Emergence Anarcho-Capitalism

Economics Political Theory
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“If everyone were permitted to freely take from one another, and everyone held this belief, then there would be little violence or poverty. It is only when one prevents someone from stealing that violence enters into the equation. No one would amass wealth as those stolen from would be free to take their possessions back. Those with less would be more willing to spend their time stealing, whereas those with more would be the first to realize that stealing was a waste of time. Once equilibrium is reached, production would continue as normal as it would take less time to produce something new than it would be to steal something only to have the person (who now has less and thus needs it more) steal it back. Of course anarcho-communists wouldn’t think of it as stealing, but as sharing. Once people stop valuing their labor for what material gains it brings them, they will start valuing it for intrinsic reasons. People will view farming or construction as a means of exercise, software development and engineering as intellectual stimulation.”

It is an interesting take on things. I think it will totally work , as long as humans are emotionless, personality less, mindless automatons in a communal society.

The more this thread goes on the more apparent it is that Anarchists want to mold human nature as the Socialists did with their ‘ideal’ communist man. The entire point of these theories to to form a social system that deals with the reality of human nature, not deny it by making everyone a piece of meat that should not care if its clothes are stolen from it’s back.

“In fact, creativity flourishes more when external rewards are removed, as the following video demonstrates: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_pink_on_motivation.html. To say that creative activity must be rewarded is to devalue creative activity.”

Do Anarchists in general hold this position or is it your personal theory?
No one says creativity ‘MUST’ be rewarded. AnCaps do not care either way if someone is creative in a egalitarian sense or if they profit from their creativity in the marketplace. From what you say Anarchists do not like creativity that is rewarded.

So tell me… who is more moral, just and ethical - those who allow a man to do as he likes with his creativity? Or those who will control a man’s voluntary arrangements with others in relation to said creativity?

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whereas those with more would be the first to realize that stealing was a waste of time.

…as was being productive. So the next step is to stop wasting time producing anything.

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So they are voluntarily exchanging what they could as easily and “voluntarily” take?

On the contrary, Austrian Economic theory and actual history have shown that there would be not much more than violence, abject poverty, and finally, death.

Here we go again. The communists, Venus, and Zeitgeist people of the world uniting to lead humanity into the post-scarcity era we all so deserve. If I didn’t value my labor for material gains I’d die sitting and waiting for that roasted chicken to fly itself into my mouth.

And presumably there’d be no one ensuring that everyone got exactly the “excercise” they “needed”?

Yes, Ford, Apple, and whatever gadget you’re typing this from were/are merely results of Sunday morning cross-word puzzles and brain teasers.

Nothing must be rewarded. The free market (voluntary exchange of property and labor) “rewards” those that best satisfy the needs of most.

Societies have no ideals because there’s no such thing as society. How about you leave the “fat, mindless consumer” alone and mind your own business for a change? Have you stopped to think that perhaps individuals (other than yourself!) may not care to be moulded into whatever straight-jacket you’ve devised for them?

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It is an interesting take on things. I think it will totally work , as long as humans are emotionless, personality less, mindless automatons in a communal society.

The more this thread goes on the more apparent it is that Anarchists want to mold human nature as the Socialists did with their ‘ideal’ communist man. The entire point of these theories to to form a social system that deals with the reality of human nature, not deny it by making everyone a piece of meat that should not care if its clothes are stolen from it’s back.

They don’t want to mold individuals, they want to give individuals the freedom to define oneself, to identify one’s own needs and and to have the ability to fulfill them. The communist maxim is “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” I don’t think this idea is foreign to human nature. When people are with their perceived equals, they naturally follow this. When a family or a group of freinds gather for a shared meal, they don’t distribute the food according to how much each person contributed to cooking. No, they let the hungriest take the most. It also happens that those who are good at something usually enjoy doing it. A good cook is happy when he sees others enjoy his food. To say the cook should be paid is to ignore the mutual benefits that are inherant in the transaction. Think of anarcho-communism as the freest market. When all external constraints are removed, resources are allocated in the most efficient way possible, supply actually meets demand.

By accepting others unconditionally, as beings worthwhile in themselves apart from what they’ve done, a individuals can pursue virtually whatever they want. This is why it’s better to grow up in a family than it is in an orphanage, because a family accepts you unconditionally. Collectivism actually encourages diversity and thwarts conformity. Individualists like other people because they are like themselves, because these people live up to some specific ideal that the individual holds, thus a culture of individualism is a culture of conformism.

