(Man, I wish I'd been on this thread when it was young and busy!)

Could you say more about the legs of capitalism? I have a sketchy grasp of what "alienation" means in the critique of capitalism, and not a clue about "concurrency."

Which means maybe I better not be too confident that I understand you about "property," TBH.

So, by "property" I take you to mean the complex of ideas (and practices, and the embedding of ideas and practices in culture and law -- but, anyway) that (in their purest form) revolve around assigning people sole and arbitrary control of a thing, as follows:

• One can have a right to such control, meaning that we're all supposed to uphold it.
• Just about anything can be the object of such a right, and most things are.
• That right exists as long as the object does.
• It sticks to the person who had it last, unless that person voluntarily sticks it to someone else.
• The idea of control extends as far as destroying the object, and to any other use or non-use of the object that the person chooses, regardless of anyone's benefit, harm, needs, or interests, except where the person who has the right agrees to enforceable limits on it, or the other interest is also a property right and the use violates it.
• The idea of sole control condemns any interaction with the object not agreed to by the person, without regard to its effect on the object or lack thereof, the person's own disuse of the object, or, again, anyone's benefit, harm, need, or interest other than those also represented by property rights.

Alienation, I understand in terms of an effect of capitalism, but not so much in terms of a maintaining cause of it. And possibly more of this is spillover from my musing about motivation in learning, than actual memory of my occasional glances at Marx. But I gather the gist is that when we all say you must labor for money to live, we trivialize the awareness and will that you dedicate to your labor as a human being; when you receive money for your labor, we take it that your labor is summarized by that money and your connection to the result of your work is severed.

And for that matter, those who ought to lead but must manage for their living, whose job is to operate and maintain the illusion that money is the measure of all things, are walked gently into psychosis wearing a blindfold that reads, "It's just business, ma'am. Just, just business." And those who receive money they did not labor for, their awareness and will are not much encouraged to engage with life in ways that make them blossom, and so the system (and all our acceptance of it) trivializes them too.

And moreover, despite all the wit and sweat that Madison Avenue uses to enchant the image of mundane goods not yet acquired, actually getting a thing by purchase, for money that supposedly equally represents one buyer's survival and another buyer's whim, one worker's puppetability and another worker's soul vocation, the same money that is supposed to sever that thing from its maker -- in short, participating in that system often terribly disenchants getting things that should have been quite special.

And by Madison Avenue's sweat and wit, I mean four parts vodka, one part "put it next to some tits," and an olive.

Well, since my accurate confession of ignorance is now smothered by hundreds of words of what I think I know, maybe I'd better repeat the part where I ask you to teach me -- what you in fact meant by each of the three legs, and also, what their counterparts would be.

Sorry for the long delay, I hope you are still around.

Could you say more about the legs of capitalism? I have a sketchy grasp of what "alienation" means in the critique of capitalism, and not a clue about "concurrency."

Will try to do so, but don't know how long this post is going to be. In what concerns "concurrency", it is the wrong term - a wrong translation of the german word "Konkurrenz", which in fact means "competition".

(...) maybe I'd better repeat the part where I ask you to teach me -- what you in fact meant by each of the three legs, and also, what their counterparts would be.

Can't teach you, but just reveal my own cluelessness by explaining what I mean, trying to do my best :-)

A bit of history for context. Let's go back to the era of the decline of mercantilism.

The black utopia of total competition

There can be no doubt that the totalitarian market, as we know it as the condition and functional sphere of capitalism, has the totalitarian state of the absolutist regimes and its bureaucratic apparatuses as its father. Thus, private capitalist entrepreneurship, which emerged through world trade and domestic system/putting-out-system, was also a changeling of this socio-historical constellation. However, it was inevitable that the new social figure of the private "factory owner" would gain an increasing momentum of its own in the context of growing markets. To the same extent that the logic of money-making initiated by absolutism began to take over social reproduction and became the medium of social relations, a structure of specific "interests" of the various functionaries was inevitably formed on this new ground of society.

The great merchant lords of the Renaissance had already developed a considerable self-confidence vis-ŕ-vis the early modern royal houses. The great putting-out-system drivers and manufacturing capitalists soon took advantage of this. In a society that was becoming increasingly dynamic, particular self-interests gained momentum. The emerging market economy entrepreneurship secured a strong position in society, but at the same time was no longer bound by the traditional structure of the authoritarian hierarchy. This new breed of "unattached masters" did not look back on great and ancient family traditions, but had often risen from the yeast of the "people" themselves.

