Why Capitalism is Abuse... Wait

Capitalism is an economic system that largely dictates the structure of a society built around it. If a society is "ideas we share" + "how we interact", Capitalism provides the basis/medium/infrastructure for how a capitalistic society interacts.

Capitalism is abuse. Consider an individual - a person.
1. This person wants to live.
2. Any thing or person that supports this person in living is good.
3. Any thing or person that hinders this person from living is bad.
4. The act of limiting a person from living is an abusive act.
5. We have constructed a system, Capitalism, where capital translates directly to the ability to live. This person exchanges capital for the tools to live. e.g., food and shelter.
6. From (5), having more capital allows this person to live for longer. Having less capital keeps this person from living as long.
7. Combining (4) and (6), any act that limits this person's capital is an abusive act.
8. Consider profit. Profit is expending some capital and getting more capital back.
9. Any person who is profiting from you could have (a) charged this person less (b) paid this person more but didn't.
10. From (9), counterfactually, by profiting off this person, they have limited this person's capital.
11. From (7) and (10), this profiting counterparty is abusing this person.
12. Suppose that Capitalism is defined by profit and the profit motive.
13. From (12), Capitalism is a mechanism that enables the abuse presented in (11).

Therefore, Capitalism is an abuse structure.

Counterarguments and Key Clarifications

"Well, also counterfactually, compelling someone to have either (a) charged this person less (b) paid this person more, would be abuse in the other direction"
Yes

"You are assuming a zero-sum game here. If I can produce food more efficiently than you, I can profit off the difference in labor required to produce said food. If I charge you less than you would have expended producing the food yourself but more than I expend producing the food myself, we both have effectively profited."
In this single instance, yes, there is a net positive. But let us consider a society that only comprises the two of us. You provide me this food service with profit X and I provide you with some other service with profit Y. Supposing X is not equal to Y, one of us will run out of capital. We then degrade into an abuse structure. Now, suppose X is equal to Y. This is a degenerate case, since we could have simply exchanged the services directly, without the need to introduce capital. This special-case of Capitalism is not Capitalism at all.

"Consider other, non-capitalistic, systems. All proposed alternative systems have greater abuse than Capitalism."
This is a valid point. However, this point is out of scope for the arguments presented. I establish here that Capitalism is abusive, not that it is more or less abusive than other economic systems.

Actually, Capitalism is Bookkeeping

After reviewing the points above, I am no longer inclined to consider Capitalism an abuse structure - instead, Capitalism is a bookkeeping structure. The X=Y profit case is not a degenerate case at all, but instead the asymptotically perfect capitalistic society. We can consider a world in which I can produce all services more efficiently than you and ask, "why are you entitled to the fruits of my labor?" but that is not a question of Capitalism - Instead, that is a question of societal obligation.

Additionally, consider a more complex society, where person A needs person B's services, person B needs person C's services, and person C needs person A's services. Capital is a bookkeeping system that allows this dependency structure to flow seamlessly, even in the zero-profit case. A bartering system does not have an effective solution to this without introducing, at the minimum, a proto-capitalistic instrument like debt.

The gross accumulation of capital in society by individuals, like billionaires, is not a failing of Capitalism. Instead, this capital accumulation, that leads to the suffering of others, is a matter of societal obligation.

Post-Script

I started this writeup with the earnest intention to demonstrate that Capitalism is an abuse structure. The takeaways I present in "Actually, Capitalism is Bookkeeping" is a rendering of my actual though process as I identified the weaknesses in my initial argument. I knew, going into this writeup, that the definition of profit was going to be the weakest point in the most need of defending, but I found myself unable to successfully defend it. While I still believe that abuse happens under Capitalism, to argue that Capitalism is inherently abusive, I need to demonstrate that the profit motive is abusive. I need to argue that the asymptotic zero-profit scenario does not maximize life across a society, something that my core argumentative points here completely fail to address.

Future Work:
- What is the end-state of Capitalism? Does it always conclude with an abuse structure like real life?
- How does the harm within Capitalism compare to the harm within other economic systems?

Subscribe to Thorne Wolfenbarger - Blog

Don’t miss out on the latest issues. Sign up now to get access to the library of members-only issues.
jamie@example.com
Subscribe