Support NeoGAF

[KingSnake]

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.

And here is were all crumbles. The society up to this point has become highly dependable on a reduced number of people who own these and provide both the financial support and resources for the society to exist. Including the support for the government(s) that should decide to nationalise them. How will this nationalisation happen if not by an authoritarian move? Do you see these people not reacting?

And you still haven't answered to the question about if this society will be national or worldwide.

 

[Foffy]

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.

Gini coefficients, possibly?

Of course, that makes us begin to question relative poverty vs. absolute poverty, and this is how you can get the paradox of people being risen out of poverty on a nearly daily basis in developing nations, but people sliding into it more frequently in certain developed nations. I've posted this one before, but this is something some argue has happened to America.

The "elephant curve" graph, however 1:1 its arguments are, are a good visual symbolism of this phenomena.

 

[DavidDesu]

As a kid I never understood why the value of things kept going up, but everything else went up around the same amount, in perpetuity so nothing changes drastically, just the size of the number attached to things like salary and the cost of things. Frankly I still don't really get that.

I also used to imagine one day that if we all just decided to delete money from existence and carried on as normal, if everyone carried on as normal, nothing would actually change, so the thought of a massive economic crash just seemed almost like an illusory thing. Money is an illusion really. We could ditch it tomorrow if we were clever enough.


Capitalism is indeed getting messy. It's crazy to me that my landlord is getting a huge chunk of what I earn every month because they lived back in the day where their house cost so little compared to the comparative cost to me today. There's several generations of people benefitting every month from the hard work of millions of people because of past privilege. A privilege that far fewer people my age will ever come to benefit from.

Then there's the basic profit motive, justified as being necessary in order to exponentially and endlessly "grow". I still don't understand this. If I had a company that operated making a profit enough to pay everyone's wages and cover all costs I wouldn't see the need to grow that, and change what you've got. I think it's borderline mental illness in what we perceive to be the correct business strategy that induces everyone into this competitive rat race. Why must everything grow and create yet more profit? Why? Greed is the only answer I can fathom.

 

[Grug]

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

Funded by tax revenue courtesy of increased production and wealth generation in the capitalist system.

Could keep going in circles on this.

 

[sasliquid]

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.

Well I meant the direct actual energy. I.e. we have limited oil, coal, gas etc and we could create enough solar/wind/etc energy (especially if you include nuclear) to support are needs. Obviously they require some space for it but there is a lot of unused space still.

 

[7DollarHagane]

I'm ready for a laugh, thanks op.

 

[Grug]

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.

You basically nailed my counterpoint for me in the last paragraph. Resource depletion isn't a cost of capitalism, or communism, or whatever. It's the cost of humanity and our unchecked growth.

My point was "all these negative externalities aren't exclusive to any particular system... so until we can create a system that is immune to these problems, let's at least still stick with the one that gets a lot of things right".

You didn't really address that... other than saying "nope nope nope" and then eventually agreeing with my point.

 

[Grug]

As a kid I never understood why the value of things kept going up, but everything else went up around the same amount, in perpetuity so nothing changes drastically, just the size of the number attached to things like salary and the cost of things. Frankly I still don't really get that.

I also used to imagine one day that if we all just decided to delete money from existence and carried on as normal, if everyone carried on as normal, nothing would actually change, so the thought of a massive economic crash just seemed almost like an illusory thing. Money is an illusion really. We could ditch it tomorrow if we were clever enough.


Capitalism is indeed getting messy. It's crazy to me that my landlord is getting a huge chunk of what I earn every month because they lived back in the day where their house cost so little compared to the comparative cost to me today. There's several generations of people benefitting every month from the hard work of millions of people because of past privilege. A privilege that far fewer people my age will ever come to benefit from.

Then there's the basic profit motive, justified as being necessary in order to exponentially and endlessly "grow". I still don't understand this. If I had a company that operated making a profit enough to pay everyone's wages and cover all costs I wouldn't see the need to grow that, and change what you've got. I think it's borderline mental illness in what we perceive to be the correct business strategy that induces everyone into this competitive rat race. Why must everything grow and create yet more profit? Why? Greed is the only answer I can fathom.

Greed is indeed a major problem, and is just as much of a problem in a communist setup.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

And here is were all crumbles. The society up to this point has become highly dependable on a reduced number of people who own these and provide both the financial support and resources for the society to exist. Including the support for the government(s) that should decide to nationalise them. How will this nationalisation happen if not by an authoritarian move? Do you see these people not reacting?

