No market is 'free'. All markets are based on power relationships. I don't think you can point to any historical example anywhere of a 'free' market. To believe in free market Capitalism (or to somehow get there from our urrent system) is literally MORE utopian than to believe in Communism. We know for an absolute fact that human beings survived for thousands (if not millions) of years in what can only be called primitive communism. There was no money, individual land ownership, or intellectual property in primitive societies. Yet they survived and even prospered for thousands of years, and innovated all kinds of huge technology we take for granted without having a profit motive. Our brain is so addled today that we cannot conceive of openly sharing food and resources with people other than our nuclear family, yet that is how we survived for a long time. Communal hunting, share the meat. Communal work at harvest or gathering, store the food together. That is the crime of Capitalism - it divides us into striving individuals predating on each other, not as a collaborative group working towards common survival. The philosophy you are espousing also sounds a lot like Neoliberalism, and we all know how that turns out.
Please regale us with the "kinds of huge technology we take for granted without having a profit motive" you are referring to coming from these utopian "primitive communist" societies.
Also metallurgy, animal domestication, wine/beermaking, cheese, even writing systems were developed pre-capitalism. Massive building projects were also done pre-capitalism (pyramids, Native American mound systems, Nazca lines, irrigation projects, Stonehenge).
It always amuses me to imagine a primitive person who invents say, a new better bow and arrow, trying to patent it or force other primitive people in his tribe to pay him tribute in meat or hides for the invention. "Hey guys I invented this bow and arrow, I get 10% of all game we kill with this for ME and my family for a few generations." Or "hey guys, I invented the idea of how to milk these awesome cows we have domesticated. I get 30% of all milk anybody milks from cows, or an equal trade of something else."
It always amazed me that someone would think some primitive person would invent a better arrow and then someone else would want it and neither barter for it or simply take it by force.
Specialization of labor is what spurred the great technological movements of humanity, not the random tinkerings of serfs (or more laughably, utopian-era communists) who then willing gave of themselves their abilities to all who simply asked.
There has always been human nature. The plea that a type of government can curtail that is laughable.
"Human nature" is generally used as an apology for violence and greed, assuming they are inescapable features of human beings.
It is a lazy term that does not bear inspection. If violence is inherent in our 'nature', why is it that soldiers, when exposed to violent trauma, come back broken husks of human beings, committing suicide at higher rates? This is not just a feature of modern warfare, the human casualties of war have long piled up when the troops come home - Civil war, 1st World War, 2nd World War, Korean war, Vietnam, GWOT - vets have always had high post-war psychological casualties. It has even been written about since ancient times. But why, if violence is 'in our nature', are our soldiers so ill equipped to deal with the consequences of violence? If violence and killing is human nature, wouldn't we be genetically equipped to deal with violent traumatic events?
The truth is that human nature is varied. Most people are empaths, who are strongly disposed against killing. Any kind of communally/tribally evolved animal obviously has a strong evolutionary incentive to have most of the members of the tribe be empaths. But, since prehistory, it is obvious that a large amount of killing had to be done, mostly the hunting and killing of animals. So any tribe would benefit by having a fraction of its members well disposed towards killing without suffering from emotional distress. Unfortunately these killers also turn on targets of opportunity in neighboring human tribes. I submit to you that this is the evolutionary utility of the small percent of psychopaths and sociopaths.
This is one of the main problems of society. We no longer really need killers - yet the people who lack empathy are often those that climb their way up into leadership positions and make decisions about launching wars. In addition to managing the distribution of resources for the benefit of the greatest good, society also needs to manage its sociopaths and make sure their traits are employed towards productive ends, rather than the practice of killing.
I could write about greed being 'human nature' too, but I think we all know enough people in our lives that are quite happy with just getting by. I personally know several people who are quite talented, but instead of going for a job that provides the maximum paycheck, have elected to do something that gives them fulfillment.
There is quite a bit here, but your summation, domesticated humans are somehow preferable is sad, frankly. There are many people that work for maximum paycheck, particularly in their preferred fields -nothing wrong with that at all.
I also know a few very talented ex-McKinsey types who have gone both ways - back into the consulting management field or away into the woods, the former are sort of like the ex-military PTSD people. I know ex-MDs who would never have their kids go into medicine, but who have ventured back when given the opportunity. There are all kinds of people in the world and keeping the ones that would take from you, either by force or passive-aggressively, say via an elected goon squad need to be kept in check. That takes all sorts of people to accomplish, too.
