I think we can all agree that capitalism is developed instead of happened naturally
this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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I disagree.
if greed is the primary motivation for human beings, how could the vast majority of human existence have been in hunter-gatherer societies in which cooperation was the most valuable behavior?
Co-operation doesn't conflict with greed. Humans can and must co-operate within society to survive but humans are also motivated to do everything they can to screw over others to ensure their genes have the greatest chance of propagating, as long as screwing over others doesn't threaten survival.
Is that true? That sounds like something someone would just say with no factual backing. I read a fair bit recreationally about pre European societies and I haven't seen some universal truth about screwing each other over for some action.
There were and presumably are many societies that treat procreation and child rearing completely differently than we do today. Once you stop looking at your neighbors kids as "theirs" and seeing them as "ours" there isn't much drive to compete with them.
Is that true?
LOL do you expect me to say "no"?
https://lmsptfy.com/?q=evolutionary%20psychology%20mating%20behaviour
Once you stop looking at your neighbors kids as "theirs" and seeing them as "ours" there isn't much drive to compete with them.
I'm not talking about an ideology or culture, I'm talking about how biological life functions. You'll never see your neighbours' kids as carrying your own genes and your genes are the primary concern of the biological drives that underlie human behaviour.
Evolutionary psychology does tend to strictly reduce human nature - and nature in general - to some cruel law of the fittest, as well as denying there is any debate to be had. It’s basically genetic determinism. Nevertheless, altruism is deeply seated in our behaviours and does go as far as collective child-rearing, or alloparenting.
There is still heated debate about why and how altruism expresses itself in human behaviour despite the apparent competitiveness of basic Darwinian evolution. In practice altruism and competitiveness are both present in humanity and we do have agency over how the balance tilts.
altruism is deeply seated in our behaviours and does go as far as collective child-rearing
Indeed. But it doesn't preclude otherwise screwing people over.
Nothing you've said contradicts anything I've said. Ensuring one's own survival by altruistically caring for infants doesn't mean one sees those infants as carriers of one's own genes. Genetic relatives, especially offspring, are always one's primary concern. Because they share one's genes.
...humans are also motivated to do everything they can to screw over others to ensure their genes have the greatest chance of propagating...
Speaking as a gay man, my genes don't have a chance of propagating no matter how I treat other people.
How does screwing over others provide an advantage to propagating genes?
O_o
In many, many ways. For example, if I take your food, you're more likely to starve and I'm less likely to starve. You'll be less healthy and hence less attractive as a mate and I'll be more healthy and hence more attractive as a mate.
No if you take my food now I’m your enemy and you have two problems.
That's if you were able to pose a threat, in which case it would be less compelling to take your food, and the whole thing might not happen.
If I take half your food... you better drop and show your belly if you want to eat anything next time. You might want to stab me in the back, but as long as I bribe more and better individuals to protect me from wannabe backstabbers, I'll stay in power and you'll have to either give up that food, or get in bigger trouble. If you manage to assemble enough bottom dogs like yourself, or you bribe some bodyguards of your own... that's how wars get born.
How are you gonna bribe people if you're always screwing everyone over?
The traditional way is to not take any from the bodyguards and instead give them part of what I'd take from you, or directly task them with taking part of your food in exchange for a cut, while having them control each other and compete for my favor. Meanwhile, you'd have it harder to bribe anyone with what you had left if you don't want to starve.
Unless... are you stronger than others? Do you want to be a bodyguard and get a cut from taking food from others? 😏
Not necessarily. If you're not a threat, for example I'm bigger or have higher social status than you, then taking your food is no problem for me.
I'm a human, a tool-using creature. You have to be a hell of a lot bigger than me before I'm not a threat to you.
I think you're missing the point. Humans can and do screw over other humans, and doing so impacts gene propagation.
What came before capitalism? And how was that built?
Before capitalism there was feudalism and more basic market economies organized around market towns. Before you get to that level of density (i.e. purely agrarian or hunter gatherer societies) we generally see gift economies, which has been the default economic system for the majority of human history.
My point is that much of recorded history is defined by violence, long before capitalism was invented. What happened before we have historical records is open to speculation. Assuming it was all roses, hugs and gift-giving is pretty naive, though.
No one is assuming that. Also capitalism =/= market mechanics There are ways where you can apply market mechanics to generate price signal but not let capitalism run rampant.
Unfortunately it's really hard to know for most of early history because people didn't write down or tell stories about that mundane stuff. We do have lots of documentation from colonizers in North America as they interacted, observed, and tried to convert the native peoples though.
I'd recommend looking to the great lakes region in the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest reaching down to northern California since the Europeans wrote a lot about them. Some people had slaves and owned property and some did not, and some built their society around a system of social capital, where collectively being good to each other was a way to pay each other back for wrongdoing.
It's honestly absurd how many different ways people lived before us, and presumably, will after us.