And you still haven't answered to the question about if this society will be national or worldwide.

When profit no longer exists because capital doesn't exist, these corporations will be in no other position but to be absorbed and maintained by an elected government. The one percent are going to have to get over it. It's the harsher side of this transition. The one percent will have the hardest time adapting, but they've done it to themselves. Either this is going to happen slowly and naturally over time like I've talked about or nothing is going to change and our society is going to spiral out of control and implode in civil unrest and revolution.

It starts national. Evey capable nation does it at the pace that they require, eventually and hopefully the whole world is well off enough to establish a single, egalitarian global government and society in a few centuries.

 

[Foffy]

As a kid I never understood why the value of things kept going up, but everything else went up around the same amount, in perpetuity so nothing changes drastically, just the size of the number attached to things like salary and the cost of things. Frankly I still don't really get that.

I also used to imagine one day that if we all just decided to delete money from existence and carried on as normal, if everyone carried on as normal, nothing would actually change, so the thought of a massive economic crash just seemed almost like an illusory thing. Money is an illusion really. We could ditch it tomorrow if we were clever enough.


Capitalism is indeed getting messy. It's crazy to me that my landlord is getting a huge chunk of what I earn every month because they lived back in the day where their house cost so little compared to the comparative cost to me today. There's several generations of people benefitting every month from the hard work of millions of people because of past privilege. A privilege that far fewer people my age will ever come to benefit from.

Then there's the basic profit motive, justified as being necessary in order to exponentially and endlessly "grow". I still don't understand this. If I had a company that operated making a profit enough to pay everyone's wages and cover all costs I wouldn't see the need to grow that, and change what you've got. I think it's borderline mental illness in what we perceive to be the correct business strategy that induces everyone into this competitive rat race. Why must everything grow and create yet more profit? Why? Greed is the only answer I can fathom.

Seeing as we're the same species that suffered in the Great Depression, despite no real wealth going anywhere at all, we're not clever one bit.

Human beings love the symbolisms they create more than what they actually symbolize.

 

[jay]

Let's build a society on that anecdote.

But we already did.

 

[Fersis]

#TeamMarx

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

No. Just because Trump got elected I'm not ready to consider democracy a mistae either, though it's pretty close.

 

[M3d10n]

There seems to be an intentional confusion in the article between capitalism as an economic ideology and the social systems of different countries, which are political ideologies.

You can have capitalism and a decent social system in the same place. It's a matter of political will. Which is in the end a matter of popular will. And just to tackle one of the proposals in the article, Swiss people rejected in a referendum (with 77% to 23%) a guaranteed basic income for all.

So maybe before blaming everything on the capitalism, look at the people first.

You're all ignoring the core issue, which is that our current global economic system (we aren't talking about individual countries here) demands growth. Merely getting by is considered a failure and is actually punished by investors and even governments.

All these knee jerk posts abut "human nature", "communism is worse" and "this is the best we can do" are missing the forest by the trees. The current system is unsustainable, period. We'll inevitably mine everything that there is to be mined. We'll inevitably run out of land area to grow crops and raise livestock. That is, if our civilization doesn't collapse back into hunter gathering due to us crashing the environment we have been extracting "wealth" from, increasingly year on year.

And don't get me started on the many posters that thing trade/currency = capitalism.

 

[Steel]

The problem is that capitalism has some reliance on leaders in government that know what the fuck they're doing, what they need to regulate, what they need to deregulate, when to change rules, when not to change rules.

Which completely relies on voters voting in sane, intelligent leaders that don't just fall back on ideology. Which they only occasionally do and only when they are fooled into doing so. Which of course puts a lot of the problems on democracy, but then again at a minimum democracy gives legitimacy to the people in power.

Still, even with those flaws capitalism does quite well. The same problems with leadership in a communist country would inevitably lead to an elected or unelected aristocracy eventually seizing full power for themselves rather than an upper class seizing sections of wealth that the government can be a counterweight against.

 

[patapuf]

Well I meant the direct actual energy. I.e. we have limited oil, coal, gas etc and we could create enough solar/wind/etc energy (especially if you include nuclear) to support are needs. Obviously they require some space for it but there is a lot of unused space still.

Space is a problem. Depending on where you build, for the environment, or because of distance or because humans or agriculture could be there ect..

