But "socialism" is a scary word
But "socialism" is a scary word
That's partially because like many other words and names (just consider Isis, an important goddess of ancient egypt), "socialism" to most people means the type of absolute control that communist countries usually feature. But of course, as a word/concept, socialism is just the application of socialist policies, not even remotely alluding to some absolute end goal or so. And naturally as a part of society except a tiny minority at the top, most people would benefit from more socialist policies.
Socialism isn't really as simple as "socialist policies." Such a character classification into binaries like "Capitalist policies" and "Socialist policies" doesn't make much sense, Capitalism and Socialism describe much larger systems and what drives an economy. Social programs are good, yes, and Socialism is a good thing too, but they aren't the same.
It can definitely be argued that capitalists themselves fucking hate capitalism.
That was a brilliant read.
I appreciated the nuance, and it even added a lot of perspective to the notion that Adam Smith's "capitalism" concept was not the evil and inhuman machine we experience today.
I've noticed this move to "technofeudalism" everywhere but didn't have a name for it. It's exhausting seeing how many services, products, businesses, whatever, all simply want to coast on monthly payments and lock-ins for what amounts to merely keeping the lights on.
The PetsMart thing was insidious. This surely solidifies the definition of "human resources": Seeking to control people as "assets" that generate profits like (proprietary) batteries.
It seems it should be a priority goal to undermine the corporate and wealthy's dominion over "assets." They'd be terrified of this, as they might actually have to do something besides acquire everyone else's hard work for a change!
Posts like this one are chasing people away from Lemmy.
Lemmy doesn't need people to "succeed," it already does its job. It's not a commercial product to be profited from. Further, you aren't going to be able to chase away the Socialists from Lemmy, the structure is appealing to Leftists and its developed and maintained by Communists.
Good, we don't want that kind of person.
Not everyone. Capitalists love capitalism. It's the people who aren't capitalists but think they are because they love capitalism.
Sort of like how people think they are Christian's because they go to church believe in Jesus, but don't actually follow the teachings.
People think they are all sorts of things they are not and make themselves and or other miserable because of their fantasies.
We haven't had capitalism in any sense of the word for about 60 years at this point. What we have seen is government interventionism in a protection of certain businesses that align with the interests of the sitting politicians - in other words, a form of Oligarchy.
What has transpired is an increasing degree of government deficits to fund entitlements, that drive inflation, which create more dependency on the entitlements and a call to do things like raise minimum wages.
The actual solution is: Trim federal spending, go into deflation, and drive the buying power of the currency up. This would allow people to pay down debts while maintaining standard of living, and allow for a reduction of dependency on hand outs - which would allow for a further reduction in government spending. The problem here is that the first step ABSOLUTELY SUCKS for a LOT of people - but it needs to be done.
From here: The big hedge funds, and such need to be ripped apart systemically.
This is so fractally wrong that it would take two hours to untangle this hodge-podge of confusion. So I’ll just say, the only way out of neoliberalism’s problems is to do neoliberalism even harder. 😂
You're just describing how Capitalism has reached its later stages, its death throes. You can't turn the clock back, we have to turn it forwards to Socialism.
Trim federal spending, go into deflation, and drive the buying power of the currency up. This would allow people to pay down debts while maintaining standard of living.
My problem with this logic is the same problem I have when suited clowns claim they'll just raise prices on everything 300% if the minimum wage goes up by $2.
Say we "trimmed federal spending" (which is kinda its job as an entity, to spend towards the people, ideally), and somehow magically our already-printed simoleons became worth more per dollar...
What, besides intense federal regulations, would prevent bosses from just spinning this as some kind of crisis, and making it an excuse to pay us less because "each dollar is worth more now so you're making too much"?
"Entitlements" and "hand-outs" are necessary not because people are lazy, but because from a business perspective, jobs aren't worth doing anymore , but we do them anyway because we're forced to, if we want to participate in society at all.
TL;DR:
Basically, the solution is to tell the rent-seeking neo-gilded-age robber-barons of our day "Fuck you. Pay me." If they actually paid a fair wage for the profits their employees generate, we'd be able to "pay down debts while maintaining standard of living, and allow for a reduction of dependency on hand outs - which would allow for a further reduction in government spending."
Strong "I can fix him" energy out there.
Survivors bias. People in Russia or China don't appear to complain about their systems because... they can't.
Modern Russia is Capitalist, the Socialist system was looted and sold for parts over 30 years ago. As for the PRC, people don't complain as much as they do in the US because over 90% of the citizens of China support the CPC.
https://redsails.org/anticommunism-and-wonderland/
In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
The flaw in capitalism and the flaw that makes it unmanageable is how over time capitalism will find ways to extract more for less.
This will always fall to the workers. The recent recession had tax payers bail out the banks as well as pay bonuses. all because banks got very greedy.
That's a main feature dude!
Its not a flaw, its working as planned. But yeah, our "market solutions", basically any problem created by capitalism just gets exploited for profit. Even when the economy crashes its actually a good thing for the very rich, as it " disciplines" labor, moves people down and out of the middle class which lowers wages systematically, takes out a few competitors, etc.,
Even when the economy crashes its actually a good thing for the very rich, as it " disciplines" labor, moves people down and out of the middle class which lowers wages systematically, takes out a few competitors, etc.,
If you look at it, every crisis always results in transfer of wealth up. Covid was the biggest up to date.
There are other things unmanageable.
Like a nuclear superpower with vast fertile southern lands fit for growing grapes, sea access with fishing fleet, and all such, which had a significant part of population under threat of scurvy. Because capitalism makes logistics work, it's the reason European colonial empires could exist.
Or the same nuclear superpower, which boasted widespread literacy and all that, except that conveniently ignored Central Asian areas mostly busy with growing, collecting and processing cotton. Damn right, my dear. These were, ahem, not very developed even in 1991.
Or the same nuclear superpower, which had a powerful standardization apparatus, but when you look at its tank models or anything else, the components which could be interchangeable were just slightly incompatible. They were designed by people with the same kind of education and understanding and context, for the same purpose, but, first, every defense plant or research institute or something wanted to have their standard and they did get it, second, due to secrecy and vertical administrative structure there were little communication between them.
Or a system of logistics, that turned into shit the moment that superpower decided to leave the chat, leaving populations of whole countries foraging for wood to not freeze at winter.
Capitalism works differently, because it (any human actually, you included) tries to get more with less. Non-market instruments are supposed to constrain it to doing that only honestly.
I think capitalism is fine in principle, but like anything else that needs limits and rules that people are willing to enforce.
Here's a nice quote from The Communist Manifesto:
What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour.
It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen...
We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate... Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy, till the moment of execution, and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do, without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people...
A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.
Ah shit, never mind. This was from Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations
Wow, that was smooth. Points for impact!
I wish these minds could have been put in charge for arguing for and hashing out a combined sensible economic system, as they might have had differing ideas, but all clearly wanted a system that was optimal for human beings to thrive in.
Instead, these fellows are deified as proxy prophets, excuses and motivations for wars and slavery, by those who seek to enrich themselves entirely at the majority's blood, sweat, and tears.
I'm on the fence about this, because as far as I understand, the regulatory mechanisms that end up serving as the limitations you're talking about are actually contrary to the system's core principles.
You can be fine with the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit of capitalism and still favor a wealth cap and abolishing laws like Citizens United that give money undue influence on politics. Extreme wealth concentration actually hurts capitalism by starving the spending economy of money. It's a defect in the system that eventually spoils the system.
Innovation and entrepreneurship is not exclusive to capitalism. People innovated and undertook ambitious projects before capitalism, and they will be doing so after it.
There is nothing inherent to the private ownership of the means of production and the wage exploitation/human rental system we have now that mandates innovation and entrepreneurship. In fact the opposite is visible today, with big companies stifling innovation.
Lots of people on Lemmy forget that the choice between Capitalism and Socialism isn't binary. Country picks individual policies that are capitalist or socialist in nature. All of the modern countries are a combination of both. Even USA has certain socialist policies. Most of Europe is roughly equally capitalist and socialist.
