Those yachts provide jobs for the yacht builders and yacht operators of the world. Society needs these things far more than other things like basic human rights and dignity
Gotcha. I've always seen myself as a centrist, not particularly anti capitalist, just into safety nets and less car centric infrastructure.
Nowadays I get called a commie for talking about public transit, I'm a commie for the work comment, list goes on. I don't buy into your red scare bs guys, if that stuff makes me a commie then I'm a commie les fuckin gooooooo
We do want adress systematic issues, just in the right communities. When i visis memes i wanna see funny memes. In dankmemes i wanna see dank memes. In NCD i wanna see non credible military stuff.
As a Marxist Leninist myself I don’t understand the communists that defend russias part in the Russian—Ukrainian war. Russia hasn’t even been communist since 1989. Youre defending capitalist imperialism.
Weird how much better I feel after ditching the corporate click driven socials. There are cool people to talk to, and I'm very rarely the most reasonable or the most lefty one in any given thread. I always feel like when I am, I'm in the wrong place.
These capitalist and billionaire cocksuckers sure love socialism when they socialise their losses and fucking take our tax payer money to bail themselves out. if you're working class and don't support socialism, you should look into it more. Propaganda from these blood sucking billionaire ghouls have made most of us blind to the better life socialism can offer us.
Yes i agree. Just pointing out the fact there's no free market. When they lose, they still win by taking our hard earned money and using it to further their interests. I'd be happier if it were used for our welfare instead.
Everyone time something controversial is posted, damn I missed out on all the discussion because Blahaj.zone defederated all these capitalist losers so I can just think about being trans and cracking jokes.
I wouldn't call it controversial outside of fediverse. It's dumb tankie takes. In any other sampled population with significant size their opinions would be considered extreme and buried.
And let me be clear, I like socialist programs. But these people are truthers for the left.
Thats still very much generalizing. What this meme essentially says is that if you're a capitalist, you're not part of Lemmy.
On a seperate note, you cant possibly know how many people on Lemmy actually support capitalism or not. It has a left tendency, yes, but I bet the majority of Lemmx users do support caputalidm in some shape or form.
No, it is saying that if you are capitalist, you will get pushed into a corner by downvotes and can't enjoy the discussion as much as everyone else.
As is clearly shown with this comment.
If you actually read the posts made here on Lemmy (and I don't mean the hexbear lemmygrad ones) you should still clearly see a contempt towards the capital class.
The upvote ratio on this comment (which is at 15up to 15down currently) is in no way representative of Lemmy. At best its representative of this specific community ([email protected]).
And you live on your own self-sustaining compound, posting from your open hardware, fabricated in free factories, Libre software OS and applications, with compost-generated power? Didn't think so. Welcome to the gray zone bootlicker.
"If you dont own factories you dont benefit from the system, you should not defend it"
"Oh okay, so you have completely isolated yourself from the system then?"
No, that's not the point, the point is to end the exploitation, not escape it, which is always a fanciful idea as you cannot escape the indirect effects of it. Also do you think almost anyone is capable of doing the things you mentioned? You'd have to be really wealthy to do those things.
You used the wrong quote from yourself. What you quoted from me was a reaction to this gem of a statement:
If you support capitalism and you’re not a capitalist you’re just a bootlicker.
which is black and white, and typical of us-good versus them-bad argument fallacies. If you live and participate in a capitalist system, as the vast majority of humanity does, you are, to some degree, supporting it.
Based on the comments in this thread I take your position to be it's a matter of degree of support. Owning a truck isn't capital, it's apparently got to be a lot to make someone a capitalist. That is not leftist or anti-capitalist, but simply "eat the rich". Most people exist in classes that participate in ways that keep the lower earners below. I do not believe most humans think this great system for all but feel helpless, and participate as a way to simply exist.
Surely spreading insulting, erudite rhetoric in online is not the solution.
Owning a truck isn’t capital, it’s apparently got to be a lot to make someone a capitalist.
Owning a truck for personal transportation is literally personal property, not private property. Can you give me a quick definition according to Marxists of personal and private property?
Because you speak as if you're qualified to define leftist:
That is not leftist or anti-capitalist, but simply “eat the rich”.
I do not believe most humans think this great system for all but feel helpless,
Owning a car is not bourgeois. Owning a business is.
If you could stop going to work tomorrow and still pay your bills because your assets are generating sufficient income to cover your expenses and still accumulate, you're in the capital class. If you trade your time and labour for income and quitting work would mean your resources will get depleted, you're working class.
And if you think that you're not working class because you sit in an office and work on a computer, then that's exactly what the ownership class wants you to believe so you'll be happy with your lot and not rock the boat.
How do you define “capital”? I own a paid-off vehicle. That’s my biggest single asset. Am I therefore evil?
Oh my god, we aren't coming for your toothbrush. The idea that owning anything makes you a capitalist is absurd. We are talking about businesses that alienate workers like yourself from their labor.
Oh, and I’m also a shareholder in my employer. Gasp.
And if you had enough shares to live off of you wouldn't be renting. You're a member of the proletariat, not even the petite bourgeoisie who still have more to gain by overthrowing capitalism.
All this talk is highly dangerous us-vs-them, black-and-white divisive crap that isn’t going to go anywhere productive. Stop it. Grow up.
Maybe instead of being afraid of shadows you should read what socialists actually believe. We believe that the means of production (aka your workplace) should be owned and managed by the workers (you) and not some board who see the business as a paycheck every month (and probably don't understand how it actually functions) overseen by a democratic body to coordinate between businesses. We claim to live in a democracy but nowhere is this more evidently wrong then workplaces, which are almost always run as dictatorships..what little political agency employees exercise has to be won in conflict to the goals of the system.
We oppose land commodification. People, especially children and the elderly, should not be at risk of being evicted from where they live, and if they have income they should just contribute to the collective maintaining and construction of property which is generally 5 percent of income, not 1/3 of a paycheck like it is under capitalism with all the middlemen leeches.
Okay, that at most makes you petite bourgeoisie not haut bourgeoisie. But I'm guessing you can't live off of your passive income so you're still proletariat. You have more in common with the proletariat than not, and you have more to gain by overthrowing capitalism then preserving it.
Yes, the goal posts of definitions created by a guy who has been dead for more than 100 years. Clarifying a misunderstanding on a basic concept of Marxist analysis of capitalism written more than 100 years ago is moving the goalposts.
Also, can you live entirely off your passive income? If not, youre not even petite bourgeoisie.
You wouldn’t be any better off on a socialist system. The people at the top of the party would control everything and the working class would be even poorer than they are now. You’re just licking the left boot instead of the right one.
I'm not a socialist by any means (well, I have been called one by republicans...) but I've always hated this argument. The USSR and China are the only two I'm aware of that weren't massively screwed over in their infancy by the US, and/or (usually and) manipulated by the USSR.
The USSR was literally invaded in its infancy by France Britain and the US. Trust me the USSR was getting fucked with by bourgeois dictatorships since the beginning.
Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos for starters China went from a century of humiliation to a superpower in less then a century thanks to socialism. The USSR was better than the feudalism before it or the dictatorships of the bourgeoisie that came after it by a wide margin. For a place much poorer than the US, they had similar nutrition, better education, more rights for women both legalistically and practically.
Oh, throw in east Germany too. Do you know what the Stasi did to the lgbt movement that they saw as subversive? Destroy it by ending discrimination against gay and trans people, including a massive education campaign to eradicate homophobia and transphobia and state funded gay bars. Compare that to how the US was treating gay people at the time.
Yes, yes. It is cool and subversive to support capitalism, or at least oppose its alternatives.(aka support capitalism) You're part of the cool club of people who act in the interests of the bourgeoisie and not of your own class. A real independent thinker.
(Not that any of us are independent thinkers, but one of us is defending the powers that be and calling the other a chatbot)
You have no idea what systems I support, yet you assume I support capitalism because I didn't agree with you, which says a lot. The only evidence of my beliefs I have provided is that I do not support your approach. Further, I do not believe your rhetoric is a genuine attempt to make the world any better for anyone.
This so much this. Society did a good job brainwashing people into thinking they're capitalists, when really they're just the victims of actual capitalists
Are you able to live comfortably without working for the foreseeable future?
I'm pretty sure that's just a strawman version of capitalism. Plenty of capitalists who had their life's work taken during a communist revolution and were at best told they could come back as a manager worked plenty hard. Didn't save them.
The dictionaries say otherwise. But sure, if "capitalist" just means a person thats very succesful and uses their power for the bad, then they are obviously not good to society but that doesnt make the system of capitalism any worse...
Alright, Im fine with that definition, thanks for clarifying that.
However, if I invest part of my money (eg. into stocks or ETFs) as you do if you want to start saving money, that would make me a capitalist, wouldnt it? Your previous comment kind of made it seem like all capitalists are evil and rich af...
Im not wealthy by any means, though the wealth cant be the deciding factor, can it?
If Im a student with a savings plan (one where you put aside money every month and invest it [not sure if thats the correct Engkish term]) so it grows over time, am I a capitalist in your opinion?
The raw materials of trade and production are fixed quantities so any profit must come from paying the worker less than their labor produces.
The finished product is worth more than what their labour produces, otherwise they could just sell the product themselves. Because the organization, strategy, marketing and the needed capital for all of that are values in itself.
A quick question about that trading example, as far as I know market manipulation is illegal so using that to your advantage wouldnt worky right?
you forgot to show the adjective definition, which is what he is using in his sentence. and you are the one dispensing in petty arguments by continueing the arguement unti you get final say.
Right? There are pros and cons with every system. People disagree based on value judgements not based on misinterpretation of facts. People in their echo chambers will have you believe that everyone on the other side of the political spectrum all thinks the same way “the same people who say X also say Y!” Rarely is that the case. Most people are actually centrists who have their own independent beliefs on a wide range of topics.
Not everyone on my side of the political Spectrum thinks the same way. But if you are pro capitalist. You simply aren't thinking. Capital, markets, and currency. All existed before capitalism. The only thing capitalism did was justify the wealth and power of the wealthy and Powerful Beyond being simply born to wealthy powerful people. Now you get to be a wealthy powerful person by having capital. Which ironically just so happens to be most common among people born too powerful people. New boss same as the old boss. Funny how that works.
I hate capitalism, I just don't know of a better alternative. Nordic socialism is just capitalism with a big government. Soviet socialism failed miserably (it turns out, it is very hard to plan an economy). I have never heard a solid plan for communism that works on a national scale, never mind a plan for transitioning to such a society.
On the other hand, capitalism works reasonably well most of the time and we can just fix issues with it when they crop up (and we have a big backlog of issues to fix).
