Who says that definition ? Prerogative ?... Conferred by...? This all sounds so ideological, I feel itching at almost each word of yours. Political schools of thought - a rational pragmatist's anathema ! "Capitalism" could rather be seen as the natural state of things, rather than an ideology in itself. PoliSci schools remind me of certain economy books indoctrinating students with freemarket doctrines. Yuk. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
It works exceedingly well for science, because in science cheaters are usually caught sooner or later, and then they're run out of town on a rail, covered in tar and feathers and branded with a big, fat sign in the middle of their face saying "liar."
In politics... not so much.
And while capitalism could indeed be seen as the "natural" state of things, so could feudalism, clientism, oligarchy, corporatism, serfdom, tribalism and a host of other more or less undesirable ways of running society. Capitalism is no less artificial than social democracy - if you want a truly "natural" state of affairs, look at tribalism and feudalism; they seem to be the state societies move towards when their citizenry stops paying attention.
Who says that the definition of capitalism is that the employer leads and distributes the work? Well, originally this particular formulation of capitalist principles was taken from an early Danish employers' union manifesto - more specifically from their demands for concessions from the Danish labour movement, in return for ending a major lockout. It was subsequently written into the September Agreement, which you might call the constitution of the Danish labour market.
It's right up there with private property when it comes to defining capitalism.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
You're the first person I have ever met who disagrees that the definition of capitalism is private control of the means of production - or at least that capitalism means universal private property rights, to which private control of the means of production is an obvious corollary.
Of course, you can make up your own definition of capitalism if you want, but if you want to substitute some idiosyncratic definition of capitalism, then you have to at least tell us what that definition is.
And I wonder what the "natural state of things" even means. It sounds like more "wink-wink, nudge-nudge, know what I mean" speak. What is "natural" about capitalism - under your definition, or the dictionary definition, I don't care which? Why has a system that's "the natural state of things" only existed for two hundred years or so, tops? And why does "the natural state of things" seem to regress towards feudalism when left unattended (a problem that already Adam Smith was aware of when he wrote of the necessity of trust-busting)?
Then you bring people in for work. Becoming an employer changes things, because people are not machines, personal and social problems are posed, which is why there are work laws and statutes to regulate the thing and protect employees.
Still pondering, without relating to any highminded philosophical book, for the moment. Dude :) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Well for one, private property is the normal state of things. Always existed, only in danger when no rule of law, or by abuse.
No. You'll have to argue that a bit more than simply stating it. Indeed, one of the first large States, Egypt, had everything owned by the Pharao. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
"Always" is a very long time. And I would point out that in most cultures, the notion of individual private property does not actually exist, because the individual is wholly subsumed in the clan or family.
Additionally, very often in European history, peasants didn't actually own most of their stuff - they rented it from their local nobles.
That's not so much "means of production" but private property you bought with your money. Period.
You can shout that there is no difference between capital goods (means of production) and consumer goods until you go blue in the face, but that doesn't change the fact that the rest of the world makes that distinction.
Land has, throughout most of European history, either been owned communally or held in fief from one's feudal sovereign. Agricultural implements have been variously privately and communally owned, but certainly weren't usually bought and sold on open markets the way they are under full-fledged capitalist systems. With a few notable exceptions (such as the Freemasons), even the proto-capitalist craftsmen in the cities worked in guilds, which communally owned the means of production, and did so essentially since the dissolution of the Roman empire and the start of the Middle Ages.
(None of which, of course, means that these constructs were in any way egalitarian or remotely similar to what most Marxists would understand when they say "communal ownership" of the means of production. They just weren't capitalist in any sense of the term that my dictionary recognises.)
Employing people to produce goods for third parties is a relatively recent invention - it used to be that most work was done either for oneself (as, e.g., with subsistence farming, an activity that used to take up more than 90 % of all economic activity in pre-capitalist societies) or on commission. This only really changed once industrialisation made mass output of cheap, standardised goods practical.
Well, very often the feudal nobility didn't own their stuff: it was granted by the king, at least in principle?
Things were much more nuanced even then, and often peasants had property of their land and house.
That's only true for the freeholders, which were not the majority in most countries (and in some countries, such as Denmark, for instance, didn't even exist for several centuries).
