Poll of the Day > What was before Capitalism?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ok, lets say you're in the middle of England... or maybe France, you've had a successful military career and are the highest consulate for some lame-ass Marquis some where

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Then you find one billion tons of gold.

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Under capitalism, you'd just buy the nations if that's what you wanted... WOOP WOOP

But back in the day, what? I mean, you could hire the greatest mercenary force in the world and... not be declared king? I mean, you have no lineage and are not even remotely in line for the throne, you just got all teh money and the force needed to protect it; what does that make you?

Back in the day if you found all that money and anyone found out the nobles would seize it. You don't just "magically" get all the mercenaries under your belt with no one being aware of it. Without some way to protect the wealth you would have no way to keep the wealth. Land belonged to the nobles and taking stuff from their land without their permission is not going to go well.

BlackScythe0 posted...

Back in the day if you found all that money and anyone found out the nobles would seize it. You don't just "magically" get all the mercenaries under your belt with no one being aware of it. Without some way to protect the wealth you would have no way to keep the wealth. Land belonged to the nobles and taking stuff from their land without their permission is not going to go well.

don't let my weak framing device beguile the question... If you had all the moneyz back before the capitalism, what a do?

Feudalism. The aristocracy owned all property, you just got to live on it and get a pittance in exchange for serving them. What you found? It's theirs. You'd probably get your head lopped off if you tried to keep it for yourself.

Lokarin posted...

don't let my weak framing device beguile the question... If you had all the moneyz back before the capitalism, what a do?

What are you looking for?

BlackScythe0 posted...

What are you looking for?

There were super-rich prior to the invention of Capitalism; I wanna know how the super-rich non-royals... existed at all

Lokarin posted...

There were super-rich prior to the invention of Capitalism; I wanna know how the super-rich non-royals... existed at all

Bribery

Barter system - trade things of value instead of trading things for their value.

BlackScythe0 posted...

Bribery

I can see that working... I think in the British system you could buy peerage, not sure if that was normal/typical tho

Before capitalism there was only crapitalism.

Before Capitalism, there was just the rich and greedy, whom everyone hated and only sometimes revolted against once conditions were bad enough. It's almost like avarice has always been a thing and will always be a thing, as long as things are possible.

It would depend how smart (and lucky) you were. Assuming you had infinite money hidden in the woods that nobody knew about and want to become powerful...you probably use it to get transported out of the center of your kingdom and go to the less stable fringes of empires. Then you move around buying a bunch of stuff and offering help to help neighboring rulers who want to take over the area. With your resources you should be able to help them do so. If you pull an Aladdin and pretend to be a displaced lord from far away (this would take skill) perhaps you can get yourself set up as the governor of the area.

In short, serve a purpose in conflict zones.

If you're a history buff like me you'd know that there were no wars before capitalism. Disagreements were settled with diplomacy and civility. It was amazing hopefully we can get back to that some day

Lokarin posted...

There were super-rich prior to the invention of Capitalism; I wanna know how the super-rich non-royals... existed at all

They generally didn't. If you weren't noble (or a warrior skilled enough to kill your way up to becoming a noble/royal in some way), you didn't become rich, period. And if by some miracle you magically became rich by deus ex machina, you'd either use that money to become noble/royal in some way, or nobles would come and take it away from you (the more likely scenario).

It was the rise of mercantilism and similar trade-based systems that allowed money to become more powerful than military force or noble influence. Before that, systems like feudalism basically kept "capital" in the hands of the nobles (they didn't just own the land, they owned the people). It really wasn't until after the Black Plague wiped out half the population (making individual workers more valuable and concentrating resources into the hands of fewer people) that you started to see that change, with the Renaissance/Enlightenment (in Europe, at least) starting to plant the idea that, hey, maybe peasants did have some value, and should be treated as being maybe somewhat better than nobles, with rights and privileges and all that stuff.

Sure, there were societies prior to that where citizens had rights to some degree, but in most of those cases there was still a massive divide between the nobles and everyone else, and the wealth of non-nobles was usually still built on feudalism, or outright slaves (like in Rome). And in most of those cases, wealth was still almost exclusively generated via some form of mercantile exchange or outright conquest.

Wealth has never really been equitable. And yet literally every aspect of human civilization is essentially built on it. The Agricultural Revolution pretty much invented the concept of property, and that's the foundation upon which the entirety of human history has been built on.

Money may be the root of all evil, but it's also the root of literally everything else as well.

Far-Queue posted...

If you're a history buff like me you'd know that there were no wars before capitalism. Disagreements were settled with diplomacy and civility. It was amazing hopefully we can get back to that some day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htbx3cMLsck

omg I love it

Far-Queue posted...

omg I love it

Right?

feudalism

feudalism

That's a form of government, not an economic system.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

That's a form of government, not an economic system.

That is like saying communism isn't an economic system. Like three quarters of people were serfs bonded to the land.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

That's a form of government, not an economic system.

It's both.

It's also a socio-cultural system.

according to reddit, wealthy non-nobles would often become moneylenders or bankers with the goal of marrying a daughter into high nobility, using a large dowry as leverage.

only jesus

BlackScythe0 posted...

That is like saying communism isn't an economic system. Like three quarters of people were serfs bonded to the land.

Forms of government primarily describe who has authority and how authority is transferred. I think of feudalism as doing this.
Economic System primarily describe what has value and the movement of things that hold value. I don't think of feudalism as doing this.
Telling me what part of the population were serfs tells me about the transfer, or lack thereof, of authority. It does not tell me what they used for trade.