this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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Before it was merely people using money.
I've seen an interesting video about it a few months ago: 400 years ago is actually mercantilism. It means people build their fortune out of selling goods. Before that, it was about possessing lands and taxing the people who lived there.
Capitalism is different than both. It's not born 400 years ago with the trading with the America. It's born with the industrial revolution when the bourgeoisie seized the power with democracy.
The shocking thing is as you learn about mercantilism you learn that so many rich people seem to actually believe in Mercantilism rather than Capitalism. A big part of Mercantilism was the idea that all deals have a winner and a loser, and that no financial deal can be mutually beneficial. It encourages tribalism, and ruthless cutthroat competition between countries, and it encourages really predatory financial agreements between parties. If you're making a financial transaction and know that the one party is going to be screwed over by it, you might as well screw over the other party as much as you can get away with to ensure you're the winner and not the loser.
I guess capitalism can be seen as an extension of mercantilism, but now they don't only trade goods but everything they can. They're the same people so the ruthless cutthroat part would merely be their original philosophy.