“Capitalism is just human nature.
That’s why it’s the best system."
We’ve all heard it being said before.
Mostly in the context of someone suggesting
that capitalism isn’t perfect.
Take any video talking about socialism, communism,
anarchism or anything that isn’t neoliberal
capitalism, and someone in the comments will
tell you that that won’t work because Capitalism
| is | natural.
But is it?
I don’t think so.
But let’s start off by asking ourselves
“What is that even supposed to mean?”
Let’s type the statement “Capitalism is
natural” into google and see what it suggests
since that’s obviously what people are thinking
about.
There we have it “capitalism is natural
selection” and that’s an actual argument
used by many supporters of capitalism for
why it’s a natural system.
“Since capitalism includes natural selection
it follows the laws of Darvin which makes
it natural” On the surface this idea seems
to hold water.
Capitalism famously takes companies and individuals,
ideally as many as possible, and makes them
compete on the free market.
They compete for customers if they are companies
and for jobs if they are individuals.
So, everyone is constantly competing which
is natural and the best way a society can
be run ... right?
Well I’d argue it’s definitely not the
best system.
Actually a lot of resources are wasted on
the constant competition.
Big cooperations have to invest huge sums
into advertising in order to be able to compete.
“Ha” you may say “this is a big advantage
of competition because it means that companies
have to constantly innovate and create newer
and better products for the people!”.
This is a very common argument as well and
as luck would have it, I already made an entire
video on why the free market doesn’t cause
innovation.
In short it doesn’t because adverts are
cheaper.
So competition is expensive and usually doesn’t
even produce innovation.
At this point you may already be questioning
why we even bother with competition and the
usual answer isn’t that we use it because
it’s the best possible system but because
it’s the best current system we have.
That’s a big difference.
People rarely argue that capitalism is the
best system to ever be able to exist.
They prefer to argue that it’s the best
system we have.
This goes hand in hand with the fact that
every 5-year-old already knows that socialism
supposedly killed at least one petabyte of
the people in the USSR.
Of course, that’s not really true and I
made a video on that one as well.
So the current argument usually goes: “Capitalism
is the best system because socialism is bad
because it killed people and at least capitalism
doesn’t do that”.
There are 2 problems with this statement.
One is that the deaths caused by socialism
are usually greatly exaggerated as I mentioned
before.
The other is that capitalism isn’t a perfect
system either.
Many people die each year because capitalism
isn’t able to support them.
And yes of course I’ve made a video on that.
And with the argument part of the statement
refuted there isn’t anything left besides
“capitalism is the best system”.
Also this argument assumes that there are
no other systems than socialism and capitalism
which is a little odd considering capitalism
as we know it today wasn’t invented until
the late 1770s but I just noticed that I’ve
gotten a little off topic.
Back to the point.
Is capitalism natural because it features
competition?
Well.
Not really.
Of course competition is very common in nature
but often times it doesn’t take place between
members of the same species.
For example, plants will intentionally avoid
the leaves of other plants of the same genome,
so they don’t need to waste energy competing
for nutrients or sunlight.
This can be seen all over the animal kingdom
as well.
Fish move in swarms because that’s the safest
for them.
They don’t invest energy into changing their
colour so that predators will eat the other
fish first.
Meerkats socially bring up the young and hell
even humans cooperate like that.
Think of the thanksgiving meal or your local
equivalent.
One person makes the food and everyone get’s
to eat it.
People don’t fight for it or compete.
People cooperate and everyone profits.
And of course in exchange the other people
around the table will do the housework but
what they won’t do is ask to be paid for
any of that.
Let’s take a step back and look at what
humans are.
Not specifically now but what they where made
for.
Back in the Environment of evolutionary adaption,
the EEA.
It was the last time humans evolved naturally.
If we want to determine if capitalism is human
nature it would make sense to look at what
this nature is.
Of course, it’s hard to determine what people
where like back then since we can’t ask
and they wouldn’t invent writing for a few
thousand years.
What we can do though is look at behaviours
that are universal around the world and across
cultures.
This way we avoid accidentally concluding
that women must naturally want to wear skirts
just because some cultures do that.
A core feature of humanity is the highly developed
social ability.
People are incredibly good at learning and
remembering faces and keeping track of many
social relationships.
These relationships are very important to
humans which is why prolonged solitary confinement
is considered a very severe punishment, even
torture in every culture and it’s outlawed
in many countries for that exact reason.
So the first thing is that humans are social.
The next one is that humans are community
oriented.
Those might sound similar but hear me out.
Being social means wanting to be around other
members of the same species.
Being community-oriented means considering
those other people as important enough to
invest energy into them even if there is no
direct benefit.
For example, Zebras are social.
They live in herds and aren’t happy alone.
But they give the herd no second though.
They don’t have friends and they wouldn’t
do anything to help the members of their herd
either.
