Yes, imperialism is where a government exerts political and economic control over another different country. Capitalism is a system of private ownership of the means of production. Clearly, these systems are in opposition.
Capitalism requires private property. If you come up with a system “capitalism except we relax private property norms” then you’ve blurred the line right out of “capitalism” into fascism, communism, centrism, some other “-ism.”
> That only happens if there is a meaningful separation between government and private owners or oligarchs.
Yes, exactly. When the government expropriates property and gives it to friends of the people in government, its imperialist but not capitalist.
> Your definition is reductive.
Indeed.
The problem isn't social norms. The problem is untethered capitalism allows concentrations of wealth and power with no check on it. Those capitalists then stoke fascism to retain power once material conditions have decayed enough due to that concentration of wealth.
They are able to choose to do those things because capitalism has created massive surpluses that allow people to survive on a relatively small amount of labor. This creates a surplus that can be directed towards leisure or given to the less fortunate.
> Capitalism doesn't fuel everything.
Its true there are a handful of susbsistence level societies that do not rely on capitalism for anything but they are in danger of being assimilated and exterminated. [0]
> The problem isn't social norms. The problem is untethered capitalism allows concentrations of wealth and power with no check on it.
While I disagree with you that is an accurate statement of the facts; surely you can see that allowing concentrations of wealth is a social norm that you consider to be a problem.
> Those capitalists then stoke fascism to retain power once material conditions have decayed enough due to that concentration of wealth.
The material conditions that result from capitalism are widespread prosperity; conditions deteriorate when the oligarchs convince you to allow them to use the government to redistribute the wealth of the middle class.
How many people work two plus jobs? How many have to do gig work to make ends meet? Capitalism has created massive surpluses and free time, for the capitalists.
> Its true there are a handful of susbsistence level societies that do not rely on capitalism for anything but they are in danger of being assimilated and exterminated.
By capitalists looking to exploit them.
> While I disagree with you that is an accurate statement of the facts; surely you can see that allowing concentrations of wealth is a social norm that you consider to be a problem.
No, it isn't a social norm. What definition of social norm are you even using here? It is a direct consequence of capitalism.
> The material conditions that result from capitalism are widespread prosperity; conditions deteriorate when the oligarchs convince you to allow them to use the government to redistribute the wealth of the middle class.
Half the globe lives in poverty. More and more in the US are living in poverty. Wages have stagnated while productivity has increased. There isn't widespread prosperity by any definition. You've been watching too much PragerU if you honestly believe this.
The US is not a capitalist country.
> By capitalists looking to exploit them.
By imperialists looking to exploit them. Under capitalism they would own their land.
> No, it isn't a social norm. What definition of social norm are you even using here? It is a direct consequence of capitalism.
Capitalism is a set of social norms, I’m using the same definition as sociologists and anthropologists.
> Half the globe lives in poverty. More and more in the US are living in poverty. Wages have stagnated while productivity has increased. There isn't widespread prosperity by any definition.
The increasing poverty is a direct result of social norms that inhibit free exchange on markets. Regardless, the level of prosperity is the highest its been in 10,000 years and if you think people are poor now, you should read a history book.
> You've been watching too much PragerU if you honestly believe this.
I suggest you widen your understanding of history rather than cast aspersions on the sources you believe others are relying upon.
In order for the parasites to have something, they permit a limited amount of regulated market activity (including some forms of rent on capital) and that’s where all the goods and services are produced.
> Give an example of what you consider a capitalist country, please.
Obviously there are none.
Think about what capitalism has brought us. More and more people on the planet are lifted out of poverty every year as a direct consequence of capitalism.
Why did the colonials, when they arrived in west Africa, find they had basically done nothing for thousands of years? Because they didn't have capitalism in my eyes. Capitalism brought you the computer you are typing on.
> Why did the colonials, when they arrived in west Africa, find they had basically done nothing for thousands of years?
This is so racist and imperialistic, really bad take.
> Capitalism brought you the computer you are typing on.
Soviets had computers too, ya know.
Mantra of every bleeding heart capitalist since Adam Smith.
> Mantra of every bleeding heart capitalist since Adam Smith.
>>> When the happiness or misery of others depends in any respect upon our conduct, we dare not, as self–love might suggest to us, prefer the interest of one to that of many.
>>> Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice.
>>> In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.
>>> The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it.
>>> Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog.
>>> Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.
>>> Labour was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command.
I would express this as “human rights” and I agree.
> It's an egregious mischaracterization to call the U.S. a bastion of capitalism
Agreed.