Capitalism does not work reasonably well most the time. Unchecked it leads to countless busts and Booms that leave the average person destitute. You really should look into the history of the early 20th century. The only reason we even still have capitalism. Is because of two massive world wars. Slaughtering and grinding up many tens of millions of people. As well as passage of basic Social Security nets. We've largely at least abandoned the spirit of. If if not in practice as well.
Capitalism has been a failure at every level. Constantly. That isn't a justification or Praise of leninism. There's a lot of other ideologies on the Socialist side Beyond leninism. And they don't require large National level government. Look into them sometime.
Is there any system that is more fair and/or gives you more freedom? I havent found any.
On a hypothetically completely free capitalist market, I can sell and buy whatever I wish and the value that I get when selling directly correlates to the value I'm bringing to the buyer. If I generated a lot of value, I have more capital so I can also buy more value using that capital. Sounds fantastic in theory.
Yeah of course thats why there are regulations in place. Nobldy would trust that milj seller again though, so for cases that are not as bad as a human life being ended, the system would still work...
Democratic socialism, Social democracy, original libertarianism of the non Rothbard variety, even pragmatic anarchocommunism. As long as they aren't dogmatic ideologues.
A completely free market has never, and will never exist. Further markets, and currency existed before capitalism. Capitalism didn't make them possible. Finally capitalism demands you sell for as much as the market can bare, not what is fair for the value you added. Of which capitalists generally add none. Without labor nothing gets done.
Under capitalism people that generate most of the value get the least of the capital. It's just a more abstract way of defining and justifying oligarchy. Other than Divine Birthright.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all for rewarding people who come up with new processes and ideas to increase efficiency etc. That's not really what capitalism does.
Soviet socialism failed miserably (it turns out, it is very hard to plan an economy).
Did you actually check? Because based on a bunch of metrics I saw the USSR did pretty well compared to the feudalism that came before it and the capitalist "democracy" that came after its illegal and undemocratic dissolution.
I know (and have discussed it with) plenty of people who lived in the former USSR. Everyone I spoke to agreed that it was a mess.
Of course, there is clear selection bias in who I spoke to (they are people I am friendly with and most of them reside outside of Eastern Europe) and all of them only experienced the Soviet system after it had gone through Stalin.
Here is an illustrative anecdote since we are trading those:
I miss free housing, social justice, positive constrictive ideology, bearable work relations (or would it be more proper to say conditions?).
Age is....far above 30.
I admit, I haven't encountered social justice or ideology in my very early ages, but I had opportunity to feel benefits of free housing (since my family got a nice 3bd-room flat in their possession), and...my parents worked much less than I do, and never worked at home.
Note that the people who were adults before its collapse overwhelmingly want it back, and that Russians only supported its continuation back in the 90s referendum at 55ish percent compared to much higher percentages in the non-Russian SSRs.
Uh, no shit. Economic freedom means not being destitute. Of course that makes you happier than not. What are you trying to prove, here? Do you think economic freedom is synonymous with capitalism, or only possible through it?
There are three kinds of lies. Lies, Damned lies, and statistics. First you lose points by linking to a supposed study behind the paywall. Second you lose points by that study being conducted by The Fraser institute. A solidly right wing group. With a less than credible reputation.
I apologize for only attacking the messenger on this. Though that should be enough to dissuade anyone from trusting it. But you didn't link to anything that actually proves your point that we could read to argue against their flawed methodology, definitions, sampling, and data Gathering strategy. I'm sure we could attack and pick apart those endlessly. But I'm not going to pay 30 bucks to do it.
This is a study by an independent researcher from the University of North Dakota. The economic freedom index is published by the Fraser institute. There is no alternative index at this time. Here is a link beyond the paywall.
Here’s a few others as well:
You’re welcome to share your own studies on economic freedom and happiness btw. . I’m “not thinking” yet i am the only one sharing scientific literature.
First their SSL certificate is misconfigured second my DNS here at work is blocking access to it for now.
Second. Economics psychology Etc are not any sort of hard science. They struggle to even show correlation sometimes. Let alone causation. And statistics is certainly not a science in and of it self. Making your confident claim of scientific literature adorably naive at best or wildly spacious at worst.
Combined with the fact that I have strong doubts that this study includes actual honest studies of socialist economic structures. Typically it's just "leninism bad hurt durr". Which I agree with. But Leninism=\=socialism. Did they actually go out and survey communes? Or honestly categorize social democracies? Most of these so-called BS scientific studies don't.
And honestly I could link you any number of studies showing the countries with strong support for labor and protections for labor have a much higher satisfaction than countries that don't. The problem is I don't believe you're being honest. And that that would be a waste of time. But you are welcome to go to Google and search if you're interested.
You seem to be really good at coming up with excuses why you can’t access the data or why the data isn’t admissible for this or that reason. And awfully good at coming up with reasons why you cannot produce any data. Too much so IMO for someone that makes the claim of others of being intellectually dishonest and that they cannot think for themselves.
But it’s okay. Why don’t we just agree to disagree? That was my original point. Some people have centrists views on the economy where they believe in socially progressive causes, free markets and strong institutions. That this view is both rational and supported by data. That disagreements are based not on misinterpretation of facts but on differences in values.
All you have to do is go find people who came from nothing and built themselves a good, comfortable life. Ask them what they did to be successful. Decide whether you're willing to do that amount of work - then do it, or don't.
I don't understand why this is so complicated for people... You don't need money to be content with your station in life. I was happy when I was young and poor, and I'm happy when I'm late 30's and solidly upper middle class. Maybe I'll make the millions someday with a great idea, and maybe I won't.
I don't care about billionaires as long as they keep signing my 6-figure paychecks. Better than the $5/day I got bailing hay as a kid on the farm where I grew up.
Define nothing. And then Define wealthy. Then we'll talk. Bill Gates did not build from nothing. Jeff Bezos did not start from nothing. Elon Musk did not start from nothing. Harlan Crow did not start from nothing. The Koch brothers did not start from nothing. The Mercers did not start from nothing. Peter Thiel did not start from nothing. Mitt Romney did not start from nothing.
A ton of people who pretend to start from nothing. Started out with more access and resources than many people could imagine. More than many people will ever see personally in their lifetime.
No one making minimum wage in the United States can afford their rent anywhere in the United states. Millennials and younger are struggling to even buy homes or be financially secure. Most Americans are a single emergency medical or otherwise from being bankrupt. It's the biggest indicator of your future wealth and success is who you were born to.
The reason you don't understand why this is so complicated for people. Is because you don't understand the basic supposition being made. Most people don't and that's the problem. The fact that most people use the phrase "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" out of context and unironically should be a massive indicator of how uneducated people are on the subject. But everyone is capable of understanding if they want to. Please do some reading on the subject. Even a small amount. It won't take much to help get you up to speed.
I expected you to be a pro-capitalist shill but then you pull out this. Bravo. I misjudged you. Going back to where you said you support capitalism, I think your idea of capitalism is just outside the bullseye. Like you obviously understand a lot, I don't need to explain much to you. I think your inaccuracy comes from linking currency with capitalism, which a lot of people do. They're not the same thing. Keeping in mind I'm going to keep things in the most basic terms, capitalism, socialism, communism, are all different forms of distributive justice. Capitalism says, whomever contributes the most capital to an endeavor deserves the most distribution, labour is just a cost. Socialism says, whomever contributes labour deserves the most distribution, and communism says everyone deserves equal distribution regardless of labour and capital. You're really close to the bullseye though, so close I'm not sure my comment is even worthwhile.
think your inaccuracy comes from linking currency with capitalism, which a lot of people do.
To quoth my first post in this thread.
Capital, markets, and currency. All existed before capitalism.
Also, I'm generally anticapitalist. Perhaps you meant to reply to someone else? I'm of the school that thinks we should abolish the concept of unlimited private property in favor of something like personal property with much more reasonable limits. And think capitalism should only be allowed with regards to unique items that aren't generally "necessary" for society. Paintings, tchotchkes, etc.
Also your definition of communism is a bit exclusive of actual Libertarians and anarcho-communist. Isn't it? I think you are referencing leninist theory? Which has never held up in practice. The rest of it though generally tracks.
I just want you to know - you have Asperger's syndrome. (entirely unrelated to your points - all of which are objectively wrong and don't warrant a response.)
You wanted me to get up to speed - but you may not have been aware you are slow... Hope this helps.
No, I'm not opposed to them... I just don't support them. They can support themselves, and I can support myself just fine. I make more money from them than I would without them, and they make money from me they wouldn't have otherwise had my skillset to access easily.
I've never been forced to take any job... I just manage my skillset in such a way that makes it both rare and valuable. I've worn many hats over the years, and I just play the game instead of bitching about the rules Worked out great for me and my family so far. I'll even have some to leave my kids so they don't have as hard of a time reaching even higher than I have. That's the whole point, for me: make my kids' life better than mine, and I've done that so far.
No, I’m not opposed to them… I just don’t support them.
It doesn't work like that. They are in power, and by not opposing them, you consent to their continued power.
I make more money from them than I would without them,
That isn't even close to true. Capitalist extraction of surplus value is exactly how they make their profits. If they paid you the value you made them, they wouldn't have a profit. If they weren't there to extract that value, you and your fellow workers would make more - it's basic mathematics.
and they make money from me they wouldn’t have otherwise had my skillset to access easily.
This part is true, yes.
I’ve never been forced to take any job…
So, you're saying you're able to retire right now and never work again?
I just play the game instead of bitching about the rules
That's a slave mindset.
That’s the whole point, for me: make my kids’ life better than mine, and I’ve done that so far.
That's cool you can think that small and that selfishly. Others, however, realise you could be living even better, and everyone else, including those with nothing, could have that standard of living, too, if we stop being complacent with mere crumbs.
That's what you have. Mere crumbs of luxury. It's great that you're not on the street, but that is an incredibly low standard to have.
Just because you don't agree doesn't make it any less true. How do you refute it? It's a basic mathematical truth. It's literally impossible for a capitalist to pay you the value you brought them, without them going broke.
Read: "I only subscribe to the economics of the oppressor class. If they refuse to accept a basic mathematical truth that implies bad things about them, so do I!"
Markets are nothing more than voluntary association. Most, if not every "obscenely rich" person got this rich because of govt interference (lobbying, govt sanctioned monopoly, corporate welfare, subsidies, etc.)
"Organic" market economy would be beneficial to everyone
Fairness is subjective. To me it means: everyone is free to do what they like WITHOUT invading anybody elses freedom; if a person performs well, they should be rewarded well; everyone should have the same initial possibilities in life.
