Edit: Changed title to be more accurate.
Also here is the summary from Wikipedia on what Post-scarcity means:
Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely. Post-scarcity does not mean that scarcity has been eliminated for all goods and services but that all people can easily have their basic survival needs met along with some significant proportion of their desires for goods and services. Writers on the topic often emphasize that some commodities will remain scarce in a post-scarcity society.
I’d be willing to bet 3 out of 4 people in this thread couldn’t even define capitalism. I count myself among them.
I think the simplest way to put it is “an economic system where individuals are allowed to have exclusionary ownership of capital”
What’s “exclusionary ownership” mean here?
It’s the idea that because you own something, you’re the only one who is allowed to use it, whether you’re actually actively using it right now or not. You can contrast it with usufructuary rights, which are based on the idea that you only have rights to something while you’re actively using it
So that would be like one of those rental scooters, or a set of scuba gear if you lived and worked on a ship? It’s yours while you’re wearing it, or maybe while you have it checked out?
Yep! I wouldn’t say it would be “yours” exactly because you would never have actual ownership of the thing while you’re using it, but it would be your right to use it and profit from it so long as you don’t destroy it. A good example would be the way Native Americans viewed land use, following herds of wild animals wherever they went and moving from depleted areas to more fertile ones. This clashed heavily with European and American colonialists, who enforced their views of exclusionary ownership with barbed wire fences and violence.
Like territory. Your crew sets up camp somewhere, that’s your property until you move. You walk into a bar, you take over a corner. It’s your corner for the night.
Technically, Monarchism falls under that definition as well, which is why it gets a bit more complex than that.
A monarchy can be capitalist as long as peoples property rights are respected. The moment the monarch decides to lop somebodys head off and take their stuff you’ll be back to the old-school feudalistic “might makes right” societies.
Sort of. Monarchism is more about respecting a family’s right to rule, than a claim on economics, though usually Feudalism goes hand in hand historically. The British parliamentary system with a vestigial Monarchy is an exception, not the rule.
I would call monarchism a form of religious capitalism where the ruling class claims divine right as the methods to accumulate capital, rather than using financial means to accumulate capital
Certainly more hierarchical than Socialism, but also more than Capitalism. Fundamentally, the lack of a market for Capital separates Capitalism from Monarchism, the class dynamics of today are different from before. This is helpful to understand IMO when trying to see how to solve it.
Does the exchange of land between kingdoms via wedding dowries/treaties/violence fulfill the definition of a “market for capital”?
Kinda. It’s not a very efficient market, but a market doesn’t have to be efficient to be a market.
I guess technically any system of trade could be thought of as a capital market, as long as capital is for sale.
Not really. Capitalism allows anyone to buy and sell Capital, whereas these more primitive exchanges aren’t the same. The Bourgeoisie are fundamentally different from the Aristocracy.
That’s pretty fair. It may feel impossible for me today to afford any capital, but if I were somehow able to accumulate enough money I would be legally allowed to own capital. Under monarchy, even if I got that much money, it would be illegal for me to purchase capital as an individual. That’s enough of a distinction to make them different for me, thanks for bringing it up.
Yep, that’s the idea! Functionally, Capitalism is more revolutionary and progressive than Feudalism, which is why it’s a good thing that Feudalism is fading and Capitalism is the status quo, just like it will also be a good thing when Capitalism is fading and Socialism becomes the status quo.
Don’t see the problem in that
The problem comes in what you define as “capital”. Food and housing are the biggest issues for the modern world but there still exists the problem of PEOPLE being considered capital that can be owned by other people.
Food isn’t capital. Capital is wealth used to produce other wealth. A house definitely is. Foods just consumable.
Classic “capital” is a hammer owned by a laborer (that situation is one person playing both roles). The classic capitalist separation of layers is a guy who owns a truck full of tools, and he hires other guys to work on things using the tools, but he retains ownership of the tools.
Capitalism is a Mode of Production by which the Means of Production are bought, sold, and traded among individuals. This results in Capitalists, ie owners of Capital, and Workers, those who Capitalists employ to create Value using said Means of Production.
And what’s the problem with owning, buying and selling things? We’ve been doing that for millennia. Obviously, unregulated American style capitalism is very broken, but there are better ways to do business. It’s just that those ways are not that appealing to the greedy.
Markets aren’t Capitalism, Capitalism has only been around for a few hundred years.