Moreover, competitive people are not necessarily evil. Unfortunately, parents have been de-emphasizing winning and losing as some kind of good thing - we are seeing the results of a generation of that crap and it is lame and not good for society overall. You need to learn how to win and lose, not simply how to manage your caloric intake until you die. There needs to be risks taken, for the advancement of all of society.
To think that a bunch of aimless, self-interested, sheeple is the goal of society is very very wrong.
How were any of these produced without a profit motive, maybe except fire? In fact the acquisition of these things and the use of these things all became object of wars, hardly a utopian ideal.
There has always been human nature. The plea that a type of government can curtail that is laughable.
The acquisition of anything can be used for violence. If I make a corncob doll for my child, another child can pick it up and hit another child with it.
I didn't make it with a profit motive, nor for the purpose of creating a weapon.
One oversight in this is that the huge technology discoveries required thousands of years for each step, slow crawling progress is what you are advocating. All the isms lead to stagnation. Liberty results in rapid progress but has inherently greater risk.
Recently published was evidence to show that the inegalitarian culture traces its origins to the onset of the agrarian age; other research shows that many prior cultures were not competitive, others were atheistic.
The profit motive is a focus on the advantage of the individual. An individual human, in the wild, without the massive infrastructural support afforded by our society, will die 99% of the time. That is the reality of the Hobbsian view of humanity: without society, human life is indeed "solitary, poor, nasty brutish and short". He believed, pessimistically, that humans need a sovereign or governor. We know much better, now as then, that it is our capacity for empathy that makes us human; those without it - sociopaths and psychopaths - are universally despised for the lack they show. Empathy drives cooperation.
Don't conflate capitalism with trade. Similarly, corporate capitalism with trade. Nor "ma-and-pa corner shop" with capitalism. That would also be "sole traders". Capitalism is investing capital (ie, liquid assets) into companies, which returns profit in the form of dividends or capital gains in stock and share values. Starting your own business is not capitalism; investing in someone else's company is.
I would say Capitalism is more than just investing in a company. Ownership is implied in Capitalism. To be a real capitalist, you have to own something (land, a business that produces something). Profits that you extract via rent or sale of the commodity you produce are then used to accumulate more profit-creating property (expand the business, buy more rent-taking land). That is capitalism - accumulation of more power to get control of more income producing stuff via re-investing profits you have extracted from unequal exchanges.
Just investing in stocks and getting dividends isn't capitalism. That is potentially letting somebody else use your excess money to let THEM expand in a Capitalist way. That you may be getting a small cut of their expansion doesn't make you a capitalist (unless you are a BIG investor who actually has enough shares to have an ownership stake and control of a company's decision making and ability to loot the company's profits). Stock investing may in some cases be you just getting fleeced by participating in a ponzi scheme. Unless you are using the profits you have extracted from the stock market to accumulate more income producing property (rather than just using it to live as retirement money), you aren't really a capitalist by just having a 401k (in my opinion).
A) I get really annoyed when someone repeats the academic myth that "human nature" encompasses all of the worst characteristics only, and conveniently ignores the better aspects of "human nature" like altruism, empathy, and compassion. Interestingly, for years biologists couldn't find any examples of these behaviors in nature, mostly because they didn't believe they existed. If you're not looking for something, you won't find it. Starting in the 1980s, scientists started studying altruism in nature, and - guess what! - they found it.
B) Read The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen for an analysis of exactly how those primitive societies could have worked, and how the change to a more brutal, competitive model developed.
It seems to me that you have steeped in the competitive model for so long that it seems to be the only way life can be. Too bad!
Human nature absolutely does not only encompass all of the worst characteristics. But equally as annoying are the people that think there is a group or sect of humans whose nature only encompasses the good. When you are dealing with a group and it grows past, I dunno 30+ people?, you are gonna into some impure actors, that's simply a statistical reality. I'm not saying these people are evil, but that they are simply subject to the ups and downs of their human nature.
Given that, a particular government framework (which is an enforceable restraint, by definition), you will have to deal with human nature, dissent, conflict, and the seven deadly sins.
The question that one is left with is, what is the most efficient way to manage all that? In practice, Communism has failed, perhaps Capitalism, now too, has failed. Primitive or other utopia has clearly failed.
Veblen is easily skewered as I showed you in another reference you made to him.
You're putting words in my mouth that I didn't say. I don't believe that there is a group of people who are only good.
Viktor Frankl, in Man's Search for Meaning, said that the line between good and bad didn't exist between one group of people and another, but down the middle of each person's heart, and that I DO believe.
THAT'S what I was trying to say: that "human nature" is not just the worst, but also the better.
