and just like in biology, you need a system to fight the cancer, you can’t just wish it away.
since we’ve refused to maintain such an immune system, we’re now going to have to go through a miserable period of chemo treatment to rid ourselves of the tumors.
I like your optimism. I am pretty sure the cancer is going to kill the host.
Sorry. We’re stage 4. It’s terminal.
I thought the chemo treatment was WW1.
Are we really gonna pretend killing a bunch of people is better than doing business with them?
WW1? I;m curious as to why your mind went there? I assumed they were referring to WW2, and having to fight against fascism AGAIN. Fascism is the malignant tumor.
I’m a fan of capitalism with tight regulations and checks on corruption, personally
The very nature of capitalism facilitates concentrations of power, which will utilize that power to accumulate even more in any conceivable way. The system is fundamentally flawed and needs to be replaced if we care at all for basic human rights and a future for this species.
What is your proposed alternative? I struggle to think of any system that doesn’t inevitably result in concentrations of power
Social Democracy. Commerce is key to strong economies, not capitalistic wealth hoarding.
as a solution to capitalism i propose capitalism (but you get 20 euro of ubi once per financial quarter)
Concentrations of power is made from the greed of people. Honestly, I beliefe that any sufficiently large society will eventually fall into capitalism, and the other way around, capitalism encourages border-less states, making effectively bigger communities.
However, with the current economic trend of de-globalization, things may eventually change.
There’s always people in power, there is no other way. Either citizens can be empowered, or only the gov’t. Those are the only two options regardless of the system.
The very nature of capitalism facilitates concentrations of power
No. Capitalism is one thing and one thing only: the private ownership of the means of production. The very nature of private ownership, means private citizens have the freedom to own what’s theirs, and trade it with whoever. The nature of capitalism, meaning its logical end state, is a free market in the truest sense. This is the opposite of concentrating power, because the means of power are completely disunited. In less favorable terms, the logical end state of capitalism is anarchy or chaos
Socialism is the common/public/collective ownership of the means of production. Holding the means of power in a collective is another way of saying it’s being concentrated. The logical end of socialism is the concentration of everything.
Of course, I don’t think we need to take either extreme too seriously. They both have faults, clearly, and they both devolve into something that more resembles the other with time. Capitalism adopts regulations or develop a state to concentrate their power against and enemy. Socialism reduces state power when civilians want more freedoms.
Point is, your characterizing of Capitalism seems misinformed, and it’s incredibly silly to think a fundamental replacement of our current system is in order, as if there’s some perfect ideology we can obviously replace it with
I’m a fan of Communism with tight regulations and checks on corruption, personally.
Of the two, one is still far more realistic than the other.
Which one, and why, structurally? What about Communism or Capitalism works for or against democratic measures being put in place?
I’ll bite. Until we have machines doing most things, communism is unlikely to work, especially in post agrarian societies. We need to first fully realize not just post scarcity, but post work. In theory it seems like things like anarcho syndicalism and basic communism should work, but I don’t think they really function at a large scale. Socialized democracy and worker owned cooperatives within a capitalism system gets the closest to solving the problems imo. I like the idea of anarcho syndicalism the most, but I just don’t see how it can survive in todays world.
With all systems the same problems crop up. Powerful people seek to exploit ANY system to their benefit, and unmotivated people seek to do the least to get by. Who cleans toilets in a equitable communist country, who picks up the trash? Do we force people into job roles to fill the need? Without economic incentives I don’t see how the system stays healthy. Removing class barriers to some jobs does not always make them desirable enough to fill the need. Capitalisms structure inherently results in people that are strongly incentivized into those roles, because the wage will usually rise to meet the demand for employees. (Low educated citizens seeing opportunity in jobs that make a living wage.)
Currently the biggest problem we have, imo, is really that people with power expend tremendous resources on controlling the flow of information, and that has left a lot of people very misinformed. No matter the system, those same people will be fooled into voting for things that benefit the powerful to the detriment of the rest of us. That’s not so much a capitalism problem, but an information problem. That’s a problem we have no solution for. It has been an issue with humans since civilization has existed. We can’t individually know everything, so we rely on others to fill in the gaps in our thinking and assumptions, and many of those people have a motive to only give you the information that benefits them, or worse off just lie. A lot of peoples anger towards capitalism, is a result of unbridled capitalism in a world where most people have incomplete information to make good decisions at the voting booth. We only have unbridled capitalism because of misinformation, not because capitalism is inherently bad.
Basic Communism is the preceding step to advanced Communism, yes. Marx makes this exceptionally clear. What specifically do you think people are advocating for that cannot work?
There are numerous solutions to the “undesirable jobs” questions. For background, Marx makes it very clear that intense labor is condensed unskilled labor, sake with skilled labor. In lower Communism by which skilled labor is still a requirement, and thus labor takes on different characters, pay would likely be represented in different manners depending on intensity and complexity. Feel free to ask any questions if this is confusing.
I agree that misinformation is a huge problem, but I disagree that your conclusion is that it causes the issues with Capitalism, rather than Capitalism itself. Capitalism structurally has issues with power imbalance, and issues like the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall that must be overcome via Socialism.
Overall, I think you would be served immensely by reading some Marx. I know that’s a very typical leftist response, but I do believe much of your issues come from assuming Communists want to jump straight to end-stage Communism now, rather than building it over time and adjusting with the change in Material conditions.
I AM left wing, have read about many social theories in my life all over the spectrum. There isn’t much one can do to distill that down to one post. Not one of the solutions to communisms problems I’ve seen in my lifetime are ever very fair or realistic. It comes with all of the same problems as capitalism as it pertains to power and it is infinitely less agile than capitalism. You can get to nearly the same place that communism wants to get, by adapting socialist ideals into capitalism while keeping capitalisms agility in the marketplace of needs.
I’m sorry, but you’ve made a number of blanket statements here with nothing to back it up, combined with a failure to address the very fact that your point on bullshit jobs was already thoroughly debunked by Marx.
-
If you’ve read Marx, why do you think people are advocating paying sewage workers the same as office workers? There are even methods that suggest working fewer hours for the same pay with regards to how strenuous it is.
-
How can you consider yourself left wing if you reject Socialism in favor of Capitalism? That’s just a centrist or right-winger.
-
How does Communism “come with all of the same power problems as Capitalism” if Communism is fundamentally democratic, and Capitalism fundamentally anti-democratic?
-
How is Capitalism more agile than Communism?
-
How can you say Capitalism can nearly get to a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society when it depends on all 3 to exist?
-
How can you “adapt Socialist ideas into Capitalism” when Capitalism and Socialism are mutually exclusive Modes of Production?
All in all, very dumbfounded at this comment.
-
Removed by mod
One was implemented and is actively ruining the planet.
The other was only used as a façade by dictators that didn’t feel like labeling themselves as right-wing.
Stalin was both bad and left-wing. Leftism isn’t a synonym for good, even if I’m a leftist and don’t support Stalin.
You can’t learn from historical examples and prevent the issues of the past by turning a blind eye.
You can’t tell me the Great Purge is something a left-wing person would do. He thought Hitler was “a great man”.
I’m far from an expert in political history, but if we were to look at controversial figures on the left, Guevara and Castro are probably the “worst” I can think of that still clearly had left-wing ideals in mind.
Leftism isn’t synonymous with being a good person. As for Hitler, many Americans called Hitler a great man as well, it wasn’t until wartime that anyone went against Hitler meaningfully.
Stalin and Mao were both leftists, and both pretty damn brutal. Read anything Stalin has written, and it’s clear that he certainly believed himself to be a leftist, and a student of Marx and Lenin, no matter how horrible his actions.
Wish we’d see that someday
Same here! For now, I try to focus on implementing self-sufficiency and communal practices, even if the bulk of my life is engaged with Capitalist systems.
Get into anarcho-syndicalism. Form and join existing anarcho-communist worker’s associations. The only sustainable way for us to end capitalism is if we start collectively associating and operating outside the framework of capitalism today.
Exactly. No revolution occurred because everyone wished really hard it would happen but still played by the oppressor’s rules.
Human nature is a mf though
Sure, that’s why we need Socialism and eventually Communism, rather than Capitalism.
I mean im Canadian and it sure keeps going that way anyway
Canada isn’t becoming Socialist or Communist anytime soon, lmao
I’m a fan of pragmatism: real solutions to real problems.
Damn you must hate capitalism then eh
Yeah, but I don’t think communism is a bulletproof solution either. Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses.
The real issue is that people think the disparity in wealth should grow instead of shrink.
Maybe there’s a sweet spot in between Capitalism and Communism. They are basically the 2 extremes of the political spectrum after all. Surely there’s a spot on the spectrum that embraces worker’s rights while also incentivising commercial enterprise. Checks and balances are always necessary, even in a utopia.
Who literally says that? Capitalism is the only system that allows people to dig themselves out of that hole. Know any Cubans? Socialism works awesome…says nobody crushed by it.
I think you’re projecting your tribalistic tendencies onto literally everyone else on the planet.
Sure…sure…
So am I!
This is the essence, corruption.
Yep, that’s why more democratic Modes of Production such as Communism are more resistant to corruption than antidemocratic Capitalistic Modes of Productuon.
I think many of the socialist states of Asia and Eastern Europe are or were ridiculously corrupt. How democratic those were is of course questionable.
The same could be said of Capitalism. The difference is that the very structure of Socialism is based on democratic principles.
I meant that it wasn’t really very resistant to corruption.
It’s still structurally more resistant to corruption than Capitalism, which is my point. It’s not immune, nothing is.