Do Anarchists in general hold this position or is it your personal theory?
No one says creativity ‘MUST’ be rewarded. AnCaps do not care either way if someone is creative in a egalitarian sense or if they profit from their creativity in the marketplace. From what you say Anarchists do not like creativity that is rewarded.

I’ve developed this theory largely on my own–as an amalgamation of other’s ideas. However, I suspect most anarcho-communists hold this belief, at least unconsciously. Mutualists and indivualist anarchists might not hold this belief. Their systems aren’t really built around it anyway.

So tell me… who is more moral, just and ethical - those who allow a man to do as he likes with his creativity? Or those who will control a man’s voluntary arrangements with others in relation to said creativity?

The former. But if a musician has the right to make whatever music he likes, I also have the right to copy his music and distribute it to others freely. If he tried to enforce copyrights, that would be infringing upon my liberty, not his.

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…as was being productive. So the next step is to stop wasting time producing anything.

Assuming you don’t value peace or the needs of other people and would rather live in an every-man-for-himself, dog-eat-dog world.

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So they are voluntarily exchanging what they could as easily and “voluntarily” take?

Voluntarily sharing, an exchange that involves giving and taking, rather than buying and selling.

Here we go again. The communists, Venus, and Zeitgeist people of the world uniting to lead humanity into the post-scarcity era we all so deserve. If I didn’t value my labor for material gains I’d die sitting and waiting for that roasted chicken to fly itself into my mouth.

I shouldn’t say that you wouldn’t value the material gains that your labor brings, but that you wouldn’t necessarily value your control over those gains. Someone else gaining from your work is a value as well.

And presumably there’d be no one ensuring that everyone got exactly the “excercise” they “needed”?

No, but there might be a bit of peer pressure. I think people prefer to do a variety of things than do the same thing everyday. Here in Chicago, we have a very small organic farm that depends largely on volunteer labor. I volunteered there once and all the yuppie volunteers were like, “this is so fun! It’s so peaceful and stress relieving. I wish I could do this more often.” People actually don’t want to sit at a desk all day. They’d prefer to do some physical activity once in awhile. Likewise, I’m sure a factory worker would prefer to engage in some problem solving once in awhile. I’ve also volunteered with Habitat for Humanity. Not only did I enjoy the fact I was helping someone out, but I found learning about and participating in construction interesting in itself. Now of course if my work was helping someone increase their profits and their ability to control others, then I wouldn’t have found such work interesting. Without pay, I would have felt exploited. If someone in anarcho-communist did enjoy sitting at a desk everyday, then let them do that, let them specialize in what they enjoy and are good at.

Yes, Ford, Apple, and whatever gadget you’re typing this from were/are merely results of Sunday morning cross-word puzzles and brain teasers.

And I’m sure Linux, Wikipedia, and Firefox wouldn’t have developed without monetary rewards either. Oh, wait, they did. And most people who’ve tried them think they’re better than their competitors. The reason this only applies to software and not hardware is because with hardware the means of production are not commonly owned.

Nothing must be rewarded. The free market (voluntary exchange of property and labor) “rewards” those that best satisfy the needs of most.

Thus the free market (that is, the propertarian free market) seeks the lowest common denominator. Thus, it produces conformity. A profitable company convinces everyone that they have the same needs. A capitalist wishes that everyone were the same because that is what will give him the most profits.

Societies have no ideals because there’s no such thing as society. How about you leave the “fat, mindless consumer” alone and mind your own business for a change? Have you stopped to think that perhaps individuals (other than yourself!) may not care to be moulded into whatever straight-jacket you’ve devised for them?

According to propertarianism, the individual doesn’t exist either. They say the body is the property of the self. If it is the property of the self, then it is not the self. Tell me, where is the self? Egoism is self-mutilating. An egoist looks at another person and says, “this person isn’t me.” He look at his hand and says, “this hand isn’t me.” But its a hand that they can control. If his hand is only valuable because he can control it, then another person is only valuable if he or she can be controlled. An egoist looks and looks for the self but never finds it. He only finds more things that can be controlled, more thing that are valueless in themselves. Egoism is not the path to self growth, egoism is the path to self-annihilation. Only empathy engenders self-growth. To say that your needs are my needs, that your pain is my pain, that your successes are my successes, that my property is your property is the act of self-realization. The self is no longer centered in some hidden area but encompasses the world. It is the emptiness in which everything resides.

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So that’s not an exchange then. One cannot exchange what one doesn’t own. What you described is simply taking.

I wouldn’t necessarily value the roasted chicken? But, I’d die without food.

Value is (individually) subjective. How about you value whatever you value and leave others to value what they want? Sounds fair?

Again, how about you mind your own business and let everyone do the same, voluntarily so?

As I said, the values of the rewards are (individually) subjective. What is wrong with everyone participating in voluntary exchanges that reflect their indvidual value scales? Whether you value money (property, capital, golden yachts), love, poetry, girls, fame, altruism, camaradery, or notoriety there’s a market for you to get it. My point is, what other individuals value (or should value) is none of your business.

No. The beauty of the free market is that no one has any say as to what others value or should value in order to fulfill some control freak’s human engineering wet dream.

Good then. How about you take your self-realized collectivist path, and leave us egoists to masochistically wallow in our self-mutilation and self-annihilation? To each their own is only fair, no?

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“According to propertarianism, the individual doesn’t exist either. They say the body is the property of the self. If it is the property of the self, then it is not the self. Tell me, where is the self? Egoism is self-mutilating. An egoist looks at another person and says, “this person isn’t me.” He look at his hand and says, “this hand isn’t me.” But its a hand that they can control. If his hand is only valuable because he can control it, then another person is only valuable if he or she can be controlled. An egoist looks and looks for the self but never finds it. He only finds more things that can be controlled, more thing that are valueless in themselves. Egoism is not the path to self growth, egoism is the path to self-annihilation. Only empathy engenders self-growth. To say that your needs are my needs, that your pain is my pain, that your successes are my successes, that my property is your property is the act of self-realization. The self is no longer centered in some hidden area but encompasses the world. It is the emptiness in which everything resides.”

Wow, this is full of some seriously false assumptions and strawmen. If I am you and you are me, if your pain is my pain and my pain is your pain then it’s really no one’s pain. It kind of cancels itself out and then, in fact, no self really exists at all there because there are no things that differentiate one person from another person. That, of course, is not to say that empathy is a bad thing or anything like that. People are naturally empathetic. It’s just that your silly new age conception of it is incoherent. If you want you can read this. It might shed some light on your misconceptions.

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It’s hilarious really. They will argue that they support a persons creative expression in full flight, but first you must subsume your personality into the collective, only then will you be reborn as the ideal anarcho-collectivist, with an ‘individuality’ that is controlled and dictated by them.

You could at least respect them if they were willing to admit they were for theft, agression and violance as a means to achieving this greater good. But instead they just play semantic games, theft is not really theft, defending your property is actually initiating violance against them, e.t.c

Overlaying all their contradictions is this megalomaniac urge to control and dictate the voluntary, consenting exchanges between people that actually have nothing to do with them. It is an anti-human rejection of free will.

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Whoa! I take a break for a couple days and all the sudden this divulged into nonsense! Where to begin?

“If I was able to steal someone elses property and unjustly enrich myself, then yes, I would have less overheads, better conditions, and could expand my own business and create more jobs.”

This, and then the non-sequitor about incentives falling, is all very much based on capitalist property theory. If you want to argue to your point, then you cannot argue from your conclusion. Yes, this is theft under capitalist property theory. No argument there. It is not theft from an occ/use standpoint. Everything you have said has not played out in the Argentine economy.

“Are you able to actually see this? Or have you made up your mind to deny the reality of the incentive structure of how and why humans actually act, and what the economic effects will be.”

I am arguing from events I have witnessed. I’m not sitting at home thinking about how things work. I am watching them happen, and none of your theory has played out.

Fool on the Hill, I’m not sure I’m with you. I’m not sure that engineers will jump up and do technical work just for shits tomorrow if we abolish the state today, and that is not a widely held Anarchist point. Not that I’m devaluing your arguments, but you’re a little off topic and that stuff is for another thread.

“It’s hilarious really. They will argue that they support a persons creative expression in full flight, but first you must subsume your personality into the collective, only then will you be reborn as the ideal anarcho-collectivist, with an ‘individuality’ that is controlled and dictated by them.”

For a person that supposedly rejects group identities, on the basis of–wait, let me use your words:
“We see group identity as a surreptitiousway of one ‘group’ unjustly violating and appropriating property from individuals.”
As someone who calims that your group does not acknowledge group identities, you’re very quick to judge the supposed “them” based on the words of one person. I still fail to see how Anarchism (as a theorhetical framework, not as espoused by an individual here. god knows if I were to base capitalism solely on what I’ve seen individuals here write I’d think it’s some complicated theory seeking to execute all the socialists, marxists, and commies) promotes open and blatant theft, nor do I see how it promotes groupthink, indoctrination, or repression of dissenters. Various communities throughout history have developed (sometimes in the face of authoritarian socialism) anti-authoritarian socialist economies voluntarily, letting dissenters do as they please. They have fought for themselves based on their view of legitimate property, not a right to steal.

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Fool on the Hill, I’m not sure I’m with you. I’m not sure that engineers will jump up and do technical work just for shits tomorrow if we abolish the state today, and that is not a widely held Anarchist point. Not that I’m devaluing your arguments, but you’re a little off topic and that stuff is for another thread.

Admittedly, I was being rather abstract, in a similar way to economists who assume such things as perfect competition in their models. But if there is value in economists forming models where there is no state interference in an economy, then it should also be valuable to look at a model where there is no interference by property owners in the market. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing though. Many use laissez-faire principles derived from such a model to justify certain deregulations, while not advocating the overthrow of the state. I didn’t mean to imply that it could happen overnight either.

Anyway, I think I’ll bow out now. After all, you created this thread, so only you are entitled to determine how it is used. ; )

But seriously, I didn’t mean to derail it. I hope no one took my comments as a personal offense.

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“Anyway, I think I’ll bow out now. After all, you created this thread, so only you are entitled to determine how it is used.”

Not to be contrarian, but I would certainly contest that. :wink: Let’s not forget this is a forum for public discussion. Over moderation, frustration, and banning has driven a lot of market-minded Mutualists and left-libs away from here.

The reason I said you’re off topic is because, although I wouldn’t have used your examples, I started along a different train of thought. You raised a good point that dominant economic systems have an effect on how people behave. We don’t just create society, but society creates us as well. But that kind of post-structuralist rambling is pretty frowned upon here, and I wanted to keep the thread going.

It seems like our friends have left us, however. They have equated capitalism with freedom, and anything that isn’t capitalism is necesarrily (to them) the opposite of freedom. In a free market, people who decide to own things in common and operate with an occ/use property theory would be capitalists (despite their blatant rejection of capitalist principals) is all I’ve gathered from the folks who post here. Oh well.

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Not to be contrarian, but I would certainly contest that. :wink: Let’s not forget this is a forum for public discussion. Over moderation, frustration, and banning has driven a lot of market-minded Mutualists and left-libs away from here…

I should say that I haven’t had any problems with moderation here so far, and I don’t hold any grudges against those who have responded to me harshly. I know what I’ve said has challenged commonly held assumption, so I don’t expect to be embraced with open arms here. However, I didn’t come here merely to proselytize, but to expose myself to other viewpoints–indeed what I consider in some ways to be the opposite of my views–in order to strenghten my beliefs or to provide an opportunity for rejecting them. Also, my family holds propertarian views, and I’d like to be able to converse with them better.

Anyway, I do have a question that might get this thread back on topic. What is the mutualist and individualist anarchist position on intellectual property rights? If they are against them, how would an artist be supported in such a society?

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@pony

I don’t equate capitalism as freedom. While you can have freedom without capitalism, you can’t have capitalism without freedom.

I sense you are growing frustrated but much of this is likely due to semantics. Austrians have tighter definitions of many economic terms which might cause confusion.

Don’t give up Pony, as you further your arduous study of AnarchoCapitalism, remain objective, keep it simple, and follow the logic from its roots up.

To get a leg up on any of your critiqcs here, you’ll need to present your conclusions in a deductive manner.

The only banning you’ll find here are those that are spamming, scamming, or making personal attacks with obsene language. I look forward to your future posts here on a variety of threads.

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“and none of your theory has played out.”

This ‘theory’ is borne out empirically throughout recorded human history. Wherever you have strong property rights, humanity and standards of living flourish, wherever you have constant property rights violations (by mobs, states or despots), society devolves into harsh poverty and death.

“dominant economic systems have an effect on how people behave. We don’t just create society, but society creates us as well.”

Yes the old hope of Socialism, that this ‘capitalist’ mentality that humans have is just being forced upon us. And when a new system of living is available, humans will change into the collectivist ideal.

