And slavery isn’t capitalism? Or is that cooperative because the slaveholder says “I have a knife and will kill you” and the slave says “I don’t want to die” so it’s mutual collaboration where the slave doesn’t die but also is a slave?
Debt and slavery are not the same thing. Debt can be used to functionally enslave as capitalism does enslaving us to our wages so we can afford to exist, but again that is a feature of the coercive nature of capitalism and debt is just the enforcement mechanism in this instance. Debt and capitalism are two independent things that intersect in interesting ways.
Apologies I responded to the wrong convo thinking it was the response to another comment. I think you are trying to make the point that modern day civilization is slavery due to the exploitation of capitalism but I’m not really sure of the point you are trying to make beyond that. Slavery is bad. Capitalism is slavery. Capitalism is bad.
I think we are agreeing unless you think I’m taking the position that slavery is good. Or are you trying to make the point that I am wrong because human beings have employed slavery in the past (and still do today)?
My point was simply that humans have been doing slavery for…pretty much as long as we have records. And that is in conflict with your view.
You said:
You know that humans lived in communal societies for a long fuckin time before all the bullshit we know today, right?
So what I’m saying is that for pretty much all of recorded human history we have documented proof that humans enslaved each other. Ie not communal. Slaveholding.
You then implied the ills of today’s society are tied to capitalism, an invention which came several tens of thousands of years after we invented slavery. Ie humans were shit to each other and abused each other in horrible ways long in advance of capitalism coming onto the scene.
There may not be capitalism in human nature, but enslaving people we view ourselves as being inferior to us is pretty much as human as apple pie.
When you look at why people did the enslaving you will inevitably find someone who is creating hierarchies by abusing some facet of the material conditions of the time. Slavery is not a part of human nature.
You can have slavery under global capitalism (we do) and our last few thousands of years have been very bad for a lot of humans, but it seems like we weren’t always oppressing each other and on the contrary we have been egalitarian most of the time anatomical humans existed, hence why the human nature argument doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
When was this? How good are the records from this time? Seems like for at least the last 12000 years (biblical era) we were for the most part miserable, diseased, and exploitative
But it’s still our best guess at something we think we can prove.
I can vaguely recall several stories of fossilized remains which indicate all sorts of horrible things being performed on humans or related by tool users, which seems to imply in pre-history humans were still shit to each other.
Yeah, there are. While human groups sometimes fought each other due to competition for scarce resources, within groups we seem to have been very communitarian, taking care of our wounded and elderly even when conditions were harsh.
And slavery isn’t capitalism? Or is that cooperative because the slaveholder says “I have a knife and will kill you” and the slave says “I don’t want to die” so it’s mutual collaboration where the slave doesn’t die but also is a slave?
Debt and slavery are not the same thing. Debt can be used to functionally enslave as capitalism does enslaving us to our wages so we can afford to exist, but again that is a feature of the coercive nature of capitalism and debt is just the enforcement mechanism in this instance. Debt and capitalism are two independent things that intersect in interesting ways.
Where did I say debt and slavery are the same thing?
I saw a half dozen messages in this thread about how humans used to be good or some bullshit, with no backing. I’m responding to that.
Prove your point with historical data or don’t, but don’t argue about some unrelated topic.
Apologies I responded to the wrong convo thinking it was the response to another comment. I think you are trying to make the point that modern day civilization is slavery due to the exploitation of capitalism but I’m not really sure of the point you are trying to make beyond that. Slavery is bad. Capitalism is slavery. Capitalism is bad.
I think we are agreeing unless you think I’m taking the position that slavery is good. Or are you trying to make the point that I am wrong because human beings have employed slavery in the past (and still do today)?
My point was simply that humans have been doing slavery for…pretty much as long as we have records. And that is in conflict with your view.
You said:
So what I’m saying is that for pretty much all of recorded human history we have documented proof that humans enslaved each other. Ie not communal. Slaveholding.
You then implied the ills of today’s society are tied to capitalism, an invention which came several tens of thousands of years after we invented slavery. Ie humans were shit to each other and abused each other in horrible ways long in advance of capitalism coming onto the scene.
There may not be capitalism in human nature, but enslaving people we view ourselves as being inferior to us is pretty much as human as apple pie.
Hopefully this makes more sense.
When you look at why people did the enslaving you will inevitably find someone who is creating hierarchies by abusing some facet of the material conditions of the time. Slavery is not a part of human nature.
You can have slavery under global capitalism (we do) and our last few thousands of years have been very bad for a lot of humans, but it seems like we weren’t always oppressing each other and on the contrary we have been egalitarian most of the time anatomical humans existed, hence why the human nature argument doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
When was this? How good are the records from this time? Seems like for at least the last 12000 years (biblical era) we were for the most part miserable, diseased, and exploitative
Look into anthropology and such, obviously that falls squarely before history and written records.
But it’s still our best guess at something we think we can prove.
I can vaguely recall several stories of fossilized remains which indicate all sorts of horrible things being performed on humans or related by tool users, which seems to imply in pre-history humans were still shit to each other.
So are there counter-examples?
Yeah, there are. While human groups sometimes fought each other due to competition for scarce resources, within groups we seem to have been very communitarian, taking care of our wounded and elderly even when conditions were harsh.
Look at this example.
We’re social animals, we would have never survived extinction if it weren’t for traits like empathy and cooperation.