The version of capitalism I was talking about is capitalism with a regulated market. Basic needs should be covered (except if you refuse to contributr anything at all). Im pretty happy with the "social market economy" in Germany where I currently live.
everyone is free to do what they like WITHOUT invading anybody elses freedom
But how am I gonna get someone to work for me without invading their freedom to choose to do what they want?
Hell no, man. No one will work at my shop if they're allowed to do what they want.
Basic needs should be covered (except if you refuse to contributr anything at all).
Fuck yeah man! That's how we do it! That's what gets people working for me - the threat that not doing so will put 'em on the street! That's what I'm talkin' about!
The reason China has similar policies is because socialism/communism doesn't work without a capitalist cow to milk.
Do you understand what capitalism is relative to socialism/communism? That the entire premise is that no person owns the means of production, and therefore has zero stake in its success beyond their immediate involvement? How do you motivate people to reach for more, innovate, and strive for greatness when there is no semblance of capitalist enterprise? Nationalist pride? Do you threaten them? How many of the hundreds of examples do you need to see that this does not work?
Star Trek is a beautiful concept on paper - but that's the problem: as soon as you add humans, it goes to shit. Just look at the Hamas/Israel nonsense. Hamas literally does not care about their lives or children's lives... The civilians are literally putting out videos stating they will intentionally put themselves under incoming bombs "because this is how we will prove your brutality".
There's no chance as long as society has free will. There's just no way for anything else to work in the long run.
How do you motivate people to reach for more, he asks, on a platform that is literally developed for free. Have you ever thought that people do certain things because they like them ? I see not every job is likable tho. But that's a different problem, we can try to solve by technology. I know my opinion is also biased but in the end we should try to a bit more open minded.
That is definitely not the flex you thought it was.
Yes, lots of individuals so lots of fun individual things that can be done by individuals for free - hell, you might even find enough people to do an entire open source project!
But guess what?
Those people have actual jobs. You're pointing at hobbies that only exist because free time is afforded by decent jobs.
Real talk. Socialism works great for much of europe. Look into england, austria, pretty much any Scandinavian country they all have programs and systems focused on supporting workers. That they would never give up.
Second are we talking Big C or little c communism. They are different things. And you are wrong immediately off the bat. Under communism which is not defined as socialism in its entirety. No single person owns the means of production. But people do own the means of production. Under big C communism, let's call it what it is leninism. They have a warped and twisted definition of who the people are. Expanding it out to a single Nationwide party and that party's dictatorial leader. That's very different from communism. Under communism the workers own the means of production. Meaning that if you work in a factory. As a worker of the factory you own a piece of, and have a stake in the factory and its success.
If people require capitalism to motivate them to strive for more. How did we get where we are? Capitalism has only existed a few hundred years. Human history goes back tens of thousands of years. How does that work? Because it really seems like we don't need capitalism for that. And there's no evidence showing that communism hinders it either. You do realize that even under the warped leninism that the Soviets used. They industrialized, expanded, had scientific and technological progress alongside the rest of the world. That doesn't excuse the atrocities that they committed or the capitalists have committed. But that sure doesn't seem like it puts a damper on striving for more etc.
And if human nature is the biggest roadblock to socialism as you say it is. It's just as big or bigger a roadblock to capitalism. Your argument against socialism is more of an argument against capitalism. Think about that. I think you mean well. But I also think you have very little idea about what you're talking about. Which isn't an insult. When it comes to some Western Nations and especially the united states. We are washed in propaganda and purposefully miseducated.
It's literally the only thing you have that's even close. But you wouldn't give it up. It's certainly not a capitalist system. Prove how capitalist you are though. Give it up for a system like America's if you think it's so adorable.
Strictly speaking universal healthcare isn't socialist. But it is a logical outcome of socialist policy.
You've left an anti-China warmongering echo chamber for a place where moderation isn't predicated on silencing dissent against the west. The people you describe as 'pro-China' bots have plenty of issues with Chinese policy decisions. Accepting that the USA and capitalism more generally are evil forces in world politics are not state generated.
How is that an attack? The petite bourgeoisie generally have more to gain from joining the proletariat in the class struggle, and almost none of them have caused suffering at a scale that justifies the same attitude had towards the haut bourgeoisie. (Now people who own multiple car dealerships on the other hand)
It is only an attack if you think being a massive leech on society like Musk or Bezos is a good thing.
You also have less influence on the world around you than your farts. You have crumbs and you think you're in charge because the people below you are worse off. You're not going to have control until you organize together with the people on your side of the class conflict.
Grew up on a farm, had no help, just decided to go get what I wanted like literally any and all Americans can. Like I said, first kid was born on Medicaid, we were on welfare for a couple years... Got a full time job at best buy... worked through community college, got off welfare... Took me about 11 years to get that first nice paycheck job where it takes others 4...but, that's ok. Can't control everything in life, live and learn.
Just use the available programs, and get off of them as soon as possible so you can start contributing more than you took from them. It's pretty easy if you just do it as a matter of principle. I received, now I give back. Once I've returned some orders of magnitude of what supported me, I can focus on what I leave behind.
The fact that it was harder for me than it is for others doesn't make me bitter or anything... I'll just make it easier for my kids on the next go-round. It's all good.
I think you took a statement about your class position as an insult. But I want to clarify, if you stopped working tomorrow would you have enough income for the rest of your life? If not, youre a member of the proletariat. If you could, youre petite bourgeoisie. You operate under capitalist logic but don't have enough power to actually exercise control over the wider context your business exists in. You would be a small fish at the mercy of being eaten by larger fish. Better to not live in a system where anyone is a fish.
Capitalists need workers to oppress. Without them, they would have nothing to give them a feeling of superiority. Mincing people into fertilizer would surely be a fun pastime for the rich, but it's hardly a sustainable hobby
You have a rather one dimensional moustache twirling view of the world. Let me guess, communism is the one stop solves all problems in the world solution without any negative side effects?
You do understand that that is not how the world works, or for that matter, how anything works?
Seriously, your comment is plain nonsense. Yes, captialism has a shitload of issues. Yes, there are rich and abusive people out there. Yes, communism is responsible for countless millions of deaths and tortured...
Instead of making up weird fantasies, how about to try to come up with an idea that would actually make things better?
Thinking about how to make the world better starts with fantasizing, and moves on to theorizing and debating ideas. Calling the many decades of socialist and communist thought just fantasies goes beyond all reason. At this point you're just ragebaiting. This is not how you talk to people.
Communism as Marx described, has to do more with the complete automatization of the means of production, and the subsequently change of the structure of society, as a result of post scarcity.
Remember that just past Mars humanity has a near infinite repository of resources, it's only on this earth that we are subjected to the rat race, when we have the wealth of the universe so close.
You may think that I'm dreaming, but if we let capital unchecked, it will destroy us, and destroy earth. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
I am all in favor for heavily regulated and checked capitalism. Like it or not, its the most successful system and it can be a source for good when heavily regulated and used as an input source for a socialist system that takes care of all.
You have, maybe 2k users here, defederate a new insurance a day, and users are constantly finding lack of content; but yeah it's the normal user who is quite in the corner 🤣
For the anti-capitalists, I have a genuine question (sorry, I couldn't find an "ask a commie" community):
In the capitalist system there is a movement called Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) where people commit to living frugally in an effort to maximize savings and investments. The goal is to achieve a balance that allows you live off a safe withdrawal rate (around 3.5-4%) and then leave the workforce at an earlier than normal age. Some people commit to a life of minimalism and lean-FIRE with under $20k in investment income per year. I believe there is significant overlap with the van-life crowd and other nomadic lifestyles.
Is this lifestyle compatible with, or is there a similar lifestyle within a communist system? To expand, can those with a different set of priorities trade away their later working days in exchange for less material things?
Wealth redistribution is good. Socialism definitely could end up being better than capitalism with the right implementation and regulations. A socialist revolution is a bad idea; wealth redistribution can be implemented in capitalism. Lobbying is real, but voting still makes a difference. Vote in more than just the presidential election and canvas for issues or politicians you support. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
All the generally established capitalist wiggleroom like minimum wages, paid holiday, affordable health care, education instead of manual labour for children etc were established by massive strikes and (threats of) violent masses.
I don't really get what you mean by wiggle room. Also are you implying that all positive change related to workers rights entirely centered around strikes/violence without any action by the government?
Governments acted only when forced to by people organizing outside of established politics. Voting has had little to do with true progress, it's a lie told to stifle organization.
Isn't that the point of unions? To have leverage over the place you work so they have to treat you right? Strikes and protests are a good way to raise awareness and pressure higher ups to act, but if you don't vote in the goverment system than you have no real leverage over the people who speak for you.
True progress? What about gay marriage being legalized across the US? What about the cops who killed George Floyd being convicted of murder? That isn't "true" progress?
Yes there have been steps back like Roe V Wade, but progress is not a continuous upward trend in the short term. But I'm pretty sure abortion is not a settled matter in the US and a lot of people don't want it.
You think the George Floyd case was a good example of electoral politics?! That's actually more of a point of organizing outside of party politics. Your point of gay marriage is better, but honestly in my mind that has more to do with brave queer folk living their lives and normalizing it than any politician.
Yeah the George Floyd riots did not help that it was very polarizing. What? The point is progress was made through the political system. Yes it was normalized, but those situations are not in opposition to eachother. Usually things become socially acceptable and then they become more legally acceptable.
You think the issues that are present in todays system are equivalent to slavery? Yes working conditions are a crap shoot, but its not slavery we at least have some safety net systems in place. Also, unions seem to do a pretty good job in places they are implemented.
Unions are not an inherent part of capitalism. Capitalism is anti-unions by default, the acceptance of unions is called the 'social peace': the one and only reason unions are accepted by the capitalists is the unions threat of mass strike and violence. All the social policy good sides to capitalism were forced upon the system by organised workers. If a capitalist can employ a 12 year old for less than the price of a decent meal a day, they will. And they do. It's only because of pressure from unions and their threat of mass strike and violence that this is no longer allowed in somewhat developed countries.
Unions arent an inherent part of capitalism, but they are present in our system and I want that presence to expand. I consider strikes and protests as part of the system. Protesting is a protected right in the US. Yeah I don't know what to tell you, but we do have political power. The votes that are cast are generally reflected in the policy. Why do you think corporations bother making propaganda? They need to make sure people vote the way they want because even corporations understand the influence individuals can have on their business. Change has been and will continue to be made within the system. Does that mean violence will never occur? No. It will, but that violences effect is mostly reflected in the awareness/stance on a issue. Violence is very polarizing. Who was more effective; Martin Luther King or Malcolm X?
progress isnt a continous upward climb in the short term. In the 90s crime shot up and no gay marriage soooo. We can definitely go farther with capitalism like with higher taxes on the rich, minimum base income, etc. Voting does matter, if you dont vote you have no leverage over those who speak for you.
