It's ok to be angry about capitalism

Buyetