Marx's Strawman of Capitalism
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.พ. 2025
- New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 64
Capitalism is a Marxist creation. It sounds crazy to say that, but Marxists don't mean competitive market economies or even free-market economies when they say "capitalism." They mean an overarching ideology of limitless capital accumulation as the fundamental organizing principle of society, which most people who promote "capitalism" wouldn't recognize as what they mean by the term at all. In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay shows you in their own words what Marxists mean by the word "capitalism," which is a revealing and ridiculous strawman of market economics. Join him to learn all about it.
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"Communists share your vocabulary but not your dictionary." +1
Share? More like steals for their nonsense. 😂❤
Who needs a dictionary? It is always a word game on opposite day with them.
Communists use the same words you do, but they don't use them correctly.
Communists look like us, but aren't human.
It's a subversion tactic
This channel is a hidden gem, it definitely deserves far more subscribers.
"Hidden" being the operative word. New Discourses is throttled af
I was fortunate that I already strong armed my algorithm to give me more of this content, but for those who aren't getting to this naturally is very very difficult. TH-cam loves to promote its breadtubers but anyone else is a threat and a "evil fascist".
It's probably heavy going for the average normie.
Another even more hidden gem is MentisWave
@@cancelled_user As someone who is subscribed to both I agree with this
I had a friend, fiercely Libertarian, who says he doesn’t use the term “Capitalism” because it’s a term invented by Marx, and like cheeky jokesters, his opponents smiled when they heard the term, taking it and running with it, saying “f*ck it, yeah, we’re Capitalists.”
So my friend, in response to that, said he only ever uses the term free market. And if he has to use a term to describe modern America, he says “Corporatism married to government power.”
Why is he not still your friend? He sounds mega based.
@@DraconisMarchVII We met in college; I personally don't do social media at all (except YT), so I haven't kept in touch. Great guy, we didn't have a falling out or anything, I just haven't seen him in over five years.
Marx said that socialism requires infinite growth of a fiat money system. Goods and services naturally deflate over time though technological advances. Deflation is natural. Inflation is always man made. The cure for high prices is high prices.
@@sdrc92126 Inflation is the result of money as debt. Before the Federal Reserve, the country issued money from the Treasury through the Mint. It's how the Civil War was financed.
I'm a Libertarian, and I have the same philosophy about using the terms capitalism and free markets. Maybe I am your long-lost friend! If so, I miss you, and want to re-connect! :)
What we have is cronyism empowered by socialist & fascist tenets, not capitalism.
What I call “corporate feudalism”.
Yes 100% correct. Our USA free market economy worked *amazingly* until our government got huge, megacorps got special perks, and fat govt contracts were given out to special interests, and welfare caused massive inflation and lazy people and less production
If we had no welfare at all, and no special interests, and limited govt, 90% of people would have a single family home and pool in their backyard by this point, and very little to no debt
@@januarysson5633
With feudalism, the only way to acquire more wealth was to steal it. The free market creates wealth by innovation and efficiency, which threatens feudalism.
The select rich are the feudal royalty, government is the protecting knights, the media the protecting clergy. The rest of us are the serfs.
Most successful businesses are excluded from the select rich (too many cooks...). Government makes success harder so the select rich can acquire for pennies on the dollar.
Fascism does that exploitation of the big businesses to take enough resources for the benefit, building up and welfare of the people. Nationalism is unity and is meant to be about the common good, restricting action that harms the peoples health and wellbeing.
Just stop using the term "Capitism."
Marx's WHOLE point was to invent a strawman that he could then claim to have a solution for.
Capitism doesn't exist and never has. It's a Marxist fantasy.
Capitalism is so simple its strawman is more complex. Normally it's the other way around.
Everything woke is more complex than it actually is
It’s simple to you because all ideas that only exist in people’s heads are simple. But real life capitalism is complex. As real life often is.
@@Supernautiloid no. It's very simple. People, when free, can gather resources (Capital), which they can use to exchange other resources. Usually the acquisition of said gathered resources demands giving something in return. And those who gather the most can use them to acquire more valuable resources. It's rather simple. So much so it existed since the dawn of civilization in one form or another.
Doesn't require governments or central planning. Those things happen separately to it and often in opposition
@@SergioLeonardoCornejo
False. That’s called trade and commerce, which have existed for thousands of years before capitalism was even an idea, let alone a word.
@@Supernautiloid found the Marxist.
Worth noting is that the word "capitalism" itself was invented by Marx and his socialist contemporaries as a slur. Previously it was simply called "free economy," "liberal economy" or "laissez faire." The socialist concept of capitalism tries to present the opposing systems of a liberal free economy and a mercantilist interventionist economy as the same thing. They can then point to the problems of state intervention and say "look, capitalism has failed" and then argue for even more state intervention, but with them in charge of course.
We definitely don't live in a "free economy" unfortunately.
@@Jackaroo.Exactly. They just want power. It's all they care about.
Precisely
Same coin different face/same bird different wing.
Exactly. This whole debate is NOT about the free market. It's about varying degrees of social engineering.
There is a subtle issue with their idea of growth. Much of economic growth is actually about _reducing_ resource usage. If you make a product that does the same thing as another product on the market, but yours uses less resources, you can charge less because it likely costs less. And if you can charge less you can likely sell more.
