Commerce is just the exchange of goods and services. If we all stop exchanging goods, in what sense would we have a civilization? What would you or anyone accomplish if you had to grow your own food, make your own clothes, build your own house…?
Imagine everything humans could accomplish if we were not a commerce based civilization.
Submitted 9 months ago by snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
illiterate_coder@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
Commerce is fine, greed is not. OP missed that distinction.
Snapz@lemmy.world 9 months ago
An exchange of goods and services means you get nothing unless I get something. Maybe OP means everything is given as you take what you need with nothing expected in return.
You grow carrots, you bring them to town once a week. Other lady raises chickens, brings eggs once a week. If you need either you take some. You use the eggs to make cookies, you have extra, you give them away to anyone you see for the day.
monsterpiece42@reddthat.com 9 months ago
This works at a feudal technology level. Who makes the trains? They train makers need steel and literally no one would work in a forge or a mine for fun/preference.
Who makes computer chips?
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Significantly less, since commerce and the ability to trade things for a different value forms the basis for civilization. It’s easy to grow and hunt your own food, because that’s immediate and concrete. The farther away you get from that, the more abstract that thing becomes. It’s going to be harder for people to feel any sense of connection and purpose with making the rubber that goes into a seal on the International Space Station when they don’t see any direct benefit from the research done there, and they likely can’t even see the indirect benefit of that fundamental research.
For good or ill, commerce is how civilizations universally work, and you’d have to imagine a completely different species that evolved under vastly different circumstances to have anything else.
EvolvedTurtle@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I think personally That commerce as we know it has played it’s role in the success of humanity But now more and more of the bad is showing and way way less of the gain
I personally think it’s time to move on or at the very least adapt the systems we have in place
Lesrid@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Well it doesn’t have to be private exchange between entities. There doesn’t have to be like for like. There can just be stockpiling and withdrawing, for lack of a more nuanced conception.
Sethayy@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
So you think we’d have to be an entirely different species for communism to work?
I’d argue a hell of a lot different, try n stop someone from doing something (sure keep them fed, sheltered, all the good stuff) but give them absolutely nothing to do. Try n keep them from killing themselves lol, sounds like actual hell to me
Rev3rze@feddit.nl 9 months ago
I think you’re conflating commerce with capitalism. I don’t think you could have communism without commerce. Even if you did away with currency and the rubber farmer is paid with grain and other foodstuffs that would still be commerce.
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 9 months ago
For communism to work as intended past a tribal or perhaps city-state level, yeah, I’d say that we would need to be a different species. Communism works fantastically well when everyone is pretty closely connected; the larger a society gets, the less well it ends up working, without having draconian measures in place that largely eliminate all personal liberty.
I’m not saying that capitalism works well, unless you have a perverse definition of “well”. Capitalism does tend to give individuals some kind of incentive to work for what is nominally the greater good by creating the appearance that their own personal effort is tied to the results that they get. Conversely, communism, in large societies, has your input largely decoupled from what you get back. On a large scale, I think that democratic socialism will give the best overall results, but you have to ensure that no one has the ability to entirely fuck off and leech off the labor of everyone else without risking that infecting everyone, and resulting in nothing at all getting done.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 9 months ago
I kinda feel like we would have done way, way worse without commerce.
Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
Interesting, what would be the alternative? Technology, culture, religion, military? Taking those options out of Civ
sbv@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
I think that’s the key question. Like, I get capitalism is hedgemonical (is that even a word?), but what alternative do you propose?
Lmaydev@programming.dev 9 months ago
You could start by giving everyone a share of profits rather than pushing all the money up towards the people who have the most.
Let machines do the work so we can do what we want with our time. We’re working more than people did in the past despite our technology. And the reason we have to is the alternative is starving to death in the streets.
Both of these things violate the principles of capitalism.
not_woody_shaw@lemmy.world 9 months ago
“Capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others.”
Zorque@kbin.social 9 months ago
Not having merit based on how much money something makes would be a start.
HikingVet@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
Kinda the spelling is hegemonic for further reference.
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
barter system worked fine for thousands of years
Lemminary@lemmy.world 9 months ago
religion
I’d love to see how that one plays out. Lol
Maeve@kbin.social 9 months ago
Tbf we ostensibly already have and are again.
Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
Being a lonely hunter gatherer.
If you have created nice spears and axes, but you have no food, that’s too bad. You’re not allowed to barter with talented hunters who can’t make spears as nice as you can. Go hunt your own food or die of starvation in this non-commerce based society.
Oh wait, how about we allow trading after all?
drphungky@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Comparative Advanta-whoosy whatsits?
Seems complicated, let’s get rid of it.
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
imagine everything humans could accomplish if we used billionaires as food and fuel
aleonem@lemmy.today 9 months ago
Wouldn’t using them as food just be using them as fuel anyways? The only difference is what you’re going to fuel with them.
experbia@lemmy.world 9 months ago
came to say this. food is fuel, we are merely labyrinthine biological furnaces that chemically incinerates whatever unfortunate matter may enter us. the fuel’s affluence is not typically relevant, but I’m a little out of touch on the science, I might be wrong.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Food is a combination of fuel and building material
hellothere@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
I’m currently reading The Day The World Stops Shopping by JB Mackinnon, which argues the same point you’re asking about, I think you’d find it interesting.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
What is a commerce based civilization?
inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world 9 months ago
If you feel the need to defend capitalism, then you should read “The Jungle”. It’s aged spectacularly.
