Not only in the US, it is a universal fiction
Not only in the US, it is a universal fiction
ID: WookieeMark @EvilGenXer posted:
"OK so look, Capitalism is right wing.
Period.
If you are pro-capitalism, you are Right Wing.
There is no pro-capitalist Left. That's a polite fiction in the US that no one can afford any longer as the ecosystem is actually collapsing around us."
Keynesian economic policy resulted in unprecedented prosperity for 60 years. It ended by Reagan's trickle down supply side economics.
Seems now there's a false dichotomy between supply side economics (which is an obvious failure) and communism (which was an obvious failure).
Crazy idea, maybe we should consider using economic policy that was proven to work? I guess that makes me hated by both the "right" and the "leftists" (two peas in a pod). So where would that put me in your made up political spectrum?
communism (which was an obvious failure)
Compare any communist country to a capitalist country at the same level of technological development and the communist country comes out ahead in wealth and happiness. Communism only seems like a failure because US and EU propaganda does a trick where they compare isolated (often literally blockaded) Communist countries to the wealthiest empires on the planet and say "look how much more money we have! Our system must be better!"
The trouble with Keynesian economics is that it created the conditions for Reagan's neoliberal revolution to occur, and any country that tries to recreate that economic system will fall into the exact same trap that America did, because the fundamental underlying problem in Capitalism is the ownership of Capital. Capitalists accumulate wealth, and they use that accumulated wealth to capture the system that is supposed to keep them in check, and they sabotage that system for their own profits, and they will do that every single time.
I remember reading somewhere that one of the main reasons for the USSR's failure was that they immediately shot down any idea that had the tiniest bit in it that could be interpreted as capitalism-related. Even a suggestion that's 100% communist values but was using some capitalist-sounding terminology would get immediately disqualified and place it's supporters in hot water.
I think the USA - even if not as extremely - is doing the same thing but from the other side.
With such a mindset, "using economic policy that was proven to work" is outright impossible. Any policy that works (and not just in economy) will need to address the problems raised by all major ideologies - because even if an ideology got the solution completely wrong, at the very least that problems it was born from are real. Refusing to acknowledge these problems on ideological basis will not make them go away.
You're getting close, but you're still not quite there. The solution isn't to address all of the concerns of all the ideologies since that would be impossible. The solution is for people to realize that ideology is the problem. When we get to the point where we realize capitalism and socialism are tools that are good for different purposes we could have a healthy economy and we'd all be prosperous. But as long as we continue think in ideological terms which centers around creating false dichotomies that prevent us from using the best tool for the job we're always going to be living in a failed economy.
We'd be no better off living in a failed socialist economy run by the ideology obsessed than we are living in a capitalist economy run by the ideology obsessed.
In the end politics is always tribal, ideologies are just rationalizations made by a tribe to make them feel like they're the rational ones while the other tribes aren't. It's all bullshit.
Kneejerk rejection of forbidden trigger words is rampant today as well. Liberals are rejecting "gray area" concepts the way conservatives have rejected science. It's a binary world where you're either a hundred percent right or a million percent wrong.
Nuh uh.
Foreign economic policies can't work in America because America is exceptional.
No I will not elaborate further.
GoDdAmN SoCiAlISt!!!
“Perfect being the enemy of good [enough]” is also rhe argument republicans use against any liberal/social policy. If there are any flaws, we should do nothing at all.
Liberals also love saying that to justify "vote blue no matter who." But what have the Democrats been doing differently other than giving breadcrumb policies?
Sorry liberals, but the truth is that you guys also benefit from the status quo at the expense of the working class but don't want to admit. Senior Democrat leader, Nancy Pelosi is, after all, the biggest player in the stock market earning millions. If America has a multiplural party system and could articulate their positions better, the Democrats are centre right and would be very much described as close to centrist French president's Macron neoliberal ideology. Socially liberal but economically conservative, and he's one of the most unpopular president in French politics. He dislikes the far right, and yet does nothing policy-wise to alleviate the working and middle class concerns which only slowly nudges them to the far right. Doing nothing economically and telling people to support the status quo is tacit support for the far right despite hating them on the outset.
You can't post this often enough.
Story of my generation
You're right capitalism is healthy and good for us
Stop. Get help. Defining things to make sure your position is the right one and the only correct position is the one that does no harm to anyone and is in no way evil or exploitive. STOP.
