We all know the argument that profit motive is part of human nature is false. Yet I’m still not sure why capital owners pursue profits. Is it the difference of self-interest vs collective interest? If so then wouldn’t that enforce the argument on human nature? Or am I missing a crucial aspect of the Capitalist system? I’m genuinely wondering.
Edit: Sorry for not being able to answer all of the comments, the blocklist of my instance sadly won’t let me see all of the comments.
Do you agree that if something is part of human nature, then it will be present in some form in all human societies?
isnt an agreement to that exactly what im trying to represent?
I’m not sure. Possibly. But you also seem to be disagreeing with me, which suggests not.
I’m not starting an analysis of capitalism with human nature. Capitalism is the name of a particular political economy / mode of production that is based on producing commodities.
If capitalism has unique implications, which by definition only arise in capitalism, it stands to reason that those implications (being unique) do not arise in all human societies. If something only arises in specific era, and not in all human societies, it is specific to that era, and not part of human nature.
Edit: To add for clarity: within capitalism, seeking profit is a political economic necessity for capitalists. I’m not making any moral, psychological, or philosophical claims here.
Human beings produce society, and human beings are influenced by society, so it is all human beings that get into consideration.
for example, Patterns of fascism can be found everywhere around the world, even parts that had no significant itellectual interaction of sorts with each other, ideologies and its exercise such as that of fascism are also found throughout history, without two points in history to have been directly influenced by each other.
My point is that east, west: doesnt matter. If there exists a system inspired by people in one geography, it doesnt matter the geography per se, it can exist everywhere else upon the existence of similar environmental conditions that arent strictly and intentfully sociological.
The first line to my reply to the original post is an explicit evidence on where i stand.
Then we are talking at cross purposes.
I’m not sure what fascism, geography, the environment, or sociology have to do with it.
I agree that humans produce society. But if humans have produced societies that do not involve commodity production, then they have lived without profit and without a profit motive. This was the case for the majority of human existence, perhaps some 300,000 years.
If human societies have lived without a profit motive, then the profit motive cannot be part of human nature—it arises only when humans produce commodities (i.e. rather than because humans are involved).
To accept that the profit motive is part of human nature, one must also accept that it existed in all human societies. It did not. Something (e.g. the profit motive) cannot be part of human nature if it has only been an organising force in human society for 200–500 years.
Im very confused by your definition for the human nature, you’re distinguishing between positive traits of humans and negative traits in humans, or primitive traits in humans and evolutionary traits in humans and choosing one of them to represent the human nature while declining the other’s association with it, when in a conversation like all it does is deny the existence of empirical evidence and puts forward a virtuous proposition without studying the existing nature of human economy.
The grography, the environmrnt and sociology is precisely the deterministic factors that need to be taken into consideration while concersing on human nature, just as much as the consideration of nature of individual and isolated (if that is even possible) human agency is needed. Given that environmental factors inspire human instincts, and human instincts inspire social phenomenons.
Moral propositions are great to have but using them as an essentialist force to describe humans falls into a purist line of thinking that dissociates one’s self from the reality of the human condition. That reality which can be figured out through empirical and scientific study of the geneology of a particular human trait.
If there is something a human does or expresses, no matter where it came from, it is part of the human nature. There is no essence of human nature in the way that you propose, i dont see any evidence for such.
I’m not making any moral claims nor claiming that any trait is positive or negative. I am not proposing that there is an essence of human nature.
I’m saying that the profit motive is unique to commodity production. If there is no commodity production, there is no profit motive. I am also claiming that within a system of commodity production, only a small fraction of the people within that system seek profit. And in a system of commodity production, it is only the owners of the means of production who seek profit.
I am then claiming, which to me seems to follow logically, that if very few humans throughout history have sought profit, then seeking profit cannot be part of human nature.
To that i want to express that the “few” people that we are talking about that pursue profit could literally be any of us, for any number of variables affecting us. These arent some different subspecies of humans we are talking about, theyre just humans whose will was to seek profit, a desire that could have been inspired for any number of reasons.
The same reasons that could have inspired it in you or me, In any socialist, anarchist or a communist if we were born in a certain environment. The said environment doesnt need to be capitalistic in its existence for it to inspire profit motive. One has to ask, what inspired the first capitalist to seek profit. A lot of questions arise from this very question: what is a capitalist, is there a “first” capitalist? does capitalistic endeavour exist in a spectrum?.
This is pan-determinism im referring to. And if a human like you and me can be put in an environment with variables that may inspire capitalistic pursuit in us (even if that environment’s economy doesnt rely on capitalism), albeit to a much lower degree (which may or may not escalate with time), how can we not call this pursuit as a part, or for a better word: an element, of human nature.
Not just anyone. Only capitalists. Or, rather, only those who own the means of production within a commodity producing society. In capitalism, those owners are organised as a class. The profit motive is what drives that class, not humans in general.
I must reiterate that we’re talking at cross purposes. I’m saying that profit only exists where there is commodity production. If we cannot agree on that, we won’t agree about much else. Before commodity production, there was no concept of profit, and there could be no concept of a profit motive, hence humans could not be motivated by profit before they began to produce commodities.
As for your questions relating to the ‘first’ capitalist, you may want to read:
You will find some support for some of the ideas that you’re talking about in these works, relating to the difficulty of pointing to a precise date at which humans began to be motivated by profit (which is impossible to pinpoint). You will also find a rejection of the argument that the profit motive is part of human nature and why. Mainly, this rejection lies in the claim that everything is historically contingent—which follows logically from an historical materialist world outlook. That will support some of your ideas but it will also challenge your main argument about what human nature is and about how we know what we know about capitalism.
For analyses on why and how profit is related to commodity production, try: