What about the individual people who participate in this social practice? Surely their individual consciousness, their ideas, and their behaviour matter, and make a difference?
To a certain extent they do of course. But individuals come and go, but capitals live much longer than any individual human. The people controlled by the capital — that is the workers that supply labour to firms, and capitalists that exploit them and extract profits — are mere replaceable components in the control loop, mechanically performing prescribed functional roles.
I think this is actually my disagreement, because I think capital in itself would do so, but capitalism as a system has systematized class collaboration between capitalists to prevent them doing this
Marx on Capital as a real god
Ian Wright is great. Vampires live longer than humans (but canonically are dead right?), just like capital. Good addition
They’re also parasitically dependant on humans and would eventually use up all of humanity if left lo g enough.
I think this is actually my disagreement, because I think capital in itself would do so, but capitalism as a system has systematized class collaboration between capitalists to prevent them doing this
Precisely