You need rescources to build all the powerplants/solarcells ect.

Nuclear powerplants are great but it's a non renewable rescource and they still require to be near water for cooling and that puts stress on rivers.


And then you have to take into account that if you want post scarcity on a global scale, you need to do all this globally. and lots of nations will play catch up. This means energy consumption will still grow very quickly.

Population will also keep growing, especially without scarcity.

I mean, i could be wrong, but i doubt we are anywhere close to an abundance of energy. And it's certainly not the easiest Problem to solve.

 

[7DollarHagane]

Bad leadership and greed aren't captialist flaws, they are human flaws. Socialist/communist systems operated under bad leadership and greed hurt people worse.

 

[Phoenix RISING]

Chrony capitalism where the rich influence the political process.
Want to prevent it? Bring out the guillotine.

The irony of being educated is that you learn history and why revolutions happen. Allegedly we've evolved to the point where such a thing should not be necessary even though we see this kind of conflict in "third world countries," which would not even be in that state if not for (post) colonialism and globalization--capitalism's cousins.

Take notes at how the language of revolution is often times quickly stifled. Some people get banned. Why is that? Even if one considers Revolution to be the absolute last option, it should still be considered a legitimate one. When nothing else works.

We'll sooner have a revolution before say, the Electoral College is changed to align with the popular vote....

 

[Emperor_Uriel]

As seems to be the emerging consensus, capitalism itself is a very fair and reasonable ideology. The real issue is that corporations are never satisfied, always looking to cut costs and drive up profits, and often employing anti-capitalist methods for doing so.

If we lived in a country where people were satisfied with making, say, $10,000,000 a year maximum, and where the company that offered the best product wins, nobody would complain.

Instead, nobody is satisfied unless they're making all of the money, and the company that can afford to manipulate the legal system to crush competition and stifle innovation wins. That's the real issue.

 

[Steel]

Bad leadership and greed aren't captialist flaws, they are human flaws. Socialist/communist systems operated under bad leadership and greed hurt people worse.

See, this is a thing. Capitalist has greed as a driving factor because greed is a factor no matter what happens. It's better to account for it than to build a government that assumes no greed.

 

[sasliquid]

I'm gonna jump thread cos I think people have wildly different views on what capitalism is.

Either way, I'm not sure if capitalism is THE problem but currently it is far from the solution

 

[KingSnake]

When profit no longer exists because capital doesn't exist, these corporations will be in no other position but to be absorbed and maintained by an elected government. The one percent are going to have to get over it. It's the harsher side of this transition. The one percent will have the hardest time adapting, but they've done it to themselves. Either this is going to happen slowly and naturally over time like I've talked about or nothing is going to change and our society is going to spiral out of control and implode in civil unrest and revolution.

Why there will be civil unrest and revolution if the society can provide for all based on the taxation of the corporations? Why do you need to nationalise the corporations if the society works in providing decent conditions for everybody?

It starts national. Evey capable nation does it at the pace that they require, eventually and hopefully the whole world is well off enough to establish a single, egalitarian global government and society in a few centuries.

Countries have a different set of resources. And that means there is a competition between countries for the resources. That means that socialist countries need to be competitive in order to get the resources they lack internally. What about immigration? Do you accept migrants in your egalitarian society?

 

[bigmit3737]

It's definitely the problem, but we're in so deep that it seems unimaginable how we could ever change things.

The obvious first step would be to keep capitalism with government guidance to step in when capitalism can't make ethical choices, but republicans have shown they don't give a fuck about ethics and morals.

Take a step back for a moment and consider things like this... With capitalism, solving issues like world hunger will never happen.. The idea of getting food to people who need it makes no sense with capitalism. Same with healthcare. Instead of making sure people are healthy, people are more worried about insurance companies making enough money.

Right now, the only way science advances is if it can be monetized and marketed. The only way medicine advances is if it can be monetized and marketed. The only way to get healthier food to the people is if that healthy food can be made profitable first. Think of how massive and pointless the food industries that exist now are, how much absolute garbage is on the shelves, and the colossal waste of land and human resources it take to put fucking lucky charms on the shelves. But that's the system we have in place.