There was never socialism in Asia or Eastern Europe. At no point have the workers seized the means of production and had a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Not a fan of the genocide though
Can’t think of many who are. Certainly not me.
Do you think tools have mystical mind control aspects to them that cause their owners to commit genocide if society collectively owns them? If so, then why does genocide also happen in Capitalist countries?
I’m not a fan of any overarching system, however capitalism is the one I, and I suspect most of the people reading this, live in. Therefore the best way of addressing the problems our society faces is to do so using the tools that our capitalistic system provides (such as regulation and oversight) rather than twiddle our thumbs waiting for some grand revolution to fix everything.
Claiming that the only way to improve our situation is to completely overturn the system does nothing but promote inaction.
Sitting my kids down and telling them that the only way to send them to college is to keep buying scratch-off lottery tickets.
Angrily insisting that the only other alternative is to tear up the entire higher education system. Its either gambling on scratchers or doing a bloody uprising. No other alternatives.
You’re a fan of exploitation of the working class?
I’m a fan of monogamy with multiple sexual partners.
Well you’re wrong then.
Casinos have to have rules.
So is anybody that’s actually sane. I love all the make believe “links” made with the anti-capitalism crowd. Keep in mind those are the same ones that are highly educated, went to good schools, worked their way up the corporate ladder so they could have their big house and nice cars… but against Capitalism LOL. It’s all talk.
Yes yes you love the idea of people being taken advantage of by the very nature of the system and think anti-capitalism means communist, we know your types, it’s tiresome.
Can you quote me saying either of those? Don’t put words in my mouth.
You can’t have it. It simply does not work like that. We saw what happens when you try that and it’s the world we’re living in. And when I say ‘the world we’re living in’ I mean exclusively the west. This kind of thing gets you and your entire town killed if you try it where the US is allowed to set off bombs.
Yes, with corruption, we can’t have anything. So what I need to do is become the most powerful man in the universe and be loving and kind, but with fair and swift judgment. There is no I ther way. No way possible. OR, we can keep trying.
Adam Smith even said: “every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men.”
So, we need to constantly keep fighting against corruption and harm towards other humans. If not, you are the problem. Instead of always saying how that will not happen, maybe come up with an answer. I mean, since humans keep causing problems, maybe we should get rid of humans? Right?
Yours is a failure of imagination. There’s no alternative between the current order and god from heaven coming down to smite the bad people? Because I say a strategy that was tried in the past didn’t work, and has observable and learnable outcomes, that saying it’s not the path to achieving what you want is the exact same as saying we should kill off the human race? Right?
Batshit reply. Not sure what the Adam Smith filler is for.
Why did you think a well thought out thought would get you upvotes? I mean, it did. But that’s not normal! 🤣
They’re sharing an opinion. Upvotes don’t matter.
I’m joking. Replies don’t matter either.
Actually, very little that we do is important.
But still, just try and laugh when you can (to compensate crying at night)
You’re not joking. You’re saying “I agree with you” in the most obnoxious smarmy way possible.
Thanks man for the compliment! It really means something to me :) And I’m not even being sarcastic. Just lack of attention & human affection I guess.
They currently have 9 upvotes and 1 downvote…
I literally said, ‘It did’
But if you measure growth in made up numbers, you can just keep rolling them up indefinitely.
If we lived in a made up number world where people are resources can just be pulled out of thin air without consequence that would work I suppose.
That’s called inflation.
Not really. Eventually just counting those huge numbers uses so much energy it fries the planet with waste heat.
If this post gets 100 upvotes then capitalism will fail and everyone will get sex.
I’ve so far taken part in revolution by upvoting and by gardening. Capitalism as good as dead
It’s worth a shot.
You should pursue a career in sales.
Wait what if I am already getting sex? Is this zero sum? Do I lose my sex?
I tried to updoot but it says I already completed that quest
deleted by creator
Time for degrowth
I’m all for an individual decreasing their own consumption for the environment. I try to do that. But decreasing someone else’s quality of life is where it gets dicy. You can very easily get discrimination.
Put a high upper limit only. Don’t touch the bottomline.
For example, no more than 4 cars per person: Average Joe won’t even know this rule exists but it will still reduce mineral mining due to people who collect cars.
Possible problems with my shitty example: Now a car is a controlled substance. Who decides the limit and how? What if there is a mental disease (with a better example this would make more sense) which requires a person to have 20 cars?
I believe that’s called Clarkson’s Disease and mostly affects lovable assholes.
I think a better solution is to give everyone less reasons to need and use cars, that a ban becomes unnecessary. But if we’re putting limits on things to reduce their consumption, that’s what excise taxes are for, most places already do it for fuel.
And of course there could always be taxation relative to a person or company’s environmental impact. People get angry at this one.