It's just making a character build and picking perks. Capitalist policies aren't bad (for the general public) by default. Depending on how and which ones are implemented, they can be beneficial to everybody.The problem with this is the capitalists have a way of revoking rights when the working class has its back turned, and the privilege of making unlimited propaganda to make sure those backs stay turned and either complacent or focused on other things. The only way to prevent this is for the wealthy to answer to the people rather than the other way around, which means the working class must control the means of production. This is the capitalists' lever of control as a class.
By making sure that society cannot produce anything without them, they get to control our material conditions, who lives or dies, what gets produced and how it gets produced, with no real regard for the people's needs besides what coincidentally creates more capital for them. And they can direct this all in the particular way which convinces us that this is the natural order of things and we should actually be thanking them for the breadcrumbs they leave us when all is said and done.
Realistically, you cannot have one without the other. Anything else is leaving the door open to the capitalists to pull things back in their direction using their vast accumulation of wealth, which under capitalism directly translates to influence and power.
You're thinking of Capitalism and Socialism as Private Property and Public Property, and as oil and water. That's not how systems work in the real world, however. An economic system is determined by what is primary in an Economy, and at scale property relations are entirely mixed and inter-related. Having safety nets doesn't make the Capitalist EU somehow "a mix," and having markets doesn't make the Socialist PRC Capitalist either.
You are partially correct, in that markets are a useful tool at lower stages of development and public ownership and central planning at higher stages, but that doesn't seem to be where you were going with that.
Thank you, that is such an important point! Many if not most issues in our world are non-binary, but facing this requires thinking beyond memes, which many people don't want to do. Gotta swipe left or right, those are your two choices, or you're a shill for the wrong side. It's really discouraging, almost a New Conservatism - not in a political sense but in an insular thinking and circling the wagons sense.
No, everyone doesn't hate capitalism.
The capitalist class that expropriates the working class’ surplus value sure doesn’t hate capitalism.
Yeah alot of them love capitalism so hard, while simultaneously bemoaning every single part of capitalism, while being too stupid to be convinced the two are connected.
what no class consciousness does to a mf
but everyone hates the big companies and the rich people
its just that the right has been told that the left are the rich people (and then the left say that the neoliberals are the rich people, etc)
True. Capitalism can be made to work well for most people, as shown in many European and Asian countries. You need strong regulations (and for workers to engage in unions and in voting). People (specially on lemmy) seem to mix American oligarchy with capitalism.
My country speedran capitalistic invasion in 30 years. Or 23. Depends how you count it.
Yes exactly.
Regarding OP's image...
- They make blanket statements
- They tell you what your problem is and they think they are more qualified than you, to know what your problem is
- They think they have the perfect solution for you, if only you weren't in the way
Naturally the government they favor would have the same perspective, no?
I think the flaw is human nature. All governments and organizations are corrupt. All implementations are always twisted to suit the greed of individuals.
It's entirely possible to create policy and enforcement mechanisms that would mitigate or eliminate excessive greed but nobody with anything votes for it because they'll lose out on their own personal greed by their measure. They want that chance to fleece the masses even if they aren't in the club that's already doing it.
Blame humans.
All implementations are always twisted to suit the greed of individuals.
So it would be best to live under a system that doesn't encourage and reward such behavior, no?
I would argue this is more an issue of when citizens get complacent and stop holding those who govern them accountable. This is when any form of government will eventually start turning to the corruption. Those in power can change the rules while citizens are going about their lives. It works even better if the citizens are too busy and stressed out to worry about "silly things like politics".
Getting everyone to be involved and knowledgeable about absolutely everything and to fight to make things right is beyond the capabilities of current humans. The more I know the more I understand I don't know a lot about so many things beyond what i've experienced. Ignorance drives so many reactions (including the personal attacks from my comments here.)
I have met many individuals in this world who get very, very angry that someone else is doing x, y, or z - even if it has zero impact on them. Some of the reactions to my comments here about a very logical challenge that could have solutions with technology are attacked with illogical non-arguments and are a perfect example of how impossible it is to get humans to think critically about things when they have their own biases.
