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The "persons" of a primitive society engage in activities. What do the inhabitants of the primitive, primordial world spend their time doing? They interact with one another. The fact is that they interact, and this characteristic of humans has not changed at all. For my purpose, this is completely beyond dispute. There is a second thing we can add too: they forage, get food. They hunt and fish. They gather. They obtain their sustenance. They do those two things, getting sustenance and socializing. What we will see is that both are related to economics. In the current era, in our times, in our society, in our system (we usually call that system "capitalism") as well, persons do those two things. They, too, find food, and they live and interact and do things in a social way. Or haven't you noticed? Maybe that is a simplified version of what persons do but we have limited space for exegesis on a blog. I am trying to get you to admit that these two exist. These are two person-doings that do exist. That's my point, and, both are economic.
Next let us consider socialism. That was a failure. What did they do? They said "social" explicitly, as in, e.g., "social" -ism. Not a good idea. When you say "social" explicitly somehow it doesn't work. Oooooops....sorry. I must have been reading the wrong text. I must have said the wrong thing. But whether I said it or not it is social. People don't like when you say "social" too much. So, I intend to say it all the time. Whatever we claim human doings and human life really is, it is really social. And since humans are social, what we need to ask is why upfront social-ism fails. That is one. Second one, a related question: why is the resultant system or default system that of "capitalism"? Why capitalism? Why is it capitalism that is - for now anyway, not after we destroy ourselves, but for now - the way to go? Why capitalism pre-eminent instead of socialism?
But before getting ahead of myself I want to revisit the matter of why I felt I needed to put the word "persons" in quote marks. In the beginning of this compact exegesis on what human beings do in the primitive and modern world I had a moment wherein I felt I needed to put "persons" in quote marks. For some reason I didn't know which word to use so I settled on surrounding my word of choice with quote marks. I don't think Strunk and White recommend that but I did it. So what. Let's think about that.
OK I'm done thinking about it and I guess it just goes to show how social persons are and it doesn't matter what you say. We do not need to iterate social, and we cannot find the way around it. (Even as I write, the pop music soundtrack is that "silence is everything", which is to say that is the song at the bar of clever signage, "INTERNET," where I am now. It's next to the "Kickstand" expresso bar, by the way. This is what we call "social" life in our society.) Even without what I could I guess call "iteration," the sociality is implicit. The usual word choices I cycle through at those writers' moments are "persons," "people," and "individuals." The other side of it is still sociality. You don't even have to say it, but if we are not allowed in this system to say "sociality," we cannot say much of anything else either. That's how I figured this thing out counter-intuitively. It seems to me that one may say "sociality" or not. Our typical convention is "not." Whether you say it or not it is there. Sociality is there --- basic, implicit. Do we not like to admit it or what is our problem? Maybe we do have a problem admitting it. Maybe it is just our way of using language, our cultural set-up. Either way, what I am saying that it is clearly the case that primitive persons are social. Modern as well and if you want to deny that you can go screw yourself. Even if you do not iterate it, humans are social. You may iterate or not...it oesn't matter.
Then there is a question. Why does capitalism do better when it is stupid? And the meaning of that is: why would capitalism make the point of talking up "the individual"? When everyone is social? Why does capitalism, or capitalism's theorists and apologists and interested intellectuals, ---why do they want to flip it? Why do they only revert to the reverse side? I could also ask where Luther and Calvin come from. Yes, indeed, to wit: whence cometh this idea, this notion to talk up "the individual"? (Even if we do not talk up or talk about Calvin so much, we still take up where he left off, don't we? Dont we take after these proto-individualists? Isn't their ethos is alive and well? Protestants are just all over the place, you know, and theirs is the dominant language, the language that we are forced to employ, in order to keep our jobs, as it is the language of business. Luther and Calvin are gone yet somehow they remain --- at at least their concepts do.)
Everything we produce in capitalism as products of trade, or commodities, is a social object. Commodities transfer between persons. They are produced by one person, and then transferred. We say they are "bought and sold." But that is social, however you look at it. There is not anything we buy that is not social.
Life is a tangled web of social intereaction, within which people proclaim for something called individualism.
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