We tend to forget how new capitalism actually is. In most places it's a century or less old. When the Russian revolution happened most Russians were peasant farmers, not proletarians. Similar in China until quite recently.
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@bob Not true capitalism (trade of money and goods) goes back thousands of years.
@freemo Capitalism isn't just trade or markets. Those existed for millennia but weren't the all-consuming paradigm that they are now.
All economic forms exist simultaneously, but in differing ratios. Use of money, wage slavery, etc, all only really gained any significant prominence within the last few centuries.
All economic forms exist simultaneously, but in differing ratios. Use of money, wage slavery, etc, all only really gained any significant prominence within the last few centuries.
@bob Even the farmers still bought their tools and their clothes from vendors. Most used some form of currency to do this. You could argue much less so then modern day farmers perhaps, but the capitalism was always there. Capitalism isnt about the quantity of money exchanged, but rather the free market which allows you to do so. If fewer people participate in the free market it isnt any less of a capitalism, not unless that effect is brought about through some sort of regulation.
TL;DR even farmers had money.
Until quite recently in historical terms most people lived as subsistence farmers on land which we would now call a commons. They didn't sell their labor to anyone.