How has it reached its limit? I just gave two examples of ways it can improve. Voting for the president is not the only thing you can do. You can canvas for politicians or issues you believe in and vote in other levels of the government. I don't get the sentiment of voting doesnt matter so we wont vote. Its a self fulfilling prophecy. We are not heading to hell on earth because there are a lot of people more informed than either of us working on solving all different kinds of issues. I dont understand blaming capitalism for everything. It completely hand waives the nuance of situations and how we can realistically improve them.
Capitalism can never work, because it's self defeating. The point of capitalism is to maximize immediate profits, nothing else - as a result, it will gladly destroy its own means of growth if as a result instant profits increase.
But it's working, many are happy. If you're unhappy it's probably your fault and not the fault of the system you are living in. Take ownership of your situation and improve it.
20 percent of children in the US are food insecure and we have the largest prison industrial complex on the planet. If I had a shittier job and broke my leg I would end up homeless. My cousin who can't hold down a job due to a chronic illness would die on the streets if she didn't have family support. But yeah the system works.
Sounds like a lack of compassion in your family. Just build a unit and live together, makes live easier if you support each other. But no the system is the problem! Some people would be always losers, regardless the system.
What about disabled people who have no family? What about people who have family that can't support them financially? What about people who can't afford to build a unit? The system is the problem. We are more insulated from it then most.
Because if you were spreading dangerous ideas like Unions and livable pay, they would stand to lose a lot more than whatever profit you were generating.
Tell me how you don't know the difference between corporatocracy and capitalism without telling me how you don't know the difference between corporatocracy and capitalism.
To expand...one of the biggest goals of a capitalist is increasing profit. What better way to do this than to take over and manipulate the government of whatever state you're operating in to cut you special breaks? It's the pinnacle of capitalist achievement.
You create laws to regulate it...the capitalists will manipulate them and control your government anyways.
You loosen regulations to "promote competition" or whatever excuse they use, and then there's nothing stopping them from fucking you even harder. Capitalism and the state are always intertwined, one feeds off the other. Even the Soviet Union was sometimes said to be "state capitalist", where basically the entire country was under control of one "corporation".
capitalist apologists love to invent new terms like “corporatism” and “crony capitalism” that basically just mean “every problem with capitalism”. they then say “capitalism isn’t the problem, the problem is crony capitalism” which makes about as much sense as saying “capitalism isn’t the problem, the problem is all of capitalism’s problems”.
One person has a limit to the complexity that they can control. You need the masses and a working state to control other billionaires. Only then will you be able reach new levels of complex production processes that allow to do new things.
Of course, for some it is fulfilling to just be at the top.
Sorry, but I don't love the taste of the boot of the monopoly of violence (the State) and it's robbery (taxation), mass murder (war) and slavery (conscription).
Bureaucracy, corruption, FIAT money, intellectual property, common goods, the welfare state... The idea of an oligarchy of politicians controlling and regulating the economy and our private lifes in the name of "democracy" and "the common good" is actually helping those billionaries we BOTH hate so much.
Social democracy is practically the same thing as corporatocracy, but with a little of populism. On the other hand, "any step toward socialism is a step toward economic irrationality".
Thanks for calling me on the shoddy rhetoric. The person I was replying to claims to have a family while themselves providing a typical teenage retort, thereby failing to act maturely, which is what one would expect from a decent parent. Any better? Still too ad hominem?
who said anything about ad hominems? or shoddy rhetoric? you're calling them a teenager while using the phrase "speaks for itself", which is a pretty immature phrase. And then you dress up your language for the reply to me to sound more mature? sounds like someone who's stuck in adolescence and pining for "adulthood" to me.
Not quite, I made a bland general comment to troll on a bland general post. My intention was to trigger some commies. Judging by the comments I’d say it was a success.
I love it when these people burn themselves by being stupid, annoying pricks. If they get enough negative feedback, they just say they were “triggering” people on purpose. Then they congratulate themselves on their brilliant, flawless, and totally original tactics. It’s the same routine every goddam time.
I can appreciate a joke at my expense if it’s even remotely clever, but this is just pathetic and tired. It’s 2023, ffs. Somebody needs to come up with a new trolling script.
I hope that these are young kids who will outgrow this shit and move on. I know that’s not true in every case, though.
My man, capital was expended developing the technology underpinning those devices. It was expended building the tools and sourcing the materials that went onto the device that the workers built. Capital was expended paying the workers for the time they took making the devices and bringing the device to market to sell.
Labor and capital are needed to function. Both can be true at the same time.
The capitalists invest their profits in new ventures. Good capitalists choose often what is needed, bad capitalists constantly lose money and stop being capitalists.
You want to reward good decisions. So those with profitable investments should get all returns so that they can make more good investments.
So don't set a limit but tax their income proportionally.
That capital is created by the workers. It is extracted from them unjustly by capitalists, and then they claim they are responsible for the creation of everything just because they direct that stolen capital.
And why should they? What makes investors special beyond "having lots of money"
Why should workers forfeit their labor at a fraction of its actual value to line the accounts of people who won the birth lottery?
Investors did not invent the product, they did not design it's manufacturing process, they did not acquire materials or even the land upon which the factory is built. And yet, they reap all the profits.
And in this merchant-style sort of economy, the rich weren't an order of magnitude richer than the poor, and profiting off their backs?
FFS, monkeys quickly figure out how to trade "money" for sex. World's oldest profession anyone? We're no different. Capitalism just perfected it.
Capitalism is just dandy, with some serious government oversight. Problem being, how do you stop the overseers from getting rich legislating the oversight? Same problem in any economic policy.
Kinda funny thought I had in my 20's. The only way to truly get rich is by getting other people working for you. Never pursued that line of work, just not me, can't do it. But it's still true and always will be, no matter the economics.
Wow, this one touched some nerves.
I’d recommend posting a tangentially political meme at some point on Lemmy.
The amount of people who will come out of the woodwork to tell you ‘don’t post this’ and ‘don’t make things political’ will really be eye opening.
People don’t want to address systemic issues and think not talking about them is a viable solution.
Just making comments about rich people and their taxes seems to do the same thing here.
Don't even have to go THAT far, I get called a commie for saying a 40 hour work week should provide basic shelter these days. 🤷
If we want to live in boring reality, it doesn't happen a LOT but way more than it should.
Being able to afford rent takes yachts away from starving billionaires!
Those yachts provide jobs for the yacht builders and yacht operators of the world. Society needs these things far more than other things like basic human rights and dignity
I mean that was and is a basic communist agitating point, you might be closer to a communist than you think.
I don't know if this is supposed to be snarky or not but I've accepted a while ago that I'm definitely some version of "leftist."
I don't see myself that way necessarily but capitalists are drawing their line in the sand so far to the right that it is what it is lmao
It was meant to be snarky as in laughing with you not at you.
Gotcha. I've always seen myself as a centrist, not particularly anti capitalist, just into safety nets and less car centric infrastructure.
Nowadays I get called a commie for talking about public transit, I'm a commie for the work comment, list goes on. I don't buy into your red scare bs guys, if that stuff makes me a commie then I'm a commie les fuckin gooooooo
We do want adress systematic issues, just in the right communities. When i visis memes i wanna see funny memes. In dankmemes i wanna see dank memes. In NCD i wanna see non credible military stuff.
That's the issue
this was a funny meme to me thanks
Yeah, because we don't particularly fancy being lectured by teenagers on the Internet.
You know a lot of us are adults, right?
Lemmy's userbase is more adults compared to Reddit
This from the guy on a Leninist instance. Peak irony.
'You are younger than me and therefore know nothing.' Can't argue with that there.
Ah the old deflect to a straw man argument. I never insinuated your age.
How is a meme a lecture?
It's not, this just isn't a meme
meme
Where are all of you "NoT a MeMe" types when lazy fascist shit gets posted? 🤔
Or because you defend Russias imperialism.
I found that Lemmy tends to be pretty non-tankie which as an anarchist, I like
As a Marxist Leninist myself I don’t understand the communists that defend russias part in the Russian—Ukrainian war. Russia hasn’t even been communist since 1989. Youre defending capitalist imperialism.
Weird how much better I feel after ditching the corporate click driven socials. There are cool people to talk to, and I'm very rarely the most reasonable or the most lefty one in any given thread. I always feel like when I am, I'm in the wrong place.
These capitalist and billionaire cocksuckers sure love socialism when they socialise their losses and fucking take our tax payer money to bail themselves out. if you're working class and don't support socialism, you should look into it more. Propaganda from these blood sucking billionaire ghouls have made most of us blind to the better life socialism can offer us.
That isnt socialism, thats the capitalist state doing its job of protecting capital. Socialism is when the proletariat own the means of production.
Yes i agree. Just pointing out the fact there's no free market. When they lose, they still win by taking our hard earned money and using it to further their interests. I'd be happier if it were used for our welfare instead.
Id argue that the free market incentivizes the capture of politicians but I think we are on the same side here.
You think you are arguing with the people accepting handouts on lemmy?
Everyone time something controversial is posted, damn I missed out on all the discussion because Blahaj.zone defederated all these capitalist losers so I can just think about being trans and cracking jokes.
Honestly if this meme passes for controversial then the world has gotten a whole lot more lame.
Omg you are so right 😮💨
I wouldn't call it controversial outside of fediverse. It's dumb tankie takes. In any other sampled population with significant size their opinions would be considered extreme and buried.
And let me be clear, I like socialist programs. But these people are truthers for the left.
They’re not capitalists, they’re workers with Stockholm syndrome
Or bootlickers, don’t forget them!
So everybody on Lemmy is non-capitalist is what you're saying?
A large proportion of Lemmy are not pro-capitalist, yes.
Thats still very much generalizing. What this meme essentially says is that if you're a capitalist, you're not part of Lemmy.
On a seperate note, you cant possibly know how many people on Lemmy actually support capitalism or not. It has a left tendency, yes, but I bet the majority of Lemmx users do support caputalidm in some shape or form.
No, it is saying that if you are capitalist, you will get pushed into a corner by downvotes and can't enjoy the discussion as much as everyone else.
As is clearly shown with this comment.
If you actually read the posts made here on Lemmy (and I don't mean the hexbear lemmygrad ones) you should still clearly see a contempt towards the capital class.
The upvote ratio on this comment (which is at 15up to 15down currently) is in no way representative of Lemmy. At best its representative of this specific community ([email protected]).
Does anyone here own capital? As in being haut bourgeoisie? Probably not.
If you support capitalism and you're not a capitalist you're just a bootlicker.