Collectivist’s and Anarchists you represent, all seem to base their theories on how humans ‘SHOULD’ be, rather than on how they really are currently. Fair enough. And this is the reason why we cannot agree on even standard definitions, because the perception of base human nature is at odds.

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“What is the mutualist and individualist anarchist position on intellectual property rights?”

I cannot speak for mutualism, but anarcho-capitalism has come to the position that IP is not property at all. We see intellectual property as a form of state-monopoly capitalism, a way for various actors (usually big business) to appropriate real property via the coercive power of the State.

When An-Caps speak of property they mean PHYSICAL goods.

If I hold a banana, and you take it from me without consent, you have deprived me of my property and that is theft. I now have no banana.

But I express an idea (poem, tune), and you then use this idea for yourself, you have not deprived me of that idea. You have taken away nothing from me, I still have my idea.

The arguement of pro-ip is that if you used my ‘idea’ for free, I have been deprived of future earning potential and the fruits of my creativity. Most AnCaps think this is absolutely wrong and have some clear theory of what is called ‘subjective value’ that deals with IP and other issues.

For example, if you run a shop, you do not have a ‘right’ to the ‘future’ income stream that you get currently. Someone can open a shop next door and your income will be halved, but there is no property right violation. The ‘expected’ income was not a property right, but a subjective future expectation.

Similarly, you do not have a ‘right’ to your reputation. A reputation is what ‘other’ people think of you, so how can you ‘own’ another persons thoughts?

Here is an extreme example - your neighbour paints their house pink. This causes the ‘value’ of your house to drop. There is not a property right violation according to AnCaps… your house has not been damaged, it physical properties are exactly the same as before.

(But in the real world this mostly does not happen. When buying your house you voluntarily agreed to contractual homeowner association rules dictating which colors are allowed.)

Intellectual property is this category of subjective value property that is not real physical property.

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Oh, that’s interesting. I was going to ask about the ancap position as well. So would a musician just have to hope that mp3’s never completely replace CD’s, or rely on other sources of income such as concert tickets, merchandise, and donations?

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Fool on the Hill wrote:

… how would an artist be supported in such a society?

Much like they are today, by selling products that provoke profound personal experiences.

For bands, their most valuable product is their live shows. Unregulated selling/sharing of bootleg videos and mp3s acts as a form of free advertising for their shows.

For painters and sculptors, their most valuable product is their originals. Copies of their work, only increase the value of these originals.

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I haven’t posted here so maybe I can provide a “fresh” view.

Correct me if I mischaracterize the previously expressed views, but from what I have read it appears as though individuals above who have self-identified as “anarcho-capitalists” see “anarcho-capitalist society” as one in which everyone is a capitalist. But a capitalist, in economic terms (if we can briefly seperate such terms from political or other terms, which may not even be legitimate), has a very specific meaning.

For instance:

“…capitalists advance present goods to owners of factors in return for future goods; then, later, they sell the goods which have matured to become present or less distantly future goods in exchange for present goods (money). They have advanced present goods to owners of factors and, in return, wait while these factors, which are future goods, are transformed into goods that are more nearly present than before. The capitalists’ function is thus a time function, and their income is precisely an income representing the agio of present as compared to future goods. This income, then, is not derived from the concrete, heterogenous capital goods, but from the generalized investment of time. It comes from a willingness to sacrafice present goods for the purchase of future goods (the factor services). As a result of the purchases, the owners of factors obtain their money in the present for a product that matures only in the future.” (Rothbard–Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market p. 374)

In this sense the word “capitalist” is purely arbitrary. We could substitute the word “mangoes” for capitalists and the economic meaning would be preserved. In any case, a capitalist society (whether a state exists or not) is just one in which their are individuals who perform the above role. Whatever we decide to call the function, it is one in which present goods are advanced to owners of the factors of production. In an anarchistic society, individuals are free to exchange or dispose of their property as they see fit, which includes present goods. Any time an individual performs the above function, he is a capitalist. So it is certainly possible to have a society in which there are no capitalists. Either no one performs the capitalist function voluntarity, or else they are prevented from doing so by other individuals.

Here is a definition of capitalism offered by another:

Consultant replied on Thu, Jun 23 2011 8:25 PM

“For ancaps, capitalism means free markets without any type of corporatism/socialism/collectivism. So if you define capitalism as corporatism (as many left anarchists do), note that this is a difference in definition.”