Additionally if you produce a product that does the same thing as another produce, but it does so with a higher energy efficiency, every unit you sell represents a reduction in future resource usage compared with the alternatives.
Also, resources are ultimately means to an end. There are many more possibilities than people realize for substituting one resource for another to accomplish the same thing, or substituting one product for another. So even if one resource (say whale oil) does became scarce, the price increase that results from that scarcity drives the economical development and sale of alternatives (like kerosene).
I took an environmental studies class, and they kept talking about how corporate farms try to maximize efficiency as if it was a bad thing. It was incoherent.
That would be true, but for Jevon's Paradox. Someone else will use the energy or material liberated by efficiency.
A note on fusion energy: It is said that it is just around the corner. That has been said for about 70 years.
I don't think Marx used the word "capitalism," though the word did exist in his time (invented by fellow socialists Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Louis Blanc). Marx used expressions such as "the bourgeois mode of production," or "political economy." Also, the "capitalism" of the 1840s was quite different than today. But it's not as if Marx had a well-thought-out plan of how a world without "capitalism" would function. He just thought the "bourgeoisie vs. proletarian" myth (which he borrowed from French Socialists) sounded cool and made him look like a prophet, which he could then leverage for money and patronage from suckers like Engels. The whole thing is an intellectual swindle of epic proportions that should have been forgotten 150 years ago.
When there is a need for revolution, any reason is a good one.
I kept waiting for a reference to one of Marx's text where he defines "capitalism" but it never came
@@andymoyle5673 James is not that great when it comes to citations. Most people just assume that Marx writes about "capitalism," because today's Marxists do.
@@codex3048 A bit sloppy considering he's making an accusation of "Strawman Argument"
@@andymoyle5673 going to use this.
Why do I get the impression that Marx lived a life where he made endless excuses for his own weaknesses, inadequacies and failures while blaming everyone else for his own ills and misfortunes? He also leaves me with the impression of being one of those fervent acolytes of Rousseau's 'noble savage' and 'perfectability of man' and Plato's 'Republic.' What a weakling.
So they're conflating capitalism with greed? Got it.
Perfect summary!
Not only that, but they’re conflating the greed of the most evil cutthroat corporatists (George Sorrows? Projection much?) with everyone else in society.
So the apparatchiks of the Soviet Union were not being paid with the surplus value of the workers after all?
Color me shocked.
@@januarysson5633 nope, coz the Soviet Union was a paradise, according to those who’ve never lived there 🤣
The tribe projects their own greed unto others.
Lately when I hear communists say the word "capitalism", I think they mean "western civilization".
they literally do. they have ZERO self-awareness, and are incapable of making arguments that aren't dripping in sophistry and historical revisions.
think of it as meaning "everything thats not the theoretically perfect communist utopia" and suddenly their use of the word makes perfect sense.
edit: different marxist sects have other words that are universally exchangeable: patriarchy, systemic racism, heteronormativity and others.
@elLooto , I hear you, but that's not what they mean. They are happy to side with any group or country that opposes western civilization. Their biggest enemy is stability...
I usually suggest NOT using capitalism at all as a word.
It was coined by early french socialists as an insult to aristocrats, so it only really means "a power structure we don't like".
It isn't even tied to a market definition.
It was a slur towards Jewish people
It’s not tied to any economic structure either, yet you call it a “capitalist economy”.
I have come to believe that the best definition of Capitalism is a system of organizing economic activeties by separating ownership from management (usually joint stock companies) thus Capitalism is only a portion of a free market, although the most productive part.
@@forddon Is there a word for the economic system that arises organically in anarchy?
@@forddon
You stick 100 ppl on an island. They all split up, build their own shelters and grow, farm and hunt for their own food. After a while when things stabilize, they start bartering with each other their individual excesses based on their own talents and interests Maybe some people are better at harvesting coconuts while others are better fishers ad still others have a penchant for boat making. This works well, but becomes cumbersome and people start to unconsciously (as in not planned by anyone) but cumulatively use shells as money.
What would this system be called?
From the dictionary side is marxism absolute and centralized capitalism that allows no competition. It is an astoundingly old business model from 392 BC:
*Praxagora:* I want all to have a share of everything and all property to be in common; there will no longer be either rich or poor; I shall begin by making land, money, everything that is private property, common to all.
*Blepyrus:* But who will till the soil?
*Praxagora:* The slaves.
If I had a dime for every pro communist/ anti capitalism argument I've read on TH-cam, I'd still have more money than the people under communist rule.
Apparently, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate factory is pro socialist/communist movie to some people.😂 Yes, there's some smooth brain video on TH-cam making that argument.
I don't even need to watch the video and I guarantee I already know how they justified the comparison 🤦
💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
Redefining words is a common habit of communists.
I think you skipped over the fact that capitalistic profit is itself just a way to measure production of goods that the people of the society want and need
:s/want and need/require may be more appropriate as we all do live in a world intently designed to require consumption by all, and of all simultaneously. Try not eating, drinking, breathing or just stop using money and any anything purchased by money and you'll quickly realize this requirement of consumption is a very intentional design feature which none are exempt from.