Humans on the other hand do care about each
other.
The main sign is that during the time humans
where hunters and gatherers women where tasked
with protecting the kids while the men were
out hunting ducks or something like that.
And what did the men do when coming back?
They shared the things they hunted with the
women and children even though it meant that
they had less food.
So we gathered that humans are social and
community oriented.
The next one is expansionist.
Humans always expand into any available space
and they would also conquer each other all
the time.
Humans are an incredibly aggressive species.
Expansionist also refers to personal and technological
advancement.
Since the beginning of time humans always
innovated and tried to improve their lives.
First spears and fire then wheels and boats.
And this is only possible due to the 4th and
last point.
Intelligence.
Humans are the smartest species there is on
this planet.
So that’s it.
Social, Community oriented, Expansionist and
Smart.
Those are things which are natural for humans
to be.
Now you may already wonder.
Where does capitalism fit into that?
And the neoliberals will readily tell you:
“Capitalism allows people to expand as much
as they want!
Anyone who works hard can get more for themselves
that’s the beauty of capitalism!”
And alright, in theory it does that but in
praxis your ability to expand is hampered
by the fact that other people already expanded
a lot and there isn’t an infinite amount
of resources which means that not everyone
can expand and that everyone who does expand
must take it from someone else.
You can’t buy gold without taking it from
someone and you can’t make more money than
your body produces without taking it from
someone.
That someone cannot expand then, can they?
But for the hell of it let’s assume that
capitalism really does allow people to improve
their lives if they just work hard and long
enough.
Does that make it the most natural system?
Let’s look at the rest of the human features
and see how well they do in capitalism.
Let’s start with smart.
Humans are smart but not naturally so.
People need education in order to be able
to use their intelligence.
If Newton was born into poverty, he wouldn’t
have been able to invent calculus.
So, since capitalism is so natural it would
seem obvious that it has to allow everyone
who wants to, to become as smart as they want
to be.
Since people naturally want to be educated
it wouldn’t be natural to deny them that.
And I am afraid capitalism is really bad at
educating people.
Don’t get me wrong it rewards educated people
by giving them loads of money, but it doesn’t
MAKE people educated.
There are private schools and universities,
but they don’t educate most people.
They only educate those who already have enough
money to pay for it.
So capitalism doesn’t structurally allow
everyone to become smart.
This is the reason why education is almost
never left to the private sector and why it’s
done by the state almost everywhere.
Capitalism does not support the natural human
desire for knowledge.
But hey that’s fine we still have 2 more
natural behaviours and we have to decide if
capitalism supports those.
Next let’s look at “Social”.
Does capitalism allow people to be social?
Well that’s a tough question.
I could bring up the fact that having social
relations at work is usually very hard because
you are constantly encouraged to compete with
your co-workers or I could bring up how my
previous employer didn’t even allow me to
talk to the colleagues I sat next to except
during the lunch break but let’s take another
approach.
Being social means different things to different
people.
For some it may mean being with their children.
For others it may be hanging out with friends
or just working with people you like and talking
to them as you work.
But no matter which one of those is your interpretation
of being social capitalism sort of prohibits
all of them.
Because of the competition between you and
your co-workers it becomes hard to create
meaningful connections at work.
And because you have to work 8 to 12 hours
a day you can’t spend time with your family
and friends if you want to.
That’s directly opposed to what humans naturally
want.
Now someone is gonna show up and tell me that
we need to work that many hours because if
we didn’t, we wouldn’t produce enough.
That’s not really true.
As I explained in my video titled “Why the
free market is inefficient” the free market
produces not as much as we need but way more.
Earth produces food for 10 Billion while there
are only 7.5 Billion people which means that
one quarter of the work put into farming and
distribution of food is wasted labour and
time.
So, capitalism is bad for our social lives
by forcing us to work for longer than necessary
and even obstructing social relations which
might form at a workplace.
At least it allows people to be community-oriented,
right?
Well I am afraid not.
Just think about it.
Does capitalism reward supporting people who
need help?
Is it a financially good idea to use your
money to feed the hungry or clothe the poor
or even support your children?
No, it’s not.
It’s never a good idea to spend YOUR money
on someone else.
That’s why people are having so few children
nowadays.
Kids cost a lot of money and nobody got time
for that.
And that’s why the state usually takes over
care of people who need to be taken care of
like people with disabilities or homeless
and unemployed people.
Right now along with the rise neoliberal feminism
raising children is becoming more and more
often a task of the state as well.
This is because even someone who would want
to stay at home, do housework and care for
their children would not be able to because
nowadays the cost of living is too high to
support a family with only one bread giver.
Both parents have to work nowadays and that
is a result of late stage capitalism.
And that’s assuming a classical 2 parent
household.
Nowadays nobody can afford to leave one adult
who is perfectly capable of working staying
at home all day.
