YOU are not a Capitalist.

[nuadha_prime]

I don't know, maybe you are, but if you are reading this, I seriously doubt it. Even if you are making lots of money (as some of my friends do), this does not earn you a seat at the capitalist table. You may think that the capitalist system is good for the world, but this does not make you a capitalist. I realized this last weekend while

Comments

[nuadha_prime]

I am not redefining it, but going with a very old definition that goes back to Marx and probably to earlier socialists before him. I am also not mixing definitions. I have been very careful not to use the term capitalist as a supporter of capitalism, but only as a definition of someone whom derives significant income from the labor of others through the ownership of capital. A capitalist is not simply someone who has invested capital (which by your definition of capital includes everyone who has ever completed any monetary transaction, including selling your labor).

Capital as defined in Wikipedia (not the best source, but an easy one for me to quickly copy and paste from: "In economics, capital, capital goods, or real capital are factors of production used to create goods or services that are not themselves significantly consumed (though they may depreciate) in the production process. Capital goods may be acquired with money or financial capital."

In Socialist writings (which is what I am discussing here and are not new but writings that go back the 18th century, with the most important works in the 19th century), this is how capitalism is defined. The use of it as a supporter of capitalism is a newer definition.

[jer_]

Can I get a citation on these writings...because the alternate definition intrigues me as to its specificity and relative exclusivity...as in, it feels like the author is going to a great deal of trouble to make the word mean what he or she wishes it to mean.

[nuadha_prime]

Well, the main two works would be The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels and Capital by Marx, and yes Marx and Engels did go to a great deal of trouble to define Capitalism since until them the nature of capitalism had not really been examined to such a large degree and they needed to define words to use in the study of it. In particular, I would refer you to the note from Engels in the 1888 English translation where he defines a capitalist as "owners of the means of social production AND the employers of wage labor." (section 1 - "Bourgeois and Proletarians")

Now, please note that my other post on using the term exploiting class is actually creating a new definition (or rebranding an old one, really). I make no secret of that but I think Bourgeoisie is a word that needs to go since Marx was actually redefining it at the time. I read a lot of French history earlier this year (for gaming) and found that the bourgeoisie was actually a very specific group in French culture.

[jer_]

That's fair...and please realize that I wasn't asking for citation in a "prove it" sense, but in the sense that I'm interested in their usage and how they posed the notions.