And you live on your own self-sustaining compound, posting from your open hardware, fabricated in free factories, Libre software OS and applications, with compost-generated power? Didn't think so. Welcome to the gray zone bootlicker.
"If you dont own factories you dont benefit from the system, you should not defend it"
"Oh okay, so you have completely isolated yourself from the system then?"
No, that's not the point, the point is to end the exploitation, not escape it, which is always a fanciful idea as you cannot escape the indirect effects of it. Also do you think almost anyone is capable of doing the things you mentioned? You'd have to be really wealthy to do those things.
You used the wrong quote from yourself. What you quoted from me was a reaction to this gem of a statement:
which is black and white, and typical of us-good versus them-bad argument fallacies. If you live and participate in a capitalist system, as the vast majority of humanity does, you are, to some degree, supporting it.
Based on the comments in this thread I take your position to be it's a matter of degree of support. Owning a truck isn't capital, it's apparently got to be a lot to make someone a capitalist. That is not leftist or anti-capitalist, but simply "eat the rich". Most people exist in classes that participate in ways that keep the lower earners below. I do not believe most humans think this great system for all but feel helpless, and participate as a way to simply exist.
Surely spreading insulting, erudite rhetoric in online is not the solution.
Owning a truck for personal transportation is literally personal property, not private property. Can you give me a quick definition according to Marxists of personal and private property?
Because you speak as if you're qualified to define leftist:
That is capitalist realism for you.
Does anyone here own capital? As in being haut bourgeoisie? Probably not.
If you support capitalism and you're not a capitalist you're just a bootlicker.
Owning a car is not bourgeois. Owning a business is.
If you could stop going to work tomorrow and still pay your bills because your assets are generating sufficient income to cover your expenses and still accumulate, you're in the capital class. If you trade your time and labour for income and quitting work would mean your resources will get depleted, you're working class.
And if you think that you're not working class because you sit in an office and work on a computer, then that's exactly what the ownership class wants you to believe so you'll be happy with your lot and not rock the boat.
Oh my god, we aren't coming for your toothbrush. The idea that owning anything makes you a capitalist is absurd. We are talking about businesses that alienate workers like yourself from their labor.
And if you had enough shares to live off of you wouldn't be renting. You're a member of the proletariat, not even the petite bourgeoisie who still have more to gain by overthrowing capitalism.
Maybe instead of being afraid of shadows you should read what socialists actually believe. We believe that the means of production (aka your workplace) should be owned and managed by the workers (you) and not some board who see the business as a paycheck every month (and probably don't understand how it actually functions) overseen by a democratic body to coordinate between businesses. We claim to live in a democracy but nowhere is this more evidently wrong then workplaces, which are almost always run as dictatorships..what little political agency employees exercise has to be won in conflict to the goals of the system.
We oppose land commodification. People, especially children and the elderly, should not be at risk of being evicted from where they live, and if they have income they should just contribute to the collective maintaining and construction of property which is generally 5 percent of income, not 1/3 of a paycheck like it is under capitalism with all the middlemen leeches.
Yes, I probably have assets valued at .5-1M that I've accumulated with my family.
Okay, that at most makes you petite bourgeoisie not haut bourgeoisie. But I'm guessing you can't live off of your passive income so you're still proletariat. You have more in common with the proletariat than not, and you have more to gain by overthrowing capitalism then preserving it.
👌👍
Keep moving those goal posts.
Yes, the goal posts of definitions created by a guy who has been dead for more than 100 years. Clarifying a misunderstanding on a basic concept of Marxist analysis of capitalism written more than 100 years ago is moving the goalposts.
Also, can you live entirely off your passive income? If not, youre not even petite bourgeoisie.
👌
The quality content I've come to expect from lemmy.world users.
You wouldn’t be any better off on a socialist system. The people at the top of the party would control everything and the working class would be even poorer than they are now. You’re just licking the left boot instead of the right one.
This is empirically untrue, but also just nonsense. Politicians do not have the same class relationship as capitalists with the proletariat.
Oh I’m sorry i didn’t realize there was empirical evidence for socialism. Please send me a link to some of these successful socialist societies.
I'm not a socialist by any means (well, I have been called one by republicans...) but I've always hated this argument. The USSR and China are the only two I'm aware of that weren't massively screwed over in their infancy by the US, and/or (usually and) manipulated by the USSR.
Then you shouldn’t go around saying it’s “empirically true” because at best there is no evidence.
I've literally cited evidence before you left this comment lmao.
The USSR was literally invaded in its infancy by France Britain and the US. Trust me the USSR was getting fucked with by bourgeois dictatorships since the beginning.
Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos for starters China went from a century of humiliation to a superpower in less then a century thanks to socialism. The USSR was better than the feudalism before it or the dictatorships of the bourgeoisie that came after it by a wide margin. For a place much poorer than the US, they had similar nutrition, better education, more rights for women both legalistically and practically.
Oh, throw in east Germany too. Do you know what the Stasi did to the lgbt movement that they saw as subversive? Destroy it by ending discrimination against gay and trans people, including a massive education campaign to eradicate homophobia and transphobia and state funded gay bars. Compare that to how the US was treating gay people at the time.
Dang, for a moment I considered that you might have independent thoughts. This LemmtGradChatGPT BS ruined it.
Yes, yes. It is cool and subversive to support capitalism, or at least oppose its alternatives.(aka support capitalism) You're part of the cool club of people who act in the interests of the bourgeoisie and not of your own class. A real independent thinker.
(Not that any of us are independent thinkers, but one of us is defending the powers that be and calling the other a chatbot)
You have no idea what systems I support, yet you assume I support capitalism because I didn't agree with you, which says a lot. The only evidence of my beliefs I have provided is that I do not support your approach. Further, I do not believe your rhetoric is a genuine attempt to make the world any better for anyone.
Oh, so you are an anticommunist "leftist" then?
Edit: your post history seems to indicate you're a social democrat, which is just capitalism with a welfare state. Aka capitalism.
I mean... I'm a capitalist who doesn't defend billionaires and also doesn't feel left out... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I do not agree with you, gayhitler420. That sounds as polarized as US politics.
Does lemmy.ml/c/rimjob_steve exist yet?
Edit: nope :(
This so much this. Society did a good job brainwashing people into thinking they're capitalists, when really they're just the victims of actual capitalists
I'm pretty sure that's just a strawman version of capitalism. Plenty of capitalists who had their life's work taken during a communist revolution and were at best told they could come back as a manager worked plenty hard. Didn't save them.
Oxford English Dictionary defines a capitalism as :
a person who supports capitalism
a person who owns or controls a lot of wealth and uses it to produce more wealth
The dictionaries say otherwise. But sure, if "capitalist" just means a person thats very succesful and uses their power for the bad, then they are obviously not good to society but that doesnt make the system of capitalism any worse...
Alright, Im fine with that definition, thanks for clarifying that.
However, if I invest part of my money (eg. into stocks or ETFs) as you do if you want to start saving money, that would make me a capitalist, wouldnt it? Your previous comment kind of made it seem like all capitalists are evil and rich af...
Im not wealthy by any means, though the wealth cant be the deciding factor, can it?
If Im a student with a savings plan (one where you put aside money every month and invest it [not sure if thats the correct Engkish term]) so it grows over time, am I a capitalist in your opinion?
The finished product is worth more than what their labour produces, otherwise they could just sell the product themselves. Because the organization, strategy, marketing and the needed capital for all of that are values in itself.
A quick question about that trading example, as far as I know market manipulation is illegal so using that to your advantage wouldnt worky right?
you forgot to show the adjective definition, which is what he is using in his sentence. and you are the one dispensing in petty arguments by continueing the arguement unti you get final say.
Right? There are pros and cons with every system. People disagree based on value judgements not based on misinterpretation of facts. People in their echo chambers will have you believe that everyone on the other side of the political spectrum all thinks the same way “the same people who say X also say Y!” Rarely is that the case. Most people are actually centrists who have their own independent beliefs on a wide range of topics.
Not everyone on my side of the political Spectrum thinks the same way. But if you are pro capitalist. You simply aren't thinking. Capital, markets, and currency. All existed before capitalism. The only thing capitalism did was justify the wealth and power of the wealthy and Powerful Beyond being simply born to wealthy powerful people. Now you get to be a wealthy powerful person by having capital. Which ironically just so happens to be most common among people born too powerful people. New boss same as the old boss. Funny how that works.
I hate capitalism, I just don't know of a better alternative. Nordic socialism is just capitalism with a big government. Soviet socialism failed miserably (it turns out, it is very hard to plan an economy). I have never heard a solid plan for communism that works on a national scale, never mind a plan for transitioning to such a society.
On the other hand, capitalism works reasonably well most of the time and we can just fix issues with it when they crop up (and we have a big backlog of issues to fix).
Capitalism does not work reasonably well most the time. Unchecked it leads to countless busts and Booms that leave the average person destitute. You really should look into the history of the early 20th century. The only reason we even still have capitalism. Is because of two massive world wars. Slaughtering and grinding up many tens of millions of people. As well as passage of basic Social Security nets. We've largely at least abandoned the spirit of. If if not in practice as well.
Capitalism has been a failure at every level. Constantly. That isn't a justification or Praise of leninism. There's a lot of other ideologies on the Socialist side Beyond leninism. And they don't require large National level government. Look into them sometime.
Is there any system that is more fair and/or gives you more freedom? I havent found any.
On a hypothetically completely free capitalist market, I can sell and buy whatever I wish and the value that I get when selling directly correlates to the value I'm bringing to the buyer. If I generated a lot of value, I have more capital so I can also buy more value using that capital. Sounds fantastic in theory.
In an unregulated free market, you could buy milk, drink it and fucking die because it had poison in it.
Yeah of course thats why there are regulations in place. Nobldy would trust that milj seller again though, so for cases that are not as bad as a human life being ended, the system would still work...
It is difficult for me to imagine what "personal liberty" is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment.
Democratic socialism, Social democracy, original libertarianism of the non Rothbard variety, even pragmatic anarchocommunism. As long as they aren't dogmatic ideologues.
A completely free market has never, and will never exist. Further markets, and currency existed before capitalism. Capitalism didn't make them possible. Finally capitalism demands you sell for as much as the market can bare, not what is fair for the value you added. Of which capitalists generally add none. Without labor nothing gets done.
Under capitalism people that generate most of the value get the least of the capital. It's just a more abstract way of defining and justifying oligarchy. Other than Divine Birthright.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all for rewarding people who come up with new processes and ideas to increase efficiency etc. That's not really what capitalism does.
Would you mind elaborating on the "original libertarianism"? What doed that mean exactly? Could really find much...
