Is capitalism a cancer....literally?

[Lowtech]

I am fascinated by biology and in particular interested in the origin of cancer so in doing some random research on the subject I came by the following link. It describes the differences between cancerous and healthy cells.

It seemed to me that healthy cells resembled workers and cancer cells resembled capitalists.

"Normal cells stop growing (reproducing) when enough cells are present. For example, if cells are being produced to repair a cut in the skin, when the repair work is done, cells are no longer reproduced to fill in the hole. In contrast, cancer cells don’t stop growing when there are enough cells present. This continued growth often results in a tumor (a cluster of cancer cells) being formed."

"Normal cells listen to signals from neighboring cells and stop growing when they encroach on nearby tissues (something called contact inhibition.) Cancer cells ignore these cells and invade nearby tissues."

"Normal cells perform the function they are meant to perform, whereas cancer cells may not be functional."

Thoughts?

http://lungcancer.about.com/od/Biolo...rmal-Cells.htm

[Creative Destruction]

well, no. it still wouldn't be literal. it would still be metaphorical.

[JahLemon]

the radiation of communism will save us all

[The Disillusionist]

Yeah... still not literal. To be literal, capitalism would have to be an actual biological cancer.

Also, your comparison is stretched a little thin. You have to be careful when comparing biological and social concepts, because that's the kind of thinking that brought us such notoriously unsound ideas as racial science and social Darwinism. That being said, do some reading into cybernetics/systems theory, it might help you to refine your own theory a little more.

[Illegalitarian]

Capitalism is more comparable with a tick or some other parasite, getting fat and happy off of that which its host produces

[consuming negativity]

didn't they make this same comparison in fight club?

my answer to your question is... not really.

it's not particularly bad but it's sort of shallow and shoehorned in a bit

you could make a better argument in favor of the capitalists themselves being a cancer on us, or for humanity being a cancer on the planet

at the same time, though, using cancer as a metaphor has always come across to me as being a bit insensitive and also a bit 2edgy4me

not that i'm trying to accuse you of anything, but the comparison is a weak one anyway and it's better to err on the side of caution with this stuff imo

[liberlict]

I think you might be onto something here.

[Lowtech]

^it's not sarcasm if your comment makes sense.

[tuwix]

I am fascinated by biology and in particular interested in the origin of cancer so in doing some random research on the subject I came by the following link. It describes the differences between cancerous and healthy cells.

It seemed to me that healthy cells resembled workers and cancer cells resembled capitalists.

"Normal cells stop growing (reproducing) when enough cells are present. For example, if cells are being produced to repair a cut in the skin, when the repair work is done, cells are no longer reproduced to fill in the hole. In contrast, cancer cells don’t stop growing when there are enough cells present. This continued growth often results in a tumor (a cluster of cancer cells) being formed."

"Normal cells listen to signals from neighboring cells and stop growing when they encroach on nearby tissues (something called contact inhibition.) Cancer cells ignore these cells and invade nearby tissues."

"Normal cells perform the function they are meant to perform, whereas cancer cells may not be functional."

Thoughts?

http://lungcancer.about.com/od/Biolo...rmal-Cells.htm

There undoubtedly interesting similarities. However, we mustn't forget where capitalism is from. It wasn't from healthy primitive communism, but it came from much worse feudalism. Then it's at least side-effect a sde effect of therapy to much more disease which was feudalism.

[Lowtech]

What stuck out in my mind is the diferences in behavoir. Healthy cells have evovled many mechanisms that maintain cohesiveness, they work in tandem for mutual benefit. Whereas cancerous cells have somehow lost their ability to function properly and then grow and infringe on cells around it for personal gain, interfering with the larger system until it causes death. our modern economy isn't rhat much diferent. We simply have central banking and other mechanisms that attempt to mitigate critical failures.

[Chomskyan]

Of course it is. If markets are cells, capitalists are the cancer which destroy markets around the world and assimilate them into the collective multinational monopoly machine.

[Sinister Intents]

Capitalism as a cancer or mutation of the mind? Certainly those in control of the means and modes of production and those forced to work for the owners are quite different in mentality from one another.

