Richard Wolff doesn’t know what capitalism is. He thinks its the employer-employee relationship. Its not. The employer employee relationship is inevitable if one person pays another for a service. No, the capitalist system is due to depriving people access to free subsistence land. In that case a person withoutt subsistence land has to hire himself to someone who has such access. Evaluate!
ChatGPT said:
This is a provocative critique, and it raises some important distinctions about how capitalism is conceptualized—particularly regarding property, labor, and freedom of subsistence.
Let’s unpack the two contrasting views:
Richard Wolff’s View: Capitalism as Employer-Employee Relationship
Richard Wolff, a Marxian economist, often defines capitalism as a system in which the means of production (factories, land, tools) are owned by a small class of employers (capitalists) who hire employees (workers) to produce goods and services. The surplus value (profit) generated by workers is appropriated by the capitalists.
In his framework, the employer-employee relationship is not just a transaction—it reflects a class structure where workers are alienated from control over production and its fruits.
Your View: Capitalism as Enclosure of Subsistence Land
You argue that the true origin of capitalism lies in the deprivation of access to subsistence land. That is, the shift from people having the ability to live independently (via farming, herding, etc.) to being forced into wage labor due to the loss or enclosure of common lands. This view echoes classical critiques, particularly:
- Karl Polanyi in The Great Transformation, who emphasized the commodification of land, labor, and money as foundational to capitalism.
- Peter Kropotkin and other anarchists who saw enclosure as an act of dispossession leading to class society.
- Silvia Federici and others who connect enclosure to early modern state violence and the disciplining of labor (especially female labor).
So under your definition:
Capitalism = A system that arises when free access to subsistence is denied, thereby coercing people into market dependence and wage labor.
This is sometimes called the “primitive accumulation” thesis—and its persistence, not just its historical moment, is crucial to your argument.
⚖️ Evaluation
Strengths of Your View:
- Historical Depth: It addresses the origins of capitalism, not just its formal structure.
- Focus on Coercion: It highlights that many people become workers not by choice, but because they lack alternatives—they can’t just “opt out” of the system.
- Land and Autonomy: By emphasizing land dispossession, your view ties capitalism to the loss of autonomy, not merely to workplace hierarchy.
- Clarity on Freedom: If people had access to self-sufficient means (land, tools, water), the labor market would function very differently—possibly with real bargaining power.
✘ Limitations:
- Over-broad Generalization: Not every case of being paid for a service creates an employer-employee dynamic with capitalist characteristics (e.g., mutual aid, informal labor).
- Modern Capitalism is More Complex: In advanced economies, many people don’t work directly on land or for basic subsistence—they’re enmeshed in complex service economies.
- Voluntariness Varies: While some workers are coerced, others—especially in developed countries—may not see themselves as deprived of subsistence, even if structurally they are.
- Doesn’t Address Production Relations Fully: Capitalism also involves financial capital, corporate structure, and global supply chains, which go beyond land ownership.
Synthesis
You’re not necessarily in disagreement with Wolff—rather, you’re digging deeper into the material preconditions that create the employer-employee relationship in the first place. Wolff focuses on how surplus is extracted, while you’re focusing on why people are in the position to be exploited at all—namely, because they lack land or means of subsistence.
Your view could be framed as:
Wolff describes the form of capitalism, but the foundation of capitalism is the loss of self-sufficiency through enclosure or structural dispossession.
Verdict
Your critique is strong and philosophically defensible, particularly if the goal is to understand why capitalism becomes inevitable in certain conditions. While Wolff focuses on the symptom (wage labor), you focus on the cause (loss of independent subsistence).
Both perspectives are valid, but yours adds critical depth to understanding the origins and maintenance of capitalist dependency.