Interesting to look at the Smurfit Kappa claims of sustainability after reading this piece https://www.smurfitkappa.com/uk/sustainability . I'd hazard a guess that the corporate sustainability team there are totally unaware of this story.
Given the title, I expected a stronger link to capitalism than “profit” motives. Is this column not primarily about colonialism? It’s frustrating how I am always expected to somehow know why capitalism = colonialism; it doesn’t seem so evident to me. As a lowly business grad, it would be interesting to hear that perspective from an economist.
I'm no economist but having studied the history of sugar, which went directly from Al-Andalus to slave plantations in Hispaniola, the first major global product invested in heavily by (European) capitalists, thus birthing modern-day capitalism, to me the connection is abundantly clear. Rinse and repeat for European colonisations of Africa, Asia and Australasia. Colonisation was and is entirely motivated by financial motives. Highly recommend A Dark History of Sugar by the amazingly named food historian Neil Buttery.
Cool, thank you, added to my virtual TBR… Buttery is one great last name for a food historian 😊 This answer was helpful, as it does reinstate the importance of profit motives. It’s also brought me to consider: I wonder how much of my belief (that profit motives do not automatically give rise to greed) is born from my Christian faith… I’m not sure I’d have an argument without it. I guess people are not lying when they say religion creates a divide. I’m not sure what exactly to do with that… but it does give me some sense of resolve.
That's a really interesting take. I'm Muslim so I would agree that greed probably has a religious aura that isn't necessarily financial, like a 'spiritual disease'. Like you could be greedy for attention or something else. Which you could also view as 'social capital'. It's an interesting discussion, the spiritual implications of capitalism.
That’s an interesting point; a blind spot that I hadn’t considered before. I’d be willing to entertain that social capital has “more” of an influence than money alone, but then I guess the argument would become circular pretty quick given that social capital and access to capital tend to be intricately entwined… I wonder if there could be a future where this wasn’t the case?
Social capital through monetary capital is like cheap dopamine. It doesn't last. It's purchased. It's not real, authentic, meaningful, deep. Which probably explains why the rich are so desperate to build social capital using their monetary capital. It's unsustainable.
The way I see it, is that it's the profit motives of the few (at the top) is the real problem. If profits were shared equally with everyone involved, it would be less of an issue. Sharing is empathetic. If sharing is already occurring, it seems less likely that other exploitative behaviors would arise.
Thanks, Rachel, for your international investigative reporting, but Capitalism is "hierarchy" by another word and hierarchy is the product of massive human overpopulation, at least when compared to the egalitarian equal sharing among the members of ecologically balanced self-sustaining ancestral Hunter-Gatherer clans/bands, who numbered 1/3,000 of our current numbers. Have a blessed day.
Mm I think large populations undeniably lead to the need to organise production. We are very good at producing things mind, enough to feed the world multiple times over. In this way, we are very succesful, (though there are limits we are pushing driven by profit motives)
Capitalism is to profit from the ownership of those resources and the expoitation of workers who work those resources. While, it is a natural progression, and improvement, from fuedalism. I certainly do not see any reason to suspect it as inevitable or unchangable.
I don't think we are overpopulated any more than I think a CPU has too many transistors. I don't see how we can't have equal sharing at our population. So much good has been created, learned because we have more people that are able to devote large amounts of time to research and development. Society has ingrained in us "individualism", everyone is out for themselves. There's too much competition and not enough cooperation. That's what Capitalism breeds. It's not about population at all.
There were no "surpluses", which Capitalism depends on, among our ancestral Hunter-Gatherer clans/bands, which never had more than 150 members (Dunbar number) and were egalitarian, self-sustaining, and ecologically balanced. The story of how Capitalism evolved through population growth can be found in the brilliant "Before Writing" by Denise Schmandt-Besserat. I doubt that you are an avid reader, but maybe someone else reading this might look her book up.