It is not useful, it is not constructive. While you're lecturing about who has the correct beliefs to have a place at your little left wing table, a billionaire has gotten more wealth and power. Find common ground with people who work, and who believe in working to make the world better for society. It is more important to do something beneficial than to make sure you can't be logically judged poorly.
Go help someone. Go work to improve your community. Go find common ground with the people who are doing the same.
This is exactly the right thing to say here. Bravo.
Hear hear.
Hey, liberal:
The fascists deliberately redefine what words mean to their idiot wage slaves as a method of stiffling dissent and controlling narratives.
The end goal is the ability to slap labels like "communist" on simpering liberals like Biden and Harris, so the brainless base knows they're free to inflict violence on them and their supporters.
Fuck off with your insistence that actual leftists play along with it instead of educating people.
It's for your good too.
Lol, this would hit better if A. It didn't start with some kind of weird name calling rather than any attempt to communicate respectfully. B. It weren't defending an objectively bad take around defining the completely relative and subjective term of "left" and "right" rather than a word like capitalism and communism and C if the liberal label were even accurate, I am a democratic socialist, it doesn't matter though, it doesn't change the validity of any part of this argument, not is it a more important fact about me than my class, the fruits of my labor, and most importantly my ernest desire to do good in my community.
Man where was this even handiness this last election?
DiD yOu ThInK aBoUt ThE gEnOcIdE?
Left and right are completely arbitrary semantic categories so you can define them however you like, as long as it has a clear and internally consistent definition.
I’ve even seen ancaps who have almost the same definition as I do but completely reversed which is pretty funny but also gives me a headache.
left = not capitalism
right = capitalism
this definition has formed since more or less (...) since the french revolution and has consolidated along with capitalism itself.
I wouldn't go that far, in a lot of ways capitalism was the left wing at the time. That was a liberal, ie capitalist, Revolution. Basically all the revolutions between the American Revolution up to 1848 were liberal and capitalist revolutions.
Absolutist monarchism is right wing and not capitalist. Fascism often has anti-capitalist policies.
What is Finland though? Social democracy seems pretty good but still fits in with capitalism as far as I can tell
Neoliberal, just like the rest of the "socialist" nordics (E: having socialised aspects to the state and or economy, or even being a "social democracy" does not socialism make), which are all on the exact same trajectory as the rest of us, only a few years behind.
Do you have an example of a properly socialist country that is doing better than the nordics?
Otherwise, perhaps we should look closely at the politics in the nordics for inspiration of what to do that actually seems to work?
Finland still pollutes the world at unsustainable levels, exploits the global south for raw materials and cheap labour, and is on a downwards trend to fascism like all of Europe. Liberal democracy only has one conclusion, and it's fascism.
Since people don't work for free and some people have more money than others, finland is obviously an extreme right wing faschist oligarchy where people live in miserable slavery and needs the proletariat red army invasion like right now. Wouldn't even be hard for a landlocked nation. The capital Reykvetsvhik would fall in minutes thanks to the liberated people welcoming their saviors.
Yes im American, how could you tell? /S
Well, now that Simo is dead anyway, they couldn't take Finland last time! They uh...also didn't fight the nazis until '44-'45, there was also '41-'44...
Politically speaking, I don't believe there's such thing as "right" or "left" except in the relative sense. Even then it's questionable.
Edit: I'm really curious about what people downvoting think it fundamentally means for there to be an absolute political "center" from which there is an objective "right" wing and an objective "left" wing. Furthermore, I'd like to know what advantages this model has that makes you value it so much.
Right and left is a very rough but easy to understand model. In the US it represents the two big parties somewhat okay. You can also put political ideologies on this scale:
fascism - conservatism - liberalism - social democracy - socialism - communism
Centrism is more related to the Overton window, so what’s currently accepted by society as acceptable mainstream discourse. That means the center can include conservatives, liberals, and social democrats. However as the Overton window changes, centrism also adjusts. Centrism strives to represent a supermajority majority consensus.
That was well-thought-out and well-said, thank you.
I agree, politics aren't a line where some are in the right, some in the left and the center is some kind of mythological beast (if they are we are screwed, but they aren't)
Politics are complicated, politicians are simple. Capitalism isn't an ideology it's an economic system, it's as good or as bad as the mechanisms put in place to govern/control/rule it. It's supposed to be free but it can't be because no one can't trust corporations, it's also not supposed to be controlled by the State but when they inject money in it that's what they are doing.
Capitalism can work in any kind of environment, and fail too.
