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[Tal Shiar Agent]

This is an impossibility. Do you think most of the people will give up their properties and money out of free will?

Communist was authoritarian because people had to be "convinced" to give away their belongings. And not just the richest ones.

Eventually, once state socialism is established and been active for several generations. State communism is a far-off ideal. Centuries off. But it doesn't need to be as rigid as what Marx wrote.

Capitalism, the pursuit of wealth, property, and the struggle to live need to end. I feel that once no one has to struggle to live, when no one needs to worry about bills, paying for medicine or food, being able to afford a home or transportation, being forced to give up 40+ hours of their week, away from their families and away from what makes them happy, that people will rapidly change.

Greed evolved as a natural reaction to scarcity. Remove scarcity and human nature will change.

 

[Grug]

We are already passed the tipping point according to many scientists.

Why are you telling me things I already know as if I disagree with them?

As I said, climate change is real and terrifying. All I am saying is that I believe that the best measures to manage and adapt in the face of it will likely come from actors within the capitalist system.

I preemptively acknowledged the irony that capitalism largely got us into this mess to begin with.

So what are we actually disagreeing on here?

 

[damisa]

If there was a better system then capitalism it would have already been tried and been successful. Instead other systems always end in failure. Do you really want to put people like Trump in charge of determining what gets produced and who gets it? No thanks

 

[Grug]

Eventually, once state socialism is established and been active for several generations.

What does life look like in those several generations where we wait for it to become "active"?

Greed evolved as a natural reaction to scarcity. Remove scarcity and human nature will change.

And if we take the "greed comes from scarcity" statement as correct (which I don't), communism will address scarcity how exactly?

 

[jay]

Do you really want to put people like Trump in charge of determining what gets produced and who gets it? No thanks

This is kind of funny. You are asking if we really want the super rich and powerful to have control over things?

 

[Bony Manifesto]

It's no coincidence that Asian countries have developed at a much faster rate by not following the neoliberal assault. Even countries like Malasya have better socia indexes and growth than South America. See Gabriel Palma's accounting on neoliberalism

Wait, what? Asian nations have been the biggest beneficiaries of the neoliberal movement, as that's where the world's production has moved to.

Especially China, who really embraced the concept post-Mao, and are now the foremost neoliberal utopia: an absurdly rich elite, an impoverished underclass who are forced to work for peanuts in poor conditions, and an authoritarian (yet pliable, if you've got the cash) government. A lot of Republicans in the US can barely contain their envy.

 

[Razorback]

Nothing works because people suck.

He wrote, on a device capable of billions of operations per second designed with nanometer precision on a piece synthetic material no bigger than a thumbnail and connected to a worldwide network of such devices that communicate at a fraction of the speed of light.

 

[KingSnake]

Eventually, once state socialism is established and been active for several generations. State communism is a far-off ideal. Centuries off. But it doesn't need to be as rigid as what Marx wrote.

Capitalism, the pursuit of wealth, property, and the struggle to live need to end. I feel that once no one has to struggle to live, when no one needs to worry about bills, paying for medicine or food, being able to afford a home or transportation, being forced to give up 40+ hours of their week, away from their families and away from what makes them happy, that people will rapidly change.

Greed evolved as a natural reaction to scarcity. Remove scarcity and human nature will change.

What does state socialism mean in your vision? Is this national or worldwide? Were are the resources coming? Who works? Just the robots? Does everybody earn the same amount of money?

Greed doesn't come from scarcity. Some of the most greediest people in history didn't have to worry about a thing growing up.

 

[BladeoftheImmortal]

No because the happiest, highest ranked on progress and living standards, the least corrupt, countries are all capitalist.

Not American chrony capitalism

 

[Foffy]

Eventually, once state socialism is established and been active for several generations. State communism is a far-off ideal. Centuries off. But it doesn't need to be as rigid as what Marx wrote.