Interesting to look at the Smurfit Kappa claims of sustainability after reading this piece https://www.smurfitkappa.com/uk/sustainability . I'd hazard a guess that the corporate sustainability team there are totally unaware of this story.
Given the title, I expected a stronger link to capitalism than “profit” motives. Is this column not primarily about colonialism? It’s frustrating how I am always expected to somehow know why capitalism = colonialism; it doesn’t seem so evident to me. As a lowly business grad, it would be interesting to hear that perspective from an economist.
I'm no economist but having studied the history of sugar, which went directly from Al-Andalus to slave plantations in Hispaniola, the first major global product invested in heavily by (European) capitalists, thus birthing modern-day capitalism, to me the connection is abundantly clear. Rinse and repeat for European colonisations of Africa, Asia and Australasia. Colonisation was and is entirely motivated by financial motives. Highly recommend A Dark History of Sugar by the amazingly named food historian Neil Buttery.
Cool, thank you, added to my virtual TBR… Buttery is one great last name for a food historian 😊 This answer was helpful, as it does reinstate the importance of profit motives. It’s also brought me to consider: I wonder how much of my belief (that profit motives do not automatically give rise to greed) is born from my Christian faith… I’m not sure I’d have an argument without it. I guess people are not lying when they say religion creates a divide. I’m not sure what exactly to do with that… but it does give me some sense of resolve.
That's a really interesting take. I'm Muslim so I would agree that greed probably has a religious aura that isn't necessarily financial, like a 'spiritual disease'. Like you could be greedy for attention or something else. Which you could also view as 'social capital'. It's an interesting discussion, the spiritual implications of capitalism.
That’s an interesting point; a blind spot that I hadn’t considered before. I’d be willing to entertain that social capital has “more” of an influence than money alone, but then I guess the argument would become circular pretty quick given that social capital and access to capital tend to be intricately entwined… I wonder if there could be a future where this wasn’t the case?
Social capital through monetary capital is like cheap dopamine. It doesn't last. It's purchased. It's not real, authentic, meaningful, deep. Which probably explains why the rich are so desperate to build social capital using their monetary capital. It's unsustainable.
The way I see it, is that it's the profit motives of the few (at the top) is the real problem. If profits were shared equally with everyone involved, it would be less of an issue. Sharing is empathetic. If sharing is already occurring, it seems less likely that other exploitative behaviors would arise.
Thanks, Rachel, for your international investigative reporting, but Capitalism is "hierarchy" by another word and hierarchy is the product of massive human overpopulation, at least when compared to the egalitarian equal sharing among the members of ecologically balanced self-sustaining ancestral Hunter-Gatherer clans/bands, who numbered 1/3,000 of our current numbers. Have a blessed day.
Mm I think large populations undeniably lead to the need to organise production. We are very good at producing things mind, enough to feed the world multiple times over. In this way, we are very succesful, (though there are limits we are pushing driven by profit motives)
Capitalism is to profit from the ownership of those resources and the expoitation of workers who work those resources. While, it is a natural progression, and improvement, from fuedalism. I certainly do not see any reason to suspect it as inevitable or unchangable.
I don't think we are overpopulated any more than I think a CPU has too many transistors. I don't see how we can't have equal sharing at our population. So much good has been created, learned because we have more people that are able to devote large amounts of time to research and development. Society has ingrained in us "individualism", everyone is out for themselves. There's too much competition and not enough cooperation. That's what Capitalism breeds. It's not about population at all.
There were no "surpluses", which Capitalism depends on, among our ancestral Hunter-Gatherer clans/bands, which never had more than 150 members (Dunbar number) and were egalitarian, self-sustaining, and ecologically balanced. The story of how Capitalism evolved through population growth can be found in the brilliant "Before Writing" by Denise Schmandt-Besserat. I doubt that you are an avid reader, but maybe someone else reading this might look her book up.
You doubt I'm an avid reader?
So, you've read "Before Writing, vol 1"?