@@qlippoth13 I don't see your point. People needing to eat is not a design by some malicious ruler. It's a fact of life
You mean markets? Communism doesn’t acknowledge the need for those.
@@Baconmanperson It is a fact of life, and your acknowledgement of this fact means that you do see my point however it may be inconvenient to accept just as a trip to the oncologist office is. Life feeds on life, this is necessary.
@@qlippoth13 Dude what is your point though? Either it is an intentional design feature OR it is a fact of life, these are mutually exclusive concepts.
Doc, I remember when you drew the distinction between esoteric and exoteric words. I still remember that.
To expand on this: Marxists, Socialists and Communists share your vocabulary, they don’t share your dictionary.
all 3 of those groups are exactly the same, they just change their label everytime their idea fails
Good point.
CAPITALISM
Capitalism means justly acquired private property and free, voluntary association, contract, and exchange of and between the owners of private property. Capitalism so conceived is nowhere to be found in the contemporary world" Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Too often, people use terms like “capitalism” carelessly, either because they don’t understand them or because the words constitute political rhetoric (albeit imprecise).
If we are going to have a meaningful conversation about political, cultural, and social institutions, we need to first know what we are talking about.
Free-market capitalism - "true capitalism" - is based on the security of private property rights, the division of labor, social cooperation, freedom of contract, freedom of association, and voluntary exchange in the free market. It is characterized by the absence of regulation and taxation by the state.
The most important feature of capitalism is the recognition of private property, "individuals are free to choose different occupations, consumption patterns or lifestyles, as long as they do not interfere with the freedom of others to do the same. The absence of protections for the rights of Property is one of the main causes of global poverty.
It is important to know the distinction between free market capitalism and state capitalism.
I prefer the term in English as it causes less confusion as it uses a different terminology - 'cronyism'.
State capitalism (cronyism) consists of one or more groups that make use of the government's coercive apparatus - the State - to accumulate capital for themselves by expropriating the production of others by force and violence.
Although both have the term 'capitalism' in their name, they are in fact irreconcilable. Therefore, blaming "capitalism" for the evils caused by cronyism (state capitalism) is unreasonable.
odysee.com/@Sherparocha:a/X2Download.com-What-Is-Chronyism:7
odysee.com/@Sherparocha:a/X2Download.com-What-Is-Capitalism:b
Not only is it unreasonable, it's plainly irresponsible. But then again, we can't exactly expect those who want daddy government to take care of everything wrong in their lives to be *responsible*, now can we?
Marx said in _The Communist Manifesto_ that the center pillar of socialism, he used the word plank, is a state controlled debt based money system which is exactly what we have in the US today. A debt based money system is more recognized as a ponzi scheme. It drive growth because it must grow or else it instantly implodes like Madof when he could not find new -victims- investors.
In such a system, the wealthy, or those who are closest to money creation, *DO* get wealthier through a mechanism known as the Cantillon Effect. In short buy a real asset before money inflation drives up its price in the now deflated currency.
A 2% annual growth is usually not recognized by the rabble until year 50. A 2% increase on a 1 penny candy bar is not noticed. 2% increase on a $500k house is $10,000.
Anyways I believe this is what we are seeing today as the dollar went full fiat in 1971 and what socialists are blaming as "late stage capitalism" is in reality late stage of fiat money as wished for by socialism. Break something, then blame the other guy.
I find how they pretend what they call "state capitalism" to have anything to do with capitalism, really strange.
Lets face it, they mean corruption, something you find in every society, not just under capitalism.
Wrong definition. Capitalism has nothing to do with the mode of acquisition, whether justly or unjustly.
@@sdrc92126You can supplant Sam Bankman Freid, as a better example than Madoff, in today's "climate".
I prefer "entrepreneur economic system." Reminds people you can't have small businesses with socialism or facism
Somewhat of a strawman, yes. I prefer Rand's concept of the "package deal" - deliberately grouping essentially unalike terms together, in a package deal, to use the poison of one term to spread it's poison on the other.
Here's an example from Rand of a package deal about "power":
"A disastrous intellectual package-deal, put over on us by the theoreticians of statism, is the equation of economic power with political power. You have heard it expressed in such bromides as: “A hungry man is not free,” or “It makes no difference to a worker whether he takes orders from a businessman or from a bureaucrat.” Most people accept these equivocations-and yet they know that the poorest laborer in America is freer and more secure than the richest commissar in Soviet Russia. What is the basic, the essential, the crucial principle that differentiates freedom from slavery? It is the principle of voluntary action versus physical coercion or compulsion.
The difference between political power and any other kind of social “power,” between a government and any private organization, is the fact that a government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force."
This is one of the Left's favourite equivocations, deliberately confusing us with ideas of force and voluntary trade mixed together. Using our correct concern about the first, to make us skeptical about the second.
"Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned." - Ayn Rand
Ah, so it’s not just economics.
Definition of capitalism:
1. The right to own private property.
2. The right to trade freely.
Whenever I have an argument with a lefty and they start going on about capitalism, exploitation, and so on, I remind them of the definition of capitalism and ask them which one of those two things is bothering them. That normally stumps them and ends the conversation, or they change the subject.
Your definition is missing the most important word - capital.
@@pmaitrasm Capital and private property are the same thing.
@@chesshooligan1282, Wrong.