Capitalism, the pursuit of wealth, property, and the struggle to live need to end. I feel that once no one has to struggle to live, when no one needs to worry about bills, paying for medicine or food, being able to afford a home or transportation, being forced to give up 40+ hours of their week, away from their families and away from what makes them happy, that people will rapidly change.

Greed evolved as a natural reaction to scarcity. Remove scarcity and human nature will change.

This is a huge thing to understand about human beings and the way they cooperate. In a culture of combat, it's a zero-sum game. There must be winners and losers, and the losers lose life.

When people have to fight for basic necessities, they are combative, not cooperative. Mix this with the usual dualistic problems of "othering" people, and you then have the pseudo-caste system you see in America, where the misery and struggles of others get so quickly normalized because one can see an entire tier of people worse off. You can find people who normalize the fact they lack healthcare, or that wealth really is worth of human life. Dangerous ideas quickly become normalcy because the culture is primarily in chaos all the time.

Must we forget an orange con man still has a fan base in America...? What more proof do you need of conflict in this very society? That things are so bad literal liars have support because of desperation, of division, and of a system that frankly broke down years ago?

 

[Stone Ocean]

Greed evolved as a natural reaction to scarcity. Remove scarcity and human nature will change.

Yeah, just remove scarcity, its literally that simple.

Resources are finite and that will never change unless we somehow figure out fucking matter creation. That kind of socialism isn't a far off ideal, its an utopia.

 

[Dehnus]

Lack of good governance is the issue. Corruption. Extremism.

These are more of an issue than capitalism. Good governance means also having decent rules in place, like not being allowed to run a residential tower without decent fire prevention measures. Or not providing some minimum health coverage for your citizens.

The lack of these minimum requirements for a civilised society is due to corruption, not capitalism. Is government acting in the interest of few due to lobby, bribes (a lot of times done in a legal way).

Actually I'm pretty sure that any problem that is associated with capitalism ends up in being either incompetence or corruption.

You too sound like me at age 14. Talking in economic class about Soviet Communism ...long after its fall 😈. LOL 😁.

 

[Foffy]

Yeah, just remove scarcity, its literally that simple.

Resources are finite and that will never change unless we somehow figure out fucking matter creation.

Scarcity in this case helps emphasize divisions, and within divisions, there is always conflict.

His underlying point, if I can speak for him, was to mitigate divisions in this way. Of course, in America this can never happen, because it emphasizes all of the problems divisions create.

America represents everything wrong with the human ego and dualistic mechanisms of the mind.

 

[damisa]

Greed evolved as a natural reaction to scarcity. Remove scarcity and human nature will change.

There's no such thing as removing scarcity, there will always be scarcity. Who gets to live in the nice house by the beach and who has to live in the less nice house miles inland? There's only so much beach. Who gets the gold watch and who gets the plastic one? There's only so much gold on earth. Are you going to run a lottery? 100% guaranteed such a system will be corrupt

 

[Grug]

I'm not saying it won't happen but instead of waiting we could, you know, use the government to curtail corporate greed that continues to wreck the planet?

You are not only making counterpoints to arguments I am not making, but you are actually saying things I agree with and presenting them as rebuttals. In my very first post in the thread I basically said that capitalism without regulation is fucked.

My point about climate change is merely that I believe that the incentives and resources to actually address climate change exist far more in a capitalist system than a communist one.

If you think there is somehow an implicit argument from me in there for unfettered, unregulated capitalism, then you are trying to hard to look for an angle of contention, especially when I have already made my views clear on that.

 

[jay]

Greed evolved as a natural reaction to scarcity. Remove scarcity and human nature will change.

I actually don't think I agree with this. The better angle to take is to say plenty of things we do and ways we behave in society may not mesh with our "nature" yet we are still amenable. The drive to accumulate may very well be hardwired into us as animals (it actually makes sense it would be based on how evolution works). It being part of us does not mean, however, that it should be elevated as some ideal.

