The argument is not capitalism vs state socialism ("communism"). That you seem to think it is, shows exactly how well propaganda has worked on you, from both of those sources.
The word 'capitalism' was invented by communists, so the moment that someone uses the word in a disparaging sense it makes conjure up the 'capitalism vs state socialism' debate. Even if that weren't the case, the GP's point would still stand. Bringing up 'capitalism' in this manner reeks of political agenda. Whether that agenda is communism is irrelevant.
"The initial usage of the term "capitalism" in its modern sense has been attributed to Louis Blanc in 1850 ("What I call 'capitalism' that is to say the appropriation of capital by some to the exclusion of others") and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1861 ("Economic and social regime in which capital, the source of income, does not generally belong to those who make it work through their labour").[22]:237 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels referred to the "capitalistic system"[29][30] and to the "capitalist mode of production" in Capital (1867).[31] The use of the word "capitalism" in reference to an economic system appears twice in Volume I of Capital, p. 124 (German edition) and in Theories of Surplus Value, tome II, p. 493 (German edition). Marx did not extensively use the form capitalism, but instead those of capitalist and capitalist mode of production, which appear more than 2,600 times in the trilogy The Capital."
Louis Blanc was a 19th century socialist. Marx and Engels went on to popularize the term and concept. Marx's main work is Das Kapital, in which he criticizes 'capitalism'.
Yes, and Marx's use of the term was as a criticism of 19th century British industrialism. One of the many reasons why using these terms in polemic ends up leads to increasingly meaningless debates.
No, I generally agree that we've shifted things around so that most workers now are generally a bit better off than before in many ways. I think they could be better off still under alternative systems. I was however responding, primarily, to your apparent argument that anyone criticising capitalism can only be a Soviet-era state-supporting "communist".
> your apparent argument that anyone criticising capitalism can only be a Soviet-era state-supporting "communist"
That would be a highly creative way of summarising my post.
My problem with the paper was that it started what was supposed to be a historical research with a slogan-like claim that a particular ideology propagated it (literally the first sentence).
As in, there was no misunderstanding, no misinterpretation, or lack of evidence, but evil dudes came and lied to us all.
I countered that I witnessed firsthand how the competing ideology was "propagating" the same "myth", which, simply put, makes the author's assertion a sheer nonsense.
I don't think the quote intended to imply that Capitalism propagated a myth. I think the quote intended to imply that the subject of the myth was Capitalism.
E.g. suppose I said "One of bowling's most enduring myths is that wearing a bowler's hat improves your score". Does this imply that a cabal of bowlers spread propaganda? Or simply that the myth exists within the bowling community.
Suppose the article had said "One small step for man, one big step for mankind." You are responding with the equivalent of "What about womankind? There are female engineers at NASA. Isn't the moon landing a big step for women too? Neil Armstrong is clearly a misogynist." We can debate whether to replace "mankind" with a more gender-neutral term. But nobody would interpret Neil Armstrong as having a political agenda against women.
However, you've concluded that because the author described a problem with capitalism but not the equivalent problem with communism, the author must be a marxist.
I generally dislike the word "capitalism" because (like the word "man") it's ambiguous. By capitalism do you mean Private Ownership? a market economy? deregulation? Laissez Faire? Regardless of its definition and etymology, people irl use it to signify different concepts. Which dilutes the semantics and relies on context to properly resolve. In the article, perhaps "capitalism's most durable myths" should have been replaced with "industrialized-societies' most durable myths". But nobody except you seems to have interpreted the article as having a political agenda against Private Ownership.
> we are asked to imagine
not by a cabal, but by "The implicit -- but rarely articulated -- assumption".