Occasionally forget people genuinely think capitalism is thousands of years old
One time I was talking about Robin Hood with some coworkers and one guy was like โhe was bad because the people he helped learned to expect handoutsโ and I wanted to be likeโฆ okay can you explain how that flawed capitalist propaganda applies to feudalism
reminder that capitalism was literally invented in the 16th century
Thatโs an exaggeration. What was invented in the 16th century was mercantilism. Capitalism really dates for the beginning of the nineteenth century, with the rise of industry and cash crops over artisans and merchants. Vulture capitalism, with the notion that companies have no duties other than generating profit, is even younger.
Capitalism is only 200 years old and I have to say, they have not been an impressive 200 years
I think a lot of this comes from the fact that most people donโt know the formal definition of capitalism. We all know the word, weโve all seen the jokes, but very few people bother to actually define it unless theyโre talking about political theory and philosophy, so itโs easy to end up with the impression that Capitalism = Money Can Be Exchanged For Goods And Services.
Capitalism is the economic system where most of the means of production (i.e. everything people need to have to make the stuff that everyone wants) are owned by private individuals or corporations, who then hire people to provide the labor necessary to produce things, with the intent of selling the output at a profit. Itโs the difference between โyouโre a carpenter and you make a chair and you sell itโ and โyouโre Richard Q. Richington who owns a chair factory, and you pay people to sell the chairs you paid other people to make and then all the excess money goes back to you.โ There have been Richard Q. Richingtons on and off throughout history, but that being the norm for every single industry is a pretty recent development.
An alarming amount of people seem to think capitalism = all trade, and I donโt think thatโs a coincidence.
