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this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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How did manipulation to make you buy specific shit become so accepted?
Because that's the goal of capitalism
Capitalism is driven by the idea of a free market, where competition and the law of supply and demand determine prices, production, and distribution. Manipulating you to buy stuff you don't need is the result of human greed, not capitalism. That's such a monothink way of seeing the world.
Imagine living in a small town in the middle ages. You're growing corn, your neighbour has a chicken farm, then there's also a bakery, blacksmith etc. Say you now need nails. Where do you go? To the blacksmith obviously. Does he just give them to you? No, he wants something in return. Well you offer corn because that's what you have plenty of but what if he doesn't want corn but wants eggs instead? Well you can go to your neighbour and ask if he would like to trade some eggs for corn which you could then further trade for nails. Maybe that works, maybe it doesn't, but that's still a bit of an hassle. That's why people came up with money. You can just sell your corn, get cash, buy those nails with said cash and the blacksmith can then go buy eggs with that. That's capitalism.
Medieval communities did not engage in capitalism or any sort of internal market economy. Your assumption is that history defaults to a modern western mindset where everyone is highly individualistic and only interested in themselves. Yes you would give your neighbor eggs because you know theyll give you nails. Its called a "gift economy" by historians. Anyone who didnt help the community would be ostracized
My comment is meant as a counter argument for the claim that capitalism is "manipulating you to buy specific shit"
Money was invented in 3000BC, with first coins being minted out of precious metals around 650 to 600BC
coins being around for a long time dosent mean that most trade relied on them though
Trade existed. Trade over privately owned goods. Also known as capitalism. Capitalism is a broad term and people in this thread are zoning in on modern day liberal interpretation of capitalism because they can't wait to get their late stage capitalism verbiage in. Please, everyone take a step back or open a history book.
Commerce is not the same thing as capitalism, those words are not synonyms. Take a step back and open a dictionary. Pedantic definitions aside. The idea that capitalism is human nature and that human society and more broadly humans as a species are inherently capitalist is completely made up and ancient couns existing doesnt prove it. Id recommend looking up articles regarding "gift culture'" and "barter culture"
As for opening a history book: i did my undergrad in European history, and have a masters in Archeology. So while im not the definitive expert on the history of commerce and capitalism by any means, I have definitely opened up a couple history books.
You're attributing a lot of things to my statement that I did NOT say and I don't know why you do this. Why do you do it?
It brings me hope when I see atleast one other person trying to make sense of things. Fun place for debate, isn't it?
Haha sort of. People have a very superficial understanding of topics but a lot of confidence and anger. I don't know why I even bother with these forums/communities. My hope is lurkers don't feel alienated here because they aren't left of Bernie enough. The older I get, the more I notice people talk with a lot of confidence about stuff they have no idea about.
What ever would we do without you? ๐