Did you actually check? Because based on a bunch of metrics I saw the USSR did pretty well compared to the feudalism that came before it and the capitalist "democracy" that came after its illegal and undemocratic dissolution.
I know (and have discussed it with) plenty of people who lived in the former USSR. Everyone I spoke to agreed that it was a mess.
Of course, there is clear selection bias in who I spoke to (they are people I am friendly with and most of them reside outside of Eastern Europe) and all of them only experienced the Soviet system after it had gone through Stalin.
Here is an illustrative anecdote since we are trading those:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskARussian/comments/sxdi3q/comment/hxtgsbd/
Here is data: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1128057/russia-opinion-on-dissolution-of-the-ussr-by-age/
Note that the people who were adults before its collapse overwhelmingly want it back, and that Russians only supported its continuation back in the 90s referendum at 55ish percent compared to much higher percentages in the non-Russian SSRs.
The data shows that economic freedom is associated with greater life satisfaction . That doesn’t mean that every billionaire is a good guy or that corporations don’t break the law.
Uh, no shit. Economic freedom means not being destitute. Of course that makes you happier than not. What are you trying to prove, here? Do you think economic freedom is synonymous with capitalism, or only possible through it?
The way they measure economic freedom is based on how free you are to start a business and things like that.
So, freedom to exploit?
There are three kinds of lies. Lies, Damned lies, and statistics. First you lose points by linking to a supposed study behind the paywall. Second you lose points by that study being conducted by The Fraser institute. A solidly right wing group. With a less than credible reputation.
I apologize for only attacking the messenger on this. Though that should be enough to dissuade anyone from trusting it. But you didn't link to anything that actually proves your point that we could read to argue against their flawed methodology, definitions, sampling, and data Gathering strategy. I'm sure we could attack and pick apart those endlessly. But I'm not going to pay 30 bucks to do it.
This is a study by an independent researcher from the University of North Dakota. The economic freedom index is published by the Fraser institute. There is no alternative index at this time. Here is a link beyond the paywall. Here’s a few others as well:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-015-9616-x
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11482-017-9543-6
You’re welcome to share your own studies on economic freedom and happiness btw. . I’m “not thinking” yet i am the only one sharing scientific literature.
First their SSL certificate is misconfigured second my DNS here at work is blocking access to it for now.
Second. Economics psychology Etc are not any sort of hard science. They struggle to even show correlation sometimes. Let alone causation. And statistics is certainly not a science in and of it self. Making your confident claim of scientific literature adorably naive at best or wildly spacious at worst.
Combined with the fact that I have strong doubts that this study includes actual honest studies of socialist economic structures. Typically it's just "leninism bad hurt durr". Which I agree with. But Leninism=\=socialism. Did they actually go out and survey communes? Or honestly categorize social democracies? Most of these so-called BS scientific studies don't.
And honestly I could link you any number of studies showing the countries with strong support for labor and protections for labor have a much higher satisfaction than countries that don't. The problem is I don't believe you're being honest. And that that would be a waste of time. But you are welcome to go to Google and search if you're interested.
You seem to be really good at coming up with excuses why you can’t access the data or why the data isn’t admissible for this or that reason. And awfully good at coming up with reasons why you cannot produce any data. Too much so IMO for someone that makes the claim of others of being intellectually dishonest and that they cannot think for themselves.
But it’s okay. Why don’t we just agree to disagree? That was my original point. Some people have centrists views on the economy where they believe in socially progressive causes, free markets and strong institutions. That this view is both rational and supported by data. That disagreements are based not on misinterpretation of facts but on differences in values.
All you have to do is go find people who came from nothing and built themselves a good, comfortable life. Ask them what they did to be successful. Decide whether you're willing to do that amount of work - then do it, or don't.
I don't understand why this is so complicated for people... You don't need money to be content with your station in life. I was happy when I was young and poor, and I'm happy when I'm late 30's and solidly upper middle class. Maybe I'll make the millions someday with a great idea, and maybe I won't.
I don't care about billionaires as long as they keep signing my 6-figure paychecks. Better than the $5/day I got bailing hay as a kid on the farm where I grew up.
Define nothing. And then Define wealthy. Then we'll talk. Bill Gates did not build from nothing. Jeff Bezos did not start from nothing. Elon Musk did not start from nothing. Harlan Crow did not start from nothing. The Koch brothers did not start from nothing. The Mercers did not start from nothing. Peter Thiel did not start from nothing. Mitt Romney did not start from nothing.
A ton of people who pretend to start from nothing. Started out with more access and resources than many people could imagine. More than many people will ever see personally in their lifetime.
No one making minimum wage in the United States can afford their rent anywhere in the United states. Millennials and younger are struggling to even buy homes or be financially secure. Most Americans are a single emergency medical or otherwise from being bankrupt. It's the biggest indicator of your future wealth and success is who you were born to.
The reason you don't understand why this is so complicated for people. Is because you don't understand the basic supposition being made. Most people don't and that's the problem. The fact that most people use the phrase "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" out of context and unironically should be a massive indicator of how uneducated people are on the subject. But everyone is capable of understanding if they want to. Please do some reading on the subject. Even a small amount. It won't take much to help get you up to speed.
https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/schooled2lose/
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/14/full-time-minimum-wage-workers-cant-afford-rent-anywhere-in-the-us.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-house-home-real-estate-mortgage-rates-rent-debt-boomers-2022-9
https://www.norc.org/research/library/most-working-americans-would-face-economic-hardship-if-they-miss.html
I expected you to be a pro-capitalist shill but then you pull out this. Bravo. I misjudged you. Going back to where you said you support capitalism, I think your idea of capitalism is just outside the bullseye. Like you obviously understand a lot, I don't need to explain much to you. I think your inaccuracy comes from linking currency with capitalism, which a lot of people do. They're not the same thing. Keeping in mind I'm going to keep things in the most basic terms, capitalism, socialism, communism, are all different forms of distributive justice. Capitalism says, whomever contributes the most capital to an endeavor deserves the most distribution, labour is just a cost. Socialism says, whomever contributes labour deserves the most distribution, and communism says everyone deserves equal distribution regardless of labour and capital. You're really close to the bullseye though, so close I'm not sure my comment is even worthwhile.
To quoth my first post in this thread.
Also, I'm generally anticapitalist. Perhaps you meant to reply to someone else? I'm of the school that thinks we should abolish the concept of unlimited private property in favor of something like personal property with much more reasonable limits. And think capitalism should only be allowed with regards to unique items that aren't generally "necessary" for society. Paintings, tchotchkes, etc.
Also your definition of communism is a bit exclusive of actual Libertarians and anarcho-communist. Isn't it? I think you are referencing leninist theory? Which has never held up in practice. The rest of it though generally tracks.
I just want you to know - you have Asperger's syndrome. (entirely unrelated to your points - all of which are objectively wrong and don't warrant a response.)
You wanted me to get up to speed - but you may not have been aware you are slow... Hope this helps.
If you support capitalism, then yes, you defend billionaires.
Counterpoint: Nope.
So, you support a system that inherently creates an upper class of obscenely rich people, yet are opposed to those people?
A system set up to enrich the owner of a business, while its workers lose out, creates exactly the people you claim not to defend.
No, I'm not opposed to them... I just don't support them. They can support themselves, and I can support myself just fine. I make more money from them than I would without them, and they make money from me they wouldn't have otherwise had my skillset to access easily.
I've never been forced to take any job... I just manage my skillset in such a way that makes it both rare and valuable. I've worn many hats over the years, and I just play the game instead of bitching about the rules Worked out great for me and my family so far. I'll even have some to leave my kids so they don't have as hard of a time reaching even higher than I have. That's the whole point, for me: make my kids' life better than mine, and I've done that so far.
It doesn't work like that. They are in power, and by not opposing them, you consent to their continued power.
That isn't even close to true. Capitalist extraction of surplus value is exactly how they make their profits. If they paid you the value you made them, they wouldn't have a profit. If they weren't there to extract that value, you and your fellow workers would make more - it's basic mathematics.
This part is true, yes.
So, you're saying you're able to retire right now and never work again?
That's a slave mindset.
That's cool you can think that small and that selfishly. Others, however, realise you could be living even better, and everyone else, including those with nothing, could have that standard of living, too, if we stop being complacent with mere crumbs.
That's what you have. Mere crumbs of luxury. It's great that you're not on the street, but that is an incredibly low standard to have.
Surplus value is not even close to being an accepted economic theory.
Just because you don't agree doesn't make it any less true. How do you refute it? It's a basic mathematical truth. It's literally impossible for a capitalist to pay you the value you brought them, without them going broke.
Read: "I only subscribe to the economics of the oppressor class. If they refuse to accept a basic mathematical truth that implies bad things about them, so do I!"
Markets are nothing more than voluntary association. Most, if not every "obscenely rich" person got this rich because of govt interference (lobbying, govt sanctioned monopoly, corporate welfare, subsidies, etc.)
"Organic" market economy would be beneficial to everyone
Sorry, but a market requires a state to protect it. How else are we gonna make sure no one steals our shit?
... by protecting your own shit.
But I ain't got no shit cos a bigger guy took it all.
That is less efficient and you'll eventually just end up with a state that way.
If that were the case (which it isnt) I dont see a problem defending billionaires (and on the side also everybody's freedom and justice)...
You can't defend billionaires and justice at the same time
Why not? Capitalism is the most fair system to me.
What is the metric for fairness here? And what version of 'capitalism' are we talking about?
Fairness is subjective. To me it means: everyone is free to do what they like WITHOUT invading anybody elses freedom; if a person performs well, they should be rewarded well; everyone should have the same initial possibilities in life.
The version of capitalism I was talking about is capitalism with a regulated market. Basic needs should be covered (except if you refuse to contributr anything at all). Im pretty happy with the "social market economy" in Germany where I currently live.
But how am I gonna get someone to work for me without invading their freedom to choose to do what they want?
Hell no, man. No one will work at my shop if they're allowed to do what they want.
Fuck yeah man! That's how we do it! That's what gets people working for me - the threat that not doing so will put 'em on the street! That's what I'm talkin' about!
The reason China has similar policies is because socialism/communism doesn't work without a capitalist cow to milk.
Do you understand what capitalism is relative to socialism/communism? That the entire premise is that no person owns the means of production, and therefore has zero stake in its success beyond their immediate involvement? How do you motivate people to reach for more, innovate, and strive for greatness when there is no semblance of capitalist enterprise? Nationalist pride? Do you threaten them? How many of the hundreds of examples do you need to see that this does not work?
Star Trek is a beautiful concept on paper - but that's the problem: as soon as you add humans, it goes to shit. Just look at the Hamas/Israel nonsense. Hamas literally does not care about their lives or children's lives... The civilians are literally putting out videos stating they will intentionally put themselves under incoming bombs "because this is how we will prove your brutality".
There's no chance as long as society has free will. There's just no way for anything else to work in the long run.
How do you motivate people to reach for more, he asks, on a platform that is literally developed for free. Have you ever thought that people do certain things because they like them ? I see not every job is likable tho. But that's a different problem, we can try to solve by technology. I know my opinion is also biased but in the end we should try to a bit more open minded.
That is definitely not the flex you thought it was.
Yes, lots of individuals so lots of fun individual things that can be done by individuals for free - hell, you might even find enough people to do an entire open source project!
But guess what?
Those people have actual jobs. You're pointing at hobbies that only exist because free time is afforded by decent jobs.
Real talk. Socialism works great for much of europe. Look into england, austria, pretty much any Scandinavian country they all have programs and systems focused on supporting workers. That they would never give up.
Second are we talking Big C or little c communism. They are different things. And you are wrong immediately off the bat. Under communism which is not defined as socialism in its entirety. No single person owns the means of production. But people do own the means of production. Under big C communism, let's call it what it is leninism. They have a warped and twisted definition of who the people are. Expanding it out to a single Nationwide party and that party's dictatorial leader. That's very different from communism. Under communism the workers own the means of production. Meaning that if you work in a factory. As a worker of the factory you own a piece of, and have a stake in the factory and its success.
If people require capitalism to motivate them to strive for more. How did we get where we are? Capitalism has only existed a few hundred years. Human history goes back tens of thousands of years. How does that work? Because it really seems like we don't need capitalism for that. And there's no evidence showing that communism hinders it either. You do realize that even under the warped leninism that the Soviets used. They industrialized, expanded, had scientific and technological progress alongside the rest of the world. That doesn't excuse the atrocities that they committed or the capitalists have committed. But that sure doesn't seem like it puts a damper on striving for more etc.
And if human nature is the biggest roadblock to socialism as you say it is. It's just as big or bigger a roadblock to capitalism. Your argument against socialism is more of an argument against capitalism. Think about that. I think you mean well. But I also think you have very little idea about what you're talking about. Which isn't an insult. When it comes to some Western Nations and especially the united states. We are washed in propaganda and purposefully miseducated.
It's literally the only thing you have that's even close. But you wouldn't give it up. It's certainly not a capitalist system. Prove how capitalist you are though. Give it up for a system like America's if you think it's so adorable.
Strictly speaking universal healthcare isn't socialist. But it is a logical outcome of socialist policy.
You've left an anti-China warmongering echo chamber for a place where moderation isn't predicated on silencing dissent against the west. The people you describe as 'pro-China' bots have plenty of issues with Chinese policy decisions. Accepting that the USA and capitalism more generally are evil forces in world politics are not state generated.
You're a capitalist? How much capital do you own?
Well, a lot less after January of 2021... I was at 4.3 mil, and lost about 1.2 mil. (starting from less than zero, first child was born on Medicaid).
Sounds like you're just petite bourgeoisie
Don't be big mads because they answered your question.
They come back and attack them. "You idiot you are only a small time millionaire" 🤦♂️
How is that an attack? The petite bourgeoisie generally have more to gain from joining the proletariat in the class struggle, and almost none of them have caused suffering at a scale that justifies the same attitude had towards the haut bourgeoisie. (Now people who own multiple car dealerships on the other hand)
It is only an attack if you think being a massive leech on society like Musk or Bezos is a good thing.
There is nothing to be gained from "joining" you.
Buddy, you have less influence on the world around you than my farts.
You also have less influence on the world around you than your farts. You have crumbs and you think you're in charge because the people below you are worse off. You're not going to have control until you organize together with the people on your side of the class conflict.
Grew up on a farm, had no help, just decided to go get what I wanted like literally any and all Americans can. Like I said, first kid was born on Medicaid, we were on welfare for a couple years... Got a full time job at best buy... worked through community college, got off welfare... Took me about 11 years to get that first nice paycheck job where it takes others 4...but, that's ok. Can't control everything in life, live and learn.
Just use the available programs, and get off of them as soon as possible so you can start contributing more than you took from them. It's pretty easy if you just do it as a matter of principle. I received, now I give back. Once I've returned some orders of magnitude of what supported me, I can focus on what I leave behind.
The fact that it was harder for me than it is for others doesn't make me bitter or anything... I'll just make it easier for my kids on the next go-round. It's all good.
I think you took a statement about your class position as an insult. But I want to clarify, if you stopped working tomorrow would you have enough income for the rest of your life? If not, youre a member of the proletariat. If you could, youre petite bourgeoisie. You operate under capitalist logic but don't have enough power to actually exercise control over the wider context your business exists in. You would be a small fish at the mercy of being eaten by larger fish. Better to not live in a system where anyone is a fish.
I am just happy to be dancing for once.
And with a partner who is undoubtedly attracted to you no less!
Look at you go.
Fake. There are no women here.
I have moobs and long hair, just keep dancing bro.
Yeah, and I am the real Tony Hawk!
Real. There are a few women here
Woman right here!
Yes there are. Stop being weird. (Am woman)
Never mind that not a single one of them pipes up when some lazy fascist bullshit gets posted here.
Only when it's left of like 1990s Biden then they all lose their fuckin minds.
holy shit can we see an actual meme on this instance?
Where funny?
Mince you into fertilizer 😂 Reminds me of Soylent Green and Oddworld
Capitalists need workers to oppress. Without them, they would have nothing to give them a feeling of superiority. Mincing people into fertilizer would surely be a fun pastime for the rich, but it's hardly a sustainable hobby
Capitalists don't care about sustainability.
They would if those workers were trying to unionize.
Free Market Capitalism would bring back slavery if we let them.
Oxymoron
You have a rather one dimensional moustache twirling view of the world. Let me guess, communism is the one stop solves all problems in the world solution without any negative side effects?
You do understand that that is not how the world works, or for that matter, how anything works?
Seriously, your comment is plain nonsense. Yes, captialism has a shitload of issues. Yes, there are rich and abusive people out there. Yes, communism is responsible for countless millions of deaths and tortured...
Instead of making up weird fantasies, how about to try to come up with an idea that would actually make things better?
I missed the part where the person you're replying to mentioned communism at all.
Don't worry, The dude was just hurt that his world view was challenged and felt the need to strike out
If this one of the people the post mentions?
Neat! 📸
Thinking about how to make the world better starts with fantasizing, and moves on to theorizing and debating ideas. Calling the many decades of socialist and communist thought just fantasies goes beyond all reason. At this point you're just ragebaiting. This is not how you talk to people.
Communism as Marx described, has to do more with the complete automatization of the means of production, and the subsequently change of the structure of society, as a result of post scarcity.
Remember that just past Mars humanity has a near infinite repository of resources, it's only on this earth that we are subjected to the rat race, when we have the wealth of the universe so close.
You may think that I'm dreaming, but if we let capital unchecked, it will destroy us, and destroy earth. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
I am all in favor for heavily regulated and checked capitalism. Like it or not, its the most successful system and it can be a source for good when heavily regulated and used as an input source for a socialist system that takes care of all.
The delusional thought process is fantastic.
You have, maybe 2k users here, defederate a new insurance a day, and users are constantly finding lack of content; but yeah it's the normal user who is quite in the corner 🤣
For the anti-capitalists, I have a genuine question (sorry, I couldn't find an "ask a commie" community):
In the capitalist system there is a movement called Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) where people commit to living frugally in an effort to maximize savings and investments. The goal is to achieve a balance that allows you live off a safe withdrawal rate (around 3.5-4%) and then leave the workforce at an earlier than normal age. Some people commit to a life of minimalism and lean-FIRE with under $20k in investment income per year. I believe there is significant overlap with the van-life crowd and other nomadic lifestyles.
Is this lifestyle compatible with, or is there a similar lifestyle within a communist system? To expand, can those with a different set of priorities trade away their later working days in exchange for less material things?
Bad take
Is this how lemmy debates online?
I'm about this close to going back on reddit. They're idiots and commies over there but usually not both lol
Ive found that being commie and an idiot is the same thing
It's the other way round. The fear of being left out makes the lemmies dance off a cliff.
(I know, the movie was fake.)
The capitalist sees that the lemmies keep dancing without wondering why the music is playing.
Get that mfer, kick his ass!
I don't recall giving a party hat to capitalists.
Wealth redistribution is good. Socialism definitely could end up being better than capitalism with the right implementation and regulations. A socialist revolution is a bad idea; wealth redistribution can be implemented in capitalism. Lobbying is real, but voting still makes a difference. Vote in more than just the presidential election and canvas for issues or politicians you support. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
That's what capitalists want you to think.
very enlightening i never thought of it that way
All the generally established capitalist wiggleroom like minimum wages, paid holiday, affordable health care, education instead of manual labour for children etc were established by massive strikes and (threats of) violent masses.
I don't really get what you mean by wiggle room. Also are you implying that all positive change related to workers rights entirely centered around strikes/violence without any action by the government?
Governments acted only when forced to by people organizing outside of established politics. Voting has had little to do with true progress, it's a lie told to stifle organization.
Isn't that the point of unions? To have leverage over the place you work so they have to treat you right? Strikes and protests are a good way to raise awareness and pressure higher ups to act, but if you don't vote in the goverment system than you have no real leverage over the people who speak for you. True progress? What about gay marriage being legalized across the US? What about the cops who killed George Floyd being convicted of murder? That isn't "true" progress? Yes there have been steps back like Roe V Wade, but progress is not a continuous upward trend in the short term. But I'm pretty sure abortion is not a settled matter in the US and a lot of people don't want it.
You think the George Floyd case was a good example of electoral politics?! That's actually more of a point of organizing outside of party politics. Your point of gay marriage is better, but honestly in my mind that has more to do with brave queer folk living their lives and normalizing it than any politician.
Yeah the George Floyd riots did not help that it was very polarizing. What? The point is progress was made through the political system. Yes it was normalized, but those situations are not in opposition to eachother. Usually things become socially acceptable and then they become more legally acceptable.
Calls protests riots.
Yeah have a good one mate.
Government reacts to the mass. 1 person = 1 vote is another one for the gained by violence list, btw.
You think the issues that are present in todays system are equivalent to slavery? Yes working conditions are a crap shoot, but its not slavery we at least have some safety net systems in place. Also, unions seem to do a pretty good job in places they are implemented.
Unions are not an inherent part of capitalism. Capitalism is anti-unions by default, the acceptance of unions is called the 'social peace': the one and only reason unions are accepted by the capitalists is the unions threat of mass strike and violence. All the social policy good sides to capitalism were forced upon the system by organised workers. If a capitalist can employ a 12 year old for less than the price of a decent meal a day, they will. And they do. It's only because of pressure from unions and their threat of mass strike and violence that this is no longer allowed in somewhat developed countries.
Unions arent an inherent part of capitalism, but they are present in our system and I want that presence to expand. I consider strikes and protests as part of the system. Protesting is a protected right in the US. Yeah I don't know what to tell you, but we do have political power. The votes that are cast are generally reflected in the policy. Why do you think corporations bother making propaganda? They need to make sure people vote the way they want because even corporations understand the influence individuals can have on their business. Change has been and will continue to be made within the system. Does that mean violence will never occur? No. It will, but that violences effect is mostly reflected in the awareness/stance on a issue. Violence is very polarizing. Who was more effective; Martin Luther King or Malcolm X?
progress isnt a continous upward climb in the short term. In the 90s crime shot up and no gay marriage soooo. We can definitely go farther with capitalism like with higher taxes on the rich, minimum base income, etc. Voting does matter, if you dont vote you have no leverage over those who speak for you.
How has it reached its limit? I just gave two examples of ways it can improve. Voting for the president is not the only thing you can do. You can canvas for politicians or issues you believe in and vote in other levels of the government. I don't get the sentiment of voting doesnt matter so we wont vote. Its a self fulfilling prophecy. We are not heading to hell on earth because there are a lot of people more informed than either of us working on solving all different kinds of issues. I dont understand blaming capitalism for everything. It completely hand waives the nuance of situations and how we can realistically improve them.
Capitalism is a good library, it's the devs that implement it wrongly 😭
Capitalism can never work, because it's self defeating. The point of capitalism is to maximize immediate profits, nothing else - as a result, it will gladly destroy its own means of growth if as a result instant profits increase.
But it's working, many are happy. If you're unhappy it's probably your fault and not the fault of the system you are living in. Take ownership of your situation and improve it.
If I drove a nail through your skull, many would still be happy. Does that mean it's okay to drive a nail through your skull?
20 percent of children in the US are food insecure and we have the largest prison industrial complex on the planet. If I had a shittier job and broke my leg I would end up homeless. My cousin who can't hold down a job due to a chronic illness would die on the streets if she didn't have family support. But yeah the system works.
Sounds like a lack of compassion in your family. Just build a unit and live together, makes live easier if you support each other. But no the system is the problem! Some people would be always losers, regardless the system.
What about disabled people who have no family? What about people who have family that can't support them financially? What about people who can't afford to build a unit? The system is the problem. We are more insulated from it then most.
Regulations, regulations, mors regulations!
>>>politicalmemes
You are in this meme.
Yeah no shit it reads 'lemmy', everyone here is in this meme
Whoosh
you don't know what that means
Supersonic BOOM - WHOOSH!
Someone creating a specific community doesn't add rules to existing general communities. You should start an apolitical memes community!
What? Using lemmy as intended and finding a community that fits my needs or starting my own?!
Then how will I inflict my will on all the people in existing communities as is my real intent?!
You become a moderator in a pre existing community 😎
mincing me into fertilizer instead of making me sell their crap at 5k% markup gets them more money how?
The operating word is “would”. If it served their needs, they would. Not that they’re going to right now, obviously.
People think capitalists care about nothing except their net value but that's an unfair stereotype.
What's the use of having all the money if you can't make other people suffer? How else will the poors know you're better than them?
almost sounds like you think you think like them...maybe wanna..be..one? quick #cancelhegar #fuckcapitalism #theyrealljustgreedyassholeslookingtomakeabuck #diecapitalisttrash
also, Mr. Goodman? iykyk
mans really just said "thought he did something" and thought he did something. 😳
They'll mince you once you're too old, broken, or inconvenient.
Which they caused by working you to that point for peanuts.
This way, they have a product to sell. The next tool to come along is hired as the salesman (no salary, 100% commission).
but that's literally what I was doing...do they just mince everyone, have all the product, and never sell any? how does that get them any money?
They make you make the product for less than it's worth, then they sell you the product for more than it's worth, and pocket the difference.
They mince you when your buying power disappears.
Because if you were spreading dangerous ideas like Unions and livable pay, they would stand to lose a lot more than whatever profit you were generating.
Tell me how you don't know the difference between corporatocracy and capitalism without telling me how you don't know the difference between corporatocracy and capitalism.
They're the same picture.
To expand...one of the biggest goals of a capitalist is increasing profit. What better way to do this than to take over and manipulate the government of whatever state you're operating in to cut you special breaks? It's the pinnacle of capitalist achievement.
You create laws to regulate it...the capitalists will manipulate them and control your government anyways.
You loosen regulations to "promote competition" or whatever excuse they use, and then there's nothing stopping them from fucking you even harder. Capitalism and the state are always intertwined, one feeds off the other. Even the Soviet Union was sometimes said to be "state capitalist", where basically the entire country was under control of one "corporation".
this a good explanation.
capitalist apologists love to invent new terms like “corporatism” and “crony capitalism” that basically just mean “every problem with capitalism”. they then say “capitalism isn’t the problem, the problem is crony capitalism” which makes about as much sense as saying “capitalism isn’t the problem, the problem is all of capitalism’s problems”.
One person has a limit to the complexity that they can control. You need the masses and a working state to control other billionaires. Only then will you be able reach new levels of complex production processes that allow to do new things.
Of course, for some it is fulfilling to just be at the top.
Tell us you love the taste of boot on your tongue without telling us you love the taste of boot on your tongue..
Sorry, but I don't love the taste of the boot of the monopoly of violence (the State) and it's robbery (taxation), mass murder (war) and slavery (conscription).
Bureaucracy, corruption, FIAT money, intellectual property, common goods, the welfare state... The idea of an oligarchy of politicians controlling and regulating the economy and our private lifes in the name of "democracy" and "the common good" is actually helping those billionaries we BOTH hate so much.
Social democracy is practically the same thing as corporatocracy, but with a little of populism. On the other hand, "any step toward socialism is a step toward economic irrationality".
Imagine participating in society lmaoo
You realize wet wipes are made by capitalists…
Oh okay they're trolling, I get it
Person is already dead inside. They "have a family" but are acting like a teenager - speaks for itself...
"they're acting like a teenager" and "speaks for itself" in the same post. 😬
Thanks for calling me on the shoddy rhetoric. The person I was replying to claims to have a family while themselves providing a typical teenage retort, thereby failing to act maturely, which is what one would expect from a decent parent. Any better? Still too ad hominem?
who said anything about ad hominems? or shoddy rhetoric? you're calling them a teenager while using the phrase "speaks for itself", which is a pretty immature phrase. And then you dress up your language for the reply to me to sound more mature? sounds like someone who's stuck in adolescence and pining for "adulthood" to me.
inb4 "thanks internet psychoanalyst, sugondese"
There's nothing wrong with the phrase "speaks for itself". It's a very common expression.
Keep posting that meme, maybe it will be relevant one day.
Not quite, I made a bland general comment to troll on a bland general post. My intention was to trigger some commies. Judging by the comments I’d say it was a success.
“Was just a prank bro”
I love it when these people burn themselves by being stupid, annoying pricks. If they get enough negative feedback, they just say they were “triggering” people on purpose. Then they congratulate themselves on their brilliant, flawless, and totally original tactics. It’s the same routine every goddam time.
I can appreciate a joke at my expense if it’s even remotely clever, but this is just pathetic and tired. It’s 2023, ffs. Somebody needs to come up with a new trolling script.
I hope that these are young kids who will outgrow this shit and move on. I know that’s not true in every case, though.
This is what you consider a fun Wednesday night? Or Thursday morning, depending.
It's relevant today
My dude. The capitalists are not the people who made those devices. Workers made those things.
My man, capital was expended developing the technology underpinning those devices. It was expended building the tools and sourcing the materials that went onto the device that the workers built. Capital was expended paying the workers for the time they took making the devices and bringing the device to market to sell.
Labor and capital are needed to function. Both can be true at the same time.
Then the capitalist should only be entitled to recuperate their initial investment + whatever personal effort they put in.
How can it be the capitalist captures profit many years after those first two occurred?
How would you manage risk?
The capitalists invest their profits in new ventures. Good capitalists choose often what is needed, bad capitalists constantly lose money and stop being capitalists.
You want to reward good decisions. So those with profitable investments should get all returns so that they can make more good investments.
So don't set a limit but tax their income proportionally.
That capital is created by the workers. It is extracted from them unjustly by capitalists, and then they claim they are responsible for the creation of everything just because they direct that stolen capital.
Public capital. The smartphone is the culmination point of billions and billions of government "aimless" r&d for half a century.
It was made by inventors and workers. The capitalists own the company. They don't create.
You are not a capitalist.
“Capital”… You keep using that word but I do not think it means what you think it means.
What is it that Investors invest? Could it be capital? Investors also tend to have ownership of the company.
Funny I thought a good education was one of the benefits of communism.
And why should they? What makes investors special beyond "having lots of money"
Why should workers forfeit their labor at a fraction of its actual value to line the accounts of people who won the birth lottery?
Investors did not invent the product, they did not design it's manufacturing process, they did not acquire materials or even the land upon which the factory is built. And yet, they reap all the profits.
There's a simpler way
If you think "capitalism" just means that money exists, then you've completely misunderstood the concept
Communism is when no phone
Ifone venezuale 100 trillion dead!
We can have nice things without crushing levels of inequality orders of magnitude higher than humans have ever known at any point in history.
Absolutely you are 100% correct. However communism is not the answer.
And what is, O Wise One?
This is not the flex you think it is.
Not a flex, a trigger.
Whatever you want to call it, it's idiotic strawmanning.
The best response. So common it's hard to tell if it's a real response people believe.
“Get bread or get dead”
Fuck yo dogma, homie
Perhaps the most intelligent reply in this entire thread.
Global capitalism is a very, very, very recent occurrence historically.
We went from a merchant-style sort of economy to capitalism almost overnight.
And in this merchant-style sort of economy, the rich weren't an order of magnitude richer than the poor, and profiting off their backs?
FFS, monkeys quickly figure out how to trade "money" for sex. World's oldest profession anyone? We're no different. Capitalism just perfected it.
Capitalism is just dandy, with some serious government oversight. Problem being, how do you stop the overseers from getting rich legislating the oversight? Same problem in any economic policy.
Kinda funny thought I had in my 20's. The only way to truly get rich is by getting other people working for you. Never pursued that line of work, just not me, can't do it. But it's still true and always will be, no matter the economics.
tfw Marx was just a shitty millennial, apparently