = capitalism.
>Economic exchange and simple trade = capitalism.
Are Americans taught to worship capitalism as some sort of God?

Feudal People and Merchantilists had property, but this doesn't make them capitalist, jesus christ.

The Romans indeed did use a free market economy and had well protected property rights. Does sound pretty familiar.
Capitalism is just what normal economic behavior looks like in industrial times. Same decision making as before, now just with huge industrial plants.

Actually the point was that human economic behavior didn't change one bit, it did just adapt to the economic means at the time.
Feel free to post examples where pre capitalistic economical behavior was radically different.

>The law in place at the time.
You mean the law that says all land belongs to the king?
>Sales contracts are proof of private property
Even in pre and post capitalist societies, receipts and invoices were and can be still a thing

>Slave labor.
>Total state control of many aspects of production.
>"Capitalism."
Mkay.

This is not fucking capitalism,

at least read the wikipedia page goddamn

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

>Actually the point was that human economic behavior didn't change one bit, it did just adapt to the economic means at the time.
It's still not capitalism. I'm fucking sorry m8.

>Feel free to post examples where pre capitalistic economical behavior was radically different.
Literally the notion of wage labor wasn't present in many civilizations. The feudal peasant or the Imperial Chinese peasant for example.

>humans compete therefore Capitalism is human nature
>humans are hierarchical therefore Capitalism is human nature

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

>It's still not capitalism
No it isn't mainly becuase of the definition which needs industrial means of production.
But every other point, currency, market economy, property rights evolved long before that. So yes, Market economy = natural.

>Chinese peasant
Interesting to bring up unfree people in barter economy as example. Would you then say property rights, market economy, and currency did not exist in Imperial China?

The idea of traders existing means capitalism existed is as asinine is saying ancient egypt was communist because their farmers worked on state land

>It's still not capitalism.

>an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

So what exactly is missing in your definition?

>barter and market is capitalism

Interstingly enough, I neither used "compete" nor "hierarchal" in my post.
>implying

>an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
>all this in fedual period

Actually the statement was that human economic behavior didn't change over time, and that market economy, property rights and private investment was always the norm. Capitalism is just a definition of exactly this behavior in a Industrial setting.

Did happen, 14th century northern Italy for example. Or even better, 17th century Netherlands.

>market economy, property rights and private investment was always the norm.
except this isn't true and these things varied wildly from society to society and from time to time

Feel free to post a European society 200BC-2000AD that didn't have market economy, property rights and private investment.

>Italy.
The City Councils and Guilds would like to have a word with you.

Those fuckers determine what you can/cannot sell or but or trade in the Citta as per their laws, and the City state has command of the economy.

Also Northern Italy had Feudalism.

>Those fuckers determine what you can/cannot sell or but or trade in the Citta as per their laws, and the City state has command of the economy.
So just like today then? Like I can sell watches but I can't sell crack. Oh and I have to pay taxes?
Modern Banking was developed in Northern Italy mostly with wool and grain trade. Interestingly enough, this pretty much matches the definition of modern Capitalism.

>Also Northern Italy had Feudalism.
You might want to read that up, because there were several dozen Republics in Northern and central Italy at the time. an the citizens of those republics

You cant have civilization without rule of law, chump.

>So just like today then? Like I can sell watches
More like you can sell watches, but if our Guild of Watchmakers bitches that your watches are better than theirs therefore theirs doesn't sell well, the Citta will ban your ass.

>You might want to read that up, because there were several dozen Republics in Northern and central Italy at the time. an the citizens of those republics
And several Duchies. Milan being the chief example.

Not every italian city state was a """""republic.""""

Private property rights did not exist in several societies, and allegedly did not exist in the primitive communism stage. There are several examples of that, a barter economy is also indicative of money not entering the exchange process, thus products never acquiring monetary exchange value. Capitalism is not only exclusive to an industrial setting, (see mercantilism for proto-capitalism), but it has a very specific set of requirements such as the accumulation of wealth through the production of commodities and its reinvestment back into the production process, something that happened first with establishment of the Banking sector in Northern Italy during the renaissance. This was wholly absent in the antiquity and the middle-ages because there was private incentive or the means for this saving and reinvestment into production, what primarily generated profit was exchange or primary production of goods and the means to do these, in the first case it was slaves for the latifundia/ore mines and in the second, the peasant economy for the feudal unit.

