2024-03-23 The end of capitalism

A few days ago, I saw a toot claiming that capitalism was the natural state of being since the world just wasn’t altruistic, that is just the way things are.

I… I don’t know where to start. The entire idea that production is part of a natural state is bonkers. Nobody else purchases things. What about other non-altruistic systems like dictatorships, slavery, feudalism, we have so much choice in terrible solutions… and what a strange reaction in face of one’s lack of imagination to just lie down and give up instead of insisting on human ingenuity and demanding that we do better.

If you ever see anybody say anything about the natural state, the first thing is to ask: are they a philosopher? A biologist? Or are they an economist? Or a haver of opinions?

These are not alike.

I love philosophy enough to have read a few books and I spent four years studying biology in the last millennium. I'm a master of science in biology. Homo sapiens survived at least 49500 years without capitalism and now we've had 500 years of capitalism max – that doesn’t sound like a natural state, from my biologist perspective. There are a lot of extra factors that are required for capitalism to flourish.

Modern humans appeared about 300,000 years ago. Cultural developments started speeding up 40,000 years ago. Agriculture started about 10,000 years ago. Writing started about 6000 years ago. Mercantilism started about 400 years ago.

I also don't think that capitalism "evolved" naturally. As a biologist, the word "evolve" is even more tricky than the word "natural". When the word "evolved" is used like in evolutionary biology, then I have questions about the applicability of the concept to the development of an economic system. It is not clear to me how this can work without using it metaphorically. To compare an economic system with anything that has evolved without genes (DNA or RNA, chromosomes, and so on) is to use the word metaphorically.

My point is about the use of the word "natural" in an argument supporting the existence of capitalism. Using the word "natural" is extremely problematic. It usually raises more questions than it solves. The examples I gave above illustrate that many aspects of capitalism don't exist in nature without humans. No animal has means of production that allow them to exploit the labour of other creatures to increase their capital and thus allow them to increase their means of production. Thus, there is nothing "natural" about capitalism.

Or perhaps one would be tempted to argue that anything related to humans is natural for humans, and therefore capitalism is a natural thing for humans to engage in? But then all the alternative economic system are just as natural: slavery empires, feudalism – all of it natural? Or maybe the word "natural" would become unusable when used in this way since it would no longer add anything to the conversation.

My point is also about there being a lot of other political systems that are bad, that satisfy the condition of fitting a world that's "not altruistic". These other political systems held for centuries, such as monarchies, feudalism, slavery empires and the like. So "natural" cannot be used to describe a tendency towards something so comparatively short-lived as capitalism. We spent many more years doing all these other evil economic systems and all of them at one point seemed "natural" in the metaphorical sense, at the time, for a long time.

In order to argue that capitalism was the natural end-point of an "evolution" is to argue like Hegel, Marx, or Fukuyama, it seems to me – except that now it's capitalism that's the stable end-state, instead of Prussia, communism or democracy. And if it isn't the inevitable end, then that's exactly what I've been trying to say: the use of the word "natural" in this context is bogus.

To have capitalism is at most a choice or maybe the result of external conditions. If the oil dries up, if the energy no longer flows, if famine comes back, then other economic systems might rise again. We might revert to theocracy or to feudalism or to slavery empires.

My claim is that there's no natural progression, there are just external factors that currently benefit capitalism. And of course evil people will be able to take advantage of power structures, no matter which economic system a society uses.

And one day the conditions will no longer be right and capitalism will end, not with a bang but with a whimper. When the economy crumbles to dust and we're thrown back into the conditions of the 15th century, there will be no more capitalism. The sword will once again be mightier than the coin.

Or maybe – and here I'll allow myself to dream – we might yet find another solution so that we can all inhabit this earth without torturing each other to death.

​#Philosophy