NO JAY LENO NOOOOO WE CAN’T SEND JAY LENO TO THE GULAG NOOOO
Cars already have defined limits. You already have to have insurance, for example. They are already registered in a person’s name. This could be actually easily implemented.
degrowth doesn’t mean worse quality of life, in many instances it very much increases quality of life.
would you not prefer to work half as much as you do? we can have that with degrowth.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding degrowth. Is it trying to decrease GDP? How does it do that? Or is it moreso increased worker rights and protections with decreased GDP growth as a byproduct? Because I’m all for the second version.
IMO Degrowth would have to start with finding better, less destructive metrics than GDP to measure and plan economic prosperity with
There is an abundance of other methods and actual economists use those other methods.
I believe that the intent is to shift focus away from material goods, since we have long passed the point of diminishing returns on increasing material wealth increasing individual well-being, and focusing on things that actually do improve it, which our system overall neglects. That would be things like meaningful work, community, art, leisure, et cetera. In short, the things that make us happy, but which GDP doesn’t measure.
That makes sense. Those activities are still adding value, but not usually taken into account in economic metrics.
at least to my understanding degrowth is about not doing things that are ultimately not actually productive for our quality of life, the prime example being the clothing industry which churns out more clothes than we would ever need every year and literally just throws it in the garbage, going so far as cutting things up just so people won’t fish it out of the container and wear it without paying.
There are a ton of things like that, which basically only serve to enrich the already wealthy, and if we stop doing that shit and just give people what they need to live regardless of if they have an employment, we can all enjoy life more while also being more sustainable.
The solarpunk movement shows one take on what degrowth can look like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk
Yeah, but if everyone decreases work, you get less production and less stuff, and then increased poverty. It’s easy to say more stuff isn’t always better from the comfort of the Internet, but the truth is that abundance of material production is responsible for the relative extreme wealth we do have today.
you get less production and less stuff
Not really.
then increased poverty.
You mean the poverty we already have thanks to capitalism?
Yes, really.
And poverty is many many times lower today than it was a few hundred years ago before capitalism. Even entertaining the idea that it’s not is completely insane. Capitalism correlates extremely strongly with low poverty country to country within a single time period, as well. 2023, for example.
No. Not really.
And poverty is many many times lower
Did you come up with this galaxy-brained tripe before or after considering the crushing 3rd world poverty that sustains global capitalism?
Capitalism correlates
According to whom, Clyde? Capitalists?
If your argument is basically just conspiracy theory, than I don’t know what to tell you.
decreasing someone else’s quality of life
Who said anything about decreasing quality of life?
Decreasing someones consumption will likely decrease their quality of life. Assuming they wanted to maximize their quality of life, they would consume what would do that. Though there are exceptions, like limiting addiction or short range fights.
Lemme give you a very small concrete example where reduced consumption will not alter the quality of life.
Take a small neighbourhood, maybe 10ish families there. Everybody in that neighbourhood has basic tools that they use maybe once a month or less. Hammers, screwdrivers, spanners, etc. Instead of each family having those tools, have a tool library where you have 2-3 of each tool. Anyone in the neighbourhood can borrow the tools they need when they need them and give them back when done. Congratulations, you’ve reduced tool consumption by 70-80% with no downsides.
This is just one small example, but there are methods for more efficiently allocating resources within communities.
You decrease quality of life by increasing travel time and resistance to getting the tools, plus rarely not being able to use a tool because it’s in use. But it is an efficiency improvement. Same idea with gymns, everyone can share one place instead of duplicating resources. But then you need to make sure everything gets put away and you need to keep the lights on, so you need to charge for it. All that works under normal markets. It’s just not as good as ideal because people take advantage of each other. We need more oversight to minimize that, but I don’t think it means throwing out the system.
I don’t think walking 1 minute to a library inside your immediate vicinity qualifies as a reduction in QoL. Fair point on the potential very unlikely case of 5 people all needing a screwdriver at the same time, but that can be solved by buying 1-2 extra screwdrivers.
I went to this example specifically because I thought it was not controversial and low-hanging fruit. Nobody is talking about throwing out the system. Book libraries exist, and they haven’t caused the downfall of modern civilization. All I’m trying to say here is that even in the context of our modern capitalist reality, there are ways of reducing consumption without any aggreived parties that we’re just not doing.
I have seen what other people do to communal tools. I bought my own tools because I know they will function and actually exist every time I need them.
I will not stop you from sharing tools, don’t stop me from using the fruits of my labor to buy my own tools.
I have seen what other people do to communal tools.
Could you elaborate a bit on that? I used to be part of a maker space and the tools were generally well cared for, and members normally donated anything we were missing
The biggest thing is tools just going missing. Joe brings it home to work on whatever and never brings it back. It’s pretty common with hand tools if people are allowed to bring them to their homes.
Other common problems are people not caring for stuff properly. Not changing the oil on lawn mowers, for example.
Consumption doesn’t increase happiness and most studies say the exact opposite.
Could you link?
Or not going into store to buy a new knife every time previous one dulls and just sharpening it instead somehow decreases quality of life. TIL.