@chesshooligan1282 not really, are stocks not capital? Are patents not capital?
@@wayback1010 Correct, and they're both capital as well. A stock is a title of ownership for a chunk of a company. That company can own different types of assets, lincluding brick and mortar buildings, patents, and more. All that is capital, which is nothing more than private property put to productive use. Stop wasting my time.
12:30 Almost like the fallacy that supports most of the gun control arguments I've heard (blaming the guns, not the person - or "agent" - wielding it).
This is nearly always my approach when Marxists speak of Capitalism. I can forgive Marx for making it such a boogeyman because, back in his day, it _was_ fairly and new some regarded it as almost a religion (hidden hand of the market etc).
Now though there is no such excuse (Libertarians take note). I don't even call it an economic _system_ , I call it a "barebones economic arrangement"..
I just call it "private property."
I think a lot of Marxists and other socialists think that capitalism embraces greed. it does, in a way; it does so not to encourage greed, because (1) it doesn't and (2) it doesn't need to. It harnesses greed. The idea is that if you build a better mousetrap or a cheaper mousetrap, people will buy your mousetraps, and you will profit from this.
Socialism in practice seems to uncouple the advantage to the consumer from an advantage to the producer. That can happen under capitalism (advertising, monopolies, etc.) but if the government runs everything then political power triumphs over all.
Greed is not just wanting more than one needs, it is the willingness to break moral codes in order get more than one needs. Material gain becomes an end in itself rather than a means to a better, happier life.
@@januarysson5633 I probably shoukd have clarified how I used "greed." I generally meant a desire to accumulate wealth in some way.
Most sources consider greed along the lines of "the desire to have more of something, such as food or money, than is necessary or fair" but at least one has " a very strong wish to continuously get more of something, especially food or money "
@@januarysson5633Greed and ambition are not synonymous. And you don’t get to define what others need.
@@bradchristy8429 I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. 🙄
@@januarysson5633 You don’t know what “in order to get more than one needs” means?
Hey James.
There is a word I wish you could add to the ND Encyclopedia which I think would help is this discussion immensely. That word being "Capital". All these woke movements are Marxist in origin, and so one of the primary common threads they all discuss is "Capitalism" (often said with a spit and in a vulgar tone). The root of this, of course, is "Capital" and they seem to talk about it very bizarrely, as you pointed out, like it's a force of evil, when most of us would just think it's property (including non-material property) one has access to to do with one will.
Thanks for all you have done so far!
i wish I had you as a college prof. I wish you WERE a college prof. either way you ARE more challenging than any (except one) that I've ever had. THANK YOU!!!!!
I don't believe in Capitalism. I believe in free markets, that is, the unrestrained access to markets for all with very limited exceptions.
This explains the persistent sabotage of production through the regulatory agencies.
It may be more appropriate to call them occupying agencies.
You can hear the hand rubbing.
the funniest thing about communism vs capitalism:
we tried communism multiple times, and it had to be ended because it was inhumane every time (sometime it ended itself because of just that, sometimes it needed some harsher end :) )
we tried capitalism ONE TIME, and its still going, and going strong, giving rights, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. Is it perfect? Hell naw, but its because we are imperfect ourselves and so a system will need to be imperfect for us to live in it.
The communist system is made for perfect beings, devoid of wants, strife, stride, differences, ambitions and expectations (like the future humans of star treck maybe).
We are no such beings, but since ' the system is perfect' while the subjects arent, then its not the system that 'needs to be changed' to fit the subjects (and why would it, its perfect!), the subjects have to be 'changed' instead, to be destroyed and regrown to 'specification', which is impossible and only results in atrocities.
It is ego, hubris and narcissism all in one, saying that 'if i were in charge of everything, (including markets) everything would be perfect, and all the others who tried (and killed millions) just werent good enough and im built different, they werent real communists. And look at these ingrates, asking for more and more, such greedy pigs, they need to be taught how to share and that im always right'.
Short and digestable does it.
I'm glad james is making episodes more digestable with a singular theme/point.
8t makes it much easier to share with people.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean-neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master-that's all.”
Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass"
Marx understands capitalism through a philosophical framework of materialism and determinism, that one's consciousness, ideas, and thoughts are rooted in one's relationship with the materialistic machinery that drives history forward. There is therefore no free market in his view. Any attempt to establish a free market, according to Marx, will inexorably end up with a class system, precisely because the material conditions determine who we are and how history unfolds. Central here is that consciousness is collective (class consciousness), and if one's consciousness is not in accordance with one's class, one has false consciousness (individualism, for example, comes under false consciousness).
If none of what Marx says makes sense to you, it is because you have a different philosophical framework as a basis for understanding reality. Thinkers who promote capitalism come from a framework that sees man fundamentally as a free individual, with his own consciousness, which he must use to survive, where life belongs to himself, and not to the collective. What drives history forward are therefore ideas, and not the tools as with Marx.
The problem with Marx is his epistemology. If one's ideas come from the material conditions, Marx's ideas also come from the material conditions, and thus one cannot validate his ideas, and his whole edifice collapses. Marxists have always had trouble exempting themselves from their own epistemology (well, mostly it's met with a shrug), leading to mysticism and notions that they are philosopher kings, i.e., having mystical insights into matter and the will of the classes. Which is why Marxist intellectuals strive to look like, and talk like, the working class. It is to avoid an elite impression.