Things I hate were present where I live through half of USSR and then till now, and replaced things even scarier present since the revolution.
Tell me it's capitalism, mofo, I beg you.
What things are you talking about, "mofo"?
Things you hate? How can it be explained as capitalism if you won't say what it is.
You act like there was never a guy named Karl Marx who proved this stuff, and debunked many myths about the economy, like 150+ years ago. It isn't just a random thing like a superstition. In fact believing capitalism isnt responsible is almost a superstition.
Wages are flat while production has skyrocketed the last 50 years, a little longer than I've been alive. The system produces a few rich people at one end and a bunch of poor people at the other, that's what it is meant to do, it's what it does. It isn't just an economic system, its the state and media as well.
People aren't just blaming all their problems on capitalism like some petulant child. There are causes that are very clear and some more hidden, but its no secret and hasn't been for a pretty long time.
USSR had a state capitalist economy
People blame capitalism, but capitalism isn't the problem. The problem, as always, is power.
Under feudalism things were much worse. Serfs worked 6 days a week, 12+ hours a day. Up to 3 days of that week was spent tending your lord's lands for free.
Under absolute monarchies, dictatorships and police states you work as hard as you can for whatever hours your employer sets, and you keep any complaints to yourself or you're dragged off to a camp, or summarily executed.
So far, every time "communism" has been tried, it was just a dictatorship or police state where the leaders pretend that there's a higher ideal.
Capitalist republics don't give people at the bottom much power, but they get a little bit. And, that little bit is the best that the people at the bottom have ever had, even if it isn't much.
The fact that there are people at the bottom isn't the fault of some political system, and especially isn't the fault of capitalism, it's the fault of human nature.
You were two steps away from discovering libertarian socialism/democratic confederalism and then you crawled backwards.
The fact that there are people at the bottom isn’t the fault of some political system
If your political system is based on hierarchy, there will always be someone at the bottom of said hierarchy. It's the logical consequence.
and especially isn’t the fault of capitalism, it’s the fault of human nature.
This is literally capitalist propaganda. Humans are a social specie, by nature they seek cooperation, not competition.
There will always be hierarchy with complex, large scale production. Management and administration are necessary roles in production. It is better to make said hierarchy work for the people through the abolition of classes, and democratization.
You were two steps away from discovering libertarian socialism/democratic confederalism
Riiight, a tried and true political/economic system which is sure to work perfectly as soon as it's tried, just like communism.
If your political system is based on hierarchy
If you're human, your political system will involve hierarchy as soon as more than about a dozen individuals are involved.
This is literally capitalist propaganda
Suuure... it's capitalist propaganda to acknowledge that all mammals act in ways that are hierarchical and unfair.
Capitalism is better than feudalism, yes. The problem is that Capitalism inevitably gets to the point where it is more detrimental to the population as a whole than it is beneficial (Global Warming, Wealth inequality, power imbalances, etc.), and that point is now.
Capitalism did bring us many advancements, but we have outgrown it. Just because it did good things at some point doesn't mean that there isn't something better. We should all be striving towards better as a species, but we aren't.
The problem is that Capitalism inevitably gets to the point where it is more detrimental to the population as a whole than it is beneficial
That's humanity, not capitalism. The Olmecs weren't capitalists. But, they formed a hierarchical society and there were some very rich people. "This highly productive environment encouraged a densely concentrated population, which in turn triggered the rise of an elite class.[14] The elite class created the demand for the production of the symbolic and sophisticated luxury artifacts that define Olmec culture." They grew and expanded until they caused "very serious environmental changes that rendered the region unsuited for large groups of farmers". After that, they died out and the region was sparsely populated for centuries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmecs
It's not Capitalism that causes this, it's humanity. Also, no political/economic system is beneficial to the population as a whole. The whole purpose of political/economic systems is to allow the many to exploit the few. You can have an egalitarian society if you only have a few dozen individuals. More than that and you get hierarchies, and when you get hierarchies, the people at the top want to find efficient ways to make use of the people at the bottom. Capitalism is at least better than serfdom or slavery, both for the people at the top and the people at the bottom. The people at the bottom have a bit more freedom and a bit more agency. That makes revolutions and collapses less likely, which makes bigger hierarchies possible, which benefits the people at the top. But, it's not like feudalism, capitalism, or any other "ism" is designed for the benefit of the people at the bottom. The people who have the power to make the changes are the ones at the top, so they're only ever going to adopt systems that are beneficial to them.
