1170
Capitalism cant provide (europe.pub)
submitted 1 year ago by [M] to c/latestagecapitalism@lemmy.world
221 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[+] 53 points 1 year ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (34 children)
[deleted]
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 34 child comments
    •
  • [–] 32 points 1 year ago (25 children)

    I think we do more than allow it.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 25 child comments
    •
  • [+] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (24 children)
    [deleted]
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 24 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (23 children)

    Why, again?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 23 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (20 children)

    $

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 20 child comments
    •
  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (19 children)

    And that's what exactly?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 19 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (16 children)

    Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions.

    ~Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 16 child comments
    •
  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago (15 children)

    Okay so now we're right back to 'why?'.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 15 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (13 children)

    Because you need poor desperate people to sell their labor for less than it's worth, so a rich guy can take this surplus (difference between value produced and wage given) and use that money to buy even more raw materials and labor to repeat the cycle but bigger.

    And then you get debt, what you can give to the less fortunate so you can demand they pay back more so you create new desperate people that sell their labor.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 13 child comments
    •
  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    And... Why do we keep doing this, again?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 12 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (11 children)

    Because the owner class will undercut the cottage industry that people depend on to opt out of that system. See also Luddite protests and how that went down.

    And you can't go to just live of the land because all land is owned by someone, so the violence inherent in the system will make you leave. Even if you own your land, there is usually tax to be paid on that land and that forced you to earn money, so that's back to that cottage industry thing.

    There's also no new system yet that can replace the current one where people can opt in and get a reasonably good standard off living.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 11 child comments
    •
  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    This ownership stuff feels real suspicious. What and why? This is getting increasingly unconvincing the further down we go.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 10 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    It's a holdover from the middle ages. Kings owned the country and if someone disagreed you better have an army to make a good argument. Land was then doled out to lords and lesser tenants in exchange for services and goods. That got gradually turned into a state guaranteeing ownership by force and a market system. Overthrowing it ends up giving a temporary reprieve and just replacing the figure head.

    Other systems exist but they got crushed by the current system. Cryptocurrency and other ways of ownership seem to evolve to a digital lords owning the majority so long term not making a big difference.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (6 children)

    How do you know what overthrowing it does, again?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Centuries of wars, revolutions and protests around here.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Oh. And when was it overthrown?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    What do you mean? We had countries splitting, merging, changing government types, wars, angry mobs burning down factories and in the end the same rich families are still in control.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Oh damn, so nobody ever really got rid of a few rich families? That seems like quite the oversight.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    What if we just stopped doing... All of that? It seems pretty god damn silly, and I don't see why i should.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    Most people don't because of a few basic questions. Where are we going to live, how do we keep warm, what will we eat next month and how to stay healthy? Solve that and people will stop playing the silly games.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    There is apparently always someone who values their own wealth over any benefit of others. So, they exploit others to enrich themselves.

    It's just selfishness all the way down.

    The others, have little wealth of their own, so have little power to resist the exploiter.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    That makes it sound like it's just a passive side-effective and not a critical tool in the elite's arsenal in keeping the working class subjugated by holding the promise of suffering over our heads if we choose not to spend a third of our lives generating wealth for them.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [+] -10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    There was rampant poverty in the USSR too. As there is in China. They don’t seem too winning in N Korea either.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Nice whataboutism there. But as you seem to be under the illusion that these countries are not capitalist (and presumably therefore communist, considering the countries you chose and the usual dogma that comes with them) let's have a look.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

    First, let's define communism. Luckily the world wide web has done that already for us.

    Communism (from Latin communis 'common, universal')[1][2] is a political and economic ideology whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products in society based on need.[3][4][5] A communist society entails the absence of private property and social classes,[1] and ultimately money[6] and the state.[7][8][9]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

    The legacy of the USSR remains a controversial topic. The socio-economic nature of communist states such as the USSR, especially under Stalin, has also been much debated, varyingly being labelled a form of bureaucratic collectivism, state capitalism, state socialism, or a totally unique mode of production.[260]

    some leftists regard the USSR as an example of state capitalism

    Maoists also have a mixed opinion on the USSR, viewing it negatively during the Sino-Soviet Split and denouncing it as revisionist and reverted to capitalism.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union#Legacy

    So the USSR was not communist, but rather somewhere between capitalist and its own thing.

    Modern-day China is often described as an example of state capitalism or party-state capitalism.[290][291]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China#Economy

    Not communist by any stretch of the imagination.

    North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship with a comprehensive cult of personality around the Kim family.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea

    Not communist.

    Capitalism is a shit system for vast swathes of the population and results in poverty, exploitation, and death.

    Is communism the answer? I don't know, it's never truly managed to take off anywhere without either being corrupted from within or attacked from without. But capitalism most certainly needs to go in the bin.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    The USSR was socialist. Public ownership was the principle aspect of the economy, and society was run by the working class. It was not yet communist, but it was certainly socialist. The PRC is also an example of socialism, public ownership is also the principle aspect of the economy, same as the DPRK. The extent to which markets play a role varies greatly in these countries, but markets are not synonymous with capitalism, and socialism is not defined by the absence of private property just as capitalism is not defined by the absence of public property.

    I suggest you avoid using wikipedia if you're trying to get a Marxist perspective on existing socialist states past and present. They aren't written by Marxists but by anyone, and opinions presented by the authors should not be confused for Marxist analysis. If anything, they have an overwhelmingly liberal bias, and should be aconowledged as such.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    The Soviet Union was capitalist. Right-o.

    By the way, congratulations on finally getting Wi-Fi on your planet.

    The “Lucy” argument isn’t as compelling as some tankies seem to think. We’ve had plenty of communist regimes. They’re all abominable. No good holding the football out and saying “but this time it’s real communism”. Communism is rancid because people are rancid.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent