There's a whole host of good people out there who - believe it or not! - are still using cold war vocabulary. They have not read the theory and whipping out "capitalism bad" freaks them the fuck out.

They usually want the same thing as you do, but it's your job to help them see it. And it starts with meeting them where they're at. Step 1.

@TechConnectify

I find that, for every 1000 people who express a hatred for capitalism, 999 struggle to define it and express an actual, specific objection to it.

@jame @TechConnectify

I'm generally pretty happy, yes. Could you please define capitalism?

@AlexanderKingsbury @jame @TechConnectify
Ok so I know you're going for an easy gotcha, but I'm going to take the time to respond anyway. The reason why nobody can give you a good answer to that is essentially because your way of phrasing the question comes from a philosophical tradition that is very different from the one that the term "Capitalism" comes from.

I'd guess that your background is probably in the anglo-saxon tradition where usually you will go at a problem by precisely defining every term and then going through them step by step, like a logical puzzle. In that kind of tradition, a discussion ends up looking like a game of chess, where each player lays out their deductions one after the other until one of them gains the upper hand and demonstrates why their definitions and logical connections are better able to explain reality than the ones of the other person.

The tradition that terms like Capitalism come from is nothing like this. Many of the early leftist authors were author-activists. Their reason for writing was because they couldn't bear the political and economic situation in their countries and the violent abuse they saw people suffer at the hands of bosses and the police. So the term Capitalism arose to try to find a framework in which to make sense of why suddenly all of the serfs were being forced to move to the cities and thefactories, why the Kings were losing power to the men who owned the factories, why what used to be taken care of by custom and tradition was suddenly more and more integrated into the market, etc. etc. It was a change that was obviously happening at the time they were writing about it, not just a theoretical term tothrow into a discussion for clout. They developed the term to claim that all of those things are connected, and they attempted to explain in what way they are connected. And in many ways that is still what leftist theory is trying to do now.

So then what we talk about when we talk about Capitalism are the consequences of this broad historical shift in how society is structured. And that manifests in myriad ways, but the point is that something definitely is up. And so if you ask "how do you define capitalism" there's really no cut-and-dry answer to that. Because we're not just talking about something that can be circumscribed within a simple 5 point checklist. Which, granted, makes us horrible at discussions, haha. I hoped that helped somewhat.

@random_regret @jame @TechConnectify

No, I am not "going for an easy gotcha". That's a totally baseless accusation to make, and suggests that you are not approaching the conversation in an honest, mutually respectful manner. It's ad hominem, plain and simple.

@jame @TechConnectify @random_regret

Please feel free to let me know if you ever come up with an actual definition.

@ChemicalTribe @jame @TechConnectify @random_regret

"Capitalism - means of production owned by capitalists."

Then what is a capitalist? Because if you define it by using "capitalism", you've got yourself a self-referential set of definitions.

"Actions of capitalists: reduce costs and maximize profit. Puts capital first."

So if I find someone who owns means of production but does not to everything they can to maximize profit, they aren't a capitalist?

@random_regret @ChemicalTribe @jame @TechConnectify

So you offer a definition...kind of. It turns out it's "fuzzy in edge cases", that is can vary from being descriptive to being more abstract. This does not seem, to me, to be a useful definition.

"The working class...can only gain access to the means of production by trading in part of the value of their work for it."

Okay. Do they then become capitalists?

@AlexanderKingsbury @ChemicalTribe @jame @TechConnectify First, to the worker thing: No, what was meant by "access" is that they are allowed by the Capitalist to use the means of production, not that they come to own them. I.e. If you want to make tires, you need a tire factory, rubber, etc. The worker in the tire factory does not own any of that, but they are allowed to use them and earn a wage that is determined by the Capitalist.

This definition is 150 years old at this point, and there have been thousands of people critiquing, improving and modifying it since then. I'm sure you'll understand that I can't summarize more than a century of theory development in a mastodon thread. But feel free to pick up any introductory text to "das Kapital" and they will probably do a better job explaining this than me.

But then I also have my own issues with this definition by Marx. It's a good one, and it's very influential, but I think with the years a lot has changed. For example, I think that platform Capitalism does not so easily fit into that definition. You might "own" your car as an Uber driver, but it's still useless without having access to the app, which becomes the real means of production. Things like that. But then again it's not Marx' fault that he didn't predict Uber.

And to your point about the fuzziness. That's a very common feature of definitions in many areas actually. Think for example about legal definitions. There might be many cases where it is not entirely clear if something counts as murder or not. But that doesn't mean that murder is not a real phenomenon, or that the people who wrote the law were in any way confused or wrong about it. It just means that when you try to put a social, human phenomenon into words, you will almost always have to deal with some outliers. For an interesting example of this, you can also look up Umberto Eco's definition of fascism, where he tries an interesting way to work around this issue.

And in addition to the fundamental issue of putting social phenomena into words, you also have very different approaches in different disciplines. An economic historian might give you a different definition of capitalism than a philosopher, a sociologist, etc. But that also does not mean that they're confused or anything. All of those disciplines just have different areas of focus.
It's like how a lawyer might define death very different from a doctor or a priest. That however does not mean that death is not real or in most cases undesirable. It just means that different aspects are important to their profession.

@random_regret @ChemicalTribe @jame @TechConnectify

"But then I also have my own issues with this definition by Marx."

Wait, so not only is it fuzzy and only sometimes applicable, you don't even fully support it?

@random_regret @ChemicalTribe @jame @TechConnectify

So when I brought up that no one who complains about capitalism seems to be able to provide an actual definition for it that they can meaningfully critique capitalism using, you provided a vague, sometimes applicable one that you don't support?

@random_regret @ChemicalTribe @jame @TechConnectify

I have read your comments, and I'm still not clear on why you would try to present a definition you don't even support.

@random_regret @ChemicalTribe @jame @TechConnectify

"But at this point I'm really at a loss about what you want to hear from me."

If you can ever bring yourself to it, I'd like to hear an actual, clear definition of capitalism that you actually support.

@AlexanderKingsbury @ChemicalTribe @jame @TechConnectify You know, there is this old story. It's about a man from the countryside who wanted to go see the university. He comes to campus, grabs a professor and asks him to show him the university. The professor takes him around the place and shows him all the different buildings and facilities. While they're walking, the man from the country becomes visibly more and more frustrated. At the end the professor asks him what he thought of the tour, and the man from the countryside replies: "You've shown me the dorms, the lecture halls, the administrative buildings and all that. But professor, why can't you now finally show me the university?"

You are the man from the country in this story. It's not that people don't want to answer you, it's just that your frame of reference is wrong.

@random_regret @ChemicalTribe @jame @TechConnectify

No, I have many times asked people to define this thing for me, this thing they hate and rail against and decry. And yet, apparently, none of them can. I know it's possible; proponents do it all the time. But people who can't fall back on silence or condescension. "I suggest you READ A BOOK". "Even considered an introductory seminar, old man?".

Meh. More of the same.

@ChemicalTribe @random_regret @jame @TechConnectify

https://mastodon.social/@AlexanderKingsbury/113468934170508958

@ChemicalTribe @random_regret @jame @TechConnectify

I'm not limiting the conversation to that. I just think it's appropriate for you to answer clear, reasonable questions if you would like me to do the same. Would you?

@ChemicalTribe @random_regret @jame @TechConnectify

I am willing to do the same. I simply asked you that question well before you asked me; it seems reasonable to want the question that was asked first to be answered first. You are, of course, also free to make empty accusations and engage in personal attacks, if you prefer.