What a dumb oversimplification disguised as a gotcha
Decreasing someones consumption will likely decrease their quality of life.
Riiight… because the sugary sewage water sold by Coke and Pepsi is so vital for life, eh?
I would argue that a lot of consumption, at least in “developed” nations, is driven by artificial demand. Some examples: the tobacco industry, the invention of “halitosis,” bottled water, planned obsolescence. So much of what we produce doesn’t raise, and often lowers, quality of life. Having to meet these levels of demand is deleterious directly and indirectly; being overworked and living in a polluted environment also lowers quality of life.
But that’s not really the point. Viewing quality of life as identical to consumption is pathological and borderline offensive. If you want to increase your quality of life, spend more time with your friends, family, and neighbors. Create in ways that inspire you. Rest and relax. Spend more time in the moment. Go outside and visit nature. Volunteer and give back to others. There is so much more to being human than having the latest phone.
I absolutely agree about artificial demand, especially in situations of addiction or mental trickery. So I think those should be regulated.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, when you reduce someone else’s consumption, you’re saying you know better than them what is good for them. That can often be the case, like in gambling, scams, addiction, and a lot of marketing. But it can be dangerous if you don’t actually know better than them what’s best for them, but think you do.
I guess consumption is a bad word for it. Those activities you mention still have an opportunity cost associated with them, but you’re right, they shouldn’t really be called consumption. Let’s say allocating your effort? People usually know themselves better than someone else how they can allocate their effort for their own good. Limiting how they can do that should only be done when you’re pretty sure you know better than them what’s good for them.
Not necessarily in favor of degrowth, but consumption and consumerism doesn’t necessarily mean higher quality of life. Consumerism is purely fed by Capitalism, without advertising people generally “want” far less.
So if I consume 0 bullets with my body instead of 4 bullets will somehow decrease my quality of life?
bet you thought you wrote something smart
Yeah, those billionaires will have a hard time to be only allowed millions instead. /s
Buh degrowth is genocide 😅🤣
Literally what some ignoramus on Facebook said when I suggested this.
Objectively if we were to scale back enough, many people currently struggling would die. Excess is the only reason they’re still living. Think the rainforest and rain passing the canopy trees enough to still allow life below. Remove the mass amount of rain, that ecosystem suffers.
This is just trickle down economics. It doesn’t work.
It’s working great for those in power.
Handing out new rain to the trees in the canopy may or may not increase rain at the lower levels, but reducing rain at the canopy for sure reduces rain at lower levels.
Over explaining your analogy does not make it more correct.
enough
I mean, yes, if we scaled back enough, people would die. But if we scaled up enough, people would also die. If you drink enough water it will kill you.
many people currently struggling would die
Many people currently struggling are dying because of how much consumption is taking place.
Easy to say when you live in the first world.
There is no first world since 1991
Greed seems to be the inevitable outcome, at the expense of other humans and animals around us all. It’s disturbing and has no real end-game of benefit now that we have automation. The question is how do we take back control from the authoritarians?
Things like apps, media, or art can be more valuable without taking any more resources. Plus through greater efficiency, the same resources go much further. But it’s often easier to grow by just consuming more, so companies to that since they don’t really care. The sad thing is, I think we can have limitless growth if it’s slow and deliberate and conscious of it’s impact to the planet. But the current system doesn’t incentive that, instead everyone is flooring the growth pedal to catastrophic effect.
Things like apps, media, or art can be more valuable without taking any more resources.
They take energy and memory on the local devices and in the cloud. Uploading and downloading also does. Better software often needs better (new) hardware. The developers take office space and hardware and energy. Do you want me to go on?
The bigger question for my is why growth is supposed to be a good thing. With all the technology, we could work less but on the whole, we work more.
But better ones don’t require any more resources than worse ones. So you can increase value with the same resource consumption.
The development of better ones does and so does design, advertisement, …
R&D resources are usually small compared to the efficacy improvements they allow. You don’t need advertisement. Though to achieve sustanability , you’d also need a very long life on products and almost complete recycling.
The topic is growth. There is no growth in sustainability. For your company to grow, you need new features, new customers, … People say this is achievable without resources, I doubt it. That’s what I’m saying.
You don’t need more customers, you could deliver greater value to those customers
Better software often needs better (new) hardware.
Example?
Games, but games can also just be better and more optimized on the same hardware. It’s just easier to throw more silicon at the problem, and we don’t incentive caring about the planet enough.
I try to use my phones as long as I can and I ran into situations where I couldn’t update or install apps because my phone didn’t meet the requirements
Fuck vendors who do not publish kernel sources.
By definition limitless growth is impossible. It just doesn’t work.
Limitless growth of what? Limitless growth of time past is inevitable for example. Wealth can grow with increased comfort, so I guess to come to maximum wealth you’d need to achieve total human fulfillment. I hope you can agree we’ve got a long long way to go till that.
Wealth can grow with increased comfort
That’s just another way of saying we should just keep on doing capitalism the way we are now.
to come to maximum wealth you’d need to achieve total human fulfillment.
Happiness, or human fulfillment, whatever you want to call it isn’t a state you just reach.
Exactly, that’s why you can always improve, which is usually reflected in increasing wealth.
You’re completely missing the point. Happiness, or whatever name you want to give it has very little to do with how much money you have.
But again, infinite growth is not a thing in a finite system. That is a fact, not an opinion.
You think money can’t buy happiness? Somehow some rich people manage to still be miserable, but most poor people would be free to be much more happy with more money.
Infinite growth of what? Is infinite growth of happiness possible?
People need to meet their most basic needs, doesn’t have to be through money. We’ve just set up society to work that way.
Capitalism in particular, is an incredibly stubborn idea that’s difficult to throw away. And we’ve rigged the system to make it difficult (almost impossible) to give up.
Hell, the U.S. is notorious for trying to overthrow governments around the world who don’t subscribe to capitalism, and the U.S. governments way of thinking.
Economic growth is an accounting measure, and so it can definitely be limitless.
That’s a hypothetical
If you have infinite supply of something, it ceases to be a scarce resource with any intrinsic value. Literally nothing in the universe is infinite.
There was an argument that marketing is the ultimate example of creating value without using raw resources by making an existing item more valuable.
Marketing takes human labor at the bare minimum.
It also consumes human labor when people absorb the marketing. This is an externality not accounted for in the cost of marketing, it is large, and it makes resources unavailable for more productive tasks.
Removed by mod
Not an immediate solution but if or when we can make space safe to work and live in, that might unlock an infinite supply of resources, which would support infinite growth.
Lack of resources isn’t the reason everything is shit. If we get to space it’ll just be another exploitable thing for the ultra rich to use to get more rich.
This is a popular take that is just completely wrong. Capitalism as a system does not require growth. Capitalism is a system in which the factors of production are owned by private parties and can be freely traded. The capitalists believe is that markets will allocate those factors of production to the owners that can best exploit them. This can result in growth, but it isn’t necessary for the system to function.
There are literally a thousand issues with the system ranging from inequality to environmental concerns to market concentration (all of which capitalists tend to ignore). I really do not understand why people pick this one to quibble over.
Because shareholders demand almost always increasing growth despite the factual impossibility to provide that. The gaming sector is a good showcase where trust, release quality & creativity and monetization practices continually degrade the overall experience until the company starts to sink in its entirety. Ubisoft comes to mind. I have been burned so bad by them, started to refuse their products and certainly I seem to not be the only person.
Adding to this, “limitless” growth just refers to the idea that it’s very hard to reach all limits in our present universe.
I agree that there are more important problems with capitalism than if we’ve reached a limit or not.
the u.s. economy is measured in “growth” by average economy anylyst assholes since forever. it’s GPD per X. shitheads love that kind of metric.
There are literally a thousand issues with the system ranging from inequality to environmental concerns to market concentration (all of which capitalists tend to ignore). I really do not understand why people pick this one to quibble over.
so why are you yelling about tangential bullshit that other people are yelling about?
Threads like this make me miss the sort by controversial. Oh well. If you have chores, or something else to do, maybe go do that instead of reading this thread. It’s mostly shit slinging and people straw manning one another.
If anyone else came here to just talk about stuff, I’m willing to talk about how great cats and dogs are. Also open to hearing you out if you don’t like cats or dogs, but I want you to know that I strongly disagree with your opinion.
The idea that you only get to choose between either predatory Capitalism or corrupt Communism as your society is pretty pathetic. Truly we have some of the minds of all time in this thread.
Communism is not corrupt, it can be corrupted like any form of government, but it is not inherently corrupt.
No, but PEOPLE are. Capitalism simply balances it via competitive forces. Comunism can’t balance it. REAL LIFE AIN’T NO MARX BOOK Ps capitalism SHOULD be truly checked and balanced by government 👍
So ITS balanced OUT by competition YET still NEEDS to be balanced by THE government… WHICH is it?
Communism inherently requires authoritarian goverment to survive and authoritarian goverments are always rife with corruption.
Why does Communism require authoritarian government to survive, and Capitalism not?
I love cats and dogs but can only have cats at home what do
Make friends with someone with a dog. That way you can visit and pet the dog whenever you’re visiting your friend.
I’d even buy a dog if I knew someone who would take care of it (in my house) during trips!
Who 't f would downvote that. Tankies brigading?
