Nope, and that’s not what I said. The claim was that capitalism is the only system that has ever worked at a nationwide scale. The fact you brought up feudalism as an alternative shows it clearly wasn’t the only system that ever worked. And just like the divine right of kings was eventually found distasteful and overthrown throughout most of the world, so too can people come to find the capitalist system distasteful and replace it. It’s not a law of nature that people must operate under capitalism.
The emphasis should really be “sufficiently regulated”. I can’t see any capitalist country at the moment where the regulation is as stringent as needed and as punishing for violations as deserved.
I think a lot of people think capitalism literally means commerce. The sanctions usually imposed on socialist/ communist countries fuels this idea by directly restricting commerce in those countries and sabotaging them.
Capitalism requires private, profit based ownership of the means of production. Not all worker owned businesses are profit seeking, or any profit they obtain beyond operating/wage costs is redistributed to the workers/voted on for how to use it. Without a profit motive and private ownership you’re cutting out a huge portion of what makes capitalism so destructive.
So capitalism but every company of a certain size operates as a not for profit coop? (Is that still capitalism?) I’m being serious here. I would like more collective ownership of capital but I don’t know what it looks like and I don’t trust the government to do it centrally. We’d need to nail down details like how big a company has to grow before it must distribute and how the original owners or investors are compensated for that loss of control. We wouldn’t want a system where no one tries to do anything cool because it would ultimately be taken away as soon as it succeeded.
i think markets do provide signals about local preferences and efficencies that centralized economies lose. personally i think socialism > comunism because of that, in which the workers own the factories but markets still operate on competition;
i am also open to something like georgism which is capitalism but all rent-seeking activities are 100% taxed and give back in form of services and UBI to the population
Markets are not a function of capitalism; feudalism, mercantilism, etc. all had markets. There would be and have been markets in communist governments. Marx himself held the same sentiment about markets being effective for similar reasons you listed.
Communism (not DemSoc) is an economic system where a government essentially owns the population ruled by an autocrat, under the veil of a single union. The ML way of democratic centralism completely fails when the opposition is blocked from voting which assures total enforced hegemony.
Communism (not DemSoc) is an economic system where a government essentially owns the population ruled by an autocrat, under the veil of a single union.
Every single piece of information Marx Lenin Mao Stalin points to: the replacement of power of any method a worker has, in a capitalist democracy and migrate it after the revolution to a state held apparatus above which the flawed democratic-centralism takes grasp to hold absolute power. At which point strengthening a secret police is all that’s needed to let fascism in from the back door. At least Mussolini stated his intentions from the beginning.
The whole mass of the people must take part in it. Otherwise, socialism will be decreed from behind a few official desks by a dozen intellectuals.
Sorry I should have used effectively, being ideological about democratic centralism is nice until you find yourself organising a workers demonstration against one.
I have yet to see anyone suggest workable practical alternatives, just feel-good masturbation like the above comment.
So go ahead, masturbate furiously to your fantasies, but I’d rather deal with the adults in the room talking about actual workable ways to improve our lives.
This is the type of nonsense that leads to twits saying “I only agree with like 90% of what this progressive politician stands for, so I won’t vote for them!” and the fascists fucking win.
Grow the fuck up, people. Jesus christ.
Work reform? We nede to string our fucking oligarchs up and solve wealth inequality. We need to use things that WORK. Capitalism is fine, just need sufficient regulations. What we don’t need is a useless communist reveolution that throws everything into utter chaos and fails.
We need strong unions, universal health care, universal basic income, human rights protections.
Not to fuck around playing with schemes that won’t work on the countries that already exist.
We nede to string our fucking oligarchs up and solve wealth inequality. We need to use things that WORK. Capitalism is fine, just need sufficient regulations.
It is impossible to get sufficient regulations under capitalism. Even if you (temporarily) manage it, the influence of capital will sooner or later erode, subvert, and repeal those regulations.
Capitalism literally means ‘rule by capital’. As long as you have capitalism, capital will rule you. And what does capital want? More capital, more power, at any cost. It will always be working toward taking away your strong unions, your healthcare, your UBI, your human rights, all in the name of increasing wealth inequality, of making the rich richer. And it will always succeed, sooner or later. Because that’s what capitalism is. That’s what it does. That’s what it will always trend toward. Maybe you can fight for some temporary reforms, but that will always be a short term solution before your hard-earned reforms inevitably get subverted by those who actually rule you under a capitalist system.
Not to fuck around playing with schemes that won’t work on the countries that already exist.
And you think reforming capitalism works? Works for whom? When has it ever worked? I’m not the only one here with masturbatory fantasies.
Scandanavia is pretty much doing just about best in the world. I think they’re largely showing what can be done. Perfect? No. But better than the fascist shithole the US has become.
I don’t see anything besides capitalism working at ALL out there.
Do you think that there r not people being exploited in Scandinavian countries? Or do u mean is ok for some people to be exploited? Bc that is capitalism ultimately.
I guess u think that a ‘well regulated’ capitalism would be where the conditions of those most exploited are more tolerable by w.e metric.
Thats unacceptable. we can create a society w.out exploiting anyone, but it wont be with capitalism.
I just mean: we shouldn’t (and can’t) settle for a system that only works by fucking people over.
From ur other comments it seems like maybe we mostly agree, i think u just have a hard time (understandably) envisioning a world without capitalism. I read this book Capitalist Realism by mark fisher. If u search online u can find it, i think u might find it interesting.
If you’re using capitalism to mean monetary trade, you’re the one redefining words. See the generally accepted meaning here on Wikipedia; it specifically revolves around private ownership of the means of production for the purpose of profit. Maybe you could name a capitalist society in existence prior to the 1600s, if you think everyone else is just defining capitalist wrong?
I’m perfectly fine with sufficiently regulated capitalism. I’ve certainly not seen any working alternatives that have worked at a nation-wide scale.
Crazy that nowhere in the world had functional societies until the past couple of centuries. Just wild.
You want to go back to feudalism?
Nope, and that’s not what I said. The claim was that capitalism is the only system that has ever worked at a nationwide scale. The fact you brought up feudalism as an alternative shows it clearly wasn’t the only system that ever worked. And just like the divine right of kings was eventually found distasteful and overthrown throughout most of the world, so too can people come to find the capitalist system distasteful and replace it. It’s not a law of nature that people must operate under capitalism.
Oh, so you were just lying then.
Show your work.
The emphasis should really be “sufficiently regulated”. I can’t see any capitalist country at the moment where the regulation is as stringent as needed and as punishing for violations as deserved.
The best countries that I can point to (Scandanavia) seem to have the highest regulated capitalism.
I don’t see any examples of countries that are not some form of capitalism, but in general, the less regulations, the worse they’re doing.
Also, I’d like to note that I said “sufficiently regulated” as the only qualifiers to capitalism, meaning I consider them pretty damn important. lol
Capitalism is fundamentally unjust. Someone who doesn’t even work keeps the profits generated by the people who do. Fuck that.
Capitalism doesn’t mean “people trade money for goods and services”
Why isn’t communism scalable in your mind? “Well regulated capitalism” is still by definition exploitation.
I think a lot of people think capitalism literally means commerce. The sanctions usually imposed on socialist/ communist countries fuels this idea by directly restricting commerce in those countries and sabotaging them.
Would you want this administration to own the means of production?
Psst: workers own the means of production under communism.
How do they own it?
Presumably the same way worker owned businesses work now.
So market capitalism but all businesses are publicly traded or coops?
Capitalism requires private, profit based ownership of the means of production. Not all worker owned businesses are profit seeking, or any profit they obtain beyond operating/wage costs is redistributed to the workers/voted on for how to use it. Without a profit motive and private ownership you’re cutting out a huge portion of what makes capitalism so destructive.
So capitalism but every company of a certain size operates as a not for profit coop? (Is that still capitalism?) I’m being serious here. I would like more collective ownership of capital but I don’t know what it looks like and I don’t trust the government to do it centrally. We’d need to nail down details like how big a company has to grow before it must distribute and how the original owners or investors are compensated for that loss of control. We wouldn’t want a system where no one tries to do anything cool because it would ultimately be taken away as soon as it succeeded.
Psst: that’s socialism.
i think markets do provide signals about local preferences and efficencies that centralized economies lose. personally i think socialism > comunism because of that, in which the workers own the factories but markets still operate on competition;
i am also open to something like georgism which is capitalism but all rent-seeking activities are 100% taxed and give back in form of services and UBI to the population
Markets are not a function of capitalism; feudalism, mercantilism, etc. all had markets. There would be and have been markets in communist governments. Marx himself held the same sentiment about markets being effective for similar reasons you listed.
Communism (not DemSoc) is an economic system where a government essentially owns the population ruled by an autocrat, under the veil of a single union. The ML way of democratic centralism completely fails when the opposition is blocked from voting which assures total enforced hegemony.
This doesn’t sound like a good idea.
No it’s not.
Every single piece of information Marx Lenin Mao Stalin points to: the replacement of power of any method a worker has, in a capitalist democracy and migrate it after the revolution to a state held apparatus above which the flawed democratic-centralism takes grasp to hold absolute power. At which point strengthening a secret police is all that’s needed to let fascism in from the back door. At least Mussolini stated his intentions from the beginning.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch06.htm
This word is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, lmao.
Sorry I should have used effectively, being ideological about democratic centralism is nice until you find yourself organising a workers demonstration against one.
You shouldn’t have commented at all, lol.
Classic Stazi - yes any form of criticism of Marx’s socialism must be stamped out and silenced
Me thinking you said something stupid is secret police?
Wow, 2 for 2.
Who says we need a nation-wide scale? Nations are just too big.
I have yet to see anyone suggest workable practical alternatives, just feel-good masturbation like the above comment.
So go ahead, masturbate furiously to your fantasies, but I’d rather deal with the adults in the room talking about actual workable ways to improve our lives.
This is the type of nonsense that leads to twits saying “I only agree with like 90% of what this progressive politician stands for, so I won’t vote for them!” and the fascists fucking win.
Grow the fuck up, people. Jesus christ.
Work reform? We nede to string our fucking oligarchs up and solve wealth inequality. We need to use things that WORK. Capitalism is fine, just need sufficient regulations. What we don’t need is a useless communist reveolution that throws everything into utter chaos and fails.
We need strong unions, universal health care, universal basic income, human rights protections.
Not to fuck around playing with schemes that won’t work on the countries that already exist.
It is impossible to get sufficient regulations under capitalism. Even if you (temporarily) manage it, the influence of capital will sooner or later erode, subvert, and repeal those regulations.
Capitalism literally means ‘rule by capital’. As long as you have capitalism, capital will rule you. And what does capital want? More capital, more power, at any cost. It will always be working toward taking away your strong unions, your healthcare, your UBI, your human rights, all in the name of increasing wealth inequality, of making the rich richer. And it will always succeed, sooner or later. Because that’s what capitalism is. That’s what it does. That’s what it will always trend toward. Maybe you can fight for some temporary reforms, but that will always be a short term solution before your hard-earned reforms inevitably get subverted by those who actually rule you under a capitalist system.
And you think reforming capitalism works? Works for whom? When has it ever worked? I’m not the only one here with masturbatory fantasies.
Scandanavia is pretty much doing just about best in the world. I think they’re largely showing what can be done. Perfect? No. But better than the fascist shithole the US has become.
I don’t see anything besides capitalism working at ALL out there.
Do you think that there r not people being exploited in Scandinavian countries? Or do u mean is ok for some people to be exploited? Bc that is capitalism ultimately.
I guess u think that a ‘well regulated’ capitalism would be where the conditions of those most exploited are more tolerable by w.e metric.
Thats unacceptable. we can create a society w.out exploiting anyone, but it wont be with capitalism.
Do you think “best” means “perfect”?
I see no point in continuing to discuss this with people who don’t understand language.
You can feel free to same similar about me, don’t care.
I just mean: we shouldn’t (and can’t) settle for a system that only works by fucking people over.
From ur other comments it seems like maybe we mostly agree, i think u just have a hard time (understandably) envisioning a world without capitalism. I read this book Capitalist Realism by mark fisher. If u search online u can find it, i think u might find it interesting.
You don’t think any non-capitalist system could ever clear the low bar of “better than the fascist shithole the US has become”?
Yep, never worked before, ever… except for all the places it has.
And where do you think it has worked?
The entire globe since prehistory until capitalist colonialism started spreading around the world in the late 1600s from the Dutch East India company
Oh, so you guys are doing the stupid thing where you redefine words.
Okay, whatever, have fun with that.
If you’re using capitalism to mean monetary trade, you’re the one redefining words. See the generally accepted meaning here on Wikipedia; it specifically revolves around private ownership of the means of production for the purpose of profit. Maybe you could name a capitalist society in existence prior to the 1600s, if you think everyone else is just defining capitalist wrong?
Capitalism has only existed for 400 years. Nothing has been redefined.