What Was Liberalism? #2 Capitalism & History | Philosophy Tube

A 4-part series about liberalism. In this episode, what capitalism is, how capitalism and liberalism are linked, and how the English Civil War led to John Locke.

Twitter: @PhilosophyTube

Recommended Reading for this Series:

Bart Schultz, “Mill and Sidgwick, Imperialism and Racism”
David Goldman – “Liberalism’s Limits”
James Tully – “Rediscovering America”
Mark Tunick, “Tolerant Imperialism,” in The Review of Politics

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[OblivionHelena]

Speaking as an Irish person, it's always good to see someone acknowledge how much of a monster Cromwell was.

[MideoKuze]

my best friend is named after Oliver Cromwell

long story short we're both anarchists now

[ThePementaloaf]

Ollie isn’t even using 1% of his power in this video

[gazelle]

In school we were literally taught that Cromwell was a hero who overthrew the monarchy and that was it. I had no idea about anything else he did, good or bad.

[cjayhay]

"...really, the economic system we have now is an *example* of capitalism. We're interested in what capitalism fundamentally *is*."
o hai Socrates

[conorb]

"commit attrocities in northern ireland"

Northern Ireland wasnt in existence back then, it also was the whole island of ireland as opposed to the north of it that suffered under cromwell.

[docp]

Although I agree with you on 95% of the video, I would say the real phenomenon who actually triggered the emergence and consolidation of capitalism as the true economic dominant system was the French, and not the English, revolution. In the French Revolution we see the actual revolutionary class, the Bourgeoisie, was the one that crippled the traditional dominant feudal class and made profound and deep changes in the society of the time. In the English revolution, although yes we saw a deep profound change, it was limited to a political spectrum. Yes, it is undeniable that England became the first modern State of the world, however no profound change was made in society because the same class kept control of the political and productive instrument.
After the French Revolution we see Britain at the highest of its colonial rule and the consolidation fo capitalism at the Industrial Revolution.
GREAT VIDEO BY THE WAY!

[VelMa-opinion]

The enclosure of commons was absolutely stealing just as much as fencing a public park owned by the city without permission and starting to charge admission while still expecting city employed park workers to care for it.

The Diggers and Levellers were my heroes! Anarcho-syndicalism or death!

[gavinhillick]

I appreciate the explicit acknowledgement of how Cromwell treated Irish people, but it wasn't just in what we now call Northern Ireland.

[shnglbot]

1:30 You're misusing the term profit and this results in a factual error at 1:39.

Profit is what’s left after paying all expenses, including wages. So the capitalist doesn’t sell the chair for profit. They exchange it for money and then use only some of that money to pay wages, keeping the rest as profit.

So you're wrong that “the wages are always less than the total profit”. Because let’s say you sell the chair for $50, the wood cast $20 and the labor/wages $20, the profit is $10, which is less than the wages. What you meant is that the wages are always less than the value created.

[stateofexception]

Philosophy tube, I shall remain grateful to your ever for this simplified yet nuanced explanation of things. I'm a student of Sociology, and your channel has played an important role in conceptual clarity of liberalism and many such topics. Sending you love and regards from Indian occupied Kashmir.(not sure if you have ever heard of the place) 🙂

[arnoldkotlyarevsky]

Really well done! Your videos are always so clean and easy to understand. I really appreciate this series. I eagerly anticipate the next installment. Thank you from across the pond.

[AbadSebastian]

You won my heart with that Pink Floyd reference.

[imice]

this is the most important history lesson i never got from school. it literally explains how monarchy can end and leave society just as divided and oppressed

[matthewheimbecker]

I really liked the structure of this episode. This is a great series so far. Keep it up.

[gingerkaddo]

The first half of the video is like everything you need to know of "The Capital" by Marx basically - only that its 4min instead of a whole book series

[cody]

Your entire channel is so intelligent.

Thanks comrade.

[Pfhorrest]

I like to phrase a definition of capitalism thus: capitalism is any system whereby owning more than other people is in and of itself (somehow or another) a source of income; or conversely, where owning less than other people in and of itself (somehow or another) costs you. The wage labor scenario you (and Marx) describe is one "somehow or another", but I'd argue that that, and all of capitalism, really boils down to one core feature: rent, including interest which is just rent on money. If you don't have enough capital to live and work and survive yourself, you have to borrow it from someone who has more than you, and if they can charge you for that, then you have to work even more to fund both that and your own survival, while they have to work equivalently less.

Why would the wage laborers possibly put up with being paid less than the actual value they are producing? Because they don't have any other alternatives: they are in debt just by living, because they have to borrow a place to live and to work, and the equipment needed to work, or else money with which to buy a place to live and work and the equipment to do that work. The whole wage labor scenario Marx goes on about is only a consequence of the usury which is the core of capitalism, and the last vestige of feudalism still remaining today: there's a reason they're called land-LORDS. Capitalism is just post-industrial feudalism, the same social arrangements at a different tech level where there are more kinds of capital than arable land.

[PirateQueen]

The common land (at least in England) WAS considered the property of the Lord in the feudal period. However, Lords rarely sold their land voluntarily, and were considered to have certain obligations to the people who lived on it (who, if they were serfs, were not allowed to leave that land). The farmed land was divided up into long strips scattered across the property that "belonged" to different peasant families. Other land used for pasture or forest or which was considered low value for farming could be used by any of the peasants (including those without allocated strips of land) in various ways governed by tradition or common law (which derived from traditions). Peasants often paid rent for their cottages to the Lord, those these rents were low compared to later periods.
The division of farming land into long strips was relatively fair (most families had some land to grow food on, and the shape meant it wasn't all either good or bad land) but it made implementing some productivity-boosting agricultural techniques (such as crop rotation) harder. So starting as early as the 1200s (but mostly after 1600), land owners (who came to include merchant families and other proto-capitalists as well as hereditary lords) began to look for legal permission to consolidate land. Usually the use to which they wanted to put that land required fewer workers and so would involve kicking peasants out. Many thousands of such "inclosure acts" were passed by Parliament, and they mostly required landowners to pay a substantial compensation to the peasants for the loss of their traditional rights. As a result, at the time a lot of poor farmers supported these acts - the potential downsides were only realized by a few.
The commonness of wage labor had also been increasing over this period, as towns and the importance of non-agricultural parts of the economy grew (a serf who made it to at town and stayed unclaimed by their lord for over a year could usually not be forced to return). It got a real boost in the aftermath of the black death, as labor was in short supply and workers discovered they now had negotiating power. But the greater the proportion of workers who had to be paid, the more landowners had a financial incentive to cut the number of workers.
In any case, all these various factors did fuel the transition from feudalism to capitalism.

Better sources coming if I have the time, but wikipedia version reflects what I've read in multiple other books:

[jimmynyarlathotep]

So, the thing about common land in medieval England is that it wasn’t free for everyone for everything. A lot of common land was divvied out into parcels for people of a given area, and even if you had theoretical access, you could be squeezed out by other commoners.