Even small local businesses are encouraged to play the game to eat profits over supporting humans. It's hard to make money, so how could a small business be expected to pay anything more than what they possibly can to survive? The system is a machine to create these large, money hungry organisms, and humans don't matter. Want to see what the end goal looks like? Look at the biggest, most profitable business on the planet.. Walmart, Mcdonalds, Amazon, whatever. These companies are notorious for paying out the least to human beings, and for the reason that making money is more important in this system than anything else. Why should the companies that make the most, pay the least? If there was no federal minimum wage, how low would these companies go? Remember when slavery existed in the US? Do you think businesses wanted to turn that around? Do you think the republican types at the time wanted to turn that around? Of course not.

Some matters need driven by ethics, by progressive science, by passionate humans whose own well being isn't caught up in the system.

We with the kind of resources available, we could be living in a utopia, but so much is spent making sure consumerism is the primary function. We need conscious human guidance at the reigns. Keep your lucky charms and beer and cigarettes, but give people health and intellectual stimulation.

It would be much easier to care for people if human numbers were kept under some kind of control too. Feeding everyone, giving everyone a job is a challenge. We have 7 billion now, imagine how hard it'll be to house, feed, and treat 14 billion using the consumer driven system.

I agree with a lot of points in this post.
Imagine scientists worked together to cure diseases and imagine pharmaceutical companies banded together and contiued to try to improve their products after getting approved . Imagine they didn't try to manipulate outcome of studies with clever wording and manipulated statical thredsholds . If pharma companies cared about the people we would have a much better healthcare.

Instead they have billions of cash made of one hit wonder drug , and they use this cash to buy out potential blockbuster drugs being researched within small biotech companies-- buy out the drug rights and then raise the price .


However With more and more drugs getting approved , eventually these pharmacies companies are going to forced to look st the existing drugs and look for improvements.
I think this is the long way though .

 

[gutshot]

What's wrong with brainless chickens? Sounds like a great way to make cheap meat without torturing poor animals.

 

[Grug]

I'm gonna jump thread cos I think people have wildly different views on what capitalism is.

"An economic system where the means of production are owned by competing private actors following a profit motive". That's really the only definition that should meaningfully be critiqued here.

Seems like a lot of people in the thread are airing grievances at certain elements of the current political system or human nature and pinning it on "capitalism" for convenience.

 

[And_Gignac]

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

The most miserable ones are also capitalists. What gives?

 

[Lubricus]

This sounds familiar, doesn't it?

The Republican party’s policies followed the idea of ‘Rugged Individualism’ – the idea that people should look after themselves. These ideas also contributed to the economic boom:

Laissez Faire; this was the policy that governments should not interfere in people’s lives. This would leave people to make their own decisions about how to make and to spend money. It allowed companies to make products and take decisions without having to follow lots of government rules.
Low Taxes; this policy went hand in hand with the policy of Laissez Faire. If the government did not interfere too much in people’s lives this would mean that the government did not need to raise taxes in order to spend them on government schemes. This meant that people would have more money to spend themselves, on American goods.
Tarrifs; this policy saw the government of the USA raise import taxes on goods coming into America from abroad. These import taxes meant that companies charged more for foreign goods, which made American goods look like better value for money. This was called ‘protectionism’ as the effect was to protect American industry from competition abroad.
Trusts and super corporations; this policy was also related to the idea of laissez-faire. The Republicans believed that they should not interfere to stop companies from getting too big or too powerful. These big companies could make goods very cheaply and this meant that more Americans could afford them.

http://www.onedamnthing.org.uk/mwgcse/yr10revision/why-did-the-american-economy-boom-in-the-1920s/

We are reliving the 1920's with new technology and large companies being formed. Will the next decade see a depression?
I do know we need regulation and limits on the power of large companies.

 

[Crayon]

Sure but it's a lil more complicated. Maybe capitolism was awesome for getting us to a point where we need something else.

 

[Grug]

The most miserable ones are also capitalists. What gives?

Are they? I think it would be a lot more accurate to simply describe them as "failed states".

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-unhappiest-countries-in-the-world-2016-3?IR=T/#10-madagascar-10

 

[Grug]

Sure but it's a lil more complicated. Maybe capitolism was awesome for getting us to a point where we need something else.

What is the something else though? As long as we need production to exist, someone has to be in charge of it. So who is it? What's the alternative?

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Why there will be civil unrest and revolution if the society can provide for all based on the taxation of the corporations? Why do you need to nationalise the corporations if the society works in providing decent conditions for everybody?

I was saying is things don't change from today, if we don't implement free healthcare and a UBI that there will be unrest and revolution.

