[alxjrvs]

Do you mean trade or mercantilism? Capitalism - a system by which the means of production are privately owned - has only been dominant for the last few hundred years, broadly exacerbated by the industrial revolution (where you could easily point to "Guy who owns the big Machine").

It is, at its most fundamental description, a Top-Down system of governance and ownership (I admit, probably not the way you mean, but it did tickle me).

Dragons hoarding wealth might be emergent human behavior, but, hey, so are brave knights.

[t1E9mE7JTRjf]

> Do you mean trade or mercantilism?

Neither. But to pick one, trade.

> has only been dominant for the last few hundred years

That's hard to falsify, although I'd guess people have had things for much longer, eg spears. Although this get's away from the point, and into something else.

Right now if I step out into the street, I can flag a taxi, I can buy a coffee. In each case these are direct peer to peer transactions, where the price is agreed between us based on what we both want out of the exchange. I find it easy to imagine that's how it was hundreds of years ago too, even within tribes. The capital (money, coffee, spear), isn't really the relevant thing. It's a conduit and focal point of behaviour. That was my original point, and why I don't value a top down aspect to it (even though that of course exists in groups with more scale - societies). I would welcome a refute on that point, or if you could frame a different way of looking at it (capitalism) at the level of individuals who want to consentfully interoperate (and don't even know the word capitalism).

[alxjrvs]

> Right now if I step out into the street, I can flag a taxi, I can buy a coffee. In each case these are direct peer to peer transactions, where the price is agreed between us based on what we both want out of the exchange

I agree that we can do this. I do not agree that this is, strictly speaking, capitalism.

Capitalism =/= the exchange of goods, services, and capital.

Capitalism is the system that says the people who own the property constituting the critical infrastructure of an organization - the "Means of Production" - should get to make all the rules. That's it.

If I own a big beef machine that turns cows into hamburgers, it doesn't matter that I need 50 people to run it and 200 people to box and ship and sell the patties, the fact that I am the person who had enough money to buy the big beef machine means that my word is law, period. If I don't like the way they touch my big beef machine, they go away. If they don't like how unsafe the big beef machine is, too bad. Doesn't matter how much I sell the patties for - I decide how much I pay you, and I keep the rest (not exactly peer-to-peer). I own the big beef machine, so my say goes.

I agree with you that trade will exist until the end of time, and has existed since the first time Ook had something that Grog wanted and Grog decided it was too much energy to kill Ook over it.

When I say I am "Anti-capitalist", I mean (among other things) that I do not believe Capitalism specifically is the best (most productive, least ethically repulsive) means by which to engage in trade.

None of these opinions relate to trade or even the concept of capital itself, but rather the means by which we organize it.

To the original quote: It is hard to imagine the end of capitalism, because people believe capitalism is a natural facet of human nature. It is not; it is a big beef machine.

[pram]

There is a definition difference. What Marx defined as capitalism is a pattern of post-feudal production after the industrial revolution. It means the transformation of quantities of surplus value from wage labor, and the qualitative transformation of the surplus into capital.

People typically respond with “well using money and buying stuff in a market is just natural law” etc which isn’t “capitalism” and indeed the first chapter of Capital is all about commodity-money and primitive markets and production. These things are all pre-capitalism and have existed for as long as civilization has.