 

[sasliquid]

You are not only making counterpoints to arguments I am not making, but you are actually saying things I agree with and presenting them as rebuttals. In my very first post in the thread I basically said that capitalism without regulation is fucked.

My point about climate change is merely that I believe that the incentives and resources to actually address climate change exist far more in a capitalist system than a communist one.

If you think there is somehow an implicit argument from me in there for unfettered, unregulated capitalism, then you are trying to hard to look for an angle of contention, especially when I have already made my views clear on that.

Unfortunately in the western world the definition of capitalism is either far to wide or far to small. I.e. Bernie sanders and Jeremy Corbyn are socialists despite promoting what could be seen as just heavily regulated capitalism. The definition of what is or isn't capitalism nowadays is far to unclear, sorry if that's where the confusion came across.

 

[Grug]

The long and the short of it for me is that every political/economic system in the world is provably susceptible to greed, corruption, exploitation and unequal distribution of wealth and resources.

If you think these are problems unique or especially prevalent in capitalism, you're simply being ignorant of history.

Given that we are going to have to try and prevent greed, corruption, exploitation and disparity of wealth no matter what system we implement, I'm at least going to start with the one that is historically proven to create the most prosperity, and the most effective price-signals, allocation of resources and production, That my friends, is capitalism. The work to provide social justice for all continues on from there.

 

[Stone Ocean]

Scarcity in this case helps emphasize divisions, and within divisions, there is always conflict.

His underlying point, if I can speak for him, was to mitigate divisions in this way. Of course, in America this can never happen, because it emphasizes all of the problems divisions create.

America represents everything wrong with the human ego and dualistic mechanisms of the mind.

You can't remove human desire. Thats how we work. Even if you delete poverty, someone will have a nicer car than yours that you might want.

We should absolutely strive to raise the baseline of living conditions, but lets not pretend for a second that capitalism created envy and greed.

 

[Pilgrimzero]

Human nature is the problem. Capitalism just helps the bad side come out louder.

But don't worry, we've fucked up the world enough that we are in the process of creating our own extinction.

We've dig our hole and are about to lie in it.

 

[TyrantII]

Is Capitalism really the problem if what we are practicing isn't really Capitalism?

You don't have Capitalism with the centralized power, control, and wealth we have in our system. It's just the bastard son of the Oligarch system Russia/China has.

Capitalism is about the means, not the ends. Unfortunately we've been at the ends for quite a while since government failed to be a bulkward against the pooling capital.

 

[Pepboy]

Eventually, once state socialism is established and been active for several generations. State communism is a far-off ideal. Centuries off. But it doesn't need to be as rigid as what Marx wrote.

Capitalism, the pursuit of wealth, property, and the struggle to live need to end. I feel that once no one has to struggle to live, when no one needs to worry about bills, paying for medicine or food, being able to afford a home or transportation, being forced to give up 40+ hours of their week, away from their families and away from what makes them happy, that people will rapidly change.

Greed evolved as a natural reaction to scarcity. Remove scarcity and human nature will change.

Personally I love the future you paint. But I think you underestimate scarcity. We might think of that future as "enough" but its only from the current standpoint.

Put another way, look at the people who have achieved what you outlined. Most of them complain its not enough.

This is without even considering things like vacation homes, travel, prosthetics or genetic enhancements, robot servants, home size, quality of the health service, etc. Also I'm not quite sure what is providing the goods and services you outlined without people working at least SOME.

 

[Afrodium]

What's wrong with brainless chickens? Seems more humane to me than subjecting a thinking creature to factory farming. Brainless chickens would basically be meat plants.

 

[jph139]

One thing I think about all the time while commuting in the morning - boy, this would all go a lot more smoothly if there weren't any people.

I mean, human beings are bad. Stupid, selfish, and cruel. Any system works perfectly when it's populated by moral, rational actors, but we simply don't have that. Really what we need is to create some sort of AI powerful enough to run entire economies on its own, assigning resources as equitably as it can. But even then, we would be building it with some sort of invisible set of biases, which undermines the whole point.