If I read Hayek and then I read Keynes, what am I to believe? Who can I quote with authority? Garbage in, garbage out is what a computer does. You can find a book that will argue for just about any economic, social, political stance imaginable, doesn't make them or you valid. 'Appeal to authority' and all that, right? That being said, reading is a great thing, but like all things it is simply a tool. You still have to be equipped to use the tool. For instance, I think your understanding of Veblen is off in that you do not see his attempt at balancing of the individual and the collective, nor his waffling between theology and post-modernism, but that is my opinion.
I do not agree that all men have half good and half evil (surely that is a gross understatement of his thesis), I believe that there are plenty of people that are effectively evil, socio/psychopaths for instance, and that there are plenty of people that desire and practice as much discipline and sacrifice for their selves, their families, and their communities as they can.
Good and evil do exist and the fact that someone is a sociopath and has a different definition of that does not make it as or more valid than someone's that is working to enhance themselves, their family, and their community.
The important point is that people are compassionate and they will be, they do not need to be told to. Socialism is a system that does not trust people to be compassionate. However, if you remove the profit incentive from society, you will remove a substantial amount of the incentive to innovate and advance the world. It is no coincidence that the period of massive charitable giving in the US was during the period of rampant capitalism.
Communism can last a long time and there may be examples eventually that show that it is sustainable but what is certain is that it will underperform capitalism in nearly every respect.
"There is no evidence that primitive societies were even egalitarian in groups, to say nothing of completely sharing resources. "
There's actually quite a bit of evidence. When Europeans came into conflict with native peoples across the globe, there are examples all over the place of living cultures, and evidence in the archeological/anthropological record. I'd recommend a couple of David Graeber's books on it: "Debt: the First 5,000 Years" and "The Dawn of Everything". Absolutely fascinating. There are more scholarly books out there too I'm sure.
""Human beings" have not been a species for even half a million years,"
Granted 'anatomically modern' humans have been around for maybe 400,000 years.
But something approximating humans has been around for at least a million years. Recent evidence shows camp fire use a million years ago, and we've been using stone tools for over 2 million years.
No market is 'free'. All markets are based on power relationships. I don't think you can point to any historical example anywhere of a 'free' market. To believe in free market Capitalism (or to somehow get there from our urrent system) is literally MORE utopian than to believe in Communism. We know for an absolute fact that human beings survived for thousands (if not millions) of years in what can only be called primitive communism. There was no money, individual land ownership, or intellectual property in primitive societies. Yet they survived and even prospered for thousands of years, and innovated all kinds of huge technology we take for granted without having a profit motive. Our brain is so addled today that we cannot conceive of openly sharing food and resources with people other than our nuclear family, yet that is how we survived for a long time. Communal hunting, share the meat. Communal work at harvest or gathering, store the food together. That is the crime of Capitalism - it divides us into striving individuals predating on each other, not as a collaborative group working towards common survival. The philosophy you are espousing also sounds a lot like Neoliberalism, and we all know how that turns out.
The "free market" was the brainchild of Adam Smith, and arose merely in his imagination, to describe a perfect model of his economic system.
This is foolish drivel, free markets have existed as long as humanity.
Please regale us with the "kinds of huge technology we take for granted without having a profit motive" you are referring to coming from these utopian "primitive communist" societies.
Fire. The wheel. fishing. boats. Agriculture. painting. tanning. Tool use. Need I go on?
Also metallurgy, animal domestication, wine/beermaking, cheese, even writing systems were developed pre-capitalism. Massive building projects were also done pre-capitalism (pyramids, Native American mound systems, Nazca lines, irrigation projects, Stonehenge).
It always amuses me to imagine a primitive person who invents say, a new better bow and arrow, trying to patent it or force other primitive people in his tribe to pay him tribute in meat or hides for the invention. "Hey guys I invented this bow and arrow, I get 10% of all game we kill with this for ME and my family for a few generations." Or "hey guys, I invented the idea of how to milk these awesome cows we have domesticated. I get 30% of all milk anybody milks from cows, or an equal trade of something else."
It always amazed me that someone would think some primitive person would invent a better arrow and then someone else would want it and neither barter for it or simply take it by force.
Specialization of labor is what spurred the great technological movements of humanity, not the random tinkerings of serfs (or more laughably, utopian-era communists) who then willing gave of themselves their abilities to all who simply asked.
There has always been human nature. The plea that a type of government can curtail that is laughable.
"Human nature" is generally used as an apology for violence and greed, assuming they are inescapable features of human beings.
