Greece 'far right' rejects austerity after 'socialists' capitulate!

[ag]

Well, I don't really know what is capitalism - it is a sort of a word I don't understand.

It's a shorthand.

If only I knew for what

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well, I don't really know what is capitalism - it is a sort of a word I don't understand.

It's a shorthand.

If only I knew for what

I think that mostly depends on who's using it.

[Beet]

I have the same answer to the questions 'what is capitalism?' and 'what is nature?' although I obviously consider them to be very different things. For in both instances my answer will be to simply throw my arms up, palms out, in a gesture signifying the general surroundings, and go 'This!' Now, one might be more appropriate in the woods and the other more appropriate in the middle of Times Square, or a shopping mall, but one gets the point. It's what we have. It's what is.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Perhaps it's like pornography (appropriate, or what?). You know it when you see it.

Anyway, it's a very useful shorthand. There needs to be a term for that thing that we do, because otherwise the implication is that things have always been thus. Which is untrue. So...

[Gustaf]

Markets pretty much appear as soon as society grows beyond some very small number of people and have thus been around for a very long time. There's quite a bit of interesting research on them, for example on the Mahgrib traders of Northern Africa.

But maybe capitalism refers to something beyond markets.

[© tweed]

Markets pretty much appear as soon as society grows beyond some very small number of people and have thus been around for a very long time. There's quite a bit of interesting research on them, for example on the Mahgrib traders of Northern Africa.

But maybe capitalism refers to something beyond markets.

'beyond markets' could be defined in Marxian terms as something like 'mass commodity production for the purpose of exchange', including a specialized division and labor, and so on.  Weber identified six conditions for 'rational capitalism': modern firm, free market, rational state, rational law, rational technology (technological development unified with the process of production), rational attitude to life and economy (ie commodity fetishism).

while we can always argue what is capitalism? around the margins, playing ironically-dumb like economics professor ag just did is pure obfuscation.

[Gustaf]

Markets pretty much appear as soon as society grows beyond some very small number of people and have thus been around for a very long time. There's quite a bit of interesting research on them, for example on the Mahgrib traders of Northern Africa.

But maybe capitalism refers to something beyond markets.

'beyond markets' could be defined in Marxian terms as something like 'mass commodity production for the purpose of exchange', including a specialized division and labor, and so on.  Weber identified six conditions for 'rational capitalism': modern firm, free market, rational state, rational law, rational technology (technological development unified with the process of production), rational attitude to life and economy (ie commodity fetishism).

while we can always argue what is capitalism? around the margins, playing ironically-dumb like economics professor ag just did is pure obfuscation.

Well, that definition seems to prove opebo wrong quite conclusively.

[© tweed]

if that's the case I redact it unconditionally.

[Gustaf]

if that's the case I redact it unconditionally.

I suspect Ag's point might have been that he can't see a definition of capitalism that doesn't make anti-capitalist rhetoric like Opebo's patently absurd. This is just me guessing, of course, but still.

[opebo]

Capitalism is only a State policy, gentlemen, nothing more, nothing less.

[ag]

Capitalism is only a State policy, gentlemen, nothing more, nothing less.

Which state policy?

[ag]

if that's the case I redact it unconditionally.

I suspect Ag's point might have been that he can't see a definition of capitalism that doesn't make anti-capitalist rhetoric like Opebo's patently absurd. This is just me guessing, of course, but still.

More like, I don't see a definition that I could operationally apply.