Because corporate interests can't be trusted and they'll be obsolete. Rather than letting them persist and compete, a centrally controlled bureaucracy will be better able to fairly manage resources. Nationalism is the ultimate form of regulation.

Countries have a different set of resources. And that means there is a competition between countries for the resources. That means that socialist countries need to be competitive in order to get the resources they lack internally. What about immigration? Do you accept migrants in your egalitarian society?

Ideally the number of countries will be reduced over time. The EU will coalesce into a single European nation. The US, Canada, Australia, NZ, and the UK will be one nation. Resources won't be as scarce with space mining and renewable energy sources. One would hope that these new socialist governments would be egalitarian enough to freely provide resources to transitioning nations. Borders will eventually go away and people will be allowed to live anywhere they want. Vertical building, seasteading, and offworld colonies provide plenty of space everywhere to live. National farmland is strictly controlled by AI, forrests are allowed to regrow, pollution is cleaned by robots.

 

[And_Gignac]

Are they? I think it would be a lot more accurate to simply describe them as "failed states".

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-unhappiest-countries-in-the-world-2016-3?IR=T/#10-madagascar-10

A happiness index? Really!?

 

[KingSnake]

You're all ignoring the core issue, which is that our current global economic system (we aren't talking about individual countries here) demands growth. Merely getting by is considered a failure and is actually punished by investors and even governments.

Tons of companies that are merely getting by provide resources for millions of people.

Being punished by investors with a lower share price doesn't mean that those companies don't exists anymore.

And how are governments punishing those?

And in the end what exactly is the core issue? Because pushing for growth is not an issue in itself.

 

[Adam_Vania]

The problem isn't capitalism. It's human nature. There is no perfect system. Is the U.K. Government so awesome that you want it controlling all conmerce?

no, it isn't human nature. it is animal nature to want to horde things. it is animal nature to be in competition rather than working in cooperation.

that it is "human nature" is one of the biggest lies capitalism has been successful dissimenating. it's the intellectual/moral equivalent of shrugging.

fwiw whatever it is, it isn't limited to "capitalism" and i do think the problem is more deep seated (just not a "natural human" state, leave that to the religious and philosophers). i have read a lot about medieval history and the economic system itself may have been different but you saw all the same problems: corruption, nepotism, natural resource plundering, corporate pollution, public-private revolving door, etc. the more things change the more they stay the same. the struggle has been going on for thousands of years.

 

[And_Gignac]

Kings and Queens were also part of "human nature" you all.

 

[KingSnake]

I was saying is things don't change from today, if we don't implement free healthcare and a UBI that there will be unrest and revolution.

Because corporate interests can't be trusted and they'll be obsolete. Rather than letting them persist and compete, a centrally controlled bureaucracy will be better able to fairly manage resources. Nationalism is the ultimate form of regulation.


Ideally the number of countries will be reduced over time. The EU will coalesce into a single European nation. The US, Canada, Australia, NZ, and the UK will be one nation. Resources won't be as scarce with space mining and renewable energy sources. One would hope that these new socialist governments would be egalitarian enough to freely provide resources to transitioning nations. Borders will eventually go away and people will be allowed to live anywhere they want. Vertical building, seasteading, and offworld colonies provide plenty of space everywhere to live. National farmland is strictly controlled by AI, forrests are allowed to regrow, pollution is cleaned by robots.

What you describe is practically one huge corporation that will decide for the whole humanity. Think about it. The incentive won't be money, but power.

 

[Andrew J.]

Capitalism needs to be tempered with strong unions, social safety nets, and government regulation to mitigate its harms and ensure that its benefits are spread evenly among the people. When those things are in place I think capitalism does a pretty good job, but of course corporate power pushes back against those limiters.

I believe that right now we are in the beginning phase of a transition, not from capitalism to communism, but from economics itself. If we take the standard Robbins definition of economics as "a science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses," then once technology eliminates scarcity we will have to invent a new science of "antieconomics" to study human behavior between ends and effectively infinite means. The implementation of a universal basic income is but the first step towards a world where capitalism, and indeed all "economic" systems, are obsolete.

 

[Grug]

A happiness index? Really!?

I assumed that's what you were talking about based on the word "miserableness" and the post you responded to.

 

[Steel]

Kings and Queens were also part of "human nature" you all.

