Jim Hlavac
| Politics Home The Practicalist The Socialist Era Politics Re-Explained Fundamentals Domestic Affairs Economic Theory Foreign Affairs Libertarian Ideas Political Theory Philosophy Royalty & Theology |
Economic Theory
| Economic Theory |
The word "Capitalism" was invented by Karl Marx, and first used
in the Communist Manifesto. His basic description is that it's a stage
of economic history where the means of production are owned by a
few "capitalists" and they conspire to keep workers poorly paid and
ill-housed so that they can maximize their "profits." His was a bitter
explanation of something which didn't really exist. He set it up only as
a foil for his own proposal of the "workers" owning everything in
Communist Bliss.
He left out a few things though. Primarily that the vast amount of
wealth and property of any description that existed in the 1840's
England where he wrote his books was owned by a landed hereditary
aristocracy that had no resemblance whatsoever to what most people
would call a capitalist today.
The word itself, being from a cloudy original definition and loaded
with 150 years of baggage is no longer effective in describing the
world we live in.
As for "maximizing profits at the expense of the worker," well this
is exactly what the aristocracy had been doing for a centuries. It
wasn't that much different than serfdom. Oddly, when the first of
what we could identify as capitalists surfaced, they were self-made
men who worked very hard, paid their people more than the
average, and spent a lot of time mostly fighting the aristocracy who
sought to keep their monopolies.
Marx of course proposed that this was merely a "stage" in history
where certain basically malign or even evil people made "profits" at
the expense of the worker. This wholly ignored the basic
mathematics of economy, which Marx showed a woeful
misunderstanding of in his seminal "Das Kapital."
in the Communist Manifesto. His basic description is that it's a stage
of economic history where the means of production are owned by a
few "capitalists" and they conspire to keep workers poorly paid and
ill-housed so that they can maximize their "profits." His was a bitter
explanation of something which didn't really exist. He set it up only as
a foil for his own proposal of the "workers" owning everything in
Communist Bliss.
He left out a few things though. Primarily that the vast amount of
wealth and property of any description that existed in the 1840's
England where he wrote his books was owned by a landed hereditary
aristocracy that had no resemblance whatsoever to what most people
would call a capitalist today.
The word itself, being from a cloudy original definition and loaded
with 150 years of baggage is no longer effective in describing the
world we live in.
As for "maximizing profits at the expense of the worker," well this
is exactly what the aristocracy had been doing for a centuries. It
wasn't that much different than serfdom. Oddly, when the first of
what we could identify as capitalists surfaced, they were self-made
men who worked very hard, paid their people more than the
average, and spent a lot of time mostly fighting the aristocracy who
sought to keep their monopolies.
Marx of course proposed that this was merely a "stage" in history
where certain basically malign or even evil people made "profits" at
the expense of the worker. This wholly ignored the basic
mathematics of economy, which Marx showed a woeful
misunderstanding of in his seminal "Das Kapital."