Everybody who lives in modern society understands what money is, and what prices are. You don’t need to explain those to explain capitalism.
You want the OOP to be accurate, so you want “explanation” to mean something that it doesn’t normally mean. Your attempt doesn’t even succeed by your own criteria:
What does “rot” mean?
What is “stuff”?
What is a “threat”?
What is “writing”?
and so on, ad infinitum.
(figurative) demonstrations can be term-free explanations.
An example is not an explanation. If it were though, I could “demonstrate” prices and money by taking you to a shop and showing you how buying something works. So I don’t think you have a coherent idea of what terms are allowed in explanations, and hence what an explanation actually is.
The reason, I would guess, that you are content with your explanations, is because they have got to the point where they claim something that you consider a critical feature of capitalism, namely some form of violence. If you claim: “You can’t explain X without Y” and your criterion for an adequate explanation is that the explanation contains Y, then sure, you’ve stated a tautology. But it’s just the same kind of self-congratulatory claim like, “you can’t explain communism without it sounding dystopian” and having as an (unstated) criterion for an explanation to be adequate, “‘explain’ the ‘necessary’ oppression of a communist system” (scare quotes deliberate), then complaining that every explanation offered is inadequate.
In particular, the violence you want to be in any explanation is not a definitional part of capitalism. That is, even the harshest critics of capitalism don’t say that it’s part of the definition and initial objective; if it is inseparable from capitalism, it is an emergent property. If you think an emergent property of some system is so important that it must be mentioned in any explanation of the system, you need to make a very strong argument.
There is a difference between understanding the term “computers” and understanding computers.
It sounds like you’re just talking about explanations with different levels of detail. But in those terms, the fact that you haven’t given any coherent way of determining when an explanation is adequate translates to not having given any coherent way of determining when an explanation is sufficiently detailed.
Note that emergent properties are only going to come up in more detailed explanations. An explanation of computers which omits the emergent property of how they may suffer from deadlock or thrashing is perfectly fine for most explanations. The more detail you aim to give, the more likely you need to cover such things, but it would be complete nonsense to dismiss an explanation lacking them as “not an explanation”.
In particular, the violence you want to be in any explanation is not a definitional part of capitalism. That is, even the harshest critics of capitalism don’t say that it’s part of the definition and initial objective; if it is inseparable from capitalism, it is an emergent property.
Violence is foundational to ownership, just as it is foundational to “personal boundaries”. Violence is not inherently wrong, it is behind any limit we set. I don’t think how you can think that violence is emergent from capitalism.
I could “demonstrate” prices and money by taking you to a shop and showing you how buying something works.
Yes! Going to a store and showing someone paying the price, paying more than the price, or paying less than the price and showing the consequences of that would help explain prices. Only doing it “right” doesn’t really explain things; you need to show where the boundaries are.
Violence is not inherent to personal ownership. In society with a concept of ownership, if I find that you stole from me, the consequence might simply be that I’m no longer your friend and won’t help you when you need it. Ownership is a concept that means I think you shouldn’t take what I own, but it does not specify any practical consequences to that “should not”. Indeed, there may be no tangible consequences - to say that there must be would be to deny the is/ought gap.
This is the problem with phrasing criticisms in such obtuse, “gotcha” ways as in the OP - the actual point of contention is buried so deep it takes a dozen comments and multiple accusations of bad faith to uncover it.
Obviously since everyone in the target audience knows what happens if you try to take something without paying the price the seller wants, this does not form a necessary part of an explanation to that audience. If you want to draw attention to alleged violence in the concept of ownership, you can just say that directly, and then people who disagree can directly see what you’re saying and present their disagreement, and have a more productive discussion. Hope this helps in the future.
if I find that you stole from me, the consequence might simply be that I’m no longer your friend and won’t help you when you need it.
But that isn’t capitalism, is it? Good luck hoarding capital if all you’re going to do to prevent someone from living in a building you own but don’t use is no longer be friends with them. Good luck preventing workers from using the means of production for their own ends if you’re just going to be angry that they’re not giving investors a cut.
More semantically, what you describe is called “belonging”, not ownership. Likewise ownership without any consequences for violation is called “association”. Generally speaking I am fine with using words broadly, but when you are weaseling your way out of the violence underlying capitalism then it is important to note that capital ownership is not merely capital belonging to someone or capital being associated with someone.
