this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
842 points (97.8% liked)
Comic Strips
12966 readers
1932 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- [email protected]: "I use Arch btw"
- [email protected]: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Unlike in nature where you can just rip whatever you want away from whatever has it, under capitalism the only way to “prey” on others is to provide them something they willingly choose to buy.
Oh, you sweet summer child.
I’ve lived in nature before. I appreciate capitalism because I’ve been outside of it.
What’s the most danger you’ve lived in, my tough winter child, that you think getting rich is equivalent to predation?
Civilization predates Capitalism by a few hundred thousand years. Capitalism did not create civilization.
And capitalism is better than systems we had before, like feudalism and slavery. We critiqued and revolted and improved on those, and we can do better than capitalism too.
Capitalism is not the worst we can do, but it's not the best either.
I guess it depends on how we’re going to define capitalism.
Cooperation between humans, in a state of nature, ie before civilization, incentivizes free trade. Why fight the dudes on the other side of the creek if you can trade with them?
Why fight with them when you could leave them alone entirely?
If communicating, why not trade with them?
If you want all their stuff for yourself, is it really worth those four gourds and a bead necklace to fight to the death for it?
Coercion is costly, and it’s more costly the closer you are in strength to another person.
Trying to coerce somebody your own size is a bad idea. Trying to coerce someone smaller is inefficient assuming they’re not trying to kill you, which they won’t be because that’s suicidal on their part.
So the first arrangement we had with other people was free trade, governed by everyone’s capacity for violence and willingness to fight back if attacked. Probably less human-v-human hatred when nature was so relatively powerful too.
This is before civilization mind you, when we just had tribes.
In a separate thread it might be good to consider whether the classic dating of civilization to have dawned when agriculture created food surplus, is the first historical example of the capitalist/worker relationship. But that should be in a separate thread.