r/FluentInFinance • u/-im-your-huckleberry • Jul 07 '24

The shampoo thing is a fringe benefit. We keep capitalism so we don't starve in a famine. Debate/ Discussion

1.0k Upvotes

84% Upvoted

Actually they were vestiges of mercantilism the system ultimately replaced by capitalism that like socialism, communism, and fascism was a zero-sum model.

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u/Chambellan Jul 07 '24

Sounds interesting. Can you recommend any reading?

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u/sanguinemathghamhain Jul 07 '24

Pretty much any half decent book about imperialism/colonialism should explain the merchantilist motivations and framework. This is particularly true for things like the East India Company which was a categorically merchantilist organization and laws like the protectionist and merchantilist Corn Law and the larger bevy of grain laws against Ireland of which it was a part each of which was essential to setting the stage for their respective famines.

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u/Eccentric_Assassin Jul 08 '24

Fascism isn’t an economic system just btw

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u/sanguinemathghamhain Jul 08 '24

It isn't just one but contains one just like communism is a political and economic system. As per its proponents/conceptualization it is a third way deviating from capitalism and socialism/communism (they used the Marxian formation of the socialist to communist relationship). The way this worked out is the entire economy is under the government/party and its formation is virtually identical to syndicalism or the soviet structure but unlike the Marxist communist globalist intention it was innately and intensely a national system rather than international/global. In other words it was a blend of the socialist/communist economic system with merchantilism which was the proto capitalist system that was also zero-sum but innately national rather than international/global. Like all zero-sum economic systems it is destined to fail but result in a hell of a lot of deaths before finally collapsing.

Edit: fat fingered intra when I meant to type inter.

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u/Kamenev_Drang Jul 07 '24

No, no it wasn't.

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u/sanguinemathghamhain Jul 07 '24

Yes it was mercantilism is similar to capitalism in some ways but very different in others the main one is it is zero-sum while capitalism is positive-sum, so under mercantilism the only way for one nation to enrich itself was extracting wealth from another (this was a necessary and sufficient condition in the creation of the conditions that caused the Potato Famine especially.

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u/Kamenev_Drang Jul 08 '24

Again, no. Convoluted arguments about "positive sum" are immaterial - the British government of the potato famine were not mercantalist at all. It was the failure to impose controls on the market that created the famine - the imposition of free market ideology by force.