I'm coming around on regulated capitalism because, at the end of the day, there's a push and pull. Government and private industry working against each other, which undermines the success of both, so neither can get anything done. It doesn't solve any problems but it stops us from creating new ones, at least.

 

[benicillin]

I don't know if it's THE problem but it's seemed kind of shit while I've been alive.

 

[Foffy]

You can't remove human desire. Thats how we work. Even if you delete poverty, someone will have a nicer car than yours that you might want.

We should absolutely strive to raise the baseline of living conditions, but lets not pretend for a second that capitalism created envy and greed.

I never said Capitalism created envy and greed. That comes from mind. The corruption of any ism comes from the mind. It's internal curations acted externally. Any system we erect will grow metastatic tumors so long as our way of thinking and perception is gridlocked into divisions, into categories of worthy and unworthy, real and unreal work, etc.

Capitalism has made some of these problems worse, because Socialism in its name emphasizes society, Communism in its name emphasizes community, and while we have failed examples of these terms actually being embodied, Capitalism, at least in its current state, quadruples down on all of the illusions of separation, isolation, and standalone nature we incorrectly assert onto ourselves and especially onto other people. It makes its failings that much more powerful, because we have a worldview that normalizes the inequalities, lacks, and suffrages because they can be quickly linked back to the divisions we already adhere to. Capitalism, in its name, emphasizes capital: the goal here is about making money first, everything else second. And that's exactly the warzone America has put itself in, at this moment in time. After all, this is the same culture where public broadcasting and Meals on Wheels can be attacked by "not producing results" and you can find swaths of people to actually nod and agree with this. The idea of public solidarity is directly attacked in this environment.

 

[TyrantII]

Government and private industry working against each other, which undermines the success of both, so neither can get anything done. It doesn't solve any problems but it stops us from creating new ones, at least.

One of the tenants of true capitalism is competition and the resulting productivity / wealth / efficiency it create. Government as a regulator or bulkward is much the same.

The only time you don't need big government to force bug businesses hand is when capitalism is so diversified that wealth/power concentration isn't a concern.

We don't have that now. Walk into a super market and 85% of what's on the shelf owned by 3 corporations.

 

[Apathy]

Capitalism can be OK with a minimum of government interference to keep it in check.

Of course, when we factor the corruption of said governments, of course it goes to shit.

minimum? Ha. The government needs to be involved heavily to avoid corporations from pushing the line. Things like the housing crisis in the US was caused by minimum checks and a government that let banks push the limit. Had there been actual involvement by the government with strict regulations in place then that would not have happened. Corporations are like children. They'll do everything possible to get their way, and a laissez-faire parent (government) that does not set proper boundaries and more than a slap on the wrist as a punishment is bad for everyone citizen that does not have the capital to survive

 

[Grug]

Is Capitalism really the problem if what we are practicing isn't really Capitalism?

You don't have Capitalism with the centralized power, control, and wealth we have in our system. It's just the bastard son of the Oligarch system Russia/China has.

Capitalism is about the means, not the ends. Unfortunately we've been at the ends for quite a while since government failed to be a bulkward against the pooling capital.

minimum? Ha. The government needs to be involved heavily to avoid corporations from pushing the line. Things like the housing crisis in the US was caused by minimum checks and a government that let banks push the limit. Had there been actual involvement by the government with strict regulations in place then that would not have happened. Corporations are like children. They'll do everything possible to get their way, and a laissez-faire parent (government) that does not set proper boundaries and more than a slap on the wrist as a punishment is bad for everyone citizen that does not have the capital to survive

Correct. I wish to subscribe to both of your newsletters.

Poor regulation of the system has concentrated the wealth in the hands of massive corporations who now wield incredible political influence to maintain their own status.

