Some people just don't understand what capitalism is

Another one of those delightful whingefests over at The Guardian. The mobile phone means that, what with texts and emails and the like, we are all on call all the time. This is not though, the fault of the tech, but of capitalism:

The problem is not tech: it’s capitalism. Admitting the real source of the problem creates an opportunity to address it. Capitalism has adroitly managed to evade responsibility and neatly slip its leash, but we should be able to exercise greater critical thinking than that and bring it to heel. Capitalism and tech are deeply intertwined, of course, but let’s not confuse the two.

Yes indeed, let's not confuse the two. So, what actually is capitalism? No, it's not just a compendium of all that Guardianistas hate. It's not even a solid description of our own current society. What it actually is is a description of who owns the productive assets in a society: the capitalists or some other group of people? And do the capitalists own all said productive assets? Nope: so we're not even in a fully capitalist society.

It’s capitalism that took advantage of this opportunity to work it, turning it into something that could be used to control employees and keep them constantly within arm’s reach. The person who refuses to be constantly available or who exercises discretion in terms of the kind of work performed after hours won’t last long at a company and certainly won’t advance in terms of salary and rank.

There are decidedly non-capitalist organisations in our society. All of government for example. The NHS, John Lewis, the Co Op, the remaining Building Societies and so on. All lawyers (they're partnerships, not capitalist organisations) and on and on. It wouldn't be out of order top insist that some 50% of our society is not currently capitalist.

At which point we need to ask: well, are those non-capitalist parts of the society subject to the same texts and out of hours emails? It would seem that they are: therefore it's not capitalism causing all of this, is it?

Unless, of course, one is writing for The Guardian where capitalism is simply the moniker for everything and anything one wants to whinge about.

There might even be real problems with capitalism, could well be real problems with tech: but let's not confuse the two, eh?