281–290 of 305 posts
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It can be sane. Just be very selective who you allow. I maybe follow a hundred people or so, but my block list is probably ten times as long. Even blocking anybody with "pronouns" in their Bio already helps a lot.
So, you've created a conservative echo chamber?
You seem to prefer personal attacks and ideology, so yes, I'd block you for sure.
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> A massive and obvious flaw in the "capitalism is slavery" argument is the fact that American agriculture became MORE profitable after slavery was abolished. “Capitalism” and “maximizing systemic, aggregate profitability” aren't even related concepts, much less so intimately linked that not doing the latter proves that something is not an element of the former.
And "slavery" and "private ownership of the means of production" are similarly orthogonal. If the means of production were owned by the government, and the government forced its citizens to work uncompensated against their will, with no option to leave, could one then contend that socialism/communism is inextricably linked to slavery? No, that's absurd. Involuntary servitude can exist in any economic system, whether…
That depends on whether by “capitalism” you mean “the real-world economic system which emerged through the relentless pursuit of class advantage by the mercantile class as they displaced the feudal aristocracy as the ruling class and which was named ‘capitalism’ by it's critics” or “the aspirational ideal that defenders of that real world system rationalized it as striving imperfectly toward to distract from the characteristics of the real world system itself in a perpetual game of ‘No True Scotsman’”.
For the former, no, it relies almost entirely on economic coercion by denying practical freedom of choice for most of the population to serve the ends for which it was pursued by the class that relentlessly advanced it, and the form of commodified chattel slavery which with it replaced the patriarchal slavery of the feudal era fits well within that.
For the latter, sure, slavery is incompatible with that rationalization. But so is literally everything because the ideal is incoherent.
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So, you've created a conservative echo chamber?
No, I've created an "echo chamber" where I only allow opinions based on reason and logic. You seem to prefer personal attacks and ideology, so yes, I'd block you for sure.
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And "slavery" and "private ownership of the means of production" are similarly orthogonal. If the means of production were owned by the government, and the government forced its citizens to work uncompensated against their will, with no option to leave, could one then contend that socialism/communism is inextricably linked to slavery? No, that's absurd. Involuntary servitude can exist in any economic system, whether…
> On the other hand, capitalism can only really function in a world where all transactions are bilaterally voluntary That depends on whether by “capitalism” you mean “the real-world economic system which emerged through the relentless pursuit of class advantage by the mercantile class as they displaced the feudal aristocracy as the ruling class and which was named ‘capitalism’ by it's critics” or “the aspirational id…
Nearly every single modern first world country, from Canada to Singapore to New Zealand to Switzerland to Sweden...all operate on capitalist systems where the majority of industries are privately owned, and operate for profit. They also happen to have robust safety nets where the exact sort of economic coercion is difficult to carry out. To argue that slavery is somehow inextricably linked to the dominant economic system of these countries is plainly absurd, in the same way that it's plainly absurd to claim that slavery is inextricably linked to communism/Marxism just by virtue of the practical manifestation of it we've seen in the 20th century, and not the theoretical ideal as posed by Marx. The whole point here is that slavery is orthogonal to the economic system, not an underlying prerequisite for it.
> in a perpetual game of "No True Scotsman"
> For the latter, sure, slavery is incompatible with that rationalization. But so is literally everything because the ideal is incoherent.
You either need to compare the platonic ideal of communism to the platonic ideal of capitalism, or stick with comparing the empirical outcomes of capitalism as it has been tried all over the developed world today with communism as it has been tried in the real world. You appear to be trying to compare the platonic ideal of communism with the empirical manifestation of capitalism, and then balk when I counter with my own platonic ideal. Compare apples to apples.
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Of course, nobody is credibly arguing that we are anywhere close to the platonic ideal of a capitalist system — in the same way that at no point in the history of humanity have we had a truly communist or socialist system. If your argument is that the inverse relationship between "voluntariness" and socioeconomic status is anathema to capitalism, that reinforces the idea that literal slavery is even further from that…
As I've said in another comment in this thread; each system is defined by the incentive structure it sets up. The Stalinist structure is set up to be ripe for corruption, abuse of power, etc. That is what it will be rightly remembered for. The Capitalist structure is set up to be ripe for exploiting whatever there is to be exploited at that particular time to accumulate capital. That both slavery and Colonialism flou…
But that's factually untrue, slavery held back the accumulation of capital. American agriculture became MORE profitable after slavery was abolished. Once the actual cost of manufacturing had to be factored in, planters were forced to find more productive crops to grow. That process led to:
1. the decimation of the economy of the South, where slavery was rampant. The South had to quickly learn to industrialize to keep up
2. the steep increase in market capitalization of agricultural businesses once capital was forced to be more efficiently allocated, resulting in the agrarian revolution of the Great Plains, which remains one of America's dominant agriculture centers
Slavery quite literally does not allow the incentive structure, by your own words, to flourish.
