[ryuhhnn]

Nobody here brought up serfdom except you and your snarky comment doesn’t provide anything of value or broaden the analysis here. The absence of capitalism doesn’t beget serfdom, it doesn’t even beget socialism or communism, it begets the absence of capitalism. Think bigger, friend.

[yesco]

Oh so what do you consider to be present in the absense of capitalism if not what came before it?

[ryuhhnn]

This is an impossible question to answer, nobody can predict the future. It’s not always a given that we would simply regress to what came before it, that’s the point. You don’t have the ability to predict the future either.

[yesco]

Unless you are suggesting total anarchy, usually criticism of one system would imply you desire some kind of alternative to replace it, or perhaps even some kind of amendment to the current system. It sounds like you don't have one?

But in that case, what now confuses me is your critique on private ownership. State ownership would be the alternative in this case, no?

But under the old systems, the ones that naturally manifested across the world for millennia, the natural flow is that elites in control of the state kick down the ladder and form tiered societies that limit social mobility. Through this they secure their position for generations. To do away with private ownership is to remove the checks that have been put into place to limit the power of elites who would otherwise have exclusive control.

While there have been many historical attempts to prevent this from happening, only the more recent political philosophies prescribed by liberal democracies in the past ~200 years have been effective in, even if only partially, mitigating this core issue of resource consolidation by elites. By focusing on meritocracy to the extreme (relative to before), liberal democracy and "capitalism" make power more fluid, it makes the ladder kicking more challenging (but not impossible). Yet these checks alone have given way to the explosive increase in innovation and quality of life we all now benefit from today.

Can we do better? Absolutely, especially as innovation opens doors to new ideas and capabilities.

But don't get confused by the semantics and abstractions masking the core of it all: Power. If your solution is to just re-centralize power to the group of elites in charge, even if they are elected, then regression is destiny.