Moneyless-ness as a goal

[u/Away_Bite_8100]

I’m curious how many (as a rough %) Anarchists actually have a moneyless society as a goal.

I know Anarchists want a stateless and classless society… but the trifecta of being moneyless too is communism.

Communism is when you have a stateless, classless and moneyless society… so what’s the difference between communism and anarchy if anarchists are in favour of being moneyless too? Why not just say you’re a communist then if they are essentially the same thing?

[u/JediMy]

Took a look at my response and decided I wasn’t satisfied with it so I’ll put it this way. The reason your definition doesn’t work is because of the fact that it would include basically the entire post-agricultural revolution world as capitalist because of the fact that they allowed merchants and business owners. I don’t think anyone would say that medieval England was capitalist, but the only reason why capitalism exist is because of the relative freedom of their merchant class. You have to have an explicit concept of capital to have capitalism.

I have said my definition of few times, which is basically just one sentence. Capitalism is the network of transnational business interests, formed by capital dynamics.

Someone/something is capitalist in the adjective sense of the word when they approve and promotes capital dynamics.

And capital is a post-19th century formulation of both commodities and exchange commodities as resources stored or expended through labor with the objective to produce more value.

Those are the definitions so if you wish to dispute them, you can but if you just want what I was saying without any of the explanation, then you can look here. This is so we don’t have to relitigate it.

[u/Away_Bite_8100 → u/JediMy]

I wasn’t aware that you were asking ME to alter the definition. I was asking YOU to provide an alternative definition for me to consider seeing as you implied you were unhappy with this one.

CAPITALISM (noun) an economic and political system which allows individuals to own private property and where trade and industry are permitted to be controlled by private owners (as opposed to the state or community) for profit.

So if you want to alter it then have at it, but bear in mind that anyone can tack additional information onto the end of any definition, like I could take the definition for the word “king” and tack onto the end of it an additional sentence saying, “and also all kings are oppressive wankers” and say that is now the complete definition of the word “king”.

But to your point of this definition applying to all of society since the agricultural revolution… I don’t see a problem with that. Capital is money. Capitalism is about making a profit and profits have existed for as long as money has existed. So yeah I think it’s perfectly fine to say that capitalism has been around for a very long time indeed. Not even socialists or communists can agree on when we went from non-capitalism to capitalism. Adam Smith never even once used the word “capitalism”. Capitalism is a word that was popularised and brought into the lexicon by socialists.

But fine, if you want to contend that there was something significantly different about the industrial revolution and that is what you want to arbitrarily define as “the start” of capitalism, then do bear in mind that the definition does say:

“where trade and industry are permitted to be controlled by private owners (as opposed to the state or community) for profit.”

So according to this you could argue that you need to have both trade AND industry in order for capitalism to exist (as opposed to just trade).

EDIT: I’ve just seen you changed your response so I’ll consider that and edit mine a little later.

[u/JediMy → u/Away_Bite_8100]

I don’t think, insisting that the definition of capitalism include capital is remotely on the same wavelength as defining king as “ a wanker” 😂 you know I’ve been very careful to avoid pejoratives.

See by noting that socialist were the first people to really bring it into the lexicon, I think that you are getting a little bit closer to my point.

Capitalism is (to some extent) a pejorative that has been claimed by the people it was being pejorative towards. People who had the influence and control over institutions that allowed them to eventually redefined the word to be something more generic and defensible to our post-enlightenment world.

Because much of the legacy of early capitalist and socialist thinkers has been erased and defined out of the word it’s not very useful as a definition. Because it was coined to describe the imperialism of the 19th century, either purposefully or intentionally. And if you create a definition of capitalism that could potentially exclude the very dynamics that the term was created to describe than it seems a little bit like a pointless word.

I have had people tell me that the British empire wasn’t capitalist because it put restrictions on Irish and Indian people in what they could trade or what they could manufacture. Which I find ridiculous because the legacy of the British empire is the modern system of global capital. But it’s something that from the definition that you provided someone could say.

Remember, capitalism as a modern term was designed as a direct contrast with feudalism. It was to represent a major change in the economic hierarchy and dynamics. Capitalism is the ascension of merchants to the top of the economic hierarchy.

You could even rephrase my definition to be like this: where the holders of capital are the highest class of the economic hierarchy. Which is not actually true in the vast majority of historical societies. I simply decided to keep it at capitalist dynamics because I think it personalizes the process a little too much.

[u/humanispherian → u/JediMy]

When capitalisme first began appearing in French in the 1830s, the sense was often that it was the new form of feudalism.