CrayonRosary@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Wow. Good luck building your stick cabin in the woods all by yourself and growing and foraging all your food because you refuse to trade your labor for produce from a farmer because tht would be evil commerce.
snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Project much? 🤣🤣🤣
CrayonRosary@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Your title is literally putting down commerce and you accuse me of projection? I don’t think you know what projection means.
Siegfried@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Well, we would be still in caves cause commerce is the basement of civilization
unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 9 months ago
Is it time to advance to the Fortress Age?
ramble81@lemm.ee 9 months ago
What about a meritocracy based system where any type of contribution is rewarded, whether it be research, garbage cleanup, etc.? (I’m sure there’s holes to poke in it, just thinking outside of the box.)
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The problem with that and most other proposals for whatever other moneyless utopian society is that they all implicitly require some manner of all-powerful central authority to ensure that the rewards get distributed, the labor gets allocated, and the rules stay followed.
And we already know how well that’s going to turn out.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 9 months ago
It also leaves the disabled, elderly, or otherwise unable to contribute in the cold.
Deceptichum@kbin.social 9 months ago
That's odd, me and my housemates can distribute our housekeeping jobs amongst ourselves without having someone come along and tell us what to do.
Yet when it comes to the country I live in, this is suddenly unimaginable because who would want to live somewhere functional of their own volition.
DessertStorms@kbin.social 9 months ago
he problem with that and most other proposals for whatever other moneyless utopian society is that they all implicitly require some manner of all-powerful central authority to ensure that the rewards get distributed, the labor gets allocated, and the rules stay followed.
that really isn't the case..
Communism by definition is not only moneyless but also stateless and classless (if there is an "all powerful" anything - it isn't communism).
anarchism by definition abolishes all hierarchy, so again, no one person or even group gets to a point of having any significant power over anyone else.In both cases (which are the two most notable far left ideologies I would say, along with socialism which is inherent to both) not having an all powerful central authority is literally the point.
SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
And yet here you are, in the fediverse.
OceanSoap@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
Kinda like how when we contribute our time to our jobs, we’re rewarded with… money?
Lol
Mango@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Imagine agreeing on how to make decisions which affect other people.
pantyhosewimp@lemmynsfw.com 9 months ago
Since no one is spelling it out for you.
Commerce is just one caveman trading sea shells with another caveman.
Capitalism is when the caveman with the most shells becomes a ruler over the other cavemen that have less.
snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world 9 months ago
[deleted]pantyhosewimp@lemmynsfw.com 9 months ago
You used the word “commerce” when you probably meant “capitalism”. Some commenters are not acknowledging that but are instead tearing into your shower thought as if you truly meant commerce.
I did you the kindness of explaining simply what they intentionally left out presumably so that they could be argumentative and feel superior. And then you reply to me with an attempt to be snide presumably because you took my remark as an insult.
No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose.
algorithmae@lemmy.sdf.org 9 months ago
Capitalism may hold us back in some regards but really helps in others.
The majority of people would likely be feudal peasants, working under a warmonger family that owns the sustaining land by force. No upward mobility except through bloodshed.
distantsounds@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I suppose not much has changed then
lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
FTFY
joelfromaus@aussie.zone 9 months ago
No you don’t understand, this 9-to-5 job that’s slowly but surely wearing me down is just a stepping stone to my millions of $$. That’s why I keep voting for tax breaks for the rich; because I’ve just been temporarily down on my luck for 30 years. /s
algorithmae@lemmy.sdf.org 9 months ago
No, if you’re lucky, clever enough, overwork yourself, or manipulate others you can live a somewhat comfortable life. Those methods don’t require taking a life.
Nomad@infosec.pub 9 months ago
Capitalism optimizes for efficiency. Sadly slavery is terribly efficient in terms of economics. Therefore capitalism needs to be capped by society at certain acceptable limits. Which is called socioeconomics and its not perfect but the best system we have. insert handwavy remark about whatever america is doing here
umbrella@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
the problem with this is that we depend on the capitalist overlords to keep their pinky promise of not fucking with our rights.
right now they are breaking it again because they can
intensely_human@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Capitalism is based on free exchange and wage labor. Unless a slave has volunteered to be a slave, using a slave is not “free exchange”.
pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe 9 months ago
That’s literally how it is now
intensely_human@lemm.ee 9 months ago
When you lack the imagination to think about how it could be worse, you can still get the detailed descriptions of it from history.
FireRetardant@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Thats still in a sense a commerce based system. The only reason that warlord fights for that land is because it has value, be it food, a cash crop, a strategic location.
Warlords hoarded land and power in similar ways billionaires hoard money and power.
KidnappedByKitties@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Capitalism optimises for concentrating resources.
Dividends, return on investment, profits, etc. are all inefficiencies in the production of value, and require more resources, labor, and suffering per unit of value than for example a circular economy.
But it does concentrate wealth efficiently, which in turn gives access to enough resources to start larger ventures.
DessertStorms@kbin.social 9 months ago
I didn't even need to change as much as I thought I did, this is literally reality under capitalism.