Capitalist thought, on the other hand, since they view man as free, is based on reason, which means that ideas can be validated by means of argumentation, and not pointless accusations of class affiliation as with Marxists.
That a corporation's sole fiduciary duty (actually the duty if its board and officers) is to generate profit is far from original to Friedman. That corporate directors and officers have fiduciary duties to act in the best interests of the shareholders (primarily to make them a profit) is an English common law rule as old as corporations themselves.
Over a century ago, Henry Ford famously got himself into trouble over this when he wanted to spend Ford's enormous cash reserves on higher wages and on selling less expensive cars rather than paying dividends to the shareholders. The Dodge brothers, shareholders in Ford at the time, sued him and won, largely because Ford testified not that these would be profitable business decisions but that they were social goods.
Communists conflate the systems with the operators. Their straw man accurately portrays capitalism, but only as operated as depicted, it isn't the necessary default or inevitable result of the system itself, which is how they themselves defend the repeated abuses and failures of communism in state practice, by blaming the operators instead of the system. Either system could work in an ideal setting, the important difference between the two reveals itself in how they respond to a very real, often corrupt world. Capitalism encourages individuality, which at least passively discourages institutionalized corruption, while Communism encourages compliance with the collective, which offers no resistance to corruption becoming institutionalized and accepted as "business as usual". Even liberal democracy has proven to be disastrous in shifting the public conscience away from individualism and toward collectivism, allowing tribal bias to condone or condemn behaviours based primarily on tribal affiliation rather than objective moral merit.
Marx's description of Capitalism bears some vague resemblance to the Imperial Prussia, but almost none to that of the British System (under common law). If he were honest, he would have called what he was against Merchantilism, but well
The straw man actually describes socialism as envisioned by Marx.
Flamebroiledsquirrel- Best statement in here. As easy as you laid it out, the wokester's eyes will glaze over and their indoctrination will kick in, sadly.
Capitalism = individual property rights.
That's it.
Not greed, not a money-based economy ( you can still barter and have property rights), not hierarchy, etc.
Capitalism is spending money to make money. A business man will risk his money in the present on wages, equipment and infrastructure, in the hope of realizing a profit in the future. True, individual property rights are a necessary condition, and where they are ill defined or lacking, there is poverty. See the work of Hernando de Soto where he investigates the link between property rights and a functioning society.
Ok then let's have a syndicalist worker cooperative based system but with individual property rights and a state that is no more powerful than the one we have now. If you'd still call that capitalism let's do it.
It's a little difficult to argue that Marxists are *strawmaning* Capitalism when it was Marx who basically invented the term. It would be closer to the truth to say that capitalists are basically strawmaning themselves by adopting that label.
While, quite clearly, the Marxist definition of Capitalism doesn't correctly describe the conduct of most people involved in advocating for/participating in market economies, it does meaningfully describe the conduct of corporate players in market economies as well as the *conduct of State Capitalism, which is basically what the economic system of most communist/socialist nations was/is.*
This probably helps to explain why - as the late Professor Antony C Sutton has meticulously documented - the dominant industrialists/financiers of the Western world did so much to finance and industrialise the communist movement into viability. (His books 'Wall St and the Bolshevik Revolution' and 'The Best Enemy Money Can Buy' are a good place to start, and are freely available on the Web).
Lots of this sounds like someone's sole goal is to put themselves in an all-powerful position to control the world and the ideas formed and contorted around that goal.
Yip, and their currency is food. If you want to eat you have to comply. If you want to eat more, you have to make sure the others comply.
Yes, we are a republic.
Articles of Confederation: November 15, 1777. US Constitution: March 4, 1789. The dates would indicate the enterprise known as America was first intended to be a confederacy and not a constitutional republic. It would appear the rules were changed to permit usury and grant federal power superseding that of the states.
Always learning from you , Dr James Lindsay
Terrific episode. These shorter bursts are preferable to me, at least.
The Finite argument they use can be rebutted with 'Energy Mass Equivalence'.
Specific states of material may be finite, but the universe maintains balance over all, E=MC2.
Because of this, Nuclear Power is very attractive because of things like Breeder reactors which produces a waste product thats actually recycled as even more fuel later after enrichment. There for you can mutliple uses from the original uranium you stsrted with. Theres diminishing returns to be sure, but its just one example of where the Finite Argument falls apart because it clearly demonstrates that theres more than enough energy even with a particular finite resource thst IS rather limited, such as Uranium Ore.
There is a seed of truth there, the WEF wouldn't exist without capitalism.
Thank You James! ❤
In ALL consensual transactions the profiting party is...
BOTH parties, this is tautologically true, because if it weren't then the transaction would not have been consensual.
There is so much energy we have not yet figured out how to harvest - correct sir.
But they'll never discuss that because fear is an ideal control mechanism.
It's amazing to me that an ideology of collectivism can be built upon the complete and total reinterpretation of commonly-shared definitions, but in such a way that it doesn't have to matter if you're in the "know" about their meaning, so long as society agrees that such an ideology is simply "good" and "right" (and if you say it's not, we will **absolutely** destroy you, so you better say it is). But then, after having done something so complicated and unnecessary and time-consuming, that **so** many people (both the "ultra-intellectual" elite who should know better as well as the useful idiot) would not only pick it up and roll with it, but expand it in a way that ensures that only a select few wealthy people will ever reap the rewards of the collective, while simultaneously ensuring the deaths of the millions and millions of people who let you put such an ideology in place.