Personally I believe democracy is failing, technofeudalism is coming in hard for it. In my country we replaced nobility with politicians and they are the caste, the president is the King, if you defy the party stand you are kicked out, they claim to be socialdemocrats but all the social aspects are worse than 5, 10, and 20 years ago and although keynesian economics plays a part on the reason I believe it's democracy's fault.
Capitalism isn't an ideology it's an economic system
Well, it's both. All economic systems are ideologies with specific values and concerns.
it's as good or as bad as the mechanisms put in place to govern/control/rule it
This implies that economic systems can't be good or bad in themselves. But every implementation of capitalism (or any other economic system) is going to reflect that system's values, and those values can be judged to be good or bad. So I think it's reasonable to label different economic systems as "good" or "bad", so long as you precisely define the system and its values before judging it.
Capitalism is the fundamental belief in private ownership. That I can own a factory, a store, a restaurant, and therefore be entitled to the profits produced from them. Modern capitalism is inextricable from consumerism, from business, and from stock exchanges.
Capitalism is any resource or good harvested or produced that is not shared by all who produced it. Capitalism is the idea that some labor is more deserving of the fruits of production than other kinds of labor. Capitalism is violence against the working class. Capitalism is the means by which a new ruling class was created over the past 200 years that presently controls the entire world while utterly ravaging our environment and wasting more resources than we literally every could have thought possible.
You are NOT a leftist if you support capitalism. You are ANTI-WORKER if you support capitalism. If you want to support workers and if you want to support progressive leftist causes, ORGANIZE. Join your local anarchist community. Agitate, push leftist politics. Start mutual aid networks for vulnerable workers in your community. Support unionization efforts. Support striking workers. Participate in civil disobedience. Show up at protests. Organize demonstrations.
The world has never been changed by accepting the crumbs they threw at our feet. It was changed by those who refused to bow their heads. By the communities who resisted oppression and fought for their fellow workers. By people who fought for us all to live better lives. Count yourself among them.
Meh, I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, but don't like black/white dichotomies (though I'm personally anti-capitalist). Unions most definitely care the businesses they work for make money. The more money the better, since union members can bargain for more. They have incentive to be pro-consumerist and to protect their business/industry. Even at the expense of others.
Unions are workers coming together to advocate for their rights. I don't know what you mean by the unions having an incentive for companies to make more money. Companies making more money does not translate to increased wages for workers. It translates to increased profits for shareholders. And unions do not own companies. Unions are a form of collective action against the capitalist ruling class. Workers who are a part of unions are making commitments to each other to fight for their rights as a group. They have nothing to do with what capitalist ceos or shareholders do. Not unless a union has been corrupted and is being manipulated by ruling class forces.
I am not a syndicalist, but I do think that the widespread unionization of workers is objectively a good thing. Tenants unionizing against their landlords, workers unionizing against their bosses, the working class as a whole unionizing against the ruling class.
I also push back against this notion of capitalism not being a hard and fast specific ideology that takes specific actions at the expense of workers. It is the truth. In countries that are more socialized but still maintain capitalist systems, less capitalism is still an improvement for the material conditions of workers. Private ownership of the means of production is still problematic even if there are more regulations from local government. Those things could still be collectivized and made worker owned so that everyone can have the fruits of production. And so that everyone has the same political power as everyone else.
Also capitalism has it's roots in Colonialism
Capital means money. Capitalism is an economy that is centered on money. Socialism OTOH centers the economy on the people.
You may want to read up a bit, and stop using socialism as an umbrella term. Socialism as in European social democrats, traditional socialists, Communists? Any of the other variations? Because both Social Democrats and Communists use the Socialist term.
"Pro capitalism" and harm reduction are not the same thing. Some form of capitalist-like economics will exist until we achieve post scarcity economics. The best we can do until then is work towards that end, while also working to minimize the harms imposed by material and labor scarcity.
This is just another stupid purity test by people who care more about their own righteousness than actual action. You can call my praxis whatever you want. I don't care.
We've been post-scarcity on a global scale for decades if you count the essentials. We've been producing all the food that's needed to feed the world, and that's with only 2% of people working on agriculture in the developed world.
The reason for housing shortages is also due to policy, not because we somehow don't have the resources and labour to build enough.
Statistically yes, however any of those calculations I saw were always flawed and intentionally excluded losses that will always build up even in the most fair system (losses in transport, accidents, individual wrongdoing i.e. overbuying and bad cooking, miscalculations, bad harvests etc). And then there's the rapidly shrinking space for optimal harvests, the climate catastrophe as well as capitalism keep destroying the ecosystem.