But in any case like many posters have indicated to you in this thread, capitalism, by all academic definitions is not that. Saying it's a "behavior" is psychologically a essentializing a historical and social state of affairs.

The king was both a person and the head of state. Besides, it is not like the king owned all the land except maybe in microstates.

>More like you can sell watches, but if our Guild of Watchmakers bitches that your watches are better than theirs therefore theirs doesn't sell well, the Citta will ban your ass.
I can't really see how moderate trade regulations, of which there was always some, is relevant to this question?

Also, again, there are several dozen city states in Northern Italy, many of them republics, some duchies. However, that does not have any influence on the question as we are not talking about Democracy.

>Private property rights did not exist in several societies
Post one single example from Europe, 200BC-1800 AD.

You mean like trade sanctions? Where have I heard that term before..

This, merchant banks, Lombard trade and all that developed in the high medieval in northern Italy.

If competition and inequality are unalterable principles of human nature, then of course Capitalism is based, to some degree, on these principles. This truism can be generalised; every social system that exists is based on these principles. Indeed, every social system must necessarily be in accordance with some aspect of our nature for it to even exist at all.

Feudalism is human nature, so too are Applied-Socialism, Democracy, Fascism, and Capitalism. The Capitalist begins from the statement "Capitalism exists" to then infer something that isn't there, namely, that Capitalism is human nature itself. All societies that exist are in accordance with some aspect of human nature, political theory is quite another matter.

>Capitalists continue this in economics. They begin.

"Man always chooses what he prefers. Man chooses, therefore man always chooses what he prefers" which is clearly circular. They imply that man always acts in a rational, self-interested way as they attempt to prove it. His actions, they say, are always those that provide the most utility, because if they didn't he would not have acted. Which again assumes what they are trying to prove.

So this principle of self-interest is circularly proven. Real capitalists take this nonsensical ethics and apply it to all life. From the assumption that man always chooses what he prefers they dispense with altruism and duty as forms of selfish transaction. From a mistake they reason their way into bedlam. They circularly arrive at the position that duty, honour, charity, piety, etc are not motivations in themselves, but are motivations only if that agent receives utility from them--- that a man acts dutifully because his "pleasure" is maximised by the act.

This sort of ANGLO Consequentialism is pernicious and malign, and has warped our perception of what human nature is. Our nature is dialectical, paradoxical, and irrational. We clamor for war and yearn for peace.

Except it's not trade regulations. There's nothing illegal about the watches. They're just better. And the state backed its own by screwing with the so-called "free market."

Isn't capitalism based o "muh competition" and "FUCK OFF GOVERNMENT DON'T REGULATE ME!"? Because Merchantilism isn't exactly free.

There's a reason why Italian City States are labelled as Merchantilists, but not Capitalists.

>Isn't capitalism based o "muh competition" and "FUCK OFF GOVERNMENT DON'T REGULATE ME!"?
nope, thats just you.

see

The did have property rights, but not a free market, and it wasn't because it was regulated, it simply did not exist. A free market needs evaluation, standards that back goods to certain values i.e. like a the standard backing of the gold standard. Once a commodity can be backed up by something it can have that same steady value and be echange according to that standard. In ancient times and middle ages they had trade but it wasn't the exchange of capital (steady production with a standard value), what they exchanged was goods, which is why the problem of devaluation was a constant problem in both eras.

Also there was no private investment back into production in neither antiquity nor middle-ages. What the did instead was buy, inherit or bribe their way into more land or production units, but this was not investment in the way we use the word today (investing in business), it was economic expansionism, nothing to do with the production of capital.

>The king was both a person and the head of state
Except that is the biggest distinction between a kingdom and a State you idiots

>There's a reason why Italian City States are labelled as Merchantilists, but not Capitalists
Yes, because Capitalism can't exists in pre industrial times. However, there was no real distinction besides that.

Again, post one (1) example of a Society in Europe 200bc-1800 ad where property rights were not a thing.