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As I've said in another comment in this thread; each system is defined by the incentive structure it sets up. The Stalinist structure is set up to be ripe for corruption, abuse of power, etc. That is what it will be rightly remembered for. The Capitalist structure is set up to be ripe for exploiting whatever there is to be exploited at that particular time to accumulate capital. That both slavery and Colonialism flou…
> That both slavery and Colonialism flourished under such an incentive structure should not be a surprise. But that's factually untrue, slavery held back the accumulation of capital. American agriculture became MORE profitable after slavery was abolished. Once the actual cost of manufacturing had to be factored in, planters were forced to find more productive crops to grow. That process led to: 1. the decimation of t…
If you're interested in not just regurgitating propaganda you can read this book: "Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II".
Furthermore your entire premise is false, even if we accept what you suggest is true, which is highly controversial, the result is not what we're talking about, but the incentive structure and what outcomes that will produce. Of course people searching to accumulate capital will endorse and proliferate low labour costs if it's possible and currently acceptable.
You do realize that both slavery and wage slavery have a cost of manufacturing right? Both needed to compete with that on the world market. What's the reason to exclude that even a slave-owning South wouldn't have switched to a more profitable produce?
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No, I've created an "echo chamber" where I only allow opinions based on reason and logic. You seem to prefer personal attacks and ideology, so yes, I'd block you for sure.
No, blocking anybody with pronouns in their bio will eliminate a lot of progressive and most LGBTQ voices. It’s not a personal attack, it’s an observation of how you are scoping your feed.
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> That both slavery and Colonialism flourished under such an incentive structure should not be a surprise. But that's factually untrue, slavery held back the accumulation of capital. American agriculture became MORE profitable after slavery was abolished. Once the actual cost of manufacturing had to be factored in, planters were forced to find more productive crops to grow. That process led to: 1. the decimation of t…
That's outrageously ahistorical. The former slaves weren't suddenly "free" and unexploited in the US after the civil war. In many aspects they were still enslaved through various direct and indirect means. If you're interested in not just regurgitating propaganda you can read this book: "Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II". Furthermore your entire premise…
First of all, there's nothing "ahistorical" about the simple fact that the South's economy was decimated after the abolition of slavery, and to this day the industry that utilized slavery the most continues to be weaker than elsewhere in the Union. That is your original allegation here: that slavery necessarily flourishes under a capitalist incentive structure. That's plainly untrue, because at the same time you had no slavery in the North, and its industrial economy outpaced that of the South (read: accumulation of capital, in your words).
You see this happening today as well: in countries where slavery is unfortunately still legal (Syria & Libya), they don't have any greater accumulation of capital or output than capitalist nations that do not have slavery (nearly every first world industrialized nation). On the other hand, nearly every single modern first world country, from Canada to Singapore to New Zealand to Switzerland to Sweden...all operate on capitalist systems where the majority of industries are privately owned, and operate for profit. They are also notably devoid of indentured/involuntary servitude while also enjoying some of the greatest accumulation of wealth and capital in recorded human history.
> The former slaves weren't suddenly "free" and unexploited in the US after the civil war. In many aspects they were still enslaved through various direct and indirect means.
Sure, nobody is arguing that people in the South were suddenly "free" after the abolition of slavery. You're absolutely correct that sharecropping and other practices essentially continued to ensnare black people in the South. The point is that this DID NOT translate to greater rewards in the capitalist incentive system. During Reconstruction, planters that exploited former "free" slaves LOST the agriculture race to the Great Plains, and the industrial race to the North.
> Furthermore your entire premise is false, even if we accept what you suggest is true, which is highly controversial, the result is not what we're talking about, but the incentive structure and what outcomes that will produce. Of course people searching to accumulate capital will endorse and proliferate low labour costs if it's possible and currently acceptable.
There is nothing unacceptable about "low labor costs" in a society with robust social safety nets. Countries like Switzerland that have close to 0 poverty, the highest median wealth, and among the highest standards of living in the world also see variation in labor costs between a janitor and a doctor, or a fast food cashier and a civil engineer. Not all labor is equal in value, and the capitalist incentive structure prices labor as a function of the value that it creates for others. If your argument is that this is somehow tantamount to chattel slavery, then it's you who is regurgitating propaganda.