I mean, people used to basically sell their daughters for social and economic benefits, so… In some countries, sometimes children would be sold as slaves too…
Children were often expected to take care of parents (or even extended family) in their old age.
(All of this still happens today, but it’s happened pretty much forever.)
I think you’re confusing survival with forced labour.
Families that could afford safety for children often didn’t force their children to contribute until they grew to adulthood (12+yoa)
In some cases the slaves were owned by the state (or community or whatever on a smaller scale). In any case, if we’re arguing this, then the meme shared by OP doesn’t make sense anw as we’ve always had capitalism and thus parent-child relationships have been transactional from the beginning.
EDIT: While I’m writing, I might as well address the bit about elder care in the previous (parent) comment. You can see it as “humanitarian labor” or “love,” but in a number of countries, it is expected that you’ll take care of parents, grandparents, etc. pretty much no matter how terribly they raised you, or how poor your relationship with them is. IMO this is basically a transaction in that they fed you for X number of years and kept you alive, and now even if they did the absolute minimum, you must take care of them. Obviously in many (most?) cases the child will be willing to do it out of love, but this isn’t always the case.
Are you saying CHINA was a capitalist society too? How am I supposed that to square with all the narrative that the above comment thread?
Also: am I a bad parent for seeing my child as an individual being who has wants, need, and aspirations that I just want to be a catalyst for, and money is just a bunch of white noise in the background like my fucking tinnitus, even though I live in a capitalist society?
Yeah that’s totally something that didn’t exist before capitalism.
e.g.?
I mean, people used to basically sell their daughters for social and economic benefits, so… In some countries, sometimes children would be sold as slaves too…
Children were often expected to take care of parents (or even extended family) in their old age.
(All of this still happens today, but it’s happened pretty much forever.)
Child labour was also the norm, not the exception since at least the neolithic.
I think you’re confusing survival with forced labour. Families that could afford safety for children often didn’t force their children to contribute until they grew to adulthood (12+yoa)
Rich children didn’t have to work, that’s correct. But why were they rich?
Never said anything about “rich,” but safety. Kids that didn’t have to gather and hunt were not as abused as those who had to.
Slavery is capitalism 101.
Elder care is just either humanitarian labor, or love.
Not so sure when you attribute that capitalism started.
If you consider hunter-gatherer tribes capturing slaves from those they raided to be capitalism, then alright I guess.
Is ‘owning’ people not private ownership of property?
In some cases the slaves were owned by the state (or community or whatever on a smaller scale). In any case, if we’re arguing this, then the meme shared by OP doesn’t make sense anw as we’ve always had capitalism and thus parent-child relationships have been transactional from the beginning.
EDIT: While I’m writing, I might as well address the bit about elder care in the previous (parent) comment. You can see it as “humanitarian labor” or “love,” but in a number of countries, it is expected that you’ll take care of parents, grandparents, etc. pretty much no matter how terribly they raised you, or how poor your relationship with them is. IMO this is basically a transaction in that they fed you for X number of years and kept you alive, and now even if they did the absolute minimum, you must take care of them. Obviously in many (most?) cases the child will be willing to do it out of love, but this isn’t always the case.
never thought I would see somebody splitting hairs on slavery in defense of capitalism in anarchymemes, but here we are.
I went to save this for future use and had to double take when i saw the .gif extension.
This isn’t a defense of capitalism, but blaming capitalism for everything bad in the world is ridiculous.
Indeed.
Raiders were the start of the capitalist gene.
Now recall what conquerer tribes did, and you got a capitalist gang.
Another example is in ancient China where children would have a “milk debt” they owed their parents.
Graeber wrote a lot about this in “Debt”
Are you saying CHINA was a capitalist society too? How am I supposed that to square with all the narrative that the above comment thread?
Also: am I a bad parent for seeing my child as an individual being who has wants, need, and aspirations that I just want to be a catalyst for, and money is just a bunch of white noise in the background like my fucking tinnitus, even though I live in a capitalist society?
Am I doing capitalism wrong guys?
I’m not and neither is Graeber.
And I imagine this was a more popular idea when most kids died before age 5 and food wasn’t guaranteed.
food isn’t even guaranteed in the United States, a supposed “first world country” let alone anywhere else.