Steemit as the evolution of Capitalism

in #steemit8 years ago

Capitalism was invented when the first human exchanged something with another fellow being. This was well before suited up wallstreet guys and your greedy Boss. Contrary to common belief, Capital has always been social, intellectual and financial and all these 3 parts are in direct relationship with each other. The Internet and in particular blockchain techonologies like Steemit, are the evolution of what we call today Capitalism. Before I explain how lets briefly examine the 3 parts of Capital. Bear in mind that Capital is to Capitalism as Steem Power & Dollars are to Steemit.

Financial Capital
This is your total worth. It might include land you own, assets, cash or stocks or any other form of money. "What is money?", you might ask. Money to put it simply means trust. Yeah. Trust. The paper you call "dollar" or "euro" is a symbolic form of currency that gains value because other people trust it as means of exchanging value. When people use Steemit posts and upvotes this reflects on their financial capital in the Steemit community. This translates into Steem Dollars which is the currency of Steemit.

Social Capital
Your friend Bob knows 3 important people that through them you were able to land a job at Silicon Valley. Two years later, while enjoying a 6 figure salary, you have accumulated relationships within the industry that provided you with additional opportunities in areas like Real Estate and Sustainable Energy. Congratulations. Your Social Capital has grown much like your dollars did through the interest in your bank account. You social circle is as worthy of a capital form as your money. They are both directly intertwined. You Steemit Power works much the same in respect to your Steem Dollars.

Intellectual Capital
All of your accumulated knowledge and insights shared within your community constitute your Intellectual Capital. Much like the other two this is directly connected with both your social and Financial Capital. People will listen to Warren Buffet, one of the most lucrative investors, mostly because of his Financial and Social Capital. The more Financial and Social Capital you own the more your Intellectual Capitals rises and vice versa.

.....

Think of Steemit as your total capital and your endeavours within the community as capitalism. Your value within the community depends on the posts you write, your upvotes and your association with other Steemit users. The value of Steemit is also directly related to how blockchain and social media technologies are perceived. The more valuable the content within this larher context the higher your total worth.

By now you might have started feeling greedy. No worries. The entire planet operates on individuals pursuing their own selfish interests. Whether you volunteering to Greenpeace (raising social capital) or investing in Steemit (financial, social and intellectual capital), you do what you do in order to gain capital from your community. We are all unique individuals with distinct set of values about the world and this exactly what makes Steemit and Capitalism work.

Fasten yourseatbelts. We are off for a wild ride.

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Keep posting philosophy, please
I follow you now.
I disagree on a lot in this post.
I have a different definition of 'capitalism', I guess.

I upvoted you, because this is the material I'd like to see.

Thank you although this is not really philosophy.
It is rather basic economic principles examined from an anhtropological perspective.

The science you are applying is called 'philosophy'.
I don't care if you like the term. :P

Everything can be considered X if you are inclined to see the world through that enquiry. This is how religious people see everything "religious", economists "economical" and so on and so forth.

A story you might find interesting...

First, some context: I'm what you might consider an expert on Postgres (google: Jim Nasby). That knowledge has landed me my last 5-6 jobs, all of which have paid very well.

The important question is: how did I get here?

First, ever since I discovered databases at about age 10, something about relational theory just clicked. I was lucky to find something that I enjoyed that I could also make a living out of (though I didn't really know it back then).

In college, I discovered distributed.net and started helping out there. I'd already done a fair amount of database design by then, so I mostly worked on the stats system. But by hanging out on IRC with the other leaders, I discovered unix (specifically, FreeBSD).

FreeBSD was my first exposure to OSS. I was blown away that I could download something for free that was pretty much as good as windows as a desktop (and of course MUCH better as a server). I wanted to give back to the FreeBSD community that had created this. Not really being a programmer (I certainly wasn't good at C and knew nothing about operating systems back then), I did what I could by trying to help people on the mailing list.

A bit later I discovered Postgres. I was immediately impressed by it's capabilities. Then I looked into the community. Now here was someplace I could actually help! I'd been doing database design for over 10 years at that point. At first I was just helping users out, but over time I started interacting with people who were actually writing Postgres itself.

That interaction resulted in a very high google ranking for both my name, as well as my showing up on searches like "PostgreSQL Austin Texas". Which led to those nice paychecks.

Tying this back into your post:

  • I created Intellectual Capital by studying or becoming involved with things I found interesting (database design, distributed computing, and OSS).
  • I used that intellectual capital to create Social Capital by helping others and strengthening a community (all for free, and with no expectation of payment).
  • Eventually, that social capital put me in positions that improved my Financial Capital.

It's certainly been a great ride for me. I'm excited to see how Steem does.

Hi! This post has a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 8.3 and reading ease of 59%. This puts the writing level on par with Leo Tolstoy and David Foster Wallace.

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