There is a certain propagandistic line about capitalism that implies that it is the natural state of affairs and everything leading up to it was a proto-captialist society (see the myth of a barter society, which never existed). I wonder how much revisionist media like this that makes people associate medieval aesthetics with an economy that works like the American frontier aids that propaganda. Not that I think D&D is a purposeful piece of propaganda. Just that it unknowingly reinforces the brainwashing of the public into believing capitalism is an immortal and immovable default state of human being.
> that it is the natural state of affairs and everything leading up to it was a proto-captialist society (see the myth of a barter society, which never existed).
Wasn't that one of Marx's ideas? Certainly the part about everything leading to capitalism (including the proto-capitalist part). We're stuck at this stage for longer than he might have expected but I don't see how that invalidates his core ideas...
> capitalism is an immortal and immovable default state of human being.
Depends on how you define "capitalism" but in many ways it (at least many aspects of/proto-capitalism as you said) just seems like the default equilibria state human societies converge to without someone using excessive force/violence to mould it into something else.
At the end of the day humans need/want food/stuff to survive. Them giving it away them altruistically wouldn't be the best from the evolutionary perspective (i.e. their descendants if they kept doing the same would soon be outcompeted by more selfish individuals). Mutually beneficial (on the individual level) exchange of goods services seems seems to lead to extremely high productivity and no other system/approach can really compete with it.
Yeah it is sort of a Marxist idea, that doesn't mean its correct nor does it mean that it's not co-opted and warped by capitalists to make their own points.
Some level of market seems sort of natural but I think I would say full blown capitalism was a temporary stepping stone that was necessary in order to bring us to modern industrial civilisation. And now there is really absolutely zero reason to have as high as possible productivity. Like most people are being forced to pretend to be super productive at totally bullshit jobs because we really do not need that much labour any more to get things done. As humans it would feel more natural and less miserable to not live under this system.
> And now there is really absolutely zero reason to have as high as possible productivity.
Why? Redistribution is a problem and of course there are negative externalities (environmental and other) associated with the high growth over the few hundred years. But it doesn't mean that productivity can't continue growing even if we find ways to handle those things.
> Like most people are being forced to pretend to be super productive at totally bullshit jobs because we really do not need that much labour any more to get things done
So they aren't super productive? Inefficiencies exist in every system. And people spending a lot of effort working without producing any real value is not particularly "capitalist" at all.
But I do think that "capitalism" (again, it's very hard to provide any meaningful arguments when it's not at all clear what you mean by that specifically) enables higher productivity but it doesn't necessarily force you to maximize your productivity (due to technological and institutional progress we should be able to have enough surplus, at least for a generation or so, unless people start having children again..)
‘Capitalism’ is a term that was coined by its enemies, if it had its own way it would have no name but be the thing that “there is no alternative” to.
Christopher Lasch’s Culture of Narcissism is about the 1970s (early middle Technetronic?) but also about the late 19th and the old pagan empires such as Rome and is popular in Japan as a critique of the Tokugawa era culture.
I imagine urban people in cosmopolitan centers (like that university town Corinth that my namesake wrote a letter to) of an artisan or merchant or intellectual class would have very much liked a game like Dungeons and Dragons and would have come up with similar weapons tables, monster books, spell lists, theology, etc.
Merchants of course would have loved it since they were the few people living in a reality that would actually become capitalism.
I disagree with your initial statement since there were obviously alternatives throughout history and countries that never fully bought into full trappings of capitalism. It is only our opinion that capitalism, heavily influenced by our education that lends us to believe that capitalism is the only way things can be.
I read an interesting take that the Free Market and Capitalism are natural enemies- in that, the ideal capitalist investment, one that makes tbe best returns, is in the creation of a monopoly, thus subverting the free market.
We can see that today that, given the USA has largely stopped externally enforcing anti-monopoly measures, that companies grow and grow in size in a very un-free-market way.
Fr. I find libertarians so laughable because I'm like... your ultimately free market would just lead to mega monopolies that would go from being warlords to emperors real quick. Which would immediately destroy the free market.
I wonder about the real quick part. Eventually surely, but before that would it not be cheaper to affect political system so that government takes these actions by themselves, with tax money from everyone and with good loaning of money to boot. Paying for all that gear and people is expensive, better have someone else to boot the bill and then when system crashes down capture it...
Yeah I do think some level of market is natural. But I do think on the whole humans would rather live in a society that leans socialist with market forces than a rugged individualist nuclear family hyper-capitalist society. Like, being a frontier cowboy is only fun for a short amount of time. After your adventure you just wanna return to the shire and share vegetables and chill with your friends.
But do they want to play that game? Dungeon and Dragons, plus the computer RPGs that it inspired, represent an idealized version of the "building up of the self" that one does in, say, contemporary urban China, U.S., etc.
What would a game set in a world of positive socialism be like? Is it like Sim City or can we tell compelling stories about people who are part of the plan?
Fiction needs compelling villains. Time Bandits on Apple TV fails at this and instead is a madcap ramp through character and setting where good and evil seem equally bad. Contrast that to Foundation where Tellum Bond was quite terrifying and set expectations for the Mule to be much more terrifying in the next season.
> education that lends us to believe that capitalism is the only way things can be.
It seems to be the only stable system that has allowed relatively stable and continuous growth to occur long-term.
> capitalism is the only way things can be.
Of course it depends on how you personally define "capitalism" (because it's really not clear at all) and obviously humanity has attempted to implement various different systems, they never really worked out.
Other more "natural" (i.e. not imposed by the use of violence) systems of course have existed (e.g. various hunter gather societies) but they seem to have a very low cap on productivity and therefore can't sustain any long-term economic growth and therefore were outcompeted by "capitalism".
