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Comment by cynicalkane | Hacker News Reader

There's no part of capitalism that requires the oppression of others, except in maybe some metaphorical economic sense. In communism the ability to oppress is a necessary feature of the system (and if you don't think so, read Marx). The world has seen many implementations of capitalism that don't involve forcing large numbers of people to starve. The same cannot be said of communism.

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I think it depends on what you mean by capitalism.

A common notion of it is the "increase shareholder value" version, where the only thing that matters to executives is profit. There, I don't think oppression is a necessary precondition, but it is a necessary outcome. You can see that in the company stores of yore, and the eternal reemergence of monopolies and oligopolies that will treat treat both their workers and their customers exactly as poorly as they can get away with.

There are other approaches to capitalism, of course.

It also depends on what you mean by 'oppression.' To make an analogy, Marxists also consider externalities oppressive, because they're talking about the system as a whole. Libertarian/liberal ethical systems tend to focus on individual actions. A transaction between two parties where one isn't pointing a gun at each other is categorically not oppressive to libertarians/liberals, but may still be an oppressive action to a Marxist.

Tell me where in the world people did not live communistically prior to 10,000 years ago.

So according to you, the entire world lived under a system that required the oppression of others prior to 10,000 years ago, when everyone lived in migrating hunter-gatherer bands where all wealth was shared. This was a system that forced people to starve, according to you.

Don't be naieve, you tell me that a band of hunter gatherers would hesitate to kill/oppress another tribe if they were strapped for resources?

"According to you", the entire world lived in a system where everyone was picking daisies and being sweet to each other prior to 10,000 years ago?

Also, how is communism like how people lived prior to 10,000 years ago?

What resources does a highly migratory hunter-gatherer band actually have to take? The whole point is there is no surplus production. Also, how exactly would one band of hunter gatherers continually oppress another band of hunter gatherers over a period of time? It's not really possible, for a variety of reasons.

How is communism like how people lived 10,000+ years ago? Communism is how all people lived 10,000+ years ago.

> What resources does a highly migratory hunter-gatherer band actually have to take?

Food.

> how exactly would one band of hunter gatherers continually oppress another band of hunter gatherers over a period of time?

They wouldn't, they'd just kill them before the need arises. But if they really wanted to, out of greed or laziness, they'd do what humans have done for thousands of years. Establish a hierarchy based on power and violence, and extort taxes.

You need surplus to establish a hierarchy. A migratory hunter-gatherer band has no surplus - people collect enough food to feed themselves, their children, and perhaps some older people, and that's it.

Once there is a hierarchy with taxes and such you no longer have a migratory hunter-gatherer band. So you're talking about what happened during the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago. I am talking about what happened before that.

You don't need a surplus to establish a hierarchy, you need a deficit. Deficit creates the need for structuring. If you're in a band and you can't get enough food to survive, there's going to be some tough decisions to be made. Who gets a cut and who doesn't is decided by those in power.

Besides that, I don't think it's absolutely necessary for a hunter gatherer band to be migrationary, that's only when a tribe becomes too big and exploits its territory faster than the territory can recover.

"the ability to oppress is a necessary feature of the system (and if you don't think so, read Marx)."

That's not been in any of the Marx I've read, to my recollection, though that's nowhere near exhaustive and my recollection could certainly be flawed. Do you have something specific to point to?

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