Trade =/= capitalism. Capitalism is maximum enrichment for a few at the cost of the many. "Capitalizing on an opportunity" doesn't usually seem to get interpreted as "get what I need and hopefully what I want in an exchange that is equitable, just, fair, and negotiable to all parties"; instead, the common meaning seems to be "get all that I can as quick as I can in exchange for the least possible expense on my part", which is not even a full step away from 'The Tragedy of the Commons, ' or, "if there's not enough for everyone to have as much as they want or need, then everyone who takes as much as they need is evil, and if someone is going to be evil AND ALSO have enough than that person is damn well going to be me." THAT'S capitalism.
ArtemisimetrA
joined 3 weeks ago
Such has been the present interpretation of the course of recorded history. Recorded most often by conquerors, looking favorably upon the the ends of their conquest to justify their means, and if you boil just about every single conquering ideology down for long enough, you will see two things, in this order: greed for what the conquered populace had, and fear of not having enough.
That's not "human nature," that's a response to human nature. Most of us would probably generally prefer to go on living. For many people, that looks like "i just need my necessities covered and I'll figure out the rest." Historically this happened by banding together and looking out for one another, not by hoarding resources and making people do extra work just to fucking exist with a modicum of comfort in a society forever dangling a golden carrot to keep you distracted from the meat grinder. (Edit for formatting)
I just read a chapter called "Zionism" in a book called "Never Again" by Rabbi Meir Kahane (published 2009), because the book was presented to me by the person who owns the copy as being, like, somehow especially important, something about the author being really good or something. I don't remember exactly. I figured reading this chapter would tell me whether the book is for me (born Buddhist/Jewish in a primarily Jewish/Espicopalian Christian family; celebrated Christmas and Passover but never had a mitzvah, 60% Ashkenazi, yadda yadda), given my lack of education/study of Jewish history. It starts out seemingly taking a neutral/mildly derogatory stance towards Zionism... But by the end of the chapter it's clear he thinks of modern Palestinians as being still responsible as "Arabs" in general for the past persecution of Jewish people in the region. He pretty much says "these dirty Arabs can't possibly be genocided hard enough" (paraphrased), and that's when I put the book down.
I'm not sorry to say: I firmly believe that past atrocities committed against one population by another absolutely do not, in any way, provide a basis for or permission to perform any atrocities in recompense, especially not intergenerationally. Yeah, easy for me to say, being Caucasian, but also, I'm still Jewish, and queer, and disabled, so I don't know what it's like to live with daily racism, but I'm definitely not even actually that close to the top of the social hierarchy
OK I'm actually a noob at formatting and i have no idea how i even did that giant text