Capitalism, based on the idea of accumulating wealth that is measured in dollars, suggests several different strategies for individuals and nations. There are multiple ways of doing this with various sub-goals. One is venture capitalism, which concentrates on advancing credit for new ideas and developments, like grubstaking a prospector. But there are more.
One system "classifies capitalist economies into four categories: oligarchic capitalism, state-guided capitalism, big-firm capitalism, and entrepreneurial capitalism."
Another system lists: Private Ownership, Capital Accumulation. Capital Concentration. Voluntary Participation. Free Markets. Wage Labor. Competition. Welfare Capitalism.
More kinds of capitalism (creating and managing profit) might include biocentric capitalism, which puts energy and attention into the good of all living things; status capitalism which varies according to what a specific culture thinks indicates virtue, like wealth for evangelicals or poverty for mendicants; or arts capitalism where making money is an indicator of achievement, like the book best seller list. Money sources and awards can close out whole demographic categories, like people of color, or renegade boys. This is a way of eliminating people, using stigma to deny them prosperity. But it also drives innovation as determined people look for ways of making money that no one is using, like payday money-lending or street barbers. There are always betting, gambling, social addictions like drugs, sexwork.
So capitalism, the accumulation of wealth through a variety of means and purposes, doesn't have to be in terms of "money" which is the inventions of nations who work out relativity among them. It can be in the hoarding of valuable commodities or access to gated events and activities. It can be based on food or family sharing. In democracy the idea is to consider justice and the achievement of commons, universal infrastructure.
As time and place change throughout the world, the way to accumulate capital also changes, although cheating, stealing and force generally remain. But at one point there is a gold rush when people realize they can just dig it up. At another point substances like the exotic minerals for smart phones can become suddenly valuable. Fossil fuel in the form of coal and oil have become so crucial that it controls the dynamics of whole nations but the limits have become clear enough that the capital goes into wind and sun energy, throwing the whole pattern of profit into question.
Basing wealth on profiteering food, shelter, water, while letting their built sources deteriorate means diminishing the wealth of the whole and justifies governmental regulation and inspection.
No one realized how radically everything would be changed by the internet and video. We can barely cope with the change. McKenzie Wark introduces the term "vectorism" in a book, "Capital Is Dead: Is This Something Worse?" The new wealth is information, both its transmission and its acquiring in technical ways like data scraping, web-crawling, and automation that can be hacked. Secrecy is immensely powerful but generally time-limited. Populations who had nothing to sell can suddenly learn something that is not just valuable but also personal in an intimate way. Programming is something that can be done by a teenager with one gizmo in a basement. Now we're talking intellectual capital.
This shift is beyond the awareness of our leaders, who tend to be old -- still thinking in terms of oil and force, Trump's confidence that if our soldiers guard oil we claim, we are the top dogs, even if he is incapable of the simplest devices and most basic confidences. This half-shift in which the youngest have made a jump of understanding has not taken us away from capitalism, but simply made a drastic change in the terms. Wealth is now virtual, not the land ownership or commodities market, but the ways of mapping them.
This also means that we are tremendously vulnerable. We are dependent on a satellite network that must be maintained to work, occasionally replaced by rockets, and also an energy network based on distribution. Sooner or later devices must be plugged in. it can all go dark in an instant.
And our technology, though it is only a map, has revealed new forces like the detection of climate change that is redrawing boundaries, sending blizzard bombs and hellish infernos, altering the chemistry of the oceans, infiltrating everything with debris plastic, and terrifying populations into renewing old superstitions. All of this has impact on capitalism, not just its accumulation but also its definition. What's the use of owning a fabulous downtown if no one in it can breathe? What's the use of one-citizen/one-vote if someone on the other side of the planet can alter the totals? Maybe without even being detected.
What's the use of cruelty in the treatment of the vulnerable if it creates a nation of bitterness and hatred of authorities, willingness to die rather than be pushed around? What's the use of smashing families if there is no replacement source for attachment and empathy? What's the use of advertising everything with sex when sex becomes so debased that one can simply buy a doll with a hole? I mean, what if you know everything, both good and bad, but can't do it because no one cares about you? Many have discovered that if they have money, someone will at least pretend to care. But what if it turns out that true intimacy cannot be bought?
I'm way out in the weeds here, but if there is a way to see the old-fashioned virtues as a kind of capital managed by religious and cultural life-maps, our world-stories, then the terms of life are different. Wark offers a new French (naturally) term: "détournement" a technique popularized by the Situationists of hijacking media for new means — as radical intellectual and artistic tools for inventing new meaning across various disciplines, and our everyday lives."
Her favorite Russian example is Marx. Mine is Tolstoi. Among my Twitter feeds are examples of a constant thread that has never given up on the natural world, pre-industrial in origin but capable of accommodating both the industrial and the technological, so long as they can hold onto the wealth of the land. People like James Rebanks as @herdyshepherd1 or Great Alone Cattle as @GACattleCompany or Stuart Somerville @Stuthefarmer
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