settlers were protected by military forts and soldiers on the frontier that enforced private property rights.
the logic of private property rights also turned those settlers into capitalist cogs who carried out their expropriation with the understanding that their land deeds would be backed by the force of the capitalist state.
This is true, but the cause and effect was not always uniform. Often the federal military presence happened because settlers would encroach on native lands and then plea to the federal government for support when they bit off more than they could chew.
Which was a constant resource strain for the central government. That’s why the crown and later the federal government tried to put limits on westward expansion. It wasn’t out of some respect for the natives, it was because enforcing the settlements was costly both from a real dollar perspective as well as manpower.
often the federal military presence happened because settlers would encroach on native lands and then plea to the federal government for support when they bit off more than they could chew.
This is an often forgotten element of Laura Wilder’s famous frontier novel “Little House on the Prairie”. The Wilder family, and a number of other settler families, were attempting to squat Osage Nation land, their belief was that while their actions were technically illegal the US government would eventually take their side and let them keep the land.
Turns out they were wrong, their presence caused political tensions with the Osage and other plains tribes so the US Army was sent to evict them.
Also worth noting, Laura Wilder’s books were just meant as personal memoirs, she was more known in her life for writing gardening and cooking guides. Her frontier stories were largely promoted by her daughter Rose Wilder Lane who was a hardcore libertarian and friend of Ayn Rand, and openly promoted the books as a showcase of the nobility of frontier life.
once you get the ball of capitalist social relations rolling downhill, it can be hard to stop. it’s a self-reinforcing system: steal peoples land, make them poor, tell them they can stop being poor by owning land so they go steal other people’s land that aren’t under the regime of private property and the state.
I mean when its moving fastest would be in fascism, no? The social relations of capital push harder and harder to a point where a state moves to consuming its own fragmentable populace, and then also pushes to expand it borders militarily to accomodate that civil society.
I think its always imperialist, given that its one class in a nation aggressing against another nation while in a fascist sense its all happening in one nation. when it cant expand itself and relieve its social tensions in directs those forces inward, cannibalizing itself.
exactly, the state created the “civil society” being discussed, the “rule of law” is even generally regarded by civil society to include the protection of capitalist factories and the enforcement of the landlord’s due. the idea that this civil society would continue past the withering away of the rule of law seems like quite a leap.
settlers were protected by military forts and soldiers on the frontier that enforced private property rights.
the logic of private property rights also turned those settlers into capitalist cogs who carried out their expropriation with the understanding that their land deeds would be backed by the force of the capitalist state.
This is true, but the cause and effect was not always uniform. Often the federal military presence happened because settlers would encroach on native lands and then plea to the federal government for support when they bit off more than they could chew.
Which was a constant resource strain for the central government. That’s why the crown and later the federal government tried to put limits on westward expansion. It wasn’t out of some respect for the natives, it was because enforcing the settlements was costly both from a real dollar perspective as well as manpower.
This is an often forgotten element of Laura Wilder’s famous frontier novel “Little House on the Prairie”. The Wilder family, and a number of other settler families, were attempting to squat Osage Nation land, their belief was that while their actions were technically illegal the US government would eventually take their side and let them keep the land.
Turns out they were wrong, their presence caused political tensions with the Osage and other plains tribes so the US Army was sent to evict them.
Also worth noting, Laura Wilder’s books were just meant as personal memoirs, she was more known in her life for writing gardening and cooking guides. Her frontier stories were largely promoted by her daughter Rose Wilder Lane who was a hardcore libertarian and friend of Ayn Rand, and openly promoted the books as a showcase of the nobility of frontier life.
once you get the ball of capitalist social relations rolling downhill, it can be hard to stop. it’s a self-reinforcing system: steal peoples land, make them poor, tell them they can stop being poor by owning land so they go steal other people’s land that aren’t under the regime of private property and the state.
some day this will run out of steam. I hope.
I mean when its moving fastest would be in fascism, no? The social relations of capital push harder and harder to a point where a state moves to consuming its own fragmentable populace, and then also pushes to expand it borders militarily to accomodate that civil society.
I dint know it transforms everything at its borders into a part of itself pretty damn quickly.
maybe the edge of capitalism is always fascist?
I think its always imperialist, given that its one class in a nation aggressing against another nation while in a fascist sense its all happening in one nation. when it cant expand itself and relieve its social tensions in directs those forces inward, cannibalizing itself.
exactly, the state created the “civil society” being discussed, the “rule of law” is even generally regarded by civil society to include the protection of capitalist factories and the enforcement of the landlord’s due. the idea that this civil society would continue past the withering away of the rule of law seems like quite a leap.