Human nature

When I get the 'human nature' argument against me it's not about capitalism per se.

They say stuff like

It's harder to combat this than just saying capitalism isn't that old..

That's what would be objectively better yes, but that doesn't mean it's in human nature to do that.. as we are emotional subjective beings and not pure rational ones.

I'm just playing the devil's advocate btw bc I want to be able to combat this argument myself and what you guys are saying now doesn't help one bit.

No. Capitalism is a very diferent mode of production from ancient slavery. First off, under slavery the worker was the property. Like Engels said the slave is sold once and for all, the proletarian must sell himself daily.

Capitalism hasn't been with us for around 250 years though.

That's only a Marxist view of the world.

People exchange properties and private properties exist.

So a difference between lump-sum and a daily contract?

Slaves can be resell, you know?

You misunderstand me. I'm not just saying socialism is preferable. I'm saying that capitalism is against human nature, but we're forced to participate or starve. Without someone forcing people to participate in capitalism, nobody would. A minority of people figured out how to bend everyone else to their interests and have been ever since (that's more just class in general than capitalism specifically).

That doesn't make it a capitalistic society. You're mistaking commodity exchange with capitalism my good man.

For a marxist maybe.

For economist in general, capitalism is the act of exchanging properties.

How is capitalism against human nature?

Sure other systems like feudalism can be considered capitalism, but the average person doesn't consider feudalism to be capitalist.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_aid_(organization_theory)

That's a really reductionist definition of capitalism

But that's the definition of capitalism for economist.

Well, since greed and cruelty exists, it is obviously(to some extent) a part of human nature. These negative aspects are on the other hand trumped by the vast amounts of nurture and mutual aid required to reproduce the world. We should therefore strive to create a society encouraging the "communist" aspect of human nature rather than the greed.

Masters have always tried to justify their power as a natural result of some set in stone rules about the universe; kings ruled by the will of god and porkies by the will of nature.

And? The average person considers Soviet Union communist, is he right or wrong?
Mutual aid doesn't invalidate greed, lust, war, things have been with humanity ever since we decide "that things look nice, it's mine".

OP here, this is what I meant by sounding like a rousseaufag, I usually fall back to the argument that most social problems stem from class, but I have a hard time providing further arguments other than that, especially when someone starts larping about Hobbes

you are literally making shit up

Why can't you? So if I decide to rob your ass, your argument would be invalidated.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism#History

this. "human nature" is brought up to present capitalism as natural and inevitable.

This human nature has been present in every societies before capitalism though.

Yes, so has communist traits of human nature.

I think the first guy is criticizing capitalism, the second guy is justifying why we have to have a system that has those things 'muh human nature'

Read what you posted. Capital, while it existed in smaller amounts before, did not start growing in power until the 16th century, which is why it's called capitalism. That is what Marx called primitive accumulation.

the typical anti-communist arguments are manufactured, they're taught in schools and movies, but it's often really subtle

it's why almost everyone can mention

Thats's the academic view. Not just a Marxist perspective. Slave societies, feudalism, and capitalism are all distinct modes of production.

It's also related to , but one significant difference between what you call capitalism and what currently exists is the existence and prevalence and the necessity of wage labour - a thing that doesn't really exist with slaves.

And regarding the economists, I'm frankly not that surprised that they are trying to legitimize and normalize the current economic system, since they do have a certain ideological function, as seen in the video attached. In some sense they are the modern day priests, but instead of trying to explain us god's will, they try and read the will of the market. Also appeal to authority. The fact that our terminology isn't the same as that of the economist, is to be expected. But arguing about what the world really means, is a useless semantic debate.

This . I'd rather trust a historian or a anthropologist on what happed in the past and how societies worked, than a economist.