People blame capitalism, but capitalism isn’t the problem. The problem, as always, is power.
Under feudalism things were much worse. Serfs worked 6 days a week, 12+ hours a day. Up to 3 days of that week was spent tending your lord’s lands for free.
Under absolute monarchies, dictatorships and police states you work as hard as you can for whatever hours your employer sets, and you keep any complaints to yourself or you’re dragged off to a camp, or summarily executed.
So far, every time “communism” has been tried, it was just a dictatorship or police state where the leaders pretend that there’s a higher ideal.
Capitalist republics don’t give people at the bottom much power, but they get a little bit. And, that little bit is the best that the people at the bottom have ever had, even if it isn’t much.
The fact that there are people at the bottom isn’t the fault of some political system, and especially isn’t the fault of capitalism, it’s the fault of human nature.
Capitalism is better than feudalism, yes. The problem is that Capitalism inevitably gets to the point where it is more detrimental to the population as a whole than it is beneficial (Global Warming, Wealth inequality, power imbalances, etc.), and that point is now.
Capitalism did bring us many advancements, but we have outgrown it. Just because it did good things at some point doesn’t mean that there isn’t something better. We should all be striving towards better as a species, but we aren’t.
Many of today’s problems were yesterday’s solutions. It’s a common cycle for an improvement to come along, be implemented, show some new problems over time, and then need another improvement to address those problems.
Capitalism was an improvement over feudalism (Marx agrees with this!), but no one is advocating going back to feudalism. The argument is that the problems with capitalism are so large and capitalism itself is unable to address them. Hence the need for the next improvement: socialism.
police state where the leaders pretend that there’s a higher ideal
When the Bad Countries do this it’s a damning indictment of their entire system; when the U.S. does it, it’s just bad apples that can be reformed away.
We already produce enough food to feed all of humanity, we already have enough houses to house everyone, and we have the means to prevent and cure most diseases, yet people at the top gatekeep access to those resources to increase their profits.
But sure, inequality just happens spontaneously. There’s nothing we could do about that 😒
Yes, because we’re humans, and humans are mammals. Dolphins have a 1:1 male/female sex ratio, and yet male dolphins team up to control breeding access to females. Damn capitalism, making dolphins not share fairly!
I agree with most of your individual points… But your thesis relies on a false assumption.
Capitalism is the current problem for 95% of the world… Just like monarchies were a problem for that particular country. Just because many political and economic systems throughout history reflect an aspect of human nature to control and bequeath that control to their offspring, doesn’t take capitalism off the hook. Hell, if that were the case, we could blame everything on the evolutionary drive to be sexually successful, and not place the blame on anyone or anything else. That’s what those at the top would love the rest of us to believe.
Capitalism is the current problem for 95% of the world
Capitalism isn’t the current problem for 95% of the world. The problem for 95% of the world is 1% of the people who have the power/wealth. Whatever “ism” you use, there will always be people at the top who are exploiting people at the bottom. Capitalism succeeded because it provided a new and more efficient form for the people at the top to exploit the people at the bottom. But, it was also better for the people at the bottom. Instead of being tied to the land where they were born, born into a trade, and so-on, now they at least had a tiny bit of agency in their lives.
Capitalism isn’t the cause of any of these problems, humanity is the cause of the problem. Humanity forms hierarchical groups, and people at the top exploit people at the bottom. In fact, you could probably extend it well beyond humanity. This is pretty common even in apes, and even in other mammals. Dolphins don’t know about capitalism, yet they still have hierarchies.
political and economic systems throughout history reflect an aspect of human nature to control and bequeath that control to their offspring, doesn’t take capitalism off the hook
Ok, so what puts capitalism on the hook? In what ways are people exploited more under capitalism than any other previous system? What makes capitalism so uniquely bad that you have to call it out rather than just acknowledging that it’s human, or even animal nature?
Communism will have administrators, planners, managers, etc so it keeps some form of authority and hierarchy, to be clear, it’s just that these are a necessity for large-scale production and aren’t classes.
Yes, technically there is a top and a bottom, like an upper level administrator and a lower level worker, but this is not a relationship of exploitation just like it isn’t your manager that exploits you under Capitalism, but the Business Owner(s).
People blame capitalism, but capitalism isn’t the problem. The problem, as always, is power.
Under feudalism things were much worse. Serfs worked 6 days a week, 12+ hours a day. Up to 3 days of that week was spent tending your lord’s lands for free.
Under absolute monarchies, dictatorships and police states you work as hard as you can for whatever hours your employer sets, and you keep any complaints to yourself or you’re dragged off to a camp, or summarily executed.
So far, every time “communism” has been tried, it was just a dictatorship or police state where the leaders pretend that there’s a higher ideal.
Capitalist republics don’t give people at the bottom much power, but they get a little bit. And, that little bit is the best that the people at the bottom have ever had, even if it isn’t much.
The fact that there are people at the bottom isn’t the fault of some political system, and especially isn’t the fault of capitalism, it’s the fault of human nature.
You were two steps away from discovering libertarian socialism/democratic confederalism and then you crawled backwards.
If your political system is based on hierarchy, there will always be someone at the bottom of said hierarchy. It’s the logical consequence.
This is literally capitalist propaganda. Humans are a social specie, by nature they seek cooperation, not competition.
Riiight, a tried and true political/economic system which is sure to work perfectly as soon as it’s tried, just like communism.
If you’re human, your political system will involve hierarchy as soon as more than about a dozen individuals are involved.
Suuure… it’s capitalist propaganda to acknowledge that all mammals act in ways that are hierarchical and unfair.
Capitalism is better than feudalism, yes. The problem is that Capitalism inevitably gets to the point where it is more detrimental to the population as a whole than it is beneficial (Global Warming, Wealth inequality, power imbalances, etc.), and that point is now.
Capitalism did bring us many advancements, but we have outgrown it. Just because it did good things at some point doesn’t mean that there isn’t something better. We should all be striving towards better as a species, but we aren’t.
Many of today’s problems were yesterday’s solutions. It’s a common cycle for an improvement to come along, be implemented, show some new problems over time, and then need another improvement to address those problems.
Capitalism was an improvement over feudalism (Marx agrees with this!), but no one is advocating going back to feudalism. The argument is that the problems with capitalism are so large and capitalism itself is unable to address them. Hence the need for the next improvement: socialism.
When the Bad Countries do this it’s a damning indictment of their entire system; when the U.S. does it, it’s just bad apples that can be reformed away.
Inequality isnt the fault of the system that creates inequality. It just is.
The system doesn’t create inequality, the inequality was always there.
We already produce enough food to feed all of humanity, we already have enough houses to house everyone, and we have the means to prevent and cure most diseases, yet people at the top gatekeep access to those resources to increase their profits.
But sure, inequality just happens spontaneously. There’s nothing we could do about that 😒
Yes, because we’re humans, and humans are mammals. Dolphins have a 1:1 male/female sex ratio, and yet male dolphins team up to control breeding access to females. Damn capitalism, making dolphins not share fairly!
I agree with most of your individual points… But your thesis relies on a false assumption.
Capitalism is the current problem for 95% of the world… Just like monarchies were a problem for that particular country. Just because many political and economic systems throughout history reflect an aspect of human nature to control and bequeath that control to their offspring, doesn’t take capitalism off the hook. Hell, if that were the case, we could blame everything on the evolutionary drive to be sexually successful, and not place the blame on anyone or anything else. That’s what those at the top would love the rest of us to believe.
Capitalism isn’t the current problem for 95% of the world. The problem for 95% of the world is 1% of the people who have the power/wealth. Whatever “ism” you use, there will always be people at the top who are exploiting people at the bottom. Capitalism succeeded because it provided a new and more efficient form for the people at the top to exploit the people at the bottom. But, it was also better for the people at the bottom. Instead of being tied to the land where they were born, born into a trade, and so-on, now they at least had a tiny bit of agency in their lives.
Capitalism isn’t the cause of any of these problems, humanity is the cause of the problem. Humanity forms hierarchical groups, and people at the top exploit people at the bottom. In fact, you could probably extend it well beyond humanity. This is pretty common even in apes, and even in other mammals. Dolphins don’t know about capitalism, yet they still have hierarchies.
Ok, so what puts capitalism on the hook? In what ways are people exploited more under capitalism than any other previous system? What makes capitalism so uniquely bad that you have to call it out rather than just acknowledging that it’s human, or even animal nature?
communism is classless. there is no top or bottom. same with anarchism.
Yes, and there’s a reason that those can’t exist in actual human communities of more than about a dozen people.
this is a lie.
Ok, then disprove it. Show a counterexample.
the Paris commune
How did that end?
China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stateless_societies?wprov=sfla1
exarcheia
What about it?
the swamp maroons
How did that end?
Communism will have administrators, planners, managers, etc so it keeps some form of authority and hierarchy, to be clear, it’s just that these are a necessity for large-scale production and aren’t classes.
so there is no one “at the top” “exploiting people at the bottom”
Yes, technically there is a top and a bottom, like an upper level administrator and a lower level worker, but this is not a relationship of exploitation just like it isn’t your manager that exploits you under Capitalism, but the Business Owner(s).
under communism, there is no exploitation