Poor regulation has also given rise to a ridiculously mutated financial speculation industry that now wields the ability to manipulate the entire market system to its whims.

These aren't faults in the capitalist theory per se, but rather the end result of failing to protect some of the essential aspects of capitalism... true competition, preventing monopolies, preventing anti-competitive behaviour, separating the political system from corporate influence.

And I guarantee when Adam Smith was writing The Wealth of Nations, he wouldn't have endorsed the idea of speculative financial markets that are essentially rigged systems to create wealth from existing wealth, rather than growing wealth by growing production.

Capitalism requires regulation. It's a shame that the current ruling party of the United States is in the pockets of those who have a clear self-interest in that regulation being weakened/removed altogether.

 

[sphagnum]

Is Capitalism really the problem if what we are practicing isn't really Capitalism?

You don't have Capitalism with the centralized power, control, and wealth we have in our system. It's just the bastard son of the Oligarch system Russia/China has.

Capitalism is about the means, not the ends. Unfortunately we've been at the ends for quite a while since government failed to be a bulkward against the pooling capital.

Private control of the means of production for the sake of capital accumulation is capitalism. Free markets are not the defining feature of capitalism.

 

[patapuf]

Yeah, just remove scarcity, its literally that simple.

Resources are finite and that will never change unless we somehow figure out fucking matter creation. That kind of socialism isn't a far off ideal, its an utopia.

Yeah, i struggle to take any economic system seriously that's based around "removing scarcity".

One can discuss the best balance of market based and state controled distribution of goods(both have pitfalls) but endless rescources for everyone is not an economic model.

 

[HarryHengst]

This is an impossibility. Do you think most of the people will give up their properties and money out of free will?

Communist was authoritarian because people had to be "convinced" to give away their belongings. And not just the richest ones.

Capitalism is and was also authoritarian, as it needed to force people to give up personal land and common grounds for use of farming so they could be kicked into factories. Just look into the history of the enclosure movement.

And capitalism is still authoritarian, as the concept of having to work for money forces people into selling their labour or starving to death.

 

[God Dayumm]

Eventually, once state socialism is established and been active for several generations. State communism is a far-off ideal. Centuries off. But it doesn't need to be as rigid as what Marx wrote.

Capitalism, the pursuit of wealth, property, and the struggle to live need to end. I feel that once no one has to struggle to live, when no one needs to worry about bills, paying for medicine or food, being able to afford a home or transportation, being forced to give up 40+ hours of their week, away from their families and away from what makes them happy, that people will rapidly change.

Greed evolved as a natural reaction to scarcity. Remove scarcity and human nature will change.

Capitalism did not create scarcity, it's the other way around. Scarcity creates all economic systems

 

[HarryHengst]

One of the tenants of true capitalism is competition and the resulting productivity / wealth / efficiency it create. Government as a regulator or bulkward is much the same.

The only time you don't need big government to force bug businesses hand is when capitalism is so diversified that wealth/power concentration isn't a concern.

We don't have that now. Walk into a super market and 85% of what's on the shelf owned by 3 corporations.

Capitalism will literally always end in this way. Its simply the only way possible to keep growing and increasing dividends to owners/shareholders. Stop deluding yourself that we are somehow not having some platonic ideal of capitalism.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

What does life look like in those several generations where we wait for it to become "active"?

And if we take the "greed comes from scarcity" statement as correct (which I don't), communism will address scarcity how exactly?

What does state socialism mean in your vision? Is this national or worldwide? Were are the resources coming? Who works? Just the robots? Does everybody earn the same amount of money?

Greed doesn't come from scarcity. Some of the most greediest people in history didn't have to worry about a thing growing up.

My vision of state socialism is a slow transition away from antagonistic capitalism, through welfare capitalism, to straight welfare without capitalism.

