Upside down capitalism.

[Mariam]

Okay people i got to do some shit on this topic, but i want to ask about something that really caught my attention in this paragraph about the Iroquois:

" Work in the palisaded villages of Iroquoia, some bustiling with more than a thousand people, was performed communally and land was owend not by individuals but by all in common. While there might be individual farming or hunting efforts, it was understood that the bounty was to be divided among all. Similarly, several families occupied a longhouse, but the house itself, like all community, was common property(...) One historian has called this "upside down capitalism" in which the goal was not to pile up material possessions but to reach the happy situation in which they could give what they had to others."

Now what the hell is an upside down capitalism??? ;)
What has been mentioned above seemed like a socio-communist heaven!!

[rouchambeau]

Sounds like anything but capitalism to me.

[Political_Chucky]

where is this from?

[Everyday Anarchy]

Sounds communist to me.

[which doctor]

I've never heard the term "upside down capitalism" before. It seems like it has nothing to do with capitalism though, so I wouldn't be worried.

Examples of communal societies are not uncommon when referring to North American Indians. Communalism was simply a very efficient system.

My favorites though are the gift economies present in the Pacific northwest.

[Janus]

Iroquois society was communal in nature. Land ownership was communal which basically caused little to no thefts. Furthermore, they maintained a strong work ethic and a tradition of individual autonomy as well.

[Mariam]

where is this from?

im taking an American History course and using a book called The American People by a bunch of Ph.D writers.


Sounds communist to me.

That's what i thought.


I've never heard the term "upside down capitalism" before. It seems like it has nothing to do with capitalism though, so I wouldn't be worried.

Same thing with me..i googled the term and nothing came up...i though it was more like a communist society but whoever that historian was he didn't what to say it...but how on earth did he came up with an upside down capitalism??? ;)


Iroquois society was communal in nature. Land ownership was communal which basically caused little to no thefts. Furthermore, they maintained a strong work ethic and a tradition of individual autonomy as well.

yeah i see how they got there own political mechanisms to solve their internal problems.As ut mentoned inthe book:

"No laws and ordinance, sheriffs and constables, judges or juries, or courts or jails(...) Yet the Iroquois set boundaries of acceptable behavior firmly.They prized the autonomous individual yet maintained a strict code of right and wrong..."

[Lamanov]

"Upside down capitalism"? So what the fuck is that supposed to mean? It's "upside down" in structural or in productive-relation sense. It's "self-negation" or what?

These coined phrases are - for the most part - bullshit. Mere word games. They hinder the prospect of our scientific understanding of capitalism. If I'd ask just one question - so where the hell is capial and wage labor in such "upside down capitalim" - would I get an answer which contains real understanding of what actual capitalism is?

[Leo]

Who wrote this? Calling primitive communism "upside-down capitalism" seems to be pretty idiotic, and yet most capitalists are idiots.

[Stephen the Vegan]

I'm pretty sure your textbook is referring to Daniel K. Richter's The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization. Here's the paragraph from page 22 where he uses the term:


"The principles of Iroquois 'redistributive' economics embodied less a communal ethic than a sort of upside-down capitalism, in which the aim was, not to accumulate goods, but to be in a position to provide them to others. Status and authority went not simply to those who possessed the most but to those able to give the most away. 'The chiefs are generally the poorest among them,' marveled one Dutch traveler, 'for instead of their receiving anything..., these Indian chiefs are made to give to the populace.' Far from ensuring a utopia of egalitarian bliss, the system encouraged rivalries for influence among headmen and would-be headmen, matrons and younger women, yet channeled those rivalries into benefits for kin groups and the community as a whole."I would not be too quick to assume that Richter is a capitalist. That's part of what I'm trying to uncover with my current research. His book is actually pretty good. It's available on Amazon.

Mariam, could you offer some more detail on who wrote your textbook? I know it's been a couple of years. I'm going to guess it's the Gary Nash one. I found a copy on Amazon for a dollar, so I'm going to go ahead and order a copy.