How the hell do you start with hating "the accumulation of capital by the wealthy few," and end up with "a select few must control the flow of capital" as the solution? It's almost like that's not the point of the thing at all! At least, it isn't until the next group of collectivists rise up and behead the current collectivists for having all the "capital." And then the brand-new elites just bend down to pick up the ashes, redefine them, and start all over again. A never-ending ouroboros of finite capital, somehow leading steadily onwards towards an undefinable future; how's that for an oxymoronic worldview? Amazing also how "capital" and resources must certainly be finite, while the collective needs and wants for power and control require no such restrictions, so long as it's all "for the collective."
I mean, the fact that it is simultaneously **incredibly** popular and **incredibly** self-destructive to the societies that adopt such ideologies is astounding to me. I would consider it the most ingenious system of belief ever invented by man, a beautiful Rube Goldberg machine of nation-wide self-inflicted suffering, death, and pride... if it wasn't already nothing more than a rebranding of the oldest non-solution in history.
**Such** a great plan, Lucifer; shame you couldn't even save yourself with it, much less all of mankind. There's a reason the "Ironic Palpatine" Star Wars meme is such an effective reply to the whole of it.
Also I'd like to add that saying that 'profit' is somehow concept exclusive to Capitalism is wrong. The Marx's labour theory of value is wrong, no matter how much effort you put into a product, it doesn't matter if the customer thinks it's not good (valuable). Someone hungry looking for something to eat might consider a rare flower he finds worthless, while horticulturist finds great value in the same flower. Value is subjective, and profit simply means that the reward of one's action was worth the effort put in on it.
In capitalist economies there is ofc money, thus there is prices, which give us ability to numerically express value & profit - this doesn't mean that profit doesn't exist in socialist economy, it's just much more difficult to express it in more lucid manner
1:29 To the wordsmiths....
You cannot win with semantics, when the confusion clears it doesn't matter what you call something, because it is what it is under any name (and that won't change)
I would disagree. You can win with semantics if you are intending to influence. But arguing semantics when engaging hostile opponents is a fight that isn't very productive.
The difference is the audience receptiveness. And that's where the, for the lack of a better tip of the tonge term, magic is. And I would prefer to stay out of the magic.
11:10 According to Kartik Gada we've already reached peak oil demand, there will likely never be a point where the oil supply is gone while the demand stays. Their goals for shrinking markets literally keeps us dependent on oil.
interesting theory, where can i read more about it?
Marx used the word "capitalism" in place of the word "Jew". Tikhistory has covered this along with Marx's antisemitism.
Yup 💯 _The Jewish Problem_ by Marx. Also "The Jews of Poland are the smeariest of all races." --Marx
Thank you.
Thank you! 🙏🏾🇺🇸❤️
Finally. I've been saying this for years.
Socialists invented the term capitalism.
Free exchange of goods and services isn't an "ism", that would imply that it's an ideology, or a religion, when in fact it's just willing buyer willing seller, a concept as old as human civilisation, that every human on the planet engages in to some degree. It's one of the things that sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, we figured out that bargaining, negotiating and coming up with agreements is a better way to get what we want than using violence. Communists wish to take that away. Well when you take that away, the only alternative is a system where goods and services are distributed through a system of violence, or no system at all, just violence. Thems the options. A voluntary system wherein people agree to exchanging goods and services, an involuntary system where force is used to compel people to hand over whatever they produce, or total anarchy, where whoever has the most strength, numbers or weapons gets all the stuff, and everyone else starves. In reality both the alternatives wind up being the same thing, but one gives itself faux legitimacy by claiming to be the state, operating on behalf of the people, when in reality it's the hollowed out carcass of a former state, taken over by robber barons hiding behind a mask of altruism.
Communism is kleptocracy. The best way to distribute goods and services is to leave it up to individuals to figure out for themselves. Most people are decent people who spend the majority of their time and effort in the service of others. Marxism is a horrible nihilistic and misanthropic worldview, people aren't that simple, nor that selfish in reality.
Sweetheart, whoever told you the “ism” only means “an ideology or religion” lied to you and you are a fool for believing them. Lol you are just confused.
7:22 people who think this way are typically childless and have no concerns with anything beyond their own death which allows them to support the most socially destructive policies they could never get behind if they had lots of children and grandchildren who had to sleep in the bed that they made.
I think one way to choose who you invest with if you are one of those who likes to invest is to look at the policy makers of the company you want to potentially invest in and see whether they have healthy happy families for our childless or has broken unhealthy families because that would indicate a record of good or bad family-oriented policy-making decisions and their propensity for one or the other.
