my new theory of capitalism for you to rubbish

[kyser_soze]

could a system really become the dominant global political force through mind tricks?

Religions were the dominant social force for about 5 millenia and primarily relied on 'mind tricks' as you call them, to do exactly that.

Besides, it wasn't just 'mind tricks', it was a social evolution that took in new technolgy, huge shifts in power relationships and most importantly an entirely new way of looking at how the world was constructed (if not a new way of how the world should be ordered!!).

 

[peacepete]

i think that religions are predominantly ritualised violent tyranny, the mind tricks are relatively secondary.

 

[kabbes]

Perception is everything. If you want to control a populace, you first and foremost get them to control themselves and to WANT to do it, to boot.

Do you really think that things like justice, peace, money, respect, joy and law are anything other than mind tricks? Mind tricks ultimately are the only things that matter.

 

[peacepete]

Perhaps I should explain a little about the motivation for my 'redefining' capitalism (I don't think I actually am doing anything original by the way, and wish I'd worded my opening gambit a little differently)

I feel uncomfortable with an account of capitalism which defines it exclusively from the perspective of within and have always sought explanations of it which are coherent with the perspective of an outsider to capitalism. this makes sense if you set your aim to exist outside it and to outlive it (which is certainly my aim). from the outside perspective I would suggest that capitalism appears predominantly as an expansive destructive tyranny.

it certainly does not appear to be predominantly a creative or 'productive' force. My suggestion is that the reason it is currently such a powerful force is precisely because of its destructive capacity. By destroying it creates scarcity which drives more people towards it for survival, which then serve its functions.

 

[kyser_soze]

Have you read that link to Capital? Read that first.

 

[peacepete]

I've finished the first volume. Correct me if I'm misreading this, but is he suggesting that accumulation only occurs prior to capitalism and everything from there on is 'production'? I don't buy it myself.

If you monocrop an area of land you completely disrupt all the ecosystems that any 'production' relies on and the land dies. If you allow it to stay wild (as in as forests in much of europe) then none of the stuff that is 'produced' has any labour-value invested. it is just accumulated.

I don't buy this labour-value stuff. I reckon it's nonsense.

Go read some Baudrillard.

 

[butchersapron]

I've finished the first volume. Correct me if I'm misreading this, but is he suggesting that accumulation only occurs prior to capitalism and everything from there on is 'production'? I don't buy it myself.

Yes you are. You've not really read it.

 

[peacepete]

I am genuinely asking for help here and I have read the link I've been pointed to. I'll read it again more closely, but could someone say exactly why I'm wrong rather than pointing out that communist farmers also degrade land, but then again capitalist farmers are actually socialist farmers.

 

[peacepete]

scrap that, i started this silly game. I'll go away and come back when I've got a firmer idea of what I'm trying to say.

 

[Cid]

Well read up on it a bit... Agricultural production in the first world is enormously efficient these days, and the facts fly in the face of your ideas; food is more easily available than it has ever been (in the first world), people spend a much lower proportion of their income on it and this makes sense for capitalism as they then have more disposable income free to spend on everything else. Ok, that's vastly oversimplified, but hey. There are some sustainability issues, but these have arisen more as a product of large populations requiring a consistent supply of food... Also the pattern has been toward an increase in sustainable measures rather than away from them. You have to remember that the market for food is a captive one, you want people to have easy, cheap access to it so they don't start doing uncapitalist things like growing it for themselves.

 

[Blagsta]

I've finished the first volume. Correct me if I'm misreading this, but is he suggesting that accumulation only occurs prior to capitalism and everything from there on is 'production'? I don't buy it myself.

If you monocrop an area of land you completely disrupt all the ecosystems that any 'production' relies on and the land dies. If you allow it to stay wild (as in as forests in much of europe) then none of the stuff that is 'produced' has any labour-value invested. it is just accumulated.

I don't buy this labour-value stuff. I reckon it's nonsense.

Go read some Baudrillard.

you can't really understand Baudrillard without getting to grips with Marx first