Technically we could produce enough to offset that as well, however that would include a global empowerment of… veganism. Or at least a 95% reduction of red meat, it's the most outrageous resource hog. I don't need to explain why this won't happen though.
Capitalism is not a market. Markets have exactly nothing to do with capitalism.
Capitalism is not only not needed before total post scarcity, it prevents it as capitalism requires artificial scarcity to function.
Markets and capitalism usually appear together, but don’t require each other. You can have markets with just worker owned coops just fine.
For capitalist enterprises a free market is undesirable. A monopoly, duopoly, cartel serve to control the market in order to maximize profits.
I think it’s important to clarify that markets and the use of money are not exclusive to capitalism. Under capitalism, the point of markets is to accumulate money absent of any actual project or goal, and money is the way the capital holding class keeps score. In other systems, the point of markets is to connect people who have some item with people who need or want that item and money is the means of exchange. Markets are fine for distributing excess materials and labor, once people’s basic needs are met.
Markets can efficiently allocate resources and they also foster competition. That enables decentralized innovation and optimization.
A major error of many leftists is to see markets as undesirable. There are always markets. Rightwingers often confuse an unregulated market with a free market, which is very misleading. Markets need regulation in order to be free.
Markets are fine for distributing excess materials and labor, once people’s basic needs are met
You can achieve that for example by having the market for housing and food be dominated by publicly owned enterprises.
Definitely something people forget when talking about money in general. Capitalism warps the meaning of "value", money is just the closest we have to display a certain value in a tangible form. In itself, money is merely a tool for universal exchange of goods. A tool that's unfathomably useful no matter the system it exists in.
Imagine we treat money like US citizens treat measurements. "Yeah, I'd like to buy these produce for about the value of 1 middle-sized football field". What.
This is very stupid.
Not all capitalism is completely unrestrained.
I do love when idiots insist the world must conform to their own internal definition.
The problem is the idiots never realize you're talking about them when you say this.
You obviously need to read more theory until you can ignore praxis and reality completely. /s
14 upvoters don't realize they are the idiots. 7 downvoters suspect this comment may be talking about them.
No lies detected.
That's the really uncomfortable part about all of this, that it's Fascism plus imminent environmental collapse.
Silver lining is that they have the same solution.
News flash: most democrats are very much right-wing.
So where do Co-ops fall, one where all the workers own everything equally and vote on hiring and firing etc?
Socialism. Plenty of models that use or aspire to that system, especially when it's part of a larger capitalist society and one can't expect the workers to change it all.
Few large coops are truly equal partnerships or that democratic though.
Generally speaking, what prevents it from falling under capitalism is non-transferable ownership stakes. Otherwise the workers can sell their stake and the system inevitably declines into capital interests hiring employees instead of a partnership.
Isn't a co-op just an individual organization where the workers have already seized the means of production and share it fairly among themselves? With every worker having a say right? Sounds like socialism on a small scale to me.
coöps are cool, but we can't just have coöps. their liberatory potential is cancelled out by the fact that they still participate in capitalism and they still need to turn a profit.
Even if the labour of individuals might be slightly transformed by having a vote over the methods and aims of production, the very nature of co-operatives as institutions for the production of commodities renders them a revolutionary dead end. Even enterprises seized by workers during struggle and turned to cooperative production face a dead end if the broader struggle across society does not continue to move forward.
they still need to turn a profit
Creating surplus value is the goal of all economic activity.
That would be socialism because the power and profit of the company are eventually distributed throughout the workforce regardless of their capital investment.
Everyone is so eager to upheld their extreme positions, that the real work, that need to happen in the middle, by people that work together and are willing to compromise, never gets done.
To be honest, I stopped paying attention years ago. The negative effects of getting pissed by all that stupid shit going on far outweighs the positive change I am able to create. I can't even be sure that my point of view is right. Why even bother...
Ignorance sure can be bliss.
Ignorance sure can be bliss.
If you're privileged enough, meanwhile your ignorance and apathy impact those of us who aren't so lucky.
As for
the real work, that need to happen in the middle, by people that work together and are willing to compromise, never gets done.
I wonder why that might be..
If you could just understand that creating the narrative of you against them doesn't help at all. Don't you see how you are pushing everyone away that doesn't think the same as you?
