• explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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      27 days ago

      Why not? Capitalism is private control over the factors of production - it’s not “equal freedom” or anything like that. The American South was capitalist during chattel slavery.

      And that’s not even getting into wage slavery.

      • aidan@lemmy.world
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        27 days ago

        Capitalism is private control over the factors of production

        If someone is legally exercising force over someone else, they are a de facto entity of the state.

          • aidan@lemmy.world
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            27 days ago

            From DuckDuckGo:

            1. An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development occurs through the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.
            1. An economic system based on predominantly private (individual or corporate) investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of goods and wealth; contrasted with socialism or especially communism, in which the state has the predominant role in the economy.
            1. A socio-economic system based on private property rights, including the private ownership of resources or capital, with economic decisions made largely through the operation of a market unregulated by the state.
            1. A socio-economic system based on the abstraction of resources into the form of privately-owned capital, with economic decisions made largely through the operation of a market unregulated by the state.
            1. A specific variation or implementation of either such socio-economic system.
            1. An economic system based on private ownership of capital.

            This isn’t necessary for all of them, but from Wikipedia:

            A state is a political entity that regulates society and the population within a territory.

            Slave masters are regulators of population, so they are an actor of the state.

            • rooroo@feddit.org
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              26 days ago

              If I tell you to get the fuck out of my way I also regulate population but I’m not the state. Note that even your definition says ‘a’, not ‘the’.

              Also, and more importantly, enslaved people are seen as property (and thus also as means of production) instead of population. IIRC this goes back to the definition of populace back in Ancient Greece but I can’t be arsed to look it up.

              • aidan@lemmy.world
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                26 days ago

                If I tell you to get the fuck out of my way I also regulate population but I’m not the state.

                Regulate would mean a legal basis to dictate/legislate to.

                Note that even your definition says ‘a’, not ‘the’.

                You’re going to have to be a bit more specific than that, there are a lot of "a"s

                Also, and more importantly, enslaved people are seen as property (and thus also as means of production) instead of population.

                Yes, that is how they were seen by some people. And those people were wrong. If I become a tyrant and declare I’m the only real person and everyone else is my property, then seize all their property- is that capitalism? Because 1 person just owns all the property? No, its because the definition of person is wrong. Enslaved people were still people, so they could not be property, even though the law claimed they could be.

    • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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      27 days ago

      I’m just going to assume this is sarcastic, because I refuse to believe that anyone actually believes this, even eager capitalists, themselves.

      If it’s somehow not sarcastic, you are either ridiculously ignorant about the world and it’s history, or blatantly lying.