No, capitalism is what I already explained. That was an explanation of ownership.
I don’t know what situation you’re imagining where someone is forced to be violent to keep what they have. Presumably though it’s one where someone else is using violence to try and get it off them, because otherwise simply keeping your stuff in a locked box and not willingly giving anyone the key is sufficient to protect it.
Everybody who lives in modern society understands what money is, and what prices are. You don’t need to explain those to explain capitalism.
You want the OOP to be accurate, so you want “explanation” to mean something that it doesn’t normally mean. Your attempt doesn’t even succeed by your own criteria:
and so on, ad infinitum.
An example is not an explanation. If it were though, I could “demonstrate” prices and money by taking you to a shop and showing you how buying something works. So I don’t think you have a coherent idea of what terms are allowed in explanations, and hence what an explanation actually is.
The reason, I would guess, that you are content with your explanations, is because they have got to the point where they claim something that you consider a critical feature of capitalism, namely some form of violence. If you claim: “You can’t explain X without Y” and your criterion for an adequate explanation is that the explanation contains Y, then sure, you’ve stated a tautology. But it’s just the same kind of self-congratulatory claim like, “you can’t explain communism without it sounding dystopian” and having as an (unstated) criterion for an explanation to be adequate, “‘explain’ the ‘necessary’ oppression of a communist system” (scare quotes deliberate), then complaining that every explanation offered is inadequate.
In particular, the violence you want to be in any explanation is not a definitional part of capitalism. That is, even the harshest critics of capitalism don’t say that it’s part of the definition and initial objective; if it is inseparable from capitalism, it is an emergent property. If you think an emergent property of some system is so important that it must be mentioned in any explanation of the system, you need to make a very strong argument.
It sounds like you’re just talking about explanations with different levels of detail. But in those terms, the fact that you haven’t given any coherent way of determining when an explanation is adequate translates to not having given any coherent way of determining when an explanation is sufficiently detailed.
Note that emergent properties are only going to come up in more detailed explanations. An explanation of computers which omits the emergent property of how they may suffer from deadlock or thrashing is perfectly fine for most explanations. The more detail you aim to give, the more likely you need to cover such things, but it would be complete nonsense to dismiss an explanation lacking them as “not an explanation”.
Violence is foundational to ownership, just as it is foundational to “personal boundaries”. Violence is not inherently wrong, it is behind any limit we set. I don’t think how you can think that violence is emergent from capitalism.
Yes! Going to a store and showing someone paying the price, paying more than the price, or paying less than the price and showing the consequences of that would help explain prices. Only doing it “right” doesn’t really explain things; you need to show where the boundaries are.
Violence is not inherent to personal ownership. In society with a concept of ownership, if I find that you stole from me, the consequence might simply be that I’m no longer your friend and won’t help you when you need it. Ownership is a concept that means I think you shouldn’t take what I own, but it does not specify any practical consequences to that “should not”. Indeed, there may be no tangible consequences - to say that there must be would be to deny the is/ought gap.
This is the problem with phrasing criticisms in such obtuse, “gotcha” ways as in the OP - the actual point of contention is buried so deep it takes a dozen comments and multiple accusations of bad faith to uncover it.
Obviously since everyone in the target audience knows what happens if you try to take something without paying the price the seller wants, this does not form a necessary part of an explanation to that audience. If you want to draw attention to alleged violence in the concept of ownership, you can just say that directly, and then people who disagree can directly see what you’re saying and present their disagreement, and have a more productive discussion. Hope this helps in the future.
But that isn’t capitalism, is it? Good luck hoarding capital if all you’re going to do to prevent someone from living in a building you own but don’t use is no longer be friends with them. Good luck preventing workers from using the means of production for their own ends if you’re just going to be angry that they’re not giving investors a cut.
More semantically, what you describe is called “belonging”, not ownership. Likewise ownership without any consequences for violation is called “association”. Generally speaking I am fine with using words broadly, but when you are weaseling your way out of the violence underlying capitalism then it is important to note that capital ownership is not merely capital belonging to someone or capital being associated with someone.
No, capitalism is what I already explained. That was an explanation of ownership.
I don’t know what situation you’re imagining where someone is forced to be violent to keep what they have. Presumably though it’s one where someone else is using violence to try and get it off them, because otherwise simply keeping your stuff in a locked box and not willingly giving anyone the key is sufficient to protect it.