Conversation

Most people describe our current western society as "capitalistic." How far back in time do you have to go before "capitalistic" no longer applies to western society?

~100 years
9%
~300 years
45.9%
~600 years
23.3%
1000 years or more
21.8%

1,495 votesFinal results

3:25 AM · Nov 2, 2019

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dying to hear the argument for "1000"

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and

Arguably the free market is the default state of the world, for all living organisms

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What is capitalism? What is an alternative?

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The challenge of answering this comes from defining "capitalistic". I think markets have been, to a greater or lesser extent, a driving force of economics for a long time. I think things like venture capitalism and ownership through stocks is a newer concept, but could be wrong.

Misha Gurevich, Photographer, VC, Wives 0/1

@drethelin

Nov 2, 2019

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@Aella_Girl

I said 300 but it might be better to say 420 based on the East India company

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In some places, like Brazil, what seems to be the case is Capitalism never trully developed. Here there is some kind of atualized Ancien Régime or a Feudalistic Industrialized society — an analogue to French Revolution never happened here.

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We have been capitalistic in the sense of mostly respecting private ownership of the means of production for a very long time. But not until industrial revolution did that produced dynamism of modern economy.

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Until the end of WW-I, Portugal was quite a "midddle-age" country. Then it was at most a marcantilistic (or "proto-capitalistic") society. But at the same time, the US was fond to capitalistic values and institution for more than a century when WW-I ended.