Where did this meme of “capitalism requires infinite growth, therefore it’s impossible and bad” come from? Capitalism doesn’t require infinite growth, the universe has basically infinite resources, modernity which is largely but not exclusively caused by capitalism has allowed us to do so much more with fewer resources than generations previous, and as societies get richer in material wealth they produce fewer children and have the luxury to pay attention to things like the environment and their impact on it.
the universe has basically infinite resources
Sci-fi is fictional, Clyde - not prophecy.
allowed us to do so much more with fewer resources than generations previous
Riiight… that’s why we’re the most destructive agent on the planet since the meteor that killed off the dinosaurs - because we “do more with less.” Wtf?
and as societies get richer in material wealth
Which societies, Clyde? The ones that capitalism has impoverished so that a small minority can pretend their privileged lives are (somehow) “normal?”
they produce fewer children
And that’s a good thing, is it? You know we could just achieve that easily by giving women reproductive rights, don’t you? As in… no capitalism required at all?
Is their name Clyde or is this a joke I’m not getting
It’s what I call people whose brains don’t match up to their egos.
Why Clyde?
It seemed better than Kevin. Or Nigel.
Sci-fi is fictional, Clyde - not prophecy.
They’re just referring to the fact that the universe we live in is no “finite system” per the meme
Riiight… that’s why we’re the most destructive agent on the planet since the meteor that killed off the dinosaurs - because we “do more with less.” Wtf?
Yes exactly! They’re not saying that’s a good thing but that’s exactly why!
Which societies, Clyde? The ones that capitalism has impoverished so that a small minority can pretend their privileged lives are (somehow) “normal?”
Regardless if the distribution of that wealth is acceptable, growth has made the overall society richer in material wealth. The distribution of that wealth is an entirely different question.
And that’s a good thing, is it? You know we could just achieve that easily by giving women reproductive rights, don’t you? As in… no capitalism required at all?
You have any proof for that statement?
Other person here.
I’d say destructiveness of humans is kind of a Bell curve shape where the X axis is wealth. Cavemen don’t affect the environment that much mostly because there can’t be that many of them. Their production methods can’t sustain large or dense populations. Then people in 1900 are quite destructive because they can sustain billions of people while spewing pollutants, etc. Then people today are less destructive because we have the wealth to care about such things. Wealthy countries are doing pretty well.
the universe we live in is no “finite system”
They are free to show us the oxygen they harvested from Pluto any time they feel like it.
growth has made the overall society richer in material wealth
Your proof for this?
You have any proof for that statement?
For crying out loud, Clyde… you need a bunch of science nerds to tell you something this obvious? Fine.
For crying out loud, Clyde… you need a bunch of science nerds to tell you something this obvious? Fine.
Lol, very first sentence in that source:
Three mechanisms influence the fertility decision of educated women: (1) the relatively higher incomes and thus higher income forgone due to childbearing leads them to want fewer children. […]
90% of the stuff you encounter day to day would have been considered science fiction only a few decades ago. That doesn’t answer whether capitalism actually requires growth, which it doesn’t, or where the meme came from.
Our production efficiency, production per inputs, is larger now than in the past. That’s doing more with less.
Which societies
These countries tend to be the most capitalist, meaning private ownership of the means and subsequent free exchange of goods and services, and they also tend to be the most wealthy with low poverty. That distribution matches fertility fairly closely. Link
that’s a good thing, is it?
It is if the thing you’re worried about is the impact of the human species on the rest of the planet. Fewer people means less impact with the same per person impact.
we could just achieve that easily by giving women reproductive rights
The capitalist west is the most abortion permitting part of the world. Legal rights are a luxury good, unfortunately. Kinda seems like capitalism is in fact required.
been considered science fiction only a few decades ago.
Feel free to show us the “infinite” resources you have access to any time you feel like, Clyde.
That’s doing more with less.
No. We are doing more with more. The rate at which our industries are churning through resources would have been unimaginable to anyone a century ago… and so would the wastage it creates.
private ownership - free exchange of goods
Try not to get entangled in logical contradictions in the very same sentence, Clyde. When everything is privately owned, it’s only the private owners that gets to engage in a “free exchange of goods.”
the most wealthy with low poverty.
And the fact that these countries are all beneficiaries of hundreds of years of hyper-violent colonialism has nothing to do with any of this, of course.
It is if the thing you’re worried
No, I’m actually not worried about it. The “overpopulation” myth is right-wing propaganda and nothing else - it’s the ravenous and utterly parasitic profiteering of capitalists themselves that are driving over-consumption. Not the world’s poor.
Legal rights are a luxury good, unfortunately. Kinda seems like capitalism is in fact required.
So you are fine with your modern-day feudalism… as long as your capitalist overlords throws slightly more crumbs your way than they do everybody else.
It’s not a meme, its both the theory and practice to require constant unending increase in profit. That is the central point that eliminates all of your points except for the one about the universe having infinite resources - my dude we do not have access to the UNIVERSE, all we have is this one planet, and due to the distances involved, space opera is bunk and every stellar system is going to have just that stellar system. Do you think that a trade route that takes 400 years to travel is going to be of practical use over a lifetime?
The idea comes from stagnating wages with comparison to productivity, and the fact that the average Worker works more than before the Industrial Revolution despite this jump in productivity.