The unmistakable disgustingness of these figures, exhibited for example in the gallery of Honore de Balzac's "Comedie humaine" (1799-1850), fuelled conservative, backward-looking resentment clinging to the old authority for a long time. Since then, the ideologies of "equality of opportunity" and reactionary (originally aristocratic) elitism, state conservatism and economic freedom have competed with each other in the metier of socio-economic cut-throatism to see which doctrine produces the worse characters and the worse consequences; this noble contest is probably undecided. In any case, the mercurial mobility of money also began to make the social structure mobile. The milieu of social decline, exhaustion and impoverishment for the many was at the same time the milieu of advancement for the few: for the lucky, clever, elbow-checking, enrichment-hungry and "successful achievers".

These creatures of the market, who thought of themselves as subjects of the "new mobility" and indeed were, felt increasingly constricted and harassed by the state bureaucratic regimentation of the absolutist apparatuses. Thus they had to produce their own ideology of rule, which not only legitimised their specific interests, but was also able to formulate an explanation of the world and a comprehensive image of man, which has since become hegemonic for the entire Western thought of modernity up to the present day and is currently more dominant than ever before. This makes it all the more interesting to uncover the historical roots of this free-market ideology of so-called liberalism.

The name alone is not only misleading, but a downright perfidious distortion. For the activity and mentality that until then had been considered one of the lowest and most despicable among all peoples and times, namely the transformation of money into more money as an end in itself, the dependent wage labour included in it and thus the unspeakable self-abasement of having to sell oneself, was reinterpreted as the epitome of human freedom. This sullying of the concept of freedom, which culminates in the praise of self-prostitution, has the most astonishing career in the history of human thought.

-- Robert Kurz, "Schwarzbuch Kapitalismus", chapter 5

Much can, must be and has been said about that career starting from its roots in mercantilism - necessary to finance the wars of its time - and its origin in Thomas Hobbes, Bernard Mandeville, Marquis de Sade et.al. right up until now as a out-of-control military-industrial complex gleefully overlooks wars between brothers in Ukraine and Palestine; its successful efforts of declaring its atrocities and economic shenanigans as "nature based" (Darwin, Kant etc) and reification of all human values through monetization as well as all science through asshole philosophies, but let's focus on competition.

There's beautiful competition, say in sports or arts striving for the highest achievements and the loudest praise, and there's ugly competition when it comes to fighting over scarce resources, most bitter over life maintaining ones. The opposite of competition is caring cooperation, which is possible even between starving individuals.

This sort of competition is induced by property and its brother, coercion force, be it by law or violence. Because, yes,

That's what we're talking about with "property," right?

that's (not quite all) what we are talking about, but for property to even exist we have to look at how property is obtained in the first place. It can be established by division or relation. By division, when it comes to natural resources i.e.land, as setting up a claim and privatization of commons (lat. privare = to rob), and through relation by establishing those commons and sharing. By division - when dealing with man made stuff - through stealing or extortion, by relation through giving away freely. Money can be used both ways, but in capitalism money almost always is a racket, and that's particularly true for fiat money which owes its existence to debts. So the opposite of property is shared commons.

What's left is alienation, which means loosing connection, i.e. with the fruit of labor by producing for abstract markets, or with society by flight or migration. The opposite is at hand when the fruits of labor become integral parts of the own life, the community or the society as a whole, or when integrating into the target society at migration. Thus, the opposite of alienation is internalization.

It is the fetishistic aspect of money which drives the capitalist madness, much like the golden cow at the foot of Mount Sinai. We all desperately need money to survive - but as Fletch says: The cake is a lie. Most people don't know what money really is and what it is meant to be in spiritual terms, but think they need it. No they don't. Which brings us back to self reliance, autogestion, subsidiarity.

perl -le'print map{pack c,($-++?1:13)+ord}split//,ESEL'

Capitalism stands on three legs:

• property
• alienation
• concurrency (corrected in a later post to "competition")

Take away one of these legs, and capitalism topples.