Now I am the asshole too. What a joke...
A compromise wouldn’t be between the extremists on one side and the rationalists on the other.
It would be between the rationalists on both sides.And being a centrist doesn’t mean you take the exact middle point between two extremists on every issue anyway.
It’s about weighing up the pros and cons of both arguments, and deciding on a solution that minimises the cons of each side.
well maybe don't push them away if you want their help. just sayan
To people using this as a reason to not vote: It's going to be capitalism. You have a choice between free for all capitalism with fuck the environment and fuck the workers (GOP), or regulated capitalism with environmental protections and workers rights (Dems). If you don't vote or vote third party, you just voted for the free for all one.
What fucking dem party are you talking about?
It's not perfect, but it's they best we've been able to make work with so far. What he have right now is unbridled capitalism which isn't good even for those at the top because it will lead to total economic collapse. Capitalism works best under tight regulation. Which we don't have right now.
Yeah yeah, we're fucked
I get accused of being a capitalist in this community/instance for some of the most benign and unrelated shit.
I'm not.
Who the hell is accusing you of owning capital?
Are you sure they're not accusing you of being a liberal?
In the real world, "capitalist" can mean "supporter of capitalism".
From Merriam Webster:
- a person who has capital especially invested in business
- a person who favors capitalism
Insisting that other people use your restricted definition of "capitalist" makes you look like an idiot at best, and a post-truther at worst. And you're being controlling either way. I'll let you determine if those are good or bad qualities.
And I get it -- I used to do the same. But ultimately I decided that I didn't want to be an idiot, a post-truther, or controlling, so I stopped policing other people's language. They don't need to use words the exact same way I do.
Being right-wing isn't even a bad thing. Problems occur if you go too far to the right.
I know its hard to believe these days but nuanced beliefs exist.
Sorry, tankies don't understand nuance.
Probably true, which is why tankies will never be succesful
Lmao. "Capitalism is right wing. Period."
Braindead.
Your eloquent way with words convinced me op is wrong goddamnit. /s in case your braindead ass can't understand sarcasm
Lmao. "Braindead."
Braindead.
You can't regulate or eliminate human greed ... because there will always be a highly motivated, intelligent idiot that thinks they can become King of the Universe.
We just need a way to outlaw billionaires and keep everyone under an upper ceiling of wealth.
It won't solve every problem but regulating wealth will sure allows us to deal with every other problem on the planet rather than the current state we are in.
a highly motivated, intelligent idiot that thinks they can become King of the Universe
In a socialist state, these people become chairman of the council of ministers, general secretary, dear leader, or run the secret police.
So are we now betraying and denying our market socialist brethren?
Where in "market socialist" does "capitalism" fit in?
There is no pro-capitalist Left.
Man, Americans are so confused about how political movements work and it's spreading.
They should just make up words for whatever it is they are trying to categorize, like "Snurfle" or "anti-sploosh" or whatever and let the rest of us keep talking about politics like normal people.
Don't get me wrong, it's not like everybody else doesn't have the classic "socialdemocrats aren't real leftists" nonsense, that part is pretty universal. But at least those guys over here know what the words they're using typically mean.
If you think capitalism is normal, needed, or functional, you don't know the definition of capitalism.
Look, the only reason I don't go around mockingly asking Americans (including purported American leftists) what's a socialist or a social democrat is that fascists have sullied the "define your concept" idea by being transphobes. Don't force my hand.
The hilarious part of this little online LARP thing some Americans like to do is that I've lived with actual, card-carrying communists being a permanent fixture in congress (and at points in government coalitions) and not once have I heard them spout this stuff. Mock socdems for not being lefty enough? Sure. Accuse them of having the same policies as demochristians on this or that? Totally. Argue and infight about one-off issues until they split so much that they become a fizzy foam of personal parties? Constantly.
But this implication that the immediate and sole goal is some hypothetical revolution that is on the cusp of happening via some marginal political action that doesn't involve or need to involve institutional participation? "Capitalism/anticapitalism" as a strict binary where no action shall be taken before the dismantling of the capitalist system? Yeah, not even from the strict anarchists operating exclusively on assemby-based decisionmaking, man. It's like flat Earth stuff, you never know how much of it is genuine human weirdness and how much is trolling.
Uh huh, Denmark is a myth i suppose.
Telling you are US American, without saying so 💩
Denmark is literally a monarchy run by a centrist to center-right government right now.
🥱 it must be exhausting being you.