I would say capitalism began with the division of labour, but the joint-stock corporation is also an interesting take! I never worked for someone who did not own the business, that just sounds crazy. Why would the manager care if they are not owners, and just how in hell would that not become the same kind of inefficient bureaucracy as government is?
The division of labor is commonly observed in hunter-gatherer economies, as well as agrarian economies, peasant economies, manoralism, plantation economies, slave economies, horticulturalists, etc., so I don't think it has anything to do with capitalism. It's as old as humanity (e.g. men hunted and women gathered). One of my old posts--which I eventually hope to add here--describes how the factory system was essentially an application of the labor methodologies first developed on sugar plantations in the West Indies to industrial production.
Nice! This jives nicely as well with my current reading concerning the Industrial Revolution.
I will quibble with one element. You wrote:
"If capitalism does not grow—if the line does not go up—then the system is seen as malfunctioning or not working at it should."
That was less of a problem in the older days. The system failed, sometimes spectacularly, and even often (in the later days of the Industrial Rev). People shrugged and carried on. What changed? You started to point it out:
"As long as living standards for the bottom are growing even slightly…"
What you should have finished with was a simple:
"…they won't revolt."
The Bolshevik Revolution showed that there was—finally!—an option to living with a constantly failing and also oppressive economic system. So the system of growth was shored up artificially. Desperately. It still is.
No, what the Bolsheviks built didn't turn out all that well; but my reading (from what was written at the time) reveals that a lot of hopes turned to that new system. Those hopes didn't seem completely dashed until many decades later.
I would say capitalism began with the division of labour, but the joint-stock corporation is also an interesting take! I never worked for someone who did not own the business, that just sounds crazy. Why would the manager care if they are not owners, and just how in hell would that not become the same kind of inefficient bureaucracy as government is?
The division of labor is commonly observed in hunter-gatherer economies, as well as agrarian economies, peasant economies, manoralism, plantation economies, slave economies, horticulturalists, etc., so I don't think it has anything to do with capitalism. It's as old as humanity (e.g. men hunted and women gathered). One of my old posts--which I eventually hope to add here--describes how the factory system was essentially an application of the labor methodologies first developed on sugar plantations in the West Indies to industrial production.
Nice! This jives nicely as well with my current reading concerning the Industrial Revolution.
I will quibble with one element. You wrote:
"If capitalism does not grow—if the line does not go up—then the system is seen as malfunctioning or not working at it should."
That was less of a problem in the older days. The system failed, sometimes spectacularly, and even often (in the later days of the Industrial Rev). People shrugged and carried on. What changed? You started to point it out:
"As long as living standards for the bottom are growing even slightly…"
What you should have finished with was a simple:
"…they won't revolt."
The Bolshevik Revolution showed that there was—finally!—an option to living with a constantly failing and also oppressive economic system. So the system of growth was shored up artificially. Desperately. It still is.
No, what the Bolsheviks built didn't turn out all that well; but my reading (from what was written at the time) reveals that a lot of hopes turned to that new system. Those hopes didn't seem completely dashed until many decades later.
Later!
—Perry
Look at my picture down below or up above.