CB: >Well, no. A culture that goes around destroying and conquering other cultures and peoples is morally inferior to those other cultures.<
I haven't noticed many cultures refraining from destroying and conquering cultures -- unless they happen to be small and weak and unable to do so. Primitive-communist societies do not so, but they lack the states needed to conquer & destroy. >Surely, you are not saying that all "ethnic" groups have the same >responsibility for capitalism. That's the initial point. Which "ethnic" group >started capitalism, and why did that group start it and not other groups�? The >answer is that the Western European "ethnic" group started capitalism.�� If >capitalism is on the hook, then Western Europeans are on the hook ( and >capitalism _is_ on the hook).< I think it's wrong to assume that Europeans "chose" capitalism (as the above implies). History has a logic that is beyond the volition of individuals and cultures; capitalism has an inner logic that meant that it was a system that most non-class systems could have spawned. Further, it wasn't "Europeans" who started capitalism: it was the post-feudal upper classes in England. Third, if those folks hadn't done it, other cultures would have done so: according to some anti-Eurocentric views, the Chinese had capitalism long before China encountered European capitalism. If Europe had stumbled, in other words, China would have taken up the task of "perfecting" capitalism and spreading it all around the world independently. >I guess I should add there is no such thing as "capitalism" without the global >conquest. Capitalism is inherently imperialistic.< I'd agree. However, pre-capitalist class-based modes of production also involved efforts at world conquest. It's only the development of communication, transportation, and weapons technologies that allowed a more successful effort by the Euros. >We know Europeans have conquered the globe like no other group in history. >It's not in their genes. It's got to be because of their culture and history.< This simply repeats what was said before. >Put it this way. Most of the literature�debates why the Western Europeans >started capitalism, and other cultures didn't.� What is agreed to among most >discussants in the literature is that capitalism _did_ start in Western >Europe.� Most discussions assume some type of "superiority" in this capitalism >because of material abundance it has brought. It is technologically superior, >but _morality_ has to do with how people are treated, not the level of >technological development.< I disagree with the literature. The Europeans invented capitalism simply as a matter of luck. It's a mistake to simply turn a existing (obnoxious) literature upside-down. >Capitalism has screwed over the most people in history.�This means that the >Western Europeans' culture, the bearer of capitalism,�is pegged as morally >inferior rather than superior to other cultures.< This misses another point. European culture isn't an "independent variable" in history. In fact, European culture as we know it is to large extent a _product_ of 300 to 500 years of capitalism. It's not just that people make history. History makes people. JD
