• Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I think that requires losing some of Capitalism’s ideological tent poles. Like free trade. You obviously can’t have free trade while the British and Dutch East Indies Companies are having a state sanctioned war over who gets the rum plantations.

    If you want to rely on profit seeking and markets then you can say Capitalism goes all the way back to ancient times.

    I do agree that looking at it’s birth is enough to disqualify it, but that birth is in the mid Industrial Revolution, not the Renaissance.

    • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      There’s no such thing as free trade and there never had been. I would have to disagree that its an ideological tent pole. It’s high school propaganda, made specifically to sell an appallingly unfair and un-free economic system. Unfortunately, you’ve shown yourself to be smart enough to have to be held to a higher standard than that.

      In fact, using the same logic you presented, we wouldn’t be living under capitalism now. After all, you can’t have free trade when the American and Russian military industrial complexes were having a state sanctioned war over who gets the oil plantations…

      Sorry, no, not profit seeking markets. Thats not even close what I said. I very clearly pointed out the commonly accepted birth of capitalism: the invention of joint stock companies and the risk mitigation that arose around it (the invention of capital or the capitalisation of assets, with a view to a profit). Although, ultimately, capitalism’s roots can be traced back to the slave economy of the Romans (which is why right wingers love them so much) but I don’t imagine thats what you meant.

      The industrial revolution, like capitalism, started during the renaissance. The “mid” part youre thinking of is the expansion of capitalism, not its origin.

      If not, as universities have accepted, the invention of capital, at what point did the formation of joint stock companies develop into capitalism and what specifically changed it to capitalism from, presumably, the legal recognition of sparkling joint-capitalised enterprise, undertaken with a view to a profit?

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        The thing about ideologies is they don’t have to be achievable. They should teach that part in High School, but they don’t. Where you and whoever is telling you this with a .edu is failing is you’re not considering how the stocks are operating. You’re confusing Capital with Capitalism. You could hold those stocks, and get money from them. But you didn’t have control over anything. Only the people who were chartered by the crown had that control. There was no private control over trade, and many countries had domestic monopolies as well that operated in the same way. Crown chartered corporations were the hot thing in Mercantilism.

        So this is why Free Trade became such a big thing, along with private property, and Utilitarianism. The entirety of the British, French, Dutch, and Spanish Colonial Empires operated under these rules. So when a philosopher in 1760 says says we should have free trade he means he should be able to export cotton from the Carolinas to France instead of England. But not only is he not allowed to do that, the British East Indies Company will pay him a visit with a warship and a company of armed men to arrest him as a smuggler.

        You want to pin the start in the Renaissance while also saying it started with the first stock exchange. The problem is the first Stock exchange operated in the 1600’s, 17th century, which is Early Modern Era. But as I said above those stocks were in Crown Chartered Corporations which are operating as branches of the government. It’s 100 years before stocks really take off and for that entire time they’re still chartered. Because it was illegal to make your own corporation in the 17th century and about half of the 18th century. Which is when Adam Smith starts ranting about Mercantilism and he and David Hume are really cooking up Capitalism. So I’m not sure how you’re getting that Capitalism started directly after Feudalism unless you’re reading the wreck of a Wiki page that can’t decide if it was then or the golden age of the Middle East, or the Greek Philosophers.

        There are certainly elements of Capitalism earlier, but the ideology does not emerge until the industrial revolution.

        • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          You “it can’t be capitalism, as a the markets weren’t free enough to be glorious free trade”

          Me "Free trade has never existed and could never exist "

          Also you “The thing about ideologies is they don’t have to be achievable.”

          Well, you can’t argue with that logic.

          That .edu would be just about every .edu there is but sure, even though you misused basic terminology, of course you know better than all of them.

          Of course you do!

          No, I’m not confusing capital with capitalism. Thats a lazy response that shows you didn’t understand what was said to you.

          Yes, you would have control over “things” and royal charters were to hand out monopolies to some joint stock companies, not all, as many didn’t need them due to the freedom of trade they had. There’s also no such things as a crown chartered corporation.

          You want to pin the start in the Renaissance while also saying it started with the first stock exchange.

          As I said above, you had no idea what was said to you and it doesn’t seem like you know what you’re talking about here either but that doesnt seem to be stopping you. Nope, it barely even slowed you down. This might help: j

          oint stock company =/= a stock exchange.

          There wouldn’t have been enough exchanges of stock to justify a dedicated stock exchange, at the start, now would there? It would be a weird thing to have, right at the beginning, dont you think?

          David hume wrote about capitalism, within capitalism, according to David hume. I know you think you know better than practicality every university and wiki too but I doubt even that level of arrogance could make someone believe they know David hume better than David hume. Also, preindustrial capitalism exists. So, we can dismiss that, without a second thought.

          Much like capitalism, merchantislism started before you seem to think it did. The acts of enclosure were the death throws of the last part of feudalism, within a mercantile economy, in much the same way that you can have socialised housing, within a capitalist economy.

          So, you can’t actually say what change ushered in capitalism. Its just that you don’t like how it came to be or the baggage it has to carry. So, instead, despite the existence of capitalist vehicles of enterprise, we’re to believe that capitalism didn’t come into existence until about sometime around the labour reforms where it was presumably baptised, to wash away its prior sins.

          Apparently, unlike wiki and all those stupid universities, it seems that capitalism came into being when we all beleived in glorious free trade hard enough for it to be immaculately convinced as the natural economy we were always meant to have.

          At least it can now be seen that you confused “capitalism” with “industrial capitalism.”

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            You know if I hadn’t gone to real, actual college for politics and economics I might be swayed by your… argument style. For example you clearly don’t know the first stock exchange had stock only for the Dutch East India Company. So named because they were chartered by the Dutch Government. They were also one of the earliest Joint Stock Companies. And the time periods of Renaissance and Early Modern Era certainly aren’t in dispute.

            You should also know that David Hume’s writings are available online. Funny thing is, as far as I can tell he didn’t use the word capitalism once. It’s kind of hard to write additions to an existing ideology without using it’s name. In fact Capitalism as a name is given in 1850, by Socialists who are attacking the system. Going back to Adam Smith and David Hume is because they were writing about changing the economic system, and their writings were largely adopted.

            About ideologies needing popular approval, that’s kind of how that works. As much as they might wish it, philosophers cannot make an ideology a popular movement on a whim. And yeah, the wiki page cites a book review by The Economist, which talks about banking in Florence. and if Banking is it then we, again, have to go back to ancient Mesopotamia, and Capitalism has no definition because it always was and always will be. Don’t trust Wikipedia, just don’t. You’re always going to find some horrible stuff in the sources.

            I said before that elements of Capitalism existed before the main ideology of it. Like any other ideology; economic, political, or personal, it stands on the shoulders of the systems that came before it.