The idea is that once human labor no longer has livable value in the current system; when robotics, AI, and 3D printing have made everything from street cleaning, to farming, to manufacturing, to database management, etc no longer requiring any human labor beyond the engineers who maintain the systems (depending or not if the robotic systems can self-improve at that point yet). Capitalism becomes untenable. Goods and services should theoretically become cheaper, but most people still won't be able to afford anything. The first step is fair taxation of companies and the rich to pay for a universal basic income, free universal healthcare, and free higher education. Over several years to decades, various industries are nationalized by the government. Starting with the most essential, healthcare and utilities. Followed by manufacturing and services until the "corporation" is dead.

By this point no one should be employed, no one should be a wage slave any longer. AI ran resource management prevents a scarcity of food. The millions of acres once used to produce ethanol now makes food in a post-oil world. Automated space mining brings near unlimited rare earth elements and other resources to Earth. People simply order the food, the clothes, the material they need, or their home AI orders it for them and it's automatically delivered for free.

Housing will be a sticking point at first, everyone wants to live on the beach. Expansive high rises will take over the majority of housing as people migrate towards the cities again as they are no longer prohibitively expensive. People are given housing based on need, a family of four will get a four bedroom home for free for example while a single person could get a studio or a one bedroom.

No one is forced to give up anything they own, except on strictly regulated instances of eminent domain like today. A family farm can stay in the family, they can even tend to it manually if they choose.

A barter system will evolve, wherein while labor in the traditional sense has no value, creativity and special skills will. Want a handcarved centerpiece for your dining room table? Maybe trade the craftsman something you made for it. Maybe the craftsman gives it away for free because the materials cost him nothing and he got enjoyment from its creation.

People are free to pursue their passions without the burden of survival on their shoulders. General happiness increases and people become naturally more egalitarian and calmer.

Yeah, just remove scarcity, its literally that simple.

Resources are finite and that will never change unless we somehow figure out fucking matter creation. That kind of socialism isn't a far off ideal, its an utopia.

There's no such thing as removing scarcity, there will always be scarcity. Who gets to live in the nice house by the beach and who has to live in the less nice house miles inland? There's only so much beach. Who gets the gold watch and who gets the plastic one? There's only so much gold on earth. Are you going to run a lottery? 100% guaranteed such a system will be corrupt

 

[TyrantII]

I never said Capitalism created envy and greed. That comes from mind. The corruption of any ism comes from the mind. It's internal curations acted externally. Any system we erect will grow metastatic tumors so long as our way of thinking and perception is gridlocked into divisions, into categories of worthy and unworthy, real and unreal work, etc.

Capitalism has made some of these problems worse, because Socialism in its name emphasizes society, Communism in its name emphasizes community, and while we have failed examples of these terms actually being embodied, Capitalism, at least in its current state, quadruples down on all of the illusions of separation, isolation, and standalone nature we incorrectly assert onto ourselves and especially onto other people. It makes its failings that much more powerful, because we have a worldview that normalizes the inequalities, lacks, and suffrages because they can be quickly linked back to the divisions we already adhere to. Capitalism, in its name, emphasizes capital: the goal here is about making money first, everything else second. And that's exactly the warzone America has put itself in, at this moment in time. After all, this is the same culture where public broadcasting and Meals on Wheels can be attacked by "not producing results" and you can find swaths of people to actually nod and agree with this. The idea of public solidarity is directly attacked in this environment.

Capital isn't profit...

Russia (and many other nations) have the same view of the made man; it isn't inherit to Capitalism. That one word sounds like another doesn't make the system any better or worse.

Communism in the real word has breed resentment, organized crime, despots, And eroded liberal values where ever implemented. Holding it up as something better shows a clear lack of any historical context.

 

[Platy]

No because the happiest, highest ranked on progress and living standards, the least corrupt, countries are all capitalist.

They are almost half capitalist half socialist considering the huge goverment help

 

[God Dayumm]

My vision of state socialism is a slow transition away from antagonistic capitalism, through welfare capitalism, to straight welfare without capitalism.