A healthy alternative to ESG
Finite potential has a lot more to do with manufactured scarcity from their perspective instead of efficiency which is never even in the discussion but should be
I'm in a bit of a crisis as my whole life I've been concerned about the environment. Unending and constantly expanding growth seems out of step with Nature's time and order. Where I live, they are now going to undam the Klamath River. This, and many things like it, is something I would have cheered. But now, understanding Degrowth as part of this destabilizing force that's not just about the environment but about removing all normativity, destabilizing society, and ultimately leading to the necessity for control, tyranny, I find myself questioning everything I have believed. For once you've seen it, you can't unsee it. So, thanks for ruining my whole world view James 🤗
In other news, my kid just found out that your channel is not called Nudist Courses.
Nope to Degrowth!
(That should be the opposing slogan)
So infinite growth on a finite planet... good luck with that.
@@GypsyHarlow The cure for scarce resources is scarce resources. We have the same amount of atoms today as we had a million years ago. Probably trillions more even. And as was stated, we've only taped a fraction of a fraction of the energy available to us.
Reminds me of Gorbachev's infamous line that capitalism is not incompatible with socialism. If you're thinking of economic systems, it makes no sense. BUT if you're thinking of "scientific" AKA Marxist socialism, what he meant was that a free market is not incompatible with accelerating the eschaton.
Sounds like “communism with Chinese characteristics”
The problem of socialism is that it requires totalitarianism. Socialist societies exist in 'capitalist' countries. There's a website where you can find and join, or even start your own and no one will stop you. You can give out free stuff to your heart's content. The problem is when the want to take stuff from the capitalist society by force. Anyone at any time can drop out of capitalism and be a socialist or communist. Like Project Mayhem from _Fight Club_ - you chose your own level of involvement.
“Capitalism” isn’t an “ism.” It’s the most basic, natural state of commerce. Marx tries to reframe it as “capitalism” in order to cast it as just another idea, no more special than any other, that can be embraced or simply thrown away.
5 minutes ago this aires, now i have good mental food for the day, thank you James!
I was just writing "the ironclad law of woke projection" but you bet me to it again.
Man, I have heard this strawman *so many times,* including from Sunday School and public school teachers, and from my nephew.
I tell you what, I never saw this coming 10-20 years ago, I would have swore that big business wasn't a very big concern or that they really only had profit at heart so they could be trusted in that they were predictable, but dang, the liberals 20 years ago were right about that one thing. Amazon and Walmart have completely destroyed main street USA all while simply utilizing the American political system thats been in place the whole time. Not even to mention the Military industrial complex... I'm principly pro-business, but I hate the globalism and hegemony its created. I wish we had stores for different things, that Americans owned, small businesses etc. I feel like its dead. And it was the private sector that killed it......
Mostly true, but you can't leave out the government, their legislation and rulings, made consolidated monopolies possible. And I'd guarantee it was intentional.
@@CJM6 Yes that's true, but the government largely behaves that way because of kickbacks, lobbying, sweet jobs after they get out of office, or private sector influencing public sector, to get unfair deals, exclusive contracts, etc. Public/Private Partnerships... FBI telling Twitter what to do then when you criticize it they say well Twitter is a private company they can do the FBI's bidding if they want..... Its basically just fascism... I'm starting to get really pessimistic on the idea of government at all, for and by the people sounds nice but then it ALWAYS seems to devolve into Bureaucracy, When things are finally going nice, people stop paying attention and the system gets hijacked by leeches, it seems inevitable... Maybe that's just what was meant by the Tree of Liberty needing to be watered from time to time. The roll of government should simply be very small compared to what it is today.
16:26 awesome 👍👍
Look up all the work of economist Julian Simon. He debunked...scientifically...all vestiges of Malthusian thinking.
He outlined these insights in his wonderful book The Ultimate Resource.
One question, what was the natural phenomena he observed?
He also defined capitalism as exclusively supply side economics, which is not the only, or even most popular at this point, economic theory within capitalism.
So Keynesians are socialists?
The strawman is on your part: it's a common one that is addressed by Ernest Mandel in the introduction to the Penguin edition of Capital. You're attributing to Marx the very belief that he is criticising. Marx's very argument is that capital is not this God-like force outside of human control. What Marx is saying is that capital *appears* as such to the people who live in capitalist societies because their human productive capacities are mediated through abstract human inventions such as money, markets, property, etc. In earlier forms of society, such as feudalism or the ancient world, the social relations between people were direct: a person knew his place within the social order through a class system where one man directly ruled over another in virtue of who he is. The argument of Capital is that social relations are now "reified" ("thingified"), i.e. externalised in man-created things such as commodities and money. Just as a feudal serf had no choice but to obey his master, the people who work for corporations have no choice but to seek wages and to produce commodities, regardless of whether they would like to or not. Marx is not arguing that the capitalist productive process is a law of nature independent of human purpose, he is critiquing the classical economists for presenting the modern productive process *as if* that's what it is.
So in other words these elements filling human, empty vessel with wrong, evil mystical powers that drives him to be richer at the cost of others. Yup, James Lindsay is right again, go to bed with your religion for poorminded.
Well said. Was looking for a well articulated comment like this.
10:01 the potential geothermal energy available to us is absolutely incredible and a lot of unexplored potential as well like the energy of waves in the oceans that could be harnessed using modified buoys or water wheels in Intracoastal bottleneck areas that could harness energy with the incoming and outgoing tides as long as it doesn't interfere with the ability of wildlife to transition from the intercoastal to open ocean because all of these things have a lot more potential than wind or solar and don't have to be done on such a grand scale like wind and solar because of the amount of energy density involved
It just struck me that the Eco-Villains (actual term) from Captain Planet all revolved around this exact Marxist interpretation of capitalism.
