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@ecsaln@anarchism.space
Nothing in this post at any point talked about if capitalism was good or bad, so if people are complaining about it isnt relevant to the conversation. We are talking about how long it has existed.
@bob
It's a pretty big misconception that money = capitalism. The two things, while linked, are not the same.
Money does indeed date back thousands of years as an evolution of a bartering system, where money represented resources (either physical resources or someone's time/effort).
Most historians trace the origins of modern capitalism (i.e. a system focussed on the acquisition of capital) back to Europe sometime around the 16th century.
@InvaderXan
As it makes clear in the article that is just when the term capitalism began being used to describe already established economic systems. Capitalism existed long before anyone gave it a name.
In fact I the very link you used as a source backs up exactly what I am saying with this quote "This sees capitalism originating in trade. Since evidence for trade is found even in palaeolithic culture, it can be seen as natural to human societies."
TL;DR even wikipedia says capitalism goes back to the cave men.
@ecsaln@anarchism.space @bob
It literally opens with the phrase:
"fully-fledged capitalism is generally thought to have emerged in north-west Europe [...] in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries."
The paragraph you're quoting ends with "Thus it traces capitalism to early forms of merchant capitalism practiced in Western Europe during the Middle Ages."
But if you want to cherry pick a single sentence to "prove" your point, then fine, I guess.
@InvaderXan
If you read the whole thing it is clearly saying that early forms of capitalism later evolved to merchant capitalism, which was in the middle ages.
Did you read the whole thing?
The reason the into specifies "full-fledged" is only once there is a global network to facilitate it at a large scale, which is valid wording. We are not however just talking about "full-fledged" capitalism, we are talking about all capitalism. Obviously as societies advanced the way capitalism manifested has changed. But it was always capitalism as long as there are free market trades.
@ecsaln@anarchism.space @bob
@InvaderXan
Apparently "history" directly contradicted by wikipedia. But ok whatever.
@ecsaln@anarchism.space @bob
@freemo @ecsaln @bob
Ok, well, you’re arguing against established historical knowledge which you could quite easily learn more about by googling the phrase “rise of capitalism” – a well studied chapter of world history. But it seems like you’ve already decided you know better than an entire academic field.