It is a lazy term that does not bear inspection. If violence is inherent in our 'nature', why is it that soldiers, when exposed to violent trauma, come back broken husks of human beings, committing suicide at higher rates? This is not just a feature of modern warfare, the human casualties of war have long piled up when the troops come home - Civil war, 1st World War, 2nd World War, Korean war, Vietnam, GWOT - vets have always had high post-war psychological casualties. It has even been written about since ancient times. But why, if violence is 'in our nature', are our soldiers so ill equipped to deal with the consequences of violence? If violence and killing is human nature, wouldn't we be genetically equipped to deal with violent traumatic events?
The truth is that human nature is varied. Most people are empaths, who are strongly disposed against killing. Any kind of communally/tribally evolved animal obviously has a strong evolutionary incentive to have most of the members of the tribe be empaths. But, since prehistory, it is obvious that a large amount of killing had to be done, mostly the hunting and killing of animals. So any tribe would benefit by having a fraction of its members well disposed towards killing without suffering from emotional distress. Unfortunately these killers also turn on targets of opportunity in neighboring human tribes. I submit to you that this is the evolutionary utility of the small percent of psychopaths and sociopaths.
This is one of the main problems of society. We no longer really need killers - yet the people who lack empathy are often those that climb their way up into leadership positions and make decisions about launching wars. In addition to managing the distribution of resources for the benefit of the greatest good, society also needs to manage its sociopaths and make sure their traits are employed towards productive ends, rather than the practice of killing.
I could write about greed being 'human nature' too, but I think we all know enough people in our lives that are quite happy with just getting by. I personally know several people who are quite talented, but instead of going for a job that provides the maximum paycheck, have elected to do something that gives them fulfillment.
There is quite a bit here, but your summation, domesticated humans are somehow preferable is sad, frankly. There are many people that work for maximum paycheck, particularly in their preferred fields -nothing wrong with that at all.
I also know a few very talented ex-McKinsey types who have gone both ways - back into the consulting management field or away into the woods, the former are sort of like the ex-military PTSD people. I know ex-MDs who would never have their kids go into medicine, but who have ventured back when given the opportunity. There are all kinds of people in the world and keeping the ones that would take from you, either by force or passive-aggressively, say via an elected goon squad need to be kept in check. That takes all sorts of people to accomplish, too.
Moreover, competitive people are not necessarily evil. Unfortunately, parents have been de-emphasizing winning and losing as some kind of good thing - we are seeing the results of a generation of that crap and it is lame and not good for society overall. You need to learn how to win and lose, not simply how to manage your caloric intake until you die. There needs to be risks taken, for the advancement of all of society.
To think that a bunch of aimless, self-interested, sheeple is the goal of society is very very wrong.
Brilliant
How were any of these produced without a profit motive, maybe except fire? In fact the acquisition of these things and the use of these things all became object of wars, hardly a utopian ideal.
There has always been human nature. The plea that a type of government can curtail that is laughable.
The acquisition of anything can be used for violence. If I make a corncob doll for my child, another child can pick it up and hit another child with it.
I didn't make it with a profit motive, nor for the purpose of creating a weapon.
A corncob doll is not huge technology we (may) take for granted.
But your take on human nature in a utopian society is correct
GREAT examples!
Stonehenge
The Library of Alexandria
One oversight in this is that the huge technology discoveries required thousands of years for each step, slow crawling progress is what you are advocating. All the isms lead to stagnation. Liberty results in rapid progress but has inherently greater risk.
Recently published was evidence to show that the inegalitarian culture traces its origins to the onset of the agrarian age; other research shows that many prior cultures were not competitive, others were atheistic.
The profit motive is a focus on the advantage of the individual. An individual human, in the wild, without the massive infrastructural support afforded by our society, will die 99% of the time. That is the reality of the Hobbsian view of humanity: without society, human life is indeed "solitary, poor, nasty brutish and short". He believed, pessimistically, that humans need a sovereign or governor. We know much better, now as then, that it is our capacity for empathy that makes us human; those without it - sociopaths and psychopaths - are universally despised for the lack they show. Empathy drives cooperation.
Don't conflate capitalism with trade. Similarly, corporate capitalism with trade. Nor "ma-and-pa corner shop" with capitalism. That would also be "sole traders". Capitalism is investing capital (ie, liquid assets) into companies, which returns profit in the form of dividends or capital gains in stock and share values. Starting your own business is not capitalism; investing in someone else's company is.
If you haven't already, you might like to read The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen.
I would say Capitalism is more than just investing in a company. Ownership is implied in Capitalism. To be a real capitalist, you have to own something (land, a business that produces something). Profits that you extract via rent or sale of the commodity you produce are then used to accumulate more profit-creating property (expand the business, buy more rent-taking land). That is capitalism - accumulation of more power to get control of more income producing stuff via re-investing profits you have extracted from unequal exchanges.