James, how about “$u$tainableCapitalism”. Retake the high moral ground!
Capitalism is a natural negative feedback loop. It's sustainable by default. What is not sustainable is an infinite money printer as the central plank of socialism. Socialists are blaming everyone else for a failure of *THEIR* system. I.e., calling it "late stage capitalism". It's actually the socialist running out of things to spend money on. When the money printer stops, the system dies. That's why you see the gov spending on any and everything (war is best). The current system must be kept alive long enough that a new system can be brought in.
Their Primary tool is fear which always begins with ignorance so the antidote is knowledge and understanding it always has been and it always will be so don't let someone manipulate you with fear because it is one of your most powerful emotions and hard to resist so you need to educate yourself and Empower yourself in the process.
Ignorance is not Bliss (it's just ignorance)...
But knowledge and understanding truly is the ultimate power and it's impossible to consolidate and corrupt if everyone Embraces it
Larry Fink, what is he and Vanguard, Blackrock etc?
Hey, you noticed! Look up "Vanguardism" and who built Kaaba (Also look up Black Cube). Just remember, they have to disclose who they are and what they are doing tho they are not required to do this in a manner which anyone can reasonably be expected to understand the true meaning. "By way of deception" is the modus operandi.
The devil's chosen Parasites
An accumulator for the federal reserve. The equivalent of a capacitor in an electrical circuit.
Its all word games. All of it.
Abyone can tell me what is the music used for his intro?
The word "Oligarch" springs to mind.
While I don't disagree with any of what the Doctor is saying I can't help noticing the true straw man in play here is the name "Marx" which in truth is pronounced "Hirschel Joshua Heschel ben Mordechai HaLevi".
The fundamentals of capitalism are to provide for needs and to honour one's words, which are contracts.
Without this, Capitalism does not exist.
I can confirm that ESG is taught in college as an ideal but oddly enough careful resistance to it had little pushback.
Either I was reasonable enough and had enough sources that it wasn't worth the debate or the class wasn't taken seriously by the instructor, probably a bit of both. I got As in the classes though even with my adherence to more... traditional definitions of sustainability and more detailed attention to what environmental industry actually is as a field tech.
well Stated!
Keep up the great work!
Well done. Thanks.
That is not necessarily capitalism but it could easily describe corporatism.
Great video.
~7:00 Friedman assumed the pursuit of that fiduciary duty (advancing it as academic argument, not legal one) would be done through proper (described by L. Mises as 'subordinate' even) relations with customers, not copying JDR's methods of monopoly advocacy or Foucault's concept of 'governmentality'.
So what you are saying is that they want your equity. Where have I heard that word before?
Maybe if Capitalists weren't constantly trying to privatize everything, it wouldn't seem like such a totalizing ideology.
12:18 yep agreed 💯%👍👍
This is diabolical.
You’re absolutely correct that communists have different definitions than liberals such as yourself. For communists, words like “capitalism”, “exploitation”, and “alienation” have very concrete definitions related to objectively existing social and economic systems. For liberals, the definitions tend to be vague, idealistic and often times downright mystical. I wonder why that might be the case…
Succinctly explained, nice work
12:00 There is an astounding amount of methane-ice on the bottom of the ocean. It's just hard to bring it to the surface. If it ever got to be worth it, it would be represent many multiples of all the oil.
Thank you
Aren't companies and corporations in the US given personhood in the legal sense? And consequently given rights?
Yes. It’s mainly because if a corporation faces a lawsuit, you would have to sue every shareholder and employee if you didn’t treat the corporation as an individual.
Yes, that's one of the evils of corporatism.
They call it a crazy conspiracy however you can see it in any legal reference to your name. Look at your name on your identification. Your Name is no the same thing as YOUR NAME (Re: capitis diminutio maxima). 1925 Blacks law defines person and natural person as two separate entries. The 14th amendment creates a legal straw man using this method. Ironically the 13th amendment legally codifies slavery by exception as punishment for any crime undefined.
In theory, corporate personhood and corporate "rights" is just a legal shorthand for the rights of the shareholders. So, for example, when we say that a corporation has a right to city sewer access, we mean that the joint owners of the corporation have that right as the property-owners by proxy. In the same way that if a sole-proprietor bought the property as an individual, they would have that right, a corporation owned by multiple individuals jointly have that right also.
In practice, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the shorthand has led to confusion and legal absurdities in certain areas. I'm not a lawyer though, so I don't really know.
4:38 I call them "Money Junkies"...
No matter how much they have, It's never enough. The way you can tell is because they're always "twitching", in anticipation of their next fix
Finally!!! A new video!!! Thank you James!!!!
Capitalism in current america isn't even capitalism anymore considering how closely the biggest companies and government work together.
@ArgentWolf95 You could also argue that we currently have the system that Marx wanted - one based on state control of money and debt.
@ArgentWolf95 Keynes was also a eugenicist. President of the British Eugenics society even. All of these people are and it seems to be at the root of and motivation for everything they do. IMO, this is Star Trek's Eugenics' war. You can easily see it in all gnostic writings.