When it come to a general abstract term, it’s good for a bird’s eye view. The word ‘Capitalism’ can bring up a lot of memories and impressions uttered on it’s own. The word alone isn’t a concrete existence functioning in the real world, a specific company, a currency.
Capitalism is a bird’s eye view. An abstract. So general, so varied in it’s usage that it might as well refer to anything where money changes hands. This abstract is like a power line. It allows for the transmission of electricity. It refers to a wider span of reality, a long chain of concrete supporting the abstract existence of capitalism.
Then, you have businesses. A business. A concrete. Where a business exists, capitalism as an abstract breaks down. Now, if you have a business name, like SlothWorks, you have a specific concrete.
Capitalism is an abstract word, a power line connecting all the ideas we have about economy, money, business, status, and economic power. All of these fall to background when we focus on the concrete, on SlothWorks.
A concrete example breaks the abstract power line. Continuing to chase the abstract power line forces the specific concrete example out of view.
Switching from generalized to specific is a cycling pattern in language. We use it so often in our minds that when it comes to discerning where the abstract power line began and where it broke into concrete takes careful reflection. Without notice, conflict and drama gain pressure.
The abstract term is a powerful term. ‘Capitalism’, in most conversation I can remember with the word, the abstract word is used to hide concrete complaints. This builds the drama, hiding the reality, throwing any sense and possible solutions out of view.
A family of five with a mortgage they can only pay interest on and the father no longer has a job.
A concrete complaint like this is far more emotionally involving and convincing then an utterance of an abstract ‘Capitalism’. When you bring out the concrete, you give people element to build a story. Then, the story their mind makes has the potential to impact their behavior and values.
We already learned to judge by living. As a person, you already have organizations of information, story, developed within you. In the above example, a more responsible person might blame the father for taking on a mortgage and having so many children in the first place. This is a way to avoid the danger of having no money, simply remove responsibilities, and the situation looks less painful.
For a more generous person, they might say ‘the government needs to help him find a job’ or ‘give him money’ or ‘just have the bank pretend that the house was his all along’.
About 50% of Americans are paying interest on their mortgages. They will never own their house. If they get to keep living in their house in the future, that will be a victory for them. Most won’t manage that.
Is the consequences of this system all capitalism? That’s too general. Too abstract. Too fast a judgement based on too little information. We already have our own organization of information with a value judgement in mind before the question is even asked.
Will you challenge your held values, or keep them the same?
What does our system of money and property exist for? In this case, the father of five got a house he couldn’t afford a long time ago. Years later in debt, he is responsible to pay back an amount of money he may have never had gathered even if he worked his entire life.
Because the father wanted a house, the bank made a deal for him. The bank gets interest payments over a long period of time, while the father gets a house now. It’s a contract, an exchange.
Whose side will you take when the bill comes due? Will you defend the father or bank?