The idea is that once human labor no longer has livable value in the current system; when robotics, AI, and 3D printing have made everything from street cleaning, to farming, to manufacturing, to database management, etc no longer requiring any human labor beyond the engineers who maintain the systems (depending or not if the robotic systems can self-improve at that point yet). Capitalism becomes untenable. Goods and services should theoretically become cheaper, but most people still won't be able to afford anything. The first step is fair taxation of companies and the rich to pay for a universal basic income, free universal healthcare, and free higher education. Over several years to decades, various industries are nationalized by the government. Starting with the most essential, healthcare and utilities. Followed by manufacturing and services until the "corporation" is dead.

By this point no one should be employed, no one should be a wage slave any longer. AI ran resource management prevents a scarcity of food. The millions of acres once used to produce ethanol now makes food in a post-oil world. Automated space mining brings near unlimited rare earth elements and other resources to Earth. People simply order the food, the clothes, the material they need, or their home AI orders it for them and it's automatically delivered for free.

Housing will be a sticking point at first, everyone wants to live on the beach. Expansive high rises will take over the majority of housing as people migrate towards the cities again as they are no longer prohibitively expensive. People are giving housing based on need, a family of four will get a four bedroom home for free for example while a single person could get a studio or a one bedroom.

No one is forced to give up anything they own, except on strictly regulated instances of eminent domain like today. A family farm can stay in the family, they can even tend to it manually of they choose.

A barter system will evolve, wherein while labor in the traditional sense has no value, creativity and special skills will. Want a handcarved centerpiece for your dining room table? Maybe trade the craftsman something you made for it. Maybe the craftsman gives it away for free because the materials cost him nothing and he got enjoyment from its creation.

People are free to pursue their passions without the burden of survival on their shoulders. General happiness increases and people become naturally more egalitarian and calmer.

That is good and is probably what will happen if we let technology grow. Except the barter system. By that point no human will have anything valuable to offer that a machine can't do better, and that includes creative endeavors. Except sex, maybe

 

[TyrantII]

Capitalism will literally always end in this way. Its simply the only way possible to keep growing and increasing dividends to owners/shareholders. Stop deluding yourself that we are somehow not having some platonic ideal of capitalism.

As someone that's studied economics, might I suggest you at least try?

What we have now is more akin to the robber barron days of Oligarchy. It ain't Capitalism.

Neo-liberal economics has been pushed in circles since the 70s, which was just a rebranding of all the boom bust shitiness of the industrialized era. The same problems have been bubbling up again, because we didn't learn from history.

You are right it is unsustainable in it's current form, but that's because we've chosen a policy that is much more unstable in everything but rewarding the top 5 winners.

They like that stability and have brainwashed a good percentage of the electorate into thinking they might climb the ladder next, instead of rationally worry about their immediately needs.

 

[sasliquid]

Tbf while we couldn't yet move to a post-scarcity society (tho it is theoretically possible in the future) there are areas where we could move past scarcity (i.e. Energy) but obviously corporate interested don't want that

 

[Foffy]

Capital isn't profit...

Russia (and many other nations) have the same view of the made man; it isn't inherit to Capitalism. That one word sounds like another doesn't make the system any better or worse.

Communism in the real word has breed resentment, organized crime, despots, And eroded liberal values where ever implemented. Holding it up as something better shows a clear lack of any historical context.

Where have I held up Communism or Socialism as a better model? What if all three had outlived their usefulness and we're riding out whatever model we happen to be living in? As I've said, the problem with these isms is of humans, not of models themselves: they have to be molded, after all. But the problem within Capitalism -- I guess I should specify and say neoliberal Capitalism -- is that it really is all about that short term gain at the neglect of awareness of any long term situation. This is how you can get 0-hour contracts and gig economy jobs so quickly normalized within the culture. It absolutely is about profit and cutting corners, usually at the expense of the earth's resources and the wellbeing of sentient life.