Ok, I'll tell the United Kingdom abour your huge discovery.

I never meant ancient to modern Europe, I meant either the "primitive" societies we find for the Pacific islanders, native americans, some asian societies, and of course the collectivist phase of neolithic, early bronze age europe.

>In ancient times and middle ages they had trade but it wasn't the exchange of capital (steady production with a standard value), what they exchanged was goods, which is why the problem of devaluation was a constant problem in both eras.
How would you describe the early merchant banks in norhtern Italy and especially the wool and grain trade at the time if not a market economy?

If anything is against human nature, it is the Anglo.

Yes, And i was talking about cultures that at least have reached bronze age status.
Notice how far way you have to go fishing for a non-property-righs non-market-economy society.

It was a market economy and it was proto-capitalism. As I said in another post crucial to the development of mercantilism was banking which developed in N.Italy and the low countries (the infamous Lombards) . This allowed for capital accumulation, standardization of prices, reinvestment back into production in order to produce surpluses. It required accuracy in accounting, bookkeeping and standardized trade practices.

Closer to insect, or perhaps tapeworm nature indeed indeed...

Middle-ages and Antiquity did not have free markets, they did have property rights however.

The monarch literally gave up constitutional power to the Westminster. IIRC the monarchy even get their budget from them

>literally everyone in the thread completely misunderstands OP

He's not arguing that """"Capitalism"""" was around forever but that the human method of economic behavior that makes up capitalism has always been in place. In which case, I'm inclined to say he is right but only because it's vague and unimportant.

yes it's trivial, which is why the thread moved onto more interesting related topics.

>rent is anything other than parasitic behavior that ought to be eliminated

>distinction of private and personal property
Please explain.

>Middle-ages and Antiquity did not have free markets
Yes they did, they had many markets. For example the wool market in Florence.

Agreed. A hunter-gatherer society isn’t necessarily capitalist, but an extremely complex society like our own tends towards capitalism no matter what.

As if cartels would contradict capitalism.

But doesn't that mean that if humans have a unchangeable natural economic behavior, and this behavior only adapts to circumstances, that capitalism is indeed "natural" in a sensed that it just evolved and wasn't "invented"?

Privat property is your house. You have a state backed contract acknowledging that land as yours.

Personal property is your toothbrush. You have no contract for your ownership over it but everyone in the house agrees it's yours.

But I have a contract for my toothbrush...

I got the receipt for my tooth brush with date of sale and tax payed on it. Your point is moot and you just made that distinction up yourself.

Also a contract is not a piece of paper

What does it mean to invent something? Did Newton invent gravity? No, he just discovered its laws, just like Adams discovered the laws of capitalism

So we can agree that capitalism evolved without a central organ or thinker and Adams was just the guy who described it first.

Last contract I signed was exactly this, a piece of paper.

Err, Smith not Adams.

Your mom did not need any paperwork and it still was a contract

Sounds very sketchy, likely you just made that up for the sake of arguing.

I admit the distinction is rather arbitrary but you must be retarded if you can't tell the difference between the two examples.

>Implying aasigning value to pieces of paper is a good idea
>Implying barter system/coin isnt kino

There is no difference between the two, I own my house just as I own my car, my glasses or my tooth brush. Increasing value doesn't change a thing.
I'm pretty sure you cannot produce any source for this distinction in the literature at all. Mostly because you just made it up for the sake of arguing.

Receipts and contracts are not ledgers you morons

wrong

private property is things you derive no or very little use-value from but are still allowed exclusive use of it through the state, allowing you to extract rent from others. for example, land you don't personally tend, houses you frequently leave empty or rent out for profit, patents and copyrights, taxi medallions, factory equipment you don't personally work

personal property is things you derive use-value from yourself which others being able to use would deprive you of. for example, your laptop, your toothbrush, your car, your house

>implying you need a ledger to have property rights.

Apart from semantics, is this any relevant to the discussion? Also, any literature on the distinction between private and personal property? Or is this just out of anons ass?

>guy gives bad definition
>"wrong"

Wasn't Ancient Egypt technically "socialist" ?