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Paystub from a US coal miner in 1942. Ends up owing his employer $1.84 ($35.76 in 2023) at the end of the pay period.
(lemmygrad.ml)
What do we call this? Early stage capitalism? What the Western world is on track to return to? Forshadow capitalism?
This is when miners were paid in company currency and lived in company houses and shopped at a company store.
Early capitalism was a couple thousand years ago, back when they burned down the library of Alexandria. This was just bullshit exploitation.
capitalism has only existed for a few centuries
You're totally right, I should've articulated that the culture/practice of putting capital above all else, started a long time ago, replacing the practice of lauding goods and the production of goods.
Didn't capitalism start 300-400 years ago? If I remember correctly, capitalism was born of the imperial nations of Europe (primarily Great Britain, France, and Spain), as private capital, now unrestricted from the guilds as under feudalism, expanded for increased control of their respective markets.
The United States, started only slightly after the major imperial powers of its day. In addition, it's geography blessed it with weak neighbors to the north and south, and fish to the east and west, allowing it to develop almost entirely unhindered from the risk of war destroying it's means of production. Furthermore, property rights were enshrined in its very constitution from start due to its status as one of the world's first a bourgeois democracies (widely believed to be the ideal circumstances for the development of capitalism). As such, the United States had one of the most mature capitalist economies in the world by this point. Even at this point it's form of capitalism is probably more mature than many capitalist nations in the third world are currently.
In all likelihood, the course of capitalism in the United States was reversed somewhat by a combination of anti-monopolistic legislation, an end to its pre-worldwar isolationist policies, and the introduction of new markets in the world economy due to need for many nations to rebuild after World War Two. As such, I think it reasonable to call this a consequence of a 1940s late stage capitalist economy.
Please note: The United States did not start out spanning the entire continent, but rather got their though roughly a century of brutal westward expansion and genocide. I apologize for my omission of this information.
Firstly, yes capitalism has only been around for circa 400 years, because the emergence of capitalism and eventual adoption as the dominant mode of production was only made possible by colonialism and the influx of looted wealth and access to far off markets and slave labor that colonialism unlocked. Without colonialism and slavery, the primitive accumulation that was required for capitalism to take hold would not have been possible. Once you understand this you see that it is also the case that capitalism today could not sustain itself without imperialism and neo-colonialism.
Secondly, the US did not start out with oceans to both the east and west, it started out with only an ocean to the east. To get to the other one it had to wage a century of brutal genocidal wars against the native inhabitants of the majority of the continent, as well as against other European colonial powers and colonial states like Mexico. The US as it exists today was established through constant war, theft, broken treaties and the murder of untold millions. It was not so much luck as the fact that from its very inception it was a uniquely murderous society that had no limits whatsoever in what it was willing to do to fulfill its expansionist goals with almost messianic fervor.
The same mentality still drives its imperial policy today and it acts with the same total lack of respect for any agreements made with anyone else, whether ally or enemy. From the very beginning it has viewed the willingness of others to enter into treaties with it as a weakness to be exploited at the first opportunity. Unfortunately too many peoples have made the mistake of assuming that just because they were acting in good faith and being rational that the US would do the same. It has taken the world a long time to understand that the US as a society is just collectively psychopathic and agreement-incapable.
Thank you for your response! Yes, it is true that the States were limited to the east coast initially, though it took so little time to expand westward that I opted to omit it for conciseness of the text. However, as this did play a vital role in their expansionary mentality, and the brutality that the states would show to their fellow human beings, I realize now I should not have excluded it. Especially given how they were constantly rewarded for their effort to eradicate the natives with land, slaves, and resources.