It's more of the thinking the model produces and less intrinsic to the model itself. If we're in a culture that believes money is might and you have to fend for yourself at the expense of others, there are present-day mechanisms to deeply emphasize this within the American paradigm. The other two isms at least present an illusion of union that never unfolded, but what we have never dared once to suggest union at all.

 

[Kyzer]

The US economy is not capitalist, its a mixed economy (look it up) with plenty of socialist programs, and quite frankly id rather have this than be rationed bread and cheese by the same government that cant even be trusted to not spend peoples social security money

 

[demosthenes]

Going to need to see their receipts on poverty.

https://ourworldindata.org/slides/world-poverty/#/declining-world-poverty-1820-2015-step2

Slide 13, world poverty has been decreasing with time.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Yeah, just remove scarcity, its literally that simple.

Resources are finite and that will never change unless we somehow figure out fucking matter creation. That kind of socialism isn't a far off ideal, its an utopia.

Not to mention at a base level we still are influenced or driven by our animal instincts even when it no longer makes sense for our environment. The idea that you could just take human nature out of the human because you place them in a different environment is naive.

 

[TyrantII]

The US economy is not purely capitalist, its a mixed economy with plenty of socialist programs, and quite frankly id rather have this than be rationed bread and cheese by the same government that cant even be trusted to not spend peoples social security money

TBF 1/2 the government has been trying to destory that for 40 years. It's amazing it's worked as well as it has for this long.

FDR did a lot of great things, but the bulk of 20th century is the story of push back against and in the face social and economic progress. Slowly eroding confidence while sabotaging government implementation.

But, that's what happens when people stay home or don't vote. There's a lot of balls in the air, can't focus on just one.

 

[Grug]

Not to mention at a base level we still are influenced or driven by our animal instincts even when it no longer makes sense for our environment. The idea that you could just take human nature out of the human because you place them in a different environment is naive.

Yeah, anyone who thinks greed is a problem created by scarcity clearly hasn't seen two toddlers fighting over the same shitty cardboard box on Christmas Day while their shiny new presents surround them.

 

[travisbickle]

Yeah, anyone who thinks greed is a problem created by scarcity clearly hasn't seen two toddlers fighting over the same shitty cardboard box on Christmas Day while their shiny new presents surround them.

Let's build a society on that anecdote.

 

[Platy]

Going to need to see their receipts on poverty.

https://ourworldindata.org/slides/world-poverty/#/declining-world-poverty-1820-2015-step2

Slide 13, world poverty has been decreasing with time.

Also capitalist countries have become less capitalists with goverment helping more and more.

 

[MikeyB]

I'm at least going to start with the one that is historically proven to create the most prosperity, and the most effective price-signals, allocation of resources and production, That my friends, is capitalism. The work to provide social justice for all continues on from there.

Nope nope nope. The price of capitalism (or industrialisation really) is not yet paid. The cost of the mindset will be borne out by generations yet to come. Externalities get paid by somebody and it isn't the shareholders.

Look at any basic resource extraction. The erosion from logging, the impact of hydroelectric dams on fish habitats, and so on. What wealth each one of those projects generated came at a cost that capitalism has not figured out how to distribute.

There is a copper mine that my grandfather worked at that has been closed down for the better part of 60 years. It was active for matbe 40 years. The acid runoff has sterilized an entire bay that sustained an indigenous population for at least 10,000 years.

To be fair, this is a problem for socialism and communism to address as well. But how well each of them does it has yet to be seen because we haven't actually paid those costs yet.

 

[patapuf]

Tbf while we couldn't yet move to a post-scarcity society (tho it is theoretically possible in the future) there are areas where we could move past scarcity (i.e. Energy) but obviously corporate interested don't want that

Energy is by far the most difficult "rescource" to move past scarcity.

Even renewables have environmental costs, require rescources, land and infrastructure for distribution and storage.

And everything that's supposed to bring us post scarcity requires energy. Lots of it.