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this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
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Late Stage Capitalism
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I’ve been saying this for years. Some douchebag will always pop up to argue with me saying that under capitalism, the serfs have a choice of whether to work for this king or that king (er, I mean, Company)… and I just laugh and laugh. And point to the existence of Company Towns as a concrete example.
The difference is that under capitalism, the blame is outsourced to the market.
Oh yeah, that's because the vast majority of people beleive we jumped straight from feudalism to capitalism, without merchantislism in between.
That's where a lot of the disconnect comes in. In a world of cottage industries and small holdings, choice really could mean something. Everyone being ruthlessly self interested could've, potentially, worked out. Without market makers etc. the best idea and the brightest people may well have risen to the top and the market could've made that happen.
However, that was merchantislism. In the world of capitalism, that's make believe fantasy nonsense that shows capitalists to be just as utopian as any socialist.
I mean, it was literally invented, due to the changes brought about by the industrial because the aristocracy were terrified they might have to start working for a living. It wasn't some natural state we defaulted to. It didn't happen by magic or divine providence. It wasn't chosen because it was the most fair or stood up to scrutiny the best.
Nope, it's literally the greed and entitled laziness of the British upper classes, expressed in economic form.
Holy cow. I never thought about it that way.
To be fair mercantilism was highly controlled. The original corporations were created under mercantilism and given such broad monopolies that they had their own soldiers and fought their own wars.
So it wasn't exactly a bastion of choice either. Capitalism was the Democratic backlash against kings giving out monopoly contracts. But it was only ever meant to widen the ownership class so all the nobles and rich people could play, and not just the super connected ones. The workers were never supposed to benefit.
For sure, merchantislism was very controlled too. I meant in terms of the market having that potential, according to the Hobbesian view of the time but that's fair enough to clarify.
On the contrary, the formation of joint stock companies, to whom monopoly contracts were given, was the birth of capitalism and, like capitalism has always been, there was nothing democratic about it. Not even Slightly. For example, the Royal African company was handed a monopoly of the transatlantic slave trade. Capitalism is both the antithesis ruin of democracy. It's economic aristocracy which makes sense when you remember where it came from.
Capitalism was always meant to consolidate power. It's capitalism's nature and I believe capitalism began earlier than people realise. Its also far more intimately linked to slavery and the slave trade than anyone would be comfortable with.
This is why they don't teach the birth of capitalism is school. Its history is its own critique, from which it can't morally recover. Its illegal to critique capitalism in just about every school in the west. I'm not even talking your Marxist level stuff. I mean anything other than "this exact form of capitalism is perfect in every single way" is illegal.
I think that requires losing some of Capitalism's ideological tent poles. Like free trade. You obviously can't have free trade while the British and Dutch East Indies Companies are having a state sanctioned war over who gets the rum plantations.
If you want to rely on profit seeking and markets then you can say Capitalism goes all the way back to ancient times.
I do agree that looking at it's birth is enough to disqualify it, but that birth is in the mid Industrial Revolution, not the Renaissance.
Good points. I feel like mercantilism would have evolved naturally into capitalism even without the catalyst of the upper classes and their influence. But that's another topic entirely.
We might have to agree to disagree but one of my main points is that there's nothing natural about capitalisms evolution at all. I agree that its presented to us as the natural state of things that all came to be organically, in the exact same way that the divine right of Kings was.
That too was a lie.
No one would work for a company where they didn't get a cut of the profit, unless it was turn up when you want and work when you like kind of work. People could do that, as many had access to common land to both live on and grow food.
They had to be dispossessed of their land, brutally put down when they rose up again and again over it, then killed, starved, imprisoned, whipped and or branded until they accepted their fate. They had to effectively re-colonise the UK.
This is why they dont teach the origins of capitalism in school. Funny how we learn about feudalism and its origins but not that. Well, tbf, the origin of capitalism is its own critique, from which it cannot morally recover from. So, that would be why.
I hope you know how appreciated you are. Thank you for being civil and thoughtful.
Also under classic Feudalism the lords usually did not micromanage your farm. At harvest time the collector would pass by and you had to fill your quota. How you got there was your problem but also your choice. It was often terrible because the quota was unrealistic, but you had an agency over your own work, that people today often lack.
Once if the things about feudalism though was that the conditions varied widely. One lord might tell you what to plant, when to plant it, and how to treat it. They might even work that field with you. On the other end of the spectrum is the tax collector method you mention. And it could change suddenly too, old lord dies with no male heir. The money and lands go to his daughter's husband who sells the land for more money. New lord shows up and demands a whole second round of taxes to offset buying the land.
Things could be really good when you had a good chain of leaders in feudalism. But they could be so much more bad with just one bad link.
Do company towns still exist?
Yes:
https://jacobin.com/2021/07/amazon-warehouse-communities-towns-geography-warehouse-fulfillment-jfk8-cajon-inland-empire
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/thanks-to-amazon-seattle-is-now-americas-biggest-company-town/
https://restofworld.org/2021/amazon-warehouse-tijuana/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_company_towns_in_the_United_States
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/americas-company-towns-then-and-now-180956382/
Look at oil companies. They have to house a lot of workers in remote areas.
When I meet someone in Seattle, I ask them if they work for Amazon or Microsoft. Usually I'm correct.
But that's still a city all on its own. A company town is owned, administered, and policed by the company.
See also: cities where the healthcare system or hospital system is the largest employer.