'Both capitalism and its nemesis arose in the mid 1900s, when humanity was obsessed with modernist thinking about "solving problems once and for all". And in that context, the people fell in love with these two "clean systems". A more perfect set of rules.'
All of this is junk. Karl Polanyi famously puts the birth of capitalism very late compared to other important thinkers, in 1834, by defining it as characterised by markets of fictitious commodities, i.e. stuff like labour, land, money. More mainstream would be to point to the Renaissance or british 16th century.
The idea that capitalism and communism would be dependent on an art movement of the early 20th century is quite bizarre, the Communist Manifesto was published in 1848 and by the late 19th century when modernism started to form unions and communist parties were already common.
Actually, modernism is a reaction to the apparent stalling of 'progress', WWI and nostalgia for the optimism of the early modern period. I.e. from 1500 to late 1800s. In part it was also a reaction to what is usually called modern physics, i.e. things like newtonianism and ether hypotheses breaking down in due to Michelson-Morley and early study of quantum phenomena, relativity and so on.
> All of this is junk. Karl Polanyi famously puts the birth of capitalism very late compared to other important thinkers, in 1834, by defining it as characterised by markets of fictitious commodities, i.e. stuff like labour, land, money. More mainstream would be to point to the Renaissance or british 16th century.
Once again, I'm not referring to theorycraft here. I'm talking about the pragmatics of it.
"Capitalism" as an ideological polemic that stood opposed to "Communism" was a concept that society adopted in the mid 1900s.
What you're talking about is some labeling of some social and economic mechanisms.
Marx might have described communism. But when the USSR came to power, the specific brand of communist _ideology_ that was adopted by the government was its own thing, its own creature and entity.
Likewise, many theorists might have described a loose economic structure as "capitalism", but the "Capitalism, Freedom, and American Pie", as an ideological fixpoint that was sold to society as something to aspire to was something entirely different from the academic theorycraft you're referring to.
All of this is junk. Karl Polanyi famously puts the birth of capitalism very late compared to other important thinkers, in 1834, by defining it as characterised by markets of fictitious commodities, i.e. stuff like labour, land, money. More mainstream would be to point to the Renaissance or british 16th century.
The idea that capitalism and communism would be dependent on an art movement of the early 20th century is quite bizarre, the Communist Manifesto was published in 1848 and by the late 19th century when modernism started to form unions and communist parties were already common.
Actually, modernism is a reaction to the apparent stalling of 'progress', WWI and nostalgia for the optimism of the early modern period. I.e. from 1500 to late 1800s. In part it was also a reaction to what is usually called modern physics, i.e. things like newtonianism and ether hypotheses breaking down in due to Michelson-Morley and early study of quantum phenomena, relativity and so on.