I guess it depends on how we’re going to define capitalism.

Cooperation between humans, in a state of nature, ie before civilization, incentivizes free trade. Why fight the dudes on the other side of the creek if you can trade with them?

Why fight with them when you could leave them alone entirely?

If communicating, why not trade with them?

If you want all their stuff for yourself, is it really worth those four gourds and a bead necklace to fight to the death for it?

Coercion is costly, and it’s more costly the closer you are in strength to another person.

Trying to coerce somebody your own size is a bad idea. Trying to coerce someone smaller is inefficient assuming they’re not trying to kill you, which they won’t be because that’s suicidal on their part.

So the first arrangement we had with other people was free trade, governed by everyone’s capacity for violence and willingness to fight back if attacked. Probably less human-v-human hatred when nature was so relatively powerful too.

This is before civilization mind you, when we just had tribes.

In a separate thread it might be good to consider whether the classic dating of civilization to have dawned when agriculture created food surplus, is the first historical example of the capitalist/worker relationship. But that should be in a separate thread.