Alienation is a consequence of "division of labour" which on its own it can be good, in a different society. But in the context of Capitalism's principle of profit maximisation, it is nothing more than the price workers pay so that the owners (of the means of production & capital) maximise their profits. It is a huge price to pay, to loose your humanity for someone else's profits. Perhaps I am overly sensitive but I observe(d) it every day, and not only in the big cities. Remove that and profit maximisation is no longer easy or even possible. Or put it another way, any owner who does not plan his business operations so as to alienate his workers will not be able to compete and will be eaten by the competition (in the long term). There are some exceptions for niche businesses (luxury goods, hotels, travel) or in small, family businesses. The latter are dying fast because they are not competitive because they can't alienate their (family) staff. And even some of the former are tempted by it (e.g. luxury clothes made in asian sweatshops). I think it is a pillar, in Capitalism.

Property is also important: the owners are not forced to distribute back in society the profits they suck out (the word fits fine!) from their labourers, or from infrastructure which was built socially (roads, ports) or from the planet (mines, water, forests, spa). They are allowed by the state to keep this profit (or most of it as tax bands flatten out in general) and accumulate it, instead of paying it back to the society for distribution. Now, remember that who does not observe the profit maximisation principle of Capitalism is doomed (in the biblical sense): so, this property (the accumulated capital) must be put to work. Not any work, mind you, but efficient work which maximises profit. Otherwise inflation and the competition will soon eat out that accumulated capital. As I understand it, the term "property" is allowing the capitalists to keep their profits, it is not just owning a house etc. So, yes a superimportant pillar of Capitalism. Countless examples of when some social movements tried to remove or soften this pillar: they met with their death (poor disillusioned idiots, meaning well but lacking the understanding of what they were doing was equivalent to what Samson did). Some exceptions to this, e.g. the Scandinavian model of high taxation etc. True, there are different mixtures of this. But eventually all roads lead to Rome and the once-humane (humane??? See films by Aki Kaurismaki, e.g. "The Match Factory") Scandinavian social system goes brutal today.

Competition in Capitalism (and not in any system, which it is welcomed) must be vicious because this is the only way to maximise profits. If you don't maximise sucking out your workers, your suppliers and your clients then said "enterpreneur" dies because someone sucked his better. Of course it is a balance because too much sucking will kill the workers -- even slaves were given a plate of food. This is exactly what the no-frills airlines and amazon warehouses are experimenting with right now. And they find that there is still a lot to suck.

Alienation (and all of the above, as they are inter-related) will eventually lead all creative, skilled, academic, etc. labour to be more and more focused and mechanistic and also their tasks to be more intensive and as meaningless as screwing the 157th screw of the super duper rocket for all your life. Working life, even for programmers, will become more mechanistic, less creative.

Capitalism will eventually eat its flesh and die. Unfortunately it will kill us all with it. Over the last years a lot of factories moved or outsourced to asia in order to maximise profit. That was shortsighted because today the asian country has become a giant (partly also because of the knowhow transfer) and the (ex-?)owners of the factories are set to go to war with that country (after trying a sanctions and tarif war which failed them miserably if not harmed them). So, shortsighted yes, but are the owners/CEOs stupid? Not at all. They are just obeying Capitalist law of maximising profits. Since their CEO positions are short-term and scrutinised&pressurised by the maximum-profit-seeking shareholders they must act in the short-term. Shooting their own feet essentially.

And if some say why not the the State exercise stricter control and pass laws for "humane" Capitalism? This is laughable and naive (looking at the long term always). Example: after the 1929 crash the Glass–Steagall legislation was passed to separate investment and commercial operations in banks (they were investing people's savings in the stockmarket). This was revoked 70 years later: ...In November 1999, President Bill Clinton publicly declared "the Glass–Steagall law is no longer appropriate". hehe. Well, immediately the dotcom bubble happened, stock markets inflated and burst. And then, 10 years later (2008) the worst crash happened and still haunting us 15 years later. And I doubt it is recoverable without a major war destroying property. War which we are heading to, and fast.

That was many, many, many words. I asked for counterfactuals that prove/demonstrate any of these points. When have any of alienation, property, and competition been not present in a society? Where are the numbers that show that capitalism then "toppled"?

Capitalism, if pursued in a blind, ideological way can lead to non-optimum outcomes like America's poor safety-net including non-universal healthcare. But the essence of it is people taking commercial risks. If they go wrong, they lose their shirts. If they go well, they get profits, and typically employ others (which you are describing as "alienation"). A key feature of this is that decision-making sits with those affected by that decision. I'd love to hear what you propose that you think would work better.