Indeed, I wonder if ANY one can define it. True or False: You can define capitalism. You’ll get close to unanimity.
A glorious HT to my friend Chris. I hope “Capitalism” works for him better than it works for me.
Can Any of Them Define It?
Oct 6th, 2013 by wintercow20
I believe it was Marx who first used the term, thus converting capital to an “ism”. I prefer “free enterprise”.
That is what I thought, jb. It begs the question about the exploitation of labor, the Hegelian idea of history, and Marx’s answer, which that history progressed through inevitable stages to the promised land of the classless society where the proletariat owned the means of production, the ultimate axiologically highest goal.
WC’s friend who wrote about Marx recently may (should) correct me about what Marx really theorized. But the above is what your basic Ivy League professor taught about the Progressive understanding of Marxism and its idea of Capitalism. That is how they think about the world.
It failed, of course, big time , repeatedly, after millions of people killed directly for the cause, and hundreds of millions impoverished under the heavy yoke, People starve today, many in prison, to serve Marxism.
Harry you just don’t get it. It failed because it was the wrong people in charge, who didn’t care enough about the poor and didn’t work hard enough to end racial and sexist hegemony. However, our newly minted Sociology PhDs are certainly…the right “people” for the job. (people is in quotation here because I certainly wouldn’t want to promote anthropocentric hegemony and imply that one has to be human to Smash Capitalism ™!)