this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Right, but they can't! That's the whole point of capitalism! Slavery is the pinnacle of anti-capitalism, because slaves don't own their own capital! It's explicitly not capitalist.
Holy mental gymnastics, Batman
Please explain-- what gymnastics?
Wikipedia definition of capitalism:
If slaves don't have private ownership.... then they're not living under a capitalist system. Right? What am I missing?
Slaves don't have private ownership of their capital (that is, their own labor)... because someone else does.
Most "free" workers, in terms of capital, own only their own labor.
Capitalists own the majority of the capital--land, equipment, intellectual property, etc.
A system where the workers own the capital (aka the means of production) is socialism.
You're being disingeneous. You're a troll.
I think I see the problem: You think you have capitalism in the US. You do not have capitalism in the US (or Canada, or Europe). You have regulated capitalism.
The more capitalism you have, the fewer rules and regulation.
Capitalism in its true, unfettered form with no rules will give you everything I said: Externalize everything, low/no pay, unsafe conditions, poison your workers, etc, etc,
But we have regulated some bad parts. This regulation is not the result of capitalism. It expressly goes against capitalism.
They can't because we (unions/govt) said hey we need rules on this capitalism, because look at the effects of capitalism.
So we're back to the funny part. Now you ascribe the success of unions/government to be the success of capitalism. Funny how that works huh. You're full package:All the problems of capitalism, you ascribe to government. And all the success of unions/government, you ascribe to capitalism. You have now turned around everything to fit your narrative.
Slavery, child labor, killing your workers (I don't think you've read about the radium girls) is literally the pinnacle of capitalism. It's literally what capitalism resulted in, it's all over history.
Ah yes of course, that must be why no one ever finds people under working conditions analogous to slavery under capitalist states. Ever. Never happened.
I’m trying to take this thread seriously, but my man you sound so naive it hursts. I live in a global south country and the ammount of damage done to my society due to both capitalism and imperialism (which benefit from each other, you can’t fully separate them) is revolting. You need to read more and travel more.
The slaves don't own capital because they are the capital!
Nowhere in the definition of capitalism does it require that everyone owns capital; in fact it's much more the opposite.
Chattel slavery was and is a stage of capitalist development.