this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

ok, some points, to define things:

Humans lived in stateless societies for longer than we've had recorded history.

States, social hierarchy, classes, money, religion, etc. are observed human behavior. They are the very result of humanity maneuvering with the chaos.

We use words like Capitalism as the names for models that describes some subset of human behavior.

(We see some groups of humans pooling the results of labor for redistribution and call the various forms of this different flavors of socialism.

We see other groups pooling the results of labor into separate pools fland segregating humans into groups defined by access to these various pools. We call these various forms of capitalism.)

We also see some groups force the behaviors described by various models directly on their members, (which are usually selected by physical proximity), through various means like manipulation, violence, coercion, enticement, etc. Sometimes this leads to a stable state, and we call these States, and sometimes it doesn't and we call these Failed States. When their collective commonality isn't geographic though, we have various names for them too (religion, for example).

So, although Freedom (the general human ability to make choices and act on them) is the default human state, "Unregulated Capitalism" is the model that most closely describes the behavior observed in underground/black markets. It is the state that emerges when humans make the choice to engage in commerce without regulation: capital gets allocated according to the laws of natural selection instead of supply and demand, but the system is still dependent on the supply and demand. To put it another way, this is Natural Capitalism: The "I have all the capital because no one is strong enough to take it away from me" kind of capitalism.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

“Unregulated Capitalism” is the model that most closely describes the behavior observed in underground/black markets.

Yes.

It is the state that emerges when humans make the choice to engage in commerce without regulation: capital gets allocated according to the laws of natural selection instead of supply and demand

No. Commerce without regulation existed for millennia, as you have correctly addressed here:

Humans lived in stateless societies for longer than we’ve had recorded history.

The black market is indeed commerce without regulation. That's the unregulated part. But it isn't just that. It is also a hierarchical system with privately accumulating capital at the tops of a steadily diminishing number of pyramids - that's the capitalism part - with no overarching authority to regulate it. In short, unregulated capitalism.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Great post! I literally think you might be the first person that's ever responded to my talk of chaos without offended defensiveness.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well, you didn't post at me like an asshole, so, thank you right back you well mannered human!

And I didn't mean to be so wordy, but sometimes they just get away from me.