Or instead it’s a cultural Marxist feminist
leftist jewish trans muslim plot to destroy
western civilization using affordable healthcare.
Still not sure.
Both are equally plausible.
So I am afraid capitalism doesn’t support
any of the basic desires of humanity very
well.
The closest one is expansion because capitalism
sometimes gives the ability to improve their
live to some people in some conditions.
And this is where the neoliberals will tell
me that Capitalism might not do everything
perfectly but that it’s the best system
we have.
If we look back at our google search the second
result was “capitalism is more natural”.
More natural than what exactly?
Oh, come on we both know the answer.
More natural than socialism.
Honestly most people’s head would explode
if you asked them to name more than 2 economic
systems.
So, let’s look at that.
Is capitalism more natural than socialism?
Well it’s hard to say because socialism
as it’s used today means a lot of things
to a lot of people.
Barely anyone means soviet socialism anymore
either.
So, for the purpose of this video my socialism
will include: Workplace democracies for production,
people’s councils for distribution and a
small state for maintaining infrastructure,
education, healthcare, social services and
for enforcing laws.
Now this isn’t what I think the perfect
society would look like but it’s realistic
so let’s go for it.
We’ve got these desires let’s see.
Social.
Would this socialism be better for that than
the current system?
Maybe a little bit.
If workers ran the businesses, then they would
probably not keep each other from talking
when working and they wouldn’t force themselves
to produce too many resources and spend more
time at work than necessary either.
Also, the workers wouldn’t be forced to
compete all the time which would be nice.
The next one is Community oriented and it’s
a tricky one.
It’s hard to allow people to invest work
into their community and reward it.
In my socialist system that’s not done.
You could have the state pay stay-at-home
parents but that would give the state a lot
of power which is fine if you are into that
but a lot of my subscribers are anarchists
who are probably already angrily typing about
what a Tankie I am for including a state run
police force in my example of a socialist
society and they probably won’t agree with
giving the state that much power and honestly
I don’t either.
There are some communes out there in which
everyone has to do a certain amount of work
a week and housework and caring for children
is included in that so it’s definitely possible
to reward working for the community but that
isn’t easy to scale and as I mentioned before
my socialism doesn’t include it.
We’ll skip this one for now because it takes
the longest to say and go to “Smart.”
Does my socialism allow people to educate
themselves?
Yes.
I have included a state-run education system
and social services after all.
Anyone could get to Uni and become a scientist
if they want to so that need is fulfilled.
The last one is Expansionist.
It’s a common critique of socialism that
it doesn’t work because it doesn’t incentivize
work and only capitalism does.
This need is what people mean when they say
that capitalism is more natural than socialism.
This one thing is everything it holds onto
and it really shouldn’t.
There is this idea in popular culture that
socialism means equal wages for all.
That a doctor working 100 hours a week would
earn as much as someone who doesn’t work.
I am afraid that that’s not how it works.
Not only in my socialism in which wages are
determined by the worker co-ops themselves
but also in the actual centralized Stalinist
state that we call the Soviet union.
The USSR always paid it’s workers for each
piece they produced and once they were over
their quota they got a bonus for every piece
they made.
The idea that socialism means equal pay seems
to have been made up for propaganda purposes
as far as I can tell.
And since in my socialism workers are still
somewhat paid like in capitalism it allows
people to work for more, it allows people
to innovate and it allows them to improve
their lives.
And because other people can’t get an unfair
advantage via exploitation or inheritance
there is an actual chance to do so as well.
So that’s it.
My socialism ticks 3 out of 4 boxes while
capitalism only ticks one.
It would seem like it’s not the most natural
system is it?
So now I’ve looked at the argument.
Looked at what people naturally want and concluded
that socialism would be better at giving it
than capitalism is.
Of course, there will be someone saying that
capitalism is natural because during the bronze
age people already traded and they did ever
since but then I could just say: Trade has
nothing to do with capitalism.
Just because people have always traded doesn’t
mean that private property and wage labour
are the natural human condition.
Also of course socialism would still allow
trade so that’s a null argument.
But now that I am done with that, I’d like
to invalidate the entire premise along with
my entire argument and conclusion: I don’t
think it matters what’s natural.
Even if capitalism was the most natural system
there is I don’t think that that’s a good
enough reason to keep it.
I mean if we go by nature everyone who wears
glasses would have to die because that’s
what would happen in nature.
We have advanced beyond the natural order
and even if capitalism was natural, which
it is not, I still think that replacing it
with a system that potentially allows us to
save 25% of our time and work and which would
give everyone democratic control over the
place they spend their entire working lives
at would be a good idea.
And on that note thanks for watching.
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distribution?
I’ve never heard anyone on reddit or BreadTube
talk about them and I only know them from
theory so maybe it’s a new concept for some.
There will be a poll in the top right corner.
Thanks for watching C ya!
