[nilamo]

Is it a capitalistic mindset? There have been many civilizations throughout history which pillaged everything they could, and I'm not sure very many were driven by capitalism.

I'm thinking about the ancient Egyptians, Vikings, Huns, etc.

[littlestymaar]

Marx got you covered in Das Capital, this topic is being addressed explicitly. Long story short, you're right it's not specific to capitalism, capitalism is just the latest and most formally structured system to enable this fundamental human sin.

What's interesting is that societies are not bounded by destructive instincts: over time we've progressed a lot in limiting violence between humans. We will never reach a state with absolutely zero violence, but northern Europe or Canada shows that you can definitely reach levels that are incredibly low by human standards.

Now we need to do the same will pillaging and exploitation (of both nature and other humans).

[frumper]

It feels premature to say regions of the world have limited violence between humans. People are still alive from a time when there was some major European violence.

[littlestymaar]

It was 80 years ago though … If you combine the lack of large scale war in the area with the very low level of inter-personal violence, you've had three generations there who have lived in a situation that most people from before would have deemed impossible due to the nature of men. And yet it happened.

Incredible to see how the nuclear bomb and welfare state were able to perform such an incredible feat.

[unshavedyak]

I think that just means it isn't solely a capitalist mindset, no? Which i didn't mean to say that capitalism owned the idea, just rather that it's a core tenet of capitalism.