And your reply:

“From the perspective of most sociologists and historians (not necessarily anarchists) the difference is capitalism’s system of wage labor, (at least that is what I’ve gathered from my years in school, something I feel a bit more comfortable about than my familiarity with the nuance of anarchist theory). Is it that or is that not correct and why?”

Each of you were using capitalism to mean two different things. I think this pretty much continues throughout the thread. Quite predictably, the discussion moved towards definitions of private property, exchange, and so on. I will try to be precise in my uses of terms…

Property, first of all, does not need definition. You cannot dispute, for instance, that you own yourself. To do so would be contradictory and self-refuting. Thus, property unquestionably exists in your persons. If you own yourself then you also own land that you have taken from nature. That is, you are free to do as may with the land (make improvements). You can obtain land in exchange with another who has obtained his land through homestead or voluntary exchange. Similarly, you may perform certain acts upon land that is owned by another person (by easements granted by the other owner). Thus you can sell your labor in exchange for goods (barter). You can combine factors to create goods, and dispose of them as you see fit. So you can see that there are many actions which can take place once property is recognized by individuals in a society:

Homesteading wild land

Improving homesteaded land

Producing goods by combining labor and land

Trading produced goods

Using a produced good (capital good) to make another produced good, then exchanging it

I shouldn’t go much further, as there is bound to be discussion of what I have said already.

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Fool on the Hill, Intellectual property is pretty much not supported by anyone that lays a claim to the name “anarchist,” aside from maybe a few, but even some anarcho-capitalists don’t support it. Personally, I don’t think artists should be making art in order to survive, because that’s not why you’re supposed to make art, but that’s another topic completely. An artist could just as well make money by performing, selling CDs or records, etc. Just because everyone can get music for free, they don’t always. Now, there is something to be said about protection from someone “stealing” a song (saying they wrote it when someone else did). This isn’t so much theft as it is just lying, which is usually frowned upon by most people. Anywho…

“This ‘theory’ is borne out empirically throughout recorded human history. Wherever you have strong property rights, humanity and standards of living flourish, wherever you have constant property rights violations (by mobs, states or despots), society devolves into harsh poverty and death.”

Although you seem to ignore previous points I have brought up, like how capital arose through violence and with a helping hand from the state (enclosure movement, the colonial period, etc.).

“Collectivist’s and Anarchists you represent, all seem to base their theories on how humans ‘SHOULD’ be, rather than on how they really are currently. Fair enough. And this is the reason why we cannot agree on even standard definitions, because the perception of base human nature is at odds.”

If either of us were basing things on how humans actually are, then we would both be statists, and I resent the idea that capitalism is just “the way things are.” Furthermore, the examples I have given here are historical or current examples of what humans are actually doing right now. So where the idea that I’m some pipe-dreaming collectivist going on about the way things ought to be is unsupported at best and a straw man at worst. Anyway, here are the things I’m most unclear about, laid out as explicitly as I can do so right now:

Assuming that capitalism is truly the default economic logic for all individuals
Why does property require protection? If everyone was on the same page, so to speak, why would property need protection from theft or squatters? Specifically:
Why during the industrial revolution did so much land have to be auctioned off and subsidized to large buyers by the state to prevent subsistence farmers from owning land?
Why did the enclosure movement have to happen in order to remove peasants?
Why did factories have to hire private police to discourage voluntary associations amongst their workers?
Essentially, why was there such resistance during the early days of capitalism?
Why is the cooperative movement so large in Argentina, and why did syndicalism have to be violently repressed in both the US and Spain during the 30’s?
Moreover, why have states formed?

There has obviously been a lot of dissenters from the philosophy of capitalism that I see espoused here and elsewhere. If it were simply the way things worked, why have such large numbers of people done differently? My answer would be that capitalism is an idea like any other. And just because it is popular now does not mean it was at all times. Just as Monarchism is no longer the prevalent system, capitalism may one day fade away as well. My answer would be that people have agency and it is people that create ideologies, not ideologies that create people.

Now, my contested definitions of capitalism:
Assuming capitalism is simply free, voluntary trade:
Why have all strands of socialism that support free, voluntary trade called themselves socialists while decrying capitalism?
Perhaps it is because of a contested definition, and within the definition provided above, they would indeed be capitalists. However, if the function of definitions is to be useful and understandable, why would “free and voluntary trade” be useful? Does it not then cast everyone who is anti-capitalist as anti-free and voluntary trade?

Assuming the definition of capitalism is “free markets without any type of corporatism/socialism/collectivism”
What, then, is socialism?