I agree with most of your individual points... But your thesis relies on a false assumption.
Capitalism is the current problem for 95% of the world.... Just like monarchies were a problem for that particular country. Just because many political and economic systems throughout history reflect an aspect of human nature to control and bequeath that control to their offspring, doesn't take capitalism off the hook. Hell, if that were the case, we could blame everything on the evolutionary drive to be sexually successful, and not place the blame on anyone or anything else. That's what those at the top would love the rest of us to believe.
Capitalism is the current problem for 95% of the world
Capitalism isn't the current problem for 95% of the world. The problem for 95% of the world is 1% of the people who have the power/wealth. Whatever "ism" you use, there will always be people at the top who are exploiting people at the bottom. Capitalism succeeded because it provided a new and more efficient form for the people at the top to exploit the people at the bottom. But, it was also better for the people at the bottom. Instead of being tied to the land where they were born, born into a trade, and so-on, now they at least had a tiny bit of agency in their lives.
Capitalism isn't the cause of any of these problems, humanity is the cause of the problem. Humanity forms hierarchical groups, and people at the top exploit people at the bottom. In fact, you could probably extend it well beyond humanity. This is pretty common even in apes, and even in other mammals. Dolphins don't know about capitalism, yet they still have hierarchies.
political and economic systems throughout history reflect an aspect of human nature to control and bequeath that control to their offspring, doesn’t take capitalism off the hook
Ok, so what puts capitalism on the hook? In what ways are people exploited more under capitalism than any other previous system? What makes capitalism so uniquely bad that you have to call it out rather than just acknowledging that it's human, or even animal nature?
A better angle might be that currently in the US capitalism is rarely actually scrutinized for the disadvantages it does have. Capitalism is almost synonymous with America and people often see critiques of capitalism as an attack on the nation itself, even though most of them don't actually know the principles or characteristics of capitalism.
It goes the other way too where people automatically think that characteristics of America are capitalist
As an example a majority of Americans probably think that American politics and democracy is part of capitalism, or that the economy is pure capitalism.
If people were more willing to critically evaluate capitalism without feeling attacked it could increase support for more worker friendly policies that are generally socialist in nature while still having a capitalistic foundation.
Blaming "capitalism" for all of society's problems is about as useful as blaming God or some gremlins. For example, if you're in the USA and you blame "capitalism" for your problems, then what are you gonna do about it? There is no path to change this society from capitalism to socialism or communism. We have entire armies of military and police who will ensure that the status quo stays in place. You also can't vote your way out of this. No candidates advocating such changes will be elected.
The best thing we can do is aim for better regulation of the systems that have allowed for the oligarchy to take it all over. Which won't be easy or quick at all but is at least somewhat possible.
the systems that have allowed for the oligarchy to take it all over
They didn't take it over, they created it. The lack of democratic influence isn't a bug, it's a feature. They have been laying to you all your life!
The path has been laid out by Mr Luigi
there are paths you're just not willing to consider them.
Look, you can have nuance or you can have performative outrage, you don't get to have both. Lemmy has made its bed
We could have utopia tomorrow. The path to change worldwide is to effect change where you live. If we all started there, then the local changes would spread. People would want what they have locally to work in larger scales. We don't have to call it socialism, capitalism, communism, conservative , liberal, freedom, whatever. Terms are proxy enemies used to make us fear or love based on heuristics. We inherently know what a just world would feel and look like. It's in our nature. If someone has to convince you to override your intuition, then it's shit. Don't look for answers elsewhere. Don't blindly follow anyone. Build the world you want in your heart at home. It will grow out from there. Also, I used to love orange juice as a kid. I drank it from a silly clown cup I got at a performance on ice one time when my parents took me.