I think that’s somewhat debated now, with the original numbers being revised way up
Interesting! Either way, it’s still a fact that wages have been stagnating as compared to productivity, and working hours have not proportionally lowered. Capitalism is good for development, but after a certain point ceases to dramatically contribute to quality of life.
I do believe productivity has increased quite a bit more than wages, but that makes sense if you think about it. Productivity gains in the last few decades are not due to workers getting more skilled or working harder (which may still be a factor), they’re because of technology, automation, information science, and global trade networks. If my boss upgrades my computer such that I can produce things twice as fast, why should I get paid more?
If society’s needs can be met with far less work, then it stands to reason that people don’t need to work as much. Everything is the product of labor.
Or a planetary infestation.
Spot on analogy.
Is there any evidence socialism can actually work at scale? What if capitalism is the best we got?
If you lived before Capitalism, would you say that Feudalism is the best we’ve got? What about in the years shortly following the French Revolution?
If you flipped a coin 5 times and it landed on heads each of the five times, does the probability that it will be heads lower on the 6th flip?
Essentially, I’m asking if you have any structural qualms with Socialism. If you can name specific issues with historical examples that you believe are inevitable whenever Socialism is built, what would those be?
It’s crazy that people can’t even imagine doing things differently than capitalism.
Both crazy and omnipresent. Capitalist Realism is a troubling mental hurdle to cross, as it’s so ingrained into common culture.
Marx’s depiction of Capital as a living, breathing God is fascinating and worth looking into, if you haven’t before.
Can you point me towards a particular chapter or book where he wrote about capital as a god? It sounds intriguing.
Here’s a great article on it, with direct quotes.
Marx gets funky.
I think it’s more that the attempts so far haven’t been very promising
Yep, Capitalism hasn’t shown much promise, every single instance has resulted in eventual decay and stagnation, with rising exploitation, stagnating wages with respect to productivity, and more. That’s why Socialism is necessary.
I was talking about communism
Oh, sorry, thought you said something smart. Guess I overestimated you.
It’s fine
You’re being self defeating if you think democratically deciding what to use society’s productive forces will always be worse than Elon Musk using his government contract money to buy twitter so they stop making fun of him. Every example of socialism being applied at scale is evidence that it works. In the 20th century the greatest reduction of poverty in the world happened in the USSR. In the 21st century the same thing but China. Even against the headwinds of the largest and most powerful empire in human history having a genocidal desire to destroy them.
I think the fact that the USSR is not around is evidence that perhaps socialism does not work at scale. If its unable to last how can you consider that working? People in the USSR had a very hard life due to the downfall of socialism. Can you provide me any example of socialism currently that works at scale in a multiethnic country that does not rely on others for military protection?
It’s funny how you are praising China right now despite it’s heavy capitalistic nature. I bet if china collapsed you would say that wasn’t real socialism either.
I think the fact that John F Kennedy didn’t get reelected is evidence that perhaps he wasn’t a very good president.
People in the USSR had a very hard life due to the downfall of socialism
my evidence that a thing is bad is that when you take it away things turn to shit
Can you provide me any example of socialism currently that works at scale in a multiethnic country that does not rely on others for military protection?
Are you one of those “norway can only have healthcare because they’re all white” people? Why would having more than one ethnicity in a country make doing things harder or easier? Not to avoid the question, China.
I think Norway works because its a small country that is culturally and ethnically homogenous and relies on others for military defense. It’s pretty easy to have extensive social programs in that environment but it’s not indicative of it working at scale. China is 90%+ chinese so I’m not sure China qualifies as an answer to that question.
I think Norway works because its a small country that is culturally and ethnically homogenous
Why do you use these euphemisms when you mean ‘all white’? It’s such a tedious exercise when it’s already clear where you’re coming from.
And you’re not answering the question. I asked you why you think having ‘racial purity’ in a country makes it easier and better to run. You restated that you think it’s the case. Elaborate.
I didn’t say all white because I don’t believe it has to be all white, I think ethnic homogeneity allows groups to forgo a lot of issues that come from having different people with different values all amongst each other. I don’t think that should be very controversial. If you don’t believe me, go look at the most successful social policies are mostly racially homogenous. You can shut your eyes and pretend like it’s not the case but it’s not very helpful to the conversation at hand.
Can you please for example tell me what black people care about differently than white people?
Those things that don’t follow from racism and its history, of course. This is about your premise. I’m trying to uncover why and how you think different races are different from each other such that they can’t get along in the same society and we should “go back from where we’re from” if things were going to run as smoothly as possible.
Lol the best we got… like we can’t come up with something new or try something different. Please. Capitalism is in place because the people in power love it. It’s the best system for them to continue to suck everything and everyone dry.
I believe that socialism doesn’t work at scale, but it doesn’t need to. I’m all for making smaller communities. Then socialism does work.