Take away the company from this example. Is an individual a capitalist if they own land and receive rent from people using that land? How is that different from a feudal lord who owns land and demands rent?
Yes, absolutely, if the landowner is rent-seeking and using the proceeds for their own benefit - including expansion of their business. The modern economy alienates participants and their dependency on direct relations to other participants. Currency is the primary mechanism for this: the landowner’s proceeds are not coming in the form of grain and defense; it is coming in the form of a fungible debt token. With this currency he may go to his lessee, a farmer, a futures market, or a store to get his grain. The maintenance required to construct and maintain housing is relatively capital-intensive. Often, what landowners have done is to contract out anything that involves direct ownership and usage so as to reduce cost. They bring in HVAC companies, and pool companies if they are large enough to not be a sole (capital-utilizing) proprietor operation.
And this transition from the sole proprietor barely eeking out enough to buy the next house on the street to rent out (this is how all of the landlord circles speak, they are clearly trying to accrue capital to convert to assets to leverage debt to accrue capital etc…) to the corporate management company contracting every aspect of operations, is perfectly illustrative of what the real evolution has been. It is not capitalism to feudalism, rather it is the same financialization that led to deindustrialization in developed nations. When a landowner’s operation is successful enough, they distance themselves from operations as a corporate board does from its executive team. The landowner hires laborers and accountants to run their capitalist business that is personally profiting them and allowing them to gain greater and greater privileges. The end game of this is that their rent-seeking has turned into naught but numbers flickering in front of them on a screen. They have externalized the costs of capital and maintenance. The capital and maintenance is still utilized, its just by the landowner’s contractors instead of the landowner. At some point this landowner stops looking like a landowner and more like your typical business person looking to corner a market. But their business is still being a landowner, and nothing in the landowner-lessee relationship has changed except degrees of separation (and prices going up to keep all of the contractors employed at a profit to their own business owners).
Most landowners I see speaking with each other are talking about what stocks, ETFs, bonds, and other assets they should be buying - in the perspective of how to maximize their profits. Is Blackrock not capitalist because it only deals with financialization of factories and not the factory operations themselves? No, they are still capitalist and their shares signify their stake of ownership.
The landowners are not maintaining their realms for a mutual if unequal benefit. They are maintaining their assets to succeed in the game of capitalism. It’s not exactly easy to extricate oneself from a capitalist world. Even the homeless and possessionless must deal with it; they still go to the store to legally acquire things with currency. They don’t get to work on a farm and keep a portion of the harvest to feed themselves with as an accepted part of the social contract.
You can define capitalism and feudalism however you like, don’t let me stop you any further. Maybe you’ll strike upon an enlightening realization based on this novel framework. Just be aware that you aren’t using the common definitions.
Yes, absolutely, if the landowner is rent-seeking and using the proceeds for their own benefit - including expansion of their business. The modern economy alienates participants and their dependency on direct relations to other participants. Currency is the primary mechanism for this: the landowner’s proceeds are not coming in the form of grain and defense; it is coming in the form of a fungible debt token. With this currency he may go to his lessee, a farmer, a futures market, or a store to get his grain. The maintenance required to construct and maintain housing is relatively capital-intensive. Often, what landowners have done is to contract out anything that involves direct ownership and usage so as to reduce cost. They bring in HVAC companies, and pool companies if they are large enough to not be a sole (capital-utilizing) proprietor operation.
And this transition from the sole proprietor barely eeking out enough to buy the next house on the street to rent out (this is how all of the landlord circles speak, they are clearly trying to accrue capital to convert to assets to leverage debt to accrue capital etc…) to the corporate management company contracting every aspect of operations, is perfectly illustrative of what the real evolution has been. It is not capitalism to feudalism, rather it is the same financialization that led to deindustrialization in developed nations. When a landowner’s operation is successful enough, they distance themselves from operations as a corporate board does from its executive team. The landowner hires laborers and accountants to run their capitalist business that is personally profiting them and allowing them to gain greater and greater privileges. The end game of this is that their rent-seeking has turned into naught but numbers flickering in front of them on a screen. They have externalized the costs of capital and maintenance. The capital and maintenance is still utilized, its just by the landowner’s contractors instead of the landowner. At some point this landowner stops looking like a landowner and more like your typical business person looking to corner a market. But their business is still being a landowner, and nothing in the landowner-lessee relationship has changed except degrees of separation (and prices going up to keep all of the contractors employed at a profit to their own business owners).
Most landowners I see speaking with each other are talking about what stocks, ETFs, bonds, and other assets they should be buying - in the perspective of how to maximize their profits. Is Blackrock not capitalist because it only deals with financialization of factories and not the factory operations themselves? No, they are still capitalist and their shares signify their stake of ownership.
The landowners are not maintaining their realms for a mutual if unequal benefit. They are maintaining their assets to succeed in the game of capitalism. It’s not exactly easy to extricate oneself from a capitalist world. Even the homeless and possessionless must deal with it; they still go to the store to legally acquire things with currency. They don’t get to work on a farm and keep a portion of the harvest to feed themselves with as an accepted part of the social contract.
You can define capitalism and feudalism however you like, don’t let me stop you any further. Maybe you’ll strike upon an enlightening realization based on this novel framework. Just be aware that you aren’t using the common definitions.