I knew someone once who thought capitalism was basically all forms of commerce.
Here’s the problem: if capitalism is essentially just a remix of mercantilism and industrial manufacturing, then it’s not something fundamentally new. If it’s not something fundamentally new, then it is not itself going to lead to anything else fundamentally new; that is to say: the belief in a future utopia DEPENDS on a history being an arrow instead of a circle. The more you tie capitalism back to earlier eras, the more you erode the belief that there is something better coming after the Bell riots.
Amen, brother. We’re trapped in an endless cycle of slavery, beheadings, liberation and creeping servitude. The long arc of history bends not towards justice but back towards itself.
Unfortunately I have to decline that “amen”.
I take the "brother, tough, bro!
We’re better off than before enlightenment hit us… We are in fact better off than humans have been at any other point in history.
My point is:
Let’s take the bad shit (e.g. wealth and power concentration creep) and work (the “remix”) on those parts and try to not destroy the wealth (e.g. ultra low infant mortality rate) we build on the way to here.
Here’s the problem: if capitalism is essentially just a remix of mercantilism and industrial manufacturing, then it’s not something fundamentally new. If it’s not something fundamentally new, then it is not itself going to lead to anything else fundamentally new; that is to say: the belief in a future utopia DEPENDS on a history being an arrow instead of a circle. The more you tie capitalism back to earlier eras, the more you erode the belief that there is something better coming after the Bell riots.
It’s all just a remix. Always has, always will be.
Amen, brother. We’re trapped in an endless cycle of slavery, beheadings, liberation and creeping servitude. The long arc of history bends not towards justice but back towards itself.
Unfortunately I have to decline that “amen”. I take the "brother, tough, bro!
We’re better off than before enlightenment hit us… We are in fact better off than humans have been at any other point in history.
My point is: Let’s take the bad shit (e.g. wealth and power concentration creep) and work (the “remix”) on those parts and try to not destroy the wealth (e.g. ultra low infant mortality rate) we build on the way to here.