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Darwinism predates "Darwinism". Yours is not an argument.
People traded before states existed.
Rational actors didn't appear at the date when the model description of capitalism was defined. People kept slaves because they could (obviously). We can argue that they either did this for profit or for laughs. I know what I'd bet.
> You should also read George Fitzhugh, the most prominent representative of anti abolitionist plantation owners. He was a staunch anti-capitalist specifically because the moral framework it is built on humanized black people and this sentiment was a primary driver in the abolitionist movement. Capitalists and abolitionists were extremely closely associated during the abolitionist movement.
"We treat the Abolitionists and Socialists as identical, because they are notoriously the same people, employing the same arguments and bent on the same schemes. Abolition is the first step in Socialism: the former proposes to abolish negro slavery, the latter all kinds of slavery - religion, government, marriage, families, property - nay, human nature itself. Yet the former contains the germ of the latter, and very soon ripens into it; Abolition is Socialism in its infancy." - George Fitzhugh
> > Maximizing rights and freedoms on the macro scale means limiting some people's edge freedoms on the micro scale.
> No it doesn't. It means preventing others from stepping on universal freedoms of others, which is exactly the philosophical foundations of private property.
Meaning someone enforces your right to property from someone else having a different idea of freedoms.
You're not contradicting me. We can only have rights and freedoms by collectively agreeing where those limits are, and enforcing them as a society. That's what laws and regulations do.
No, I raised a point that countered your claim that Fitzhugh opposed capitalism because it was closely coupled with the abolition. He opposed socialism just as much. Neither of your quotes negate that, which I think illustrates the further point that he's an unreliable narrator.
> Profit motive is not capitalism. Mercantilism is not capitalism. Trade is not capitalism. Feudalism is not capitalism.
May I ask, what is capitalism, to you?
> I know anti capitalists like to label anything that has profit anywhere in it as capitalism but that's intellectually dishonest and completely outside accepted economic history and philosophy.
I'm not anti-capitalist, I'm anti-"one tool for all jobs" and equally simplistic views.
> Slavery isn't practiced in societies where it is morally and ethically opposed.
Sure.
> If profit was the prerequisite for slavery, and not dehumanization, then it would persist regardless of morality.
This absolutely does not follow any chain of logic. There can be more prerequisites than one, and morality can supersede something else.
> Profit seeking via slavery is entirely contingent on dehumanization.
Sure.
> Capitalist societies are the only ones in human history that have enduring humanization of everyone, and that's not a coincidence.
Again, which capitalist societies? The US is a mixed economy, as is every other country in the western world. They are functioning because they have a better or worse enforced playing field and infrastructure, and yes, social programs.
> No, those freedoms and rights exist regardless of whether or not a society does. It's only the imposition of society or others that attempts to take those things away. You don't magically get rights because of society.
But you literally just said:
> We're literally discussing the causative relationship between a specific economic system, with specific foundations and philosophies, and moral and social progression, not the existence of amalgamous profit motive and how it was exercised in various social, political, and economic systems.
So either it existed before society or it didn't? Pick one, you can't have both.
Instead of asking me to read books you've picked out in a Gish Gallop, maybe you use the knowledge you learned from them and explain what capitalism is, when it came into existence, and which societies you believe embodies its principles.
There's no such thing as capitalism to me. The things I listed are demonstrably not capitalism
>So either it existed before society or it didn't? Pick one, you can't have both
Pick one of what? Rights exist independent of society. Society and government trampled on them for most of history. Some guys that led a revolution wrote a lot about this and the self evident nature.
As for your last request, I've done that repeatedly and you've repeatedly resorted to attempts to change the topic.
Capitalism and its principles, capitalist societies, and capitalist philosophers have consistently demonstrated the most rapid and prolific advances in ethics and morality in human history.
I'm asking you specific questions. You are asking me to read books you have dictated, regardless of if I've read them or not. I'm asking about your interpretation, and you repeatedly ignore that simple, basic, foundational component of a discussion. I'm inclined to disagree what constitutes bad faith.
> There's no such thing as capitalism to me. The things I listed are demonstrably not capitalism
So is capitalism everything you haven't listed? Is the question too broad or difficult?
> Pick one of what? Rights exist independent of society. Society and government trampled on them for most of history. Some guys that led a revolution wrote a lot about this and the self evident nature.
Pre-society your rights went as far as you could throw a rock and defend yourself, or your tribe enforced it. You can call rights inherent all you want, but in practice the enforcability is the only thing that matters. Without society person A can walk into person B's house while they're sleeping and remove person A and now there's a new house owner. The rights and freedoms you describe require that we agree what constitutes those rights, so that we can agree on how they're enforced, through police and courts, through elections, and what rights you have to move from point A to point B, given that without this framework you could get landlocked by others ownership.
> As for your last request, I've done that repeatedly and you've repeatedly resorted to attempts to change the topic.
It would be easier to just copy and paste it than to write something else. You haven't though, or I wouldn't have asked. Please argue in good faith.
> Capitalism and its principles...
Which you won't define
> capitalist societies...
which you won't specify
> and capitalist philosophers have consistently demonstrated the most rapid and prolific advances in ethics and morality in human history.
Easy to claim if you don't have to substantiate it.
If you don't want to discuss the topic, and only deflect everything through vague references elsewhere, then what point is there in you posting?