We could call capitalism a cancer of the mind, people forced to deviate from what could be mutual and cooperative behavior by a minority that has a stranglehold on a vast majority through use of markets founded in theft from one individual to another. The business owners of varying sizes and those that live off the system could be considered the mutated individuals, the cancer cells while the other cells are forced to live in an unhealthy strain due those that pretty much do nothing productive and live off of other people's backs.

Just quick thoughts while in a hurry

[motion denied]

Not a fan of biologization of politics.

Brings me too close to fascists, little uncomfortable.

[Sinister Intents]

Not a fan of biologization of politics.

Brings me too close to fascists, little uncomfortable.

Can I find examples?

[Lowtech]

Not a fan of biologization of politics.

Brings me too close to fascists, little uncomfortable.

I'm not a fan of the assumption that human sociology (or the armchair term: politics) can't benefit from observing the parallels between human civilization and established biological systems. That attitude is quite anti-intellectual imho. Our best guess of total cells in the human body is 37.2 trillion cells. We've failed to have a peaceful, cohesive, mutually prosperous society at only ~ 7 billion individuals.

[motion denied]

Can I find examples?

What do you mean? Nazis considered the "German people" an organic body that needed a profound and wide purification. Who were the decadent parts? Communists, "Jewish capital", etc. The Thule Gesellschaft, one of the forces responsible for the annihilation of communists in Germany 1919 and the rise of Nazism, had Ernst Häckel as influence (an anti-democratic, aristocratic German chauvinist social-darwinist scientist). He said: "politics is applied biology". Doctor, biologists, etc were members en masse of the Nazi party too.


The idea of a natural (and healthy) order of things in human society just as in nature has always been linked to reactionary ideology. Be it Arthur de Gobineau, be it Émile Durkheim.

[Sinister Intents]

Thanks I meant like links for brief reading

[G4b3n]

No it wouldn't be literal, but I do rather fancy these Kropotkin style analytics, keep it up. Well expressed in my opinion.

[Rad]

I am not attacking the OP, maybe it is right to describe it like that. But it may be offensive to cancer patients ... so I'd avoid it.

[liberlict]

If you want to use Richard Dawkins' idea of a meme as meaning a cultural gene, then you could get some mileage out of an idea like this.

A meme (/ˈmiːm/ meem)[1] is "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."[2] A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.[3]

The word meme is a shortening (modeled on gene) of mimeme (from Ancient Greek μίμημα Greek pronunciation: [míːmɛːma] mīmēma, "imitated thing", from μιμεῖσθαι mimeisthai, "to imitate", from μῖμος mimos "mime")[4] and it was coined by the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976)[1][5] as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catch-phrases, fashion, and the technology of building arches.[6]

Proponents theorize that memes may evolve by natural selection in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution. Memes do this through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance, each of which influence a meme's reproductive success. Memes spread through the behavior that they generate in their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others may survive, spread, and (for better or for worse) mutate. Memes that replicate most effectively enjoy more success, and some may replicate effectively even when they prove to be detrimental to the welfare of their hosts.[7]

A field of study called memetics[8] arose in the 1990s to explore the concepts and transmission of memes in terms of an evolutionary model. Criticism from a variety of fronts has challenged the notion that academic study can examine memes empirically. However, developments in neuroimaging may make empirical study possible.[9] Some commentators in the social sciences question the idea that one can meaningfully categorize culture in terms of discrete units, and are especially critical of the biological nature of the theory's underpinnings.[10] Others have argued that this use of the term is the result of a misunderstanding of the original proposal.[11]

Dawkins's own position is somewhat ambiguous: he obviously welcomed N. K. Humphrey's suggestion that "memes should be considered as living structures, not just metaphorically"[12] and wanted to regard memes as "physically residing in the brain".[13] Later, he argued that his original intentions, presumably before his approval of Humphrey's opinion, had been simpler.[14] At the New Directors' Showcase 2013 in Cannes, Dawkins's opinion on memetics was deliberately ambiguous.[15]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme