Its hard to decry the evils of capitalism when there’s never been any other successful systems. Id like to hear your thoughts.
This’ll be a doozy.
Democratic socialism.
Look at Scandinavia.
Social Democracy slowly transitioning into Democratic Socialism.
Eventually automation will be able to provide UBI, and people need to work less hours.
Norway is a great country btw. 🇳🇴
Al hail Norway!
I always hear is great to live there. And Denmark.
The definition of capitalism is more or less private ownership, free markets and so forth, so norway very much qualify as capitalist.
I have a slightly more cynical view on automation, not that the rich get richer, but that the marginal cost of working an hour less is greater with higher automation, so people would rather work the same hours and afford even more cool stuff than work less hours.
Different definitions of capitalism make this debate a mess tbh. State capitalism would be a antithesis to description you provided but tauntalogically capitalism.
Corporatism is also clearly a type of capitalism but as corporate monopoly increases markets observably become less free and private ownership is constantly challenged by rent seekers.
We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.Ursula K. Le Guin
Capitalism has only existed for a few centuries. Humans have had economies for thousands of years. Wage labor isn’t a universal constant.
Start here https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-fragments-of-an-anarchist-anthropology
Why are random words highlighted?
This kind of quote is interpreted as a code block on some clients, therefore keywords like “in”, “for” or “and” end up highlighted.
It’s so obvious… I was half asleep when I first saw it and it just didn’t click. 🤦🏼♂️
Idk what you mean
Huh, weird
Its also highlighted for me, weird
There’s literally whole libraries of thought on this topic written at much higher level than you’ll find in an Internet comment.
If you were interested in the actual arguments you’d be reading books and papers, not Lemmy shitposts.
Speaking of which, big “the divine right of kings is indisputable” energy btw
Oh ive read a decent amount on the subject. I just like to hear other people’s thoughts on the matter.
I dont know enough to argue with anyone about why capitalism isnt a good system, and they usually have many reasons why its better than others.
all systems of societal organization have been successful and failures depending on what your criteria are.
if we are talking about people living together in groups with relative safety and most physical needs met, pretty much every economic/political structure has had “success.” monarchies, republics, feudalism, theocracies, agrarian societies, tribal communities with fairly democratic structures have all existed throughout history and have been very successful in many respects and have also contributed to social challenges.
it could be argued that the quality of life that modern people enjoy in developed nations is in large part thanks to technology not necessarily capitalism though capitalism, as any form of economy, certainly plays a significant role in the distribution of those resources and technology.
im not sure if we should define as the mass accumulation of material goods, consumerism, and the grotesquely imbalanced concentration of wealth as “success” necessarily, as all contribute greatly to the incredible destruction of the biosphere, mass extinctions, climate change, and basically the reason society and life on earth is spiralling into a giant pit of hell.
nor is capitalism the most “peaceful” system as proponents claim; the greatest wars and genocides on earth have occurred during the capitalist era. the united states, the great capitalist nation, is in perpetual war and has been pretty much throughout its entire history. how many armed conflicts are happening right now in the world? every one of those countries involved exists in capitalism.
there is enough wealth in the world to afford every person a decent life, to provide healthcare, education, shelter, resources to live and yet this does not occur and as a bonus every ecosystem on earth is in imminent collapse. does not sound like a “success” to me.
could we manage to have a more sustainable and equal society with capitalism? surely it is possible but currently our capitalist structure is deeply sick.
if we are talking about finding the most egalitarian societies, it would probably be some societies in pre-colonial north america or maybe some ancient societies in the indus valley, which are said to have very interesting and fairly equal communities.
when there’s never been any other successful systems.
I don’t know what you define as successful, but I can assure you there were previous systems and alternatives that currently exist. It’s a broad term
ikr “there’s never been any other successful systems” is a tip-off that either they’re trolling, or they’re so invested in their own beliefs that they’ll never see anything else.
It’s kinda like saying “of course I should worship [the christian] god, since he’s the only god who’s ever existed!”
No one has yet to name any specifically.
Not trolling. I typed this up a little too fast and probably misworded it.
That’s because there is no country that’s been governed by a single ideology for very long. Even in the last hundred years in America, each of the many parts of government have aligned with different policies as politicians fought for the reigns. It’s not a simple dichotomy.
You asked a question you don’t understand.
It amazes me how many people just think capitalism means earning money and owning things and don’t realize it is about having a minority ownership class that literally uses everyone else as a disposable resource.
But you don’t need capitalism for a minority ruling class to treat everyone under their control as a disposable resource.
Yes, but you also don’t need a minority ruling class to treat everyone under their control as a disposable resource in order to be able to have money and buy things.
Instead of a system where money is power, let’s craft one where people have power. We do that by regulating away the capitalists.
“But other people who tried that ended up with despots!” Yes, well, despots will always try to take control, let’s build a society that doesn’t let them.
What a strange thing to say when every fiat currency in history prior to our current crop of them has eventually gone to 0. We live in fragile, temporary bubbles of wealth concentration largely funded on violence and grift and inflated vastly beyond reality by credit and debt, ones that turn out to be largely illusion when the boss decides to close shop and skip town, not “the only successful system”. I agree it is the dominant system and it has essentially destroyed any of the other possible ones at this point.
But you don’t need a fiat currency to operate a capitalist system. You also don’t need a capitalist system to implement a fiat currency.
The trend seems to be that capitalism works great for new and emerging markets. It incentivises optimization, and businesses will naturally try to min/max profit. Once the product/service/resource is ubiquitous enough to be nearly mandatory, the min/max of capitalism tends to push for conglomeration. Once that happens, number must go up, so they cut corners and dilute their own service or product to enshittify it to extract more profit.
I say once a service/product/resource is a staple of the society and effectively mandatory for a person to have, a free, socialized, option must then exist. It must meet the minimum demand for a person, while still having better/higher tiers available- but the encroaching free option is then the main driver of competition.
Right now, a lot of capitalism markets don’t have any real competition, so they have no real incentive to genuinely improve.
Yeah, its the system that works best if you started the system. After it gets established, everyone else is screwed.
Get rid of greed and any system would work great.
The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed in all of its forms. Greed for life, money, love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind, and greed – you mark my words – will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.
Thank you very much.
- Gordan Gecko, Wall Street
Some people unironically believe this Hollywood horseshit.
Trump being one of them.
Surely our obvious satire of worshipping the Torment Nexus will not backfire
Not really possible to implement. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary”.
Every system is susceptible to the same corruption we’re dealing with now.
A working system starts with transparency. Any system that allows back-room deals, preferential treatment to a subgroup, etc. will eventually lead to a Trump-like demagogue looking to be the king of it all.
Yeah there will always be shitty humans. There should be a system so the majority of good humans can get rid of those shitty ones that are destroying everything.
It was called the education system, and Republicans have been dismantling it slowly for decades because it sees through their bullshit.
Ah, and we creep towards eugenics. No deal.
The thing is, all humans act shitty sometimes. Most people aren’t good, they’re just constrained to resist their urges towards bad behavior. You can’t get rid of the “bad people” and keep the “good people” because A) neither group really exists and 2] as soon as you create a mechanism for removing undesirables from society it will be subverted by the very worst people and used to purge their enemies (or perceived enemies).
So, there really is no solution because humans are evil.
There are plenty of solutions. They rely on aligning incentives with prosocial behavior.
Regulated Capitalism. Specifically, capitalism without corporate personhood, with strong antitrust laws, with strong consumer protections, and with regulatory bodies that have real teeth.
No one convinced anyone that capitalism was a good Idea when it came out, they just did it.
And there’s no “better” alternative because, most of the time, capitalist kill it before it could flourish.
I’ve heard this rhetoric before and I don’t know where you people get it.
Why do you need a drop-in replacement ready?
Why can’t you just say, “the current system sucks” ?
Personally, I think it’s valid to say that the current system isn’t working. My opinion still counts, even if I don’t have a convenient replacement at hand.
This is super incurious. Capitalism is a relatively new form is societal economic organization. There have been many forms of economy that persisted for long periods of time. Using this as a starting point, every capitalist society eventually fails too. Capitalism isn’t the end ultimate form of economic organization. There will come a time when another form becomes dominant and hopefully better for more than a few at the top. And someone like you will say the same thing about it. Also the argument that every communist society has failed is a statement that is common in the western world. It is propaganda. The statement is just as incorrect as replacing it with any other economic organization of society. Sure every communist society will fail but what it leaves out is that every communist society has been pushed to the fringe by capitalism with war, sanctions, and bullying.