King and Queens were a result of greed. People like Stalin taking power is a result of greed. Capitalism is a result of greed, and factors in greed to keep a semblance of fairness(To what extent it is fair relies on the people in government). If you want to get rid of capitalism than you're advocating for a creating a gigantic mass of power that is ruled by people just as capable of greed as the individual corporations in capitalism.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

What you describe is practically one huge corporation that will decide for the whole humanity. Think about it. The incentive won't be money, but power.

It would be a fairly elected government. The only incentive would be an egalitarian desire to maintain society. Once we establish a global socialist government we can expend energy outwards towards space.

 

[travisbickle]

"An economic system where the means of production are owned by competing private actors following a profit motive". That's really the only definition that should meaningfully be critiqued here.

Seems like a lot of people in the thread are airing grievances at certain elements of the current political system or human nature and pinning it on "capitalism" for convenience.

That's because capitalism moulds a society. You can't pretend having a society based on private property ownership and exploitation of labour doesn't affect political/social systems within it, and ultimately how we interact with each other.

 

[Grug]

Kings and Queens were also part of "human nature" you all.

And schemed and murdered each other for more wealth and power despite "scarcity" being absolutely not on their radar.

 

[MistakenMobius]

It would be a fairly elected government. The only incentive would be an egalitarian desire to maintain society. Once we establish a global socialist government we can expend energy outwards towards space.

I would prefer he AI to decide.
We see the result of fairly elected government...

 

[Crayon]

What is the something else though? As long as we need production to exist, someone has to be in charge of it. So who is it? What's the alternative?

Worker owned coops maybe. There are some out there. If they could be encouraged, they would probably be they most desireable places to work.

 

[Steel]

It would be a fairly elected government. The only incentive would be an egalitarian desire to maintain society. Once we establish a global socialist government we can expend energy outwards towards space.

See, fairly elected governments can be absolutely batshit insane. Voting doesn't insure that leaders are good people, voting just makes sure that the people in power have legitimacy. What they do with that legitimacy can be whatever they want, and the more power they're given the more they can do.

Voters in large part don't really understand the issues, even a voter that considers themselves informed(a minority) is highly unlikely to have done more than watch a few speeches.

 

[Dingens]

For many people, even in this thread, it's always the same argument: it's the best system we ever had, therefore it's the best.
What many fail to see, however, is, that the discussion shouldn't be "do we want capitalism or go back to communism" but rather "what else is there?". What we need is an entirely new system, fit for the 21st century, something that really applies to the modern world, something that takes many factors in account that haven't even existed back then when smith, Marx and others wrote their books to define our current lives.

 

[And_Gignac]

King and Queens were a result of greed. People like Stalin taking power is a result of greed. Capitalism is a result of greed, and factors in greed to keep a semblance of fairness(To what extent it is fair relies on the people in government). If you want to get rid of capitalism than you're advocating for a creating a gigantic mass of power that is ruled by people just as capable of greed as the individual corporations in capitalism.

The myth of greed is the same as the myth of human nature. There is not such thing. There is a reason why communist countries didn't fall because the general populace were "greedy".

 

[KingSnake]

It would be a fairly elected government. The only incentive would be an egalitarian desire to maintain society. Once we establish a global socialist government we can expend energy outwards towards space.

We see today in a number of countries how worse a fairly elected government can be. Take away the pressure from competition and give the government the monopoly on the everything a citizen needs in a society and a bad government will be 100 times worse.

 

[Steel]

For many people, even in this thread, it's always the same argument: it's the best system we ever had, therefore it's the best.
What many fail to see, however, is, that the discussion shouldn't be "do we want capitalism or go back to communism" but rather "what else is there?". What we need is an entirely new system, fit for the 21st century, something that really applies to the modern world, something that takes many factors in account that haven't even existed back then when smith, Marx and others wrote their books to define our current lives.

The thing is, capitalism is mouldable, it can be changed to fit the current circumstances. It's not static like feudalism. It's not a one trick pony like communism. It is changing all the time, sometimes for the worst sometimes for the better.

The myth of greed is the same as the myth of human nature. There is not such thing. There is a reason why communist countries didn't fall because the general populace were "greedy".

We fundamentally disagree then, and will always fundamentally disagree.

Like, let's be clear, this is like saying that feudalism didn't change to absolute monarchy because the general populace was greedy. It'd be technically true, but greed was what made absolute monarchies form.

 

[psyfi]

I consider it to be one of the three biggest problems of our species, right alongside colonialism and patriarchy.