Just investing in stocks and getting dividends isn't capitalism. That is potentially letting somebody else use your excess money to let THEM expand in a Capitalist way. That you may be getting a small cut of their expansion doesn't make you a capitalist (unless you are a BIG investor who actually has enough shares to have an ownership stake and control of a company's decision making and ability to loot the company's profits). Stock investing may in some cases be you just getting fleeced by participating in a ponzi scheme. Unless you are using the profits you have extracted from the stock market to accumulate more income producing property (rather than just using it to live as retirement money), you aren't really a capitalist by just having a 401k (in my opinion).
A) I get really annoyed when someone repeats the academic myth that "human nature" encompasses all of the worst characteristics only, and conveniently ignores the better aspects of "human nature" like altruism, empathy, and compassion. Interestingly, for years biologists couldn't find any examples of these behaviors in nature, mostly because they didn't believe they existed. If you're not looking for something, you won't find it. Starting in the 1980s, scientists started studying altruism in nature, and - guess what! - they found it.
B) Read The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen for an analysis of exactly how those primitive societies could have worked, and how the change to a more brutal, competitive model developed.
It seems to me that you have steeped in the competitive model for so long that it seems to be the only way life can be. Too bad!
Human nature absolutely does not only encompass all of the worst characteristics. But equally as annoying are the people that think there is a group or sect of humans whose nature only encompasses the good. When you are dealing with a group and it grows past, I dunno 30+ people?, you are gonna into some impure actors, that's simply a statistical reality. I'm not saying these people are evil, but that they are simply subject to the ups and downs of their human nature.
Given that, a particular government framework (which is an enforceable restraint, by definition), you will have to deal with human nature, dissent, conflict, and the seven deadly sins.
The question that one is left with is, what is the most efficient way to manage all that? In practice, Communism has failed, perhaps Capitalism, now too, has failed. Primitive or other utopia has clearly failed.
Veblen is easily skewered as I showed you in another reference you made to him.
You're putting words in my mouth that I didn't say. I don't believe that there is a group of people who are only good.
Viktor Frankl, in Man's Search for Meaning, said that the line between good and bad didn't exist between one group of people and another, but down the middle of each person's heart, and that I DO believe.
THAT'S what I was trying to say: that "human nature" is not just the worst, but also the better.
Maybe you should read as many books as I have.
If I read Hayek and then I read Keynes, what am I to believe? Who can I quote with authority? Garbage in, garbage out is what a computer does. You can find a book that will argue for just about any economic, social, political stance imaginable, doesn't make them or you valid. 'Appeal to authority' and all that, right? That being said, reading is a great thing, but like all things it is simply a tool. You still have to be equipped to use the tool. For instance, I think your understanding of Veblen is off in that you do not see his attempt at balancing of the individual and the collective, nor his waffling between theology and post-modernism, but that is my opinion.
I do not agree that all men have half good and half evil (surely that is a gross understatement of his thesis), I believe that there are plenty of people that are effectively evil, socio/psychopaths for instance, and that there are plenty of people that desire and practice as much discipline and sacrifice for their selves, their families, and their communities as they can.
Good and evil do exist and the fact that someone is a sociopath and has a different definition of that does not make it as or more valid than someone's that is working to enhance themselves, their family, and their community.
The important point is that people are compassionate and they will be, they do not need to be told to. Socialism is a system that does not trust people to be compassionate. However, if you remove the profit incentive from society, you will remove a substantial amount of the incentive to innovate and advance the world. It is no coincidence that the period of massive charitable giving in the US was during the period of rampant capitalism.
Communism can last a long time and there may be examples eventually that show that it is sustainable but what is certain is that it will underperform capitalism in nearly every respect.
"There is no evidence that primitive societies were even egalitarian in groups, to say nothing of completely sharing resources. "
There's actually quite a bit of evidence. When Europeans came into conflict with native peoples across the globe, there are examples all over the place of living cultures, and evidence in the archeological/anthropological record. I'd recommend a couple of David Graeber's books on it: "Debt: the First 5,000 Years" and "The Dawn of Everything". Absolutely fascinating. There are more scholarly books out there too I'm sure.
""Human beings" have not been a species for even half a million years,"
Granted 'anatomically modern' humans have been around for maybe 400,000 years.
But something approximating humans has been around for at least a million years. Recent evidence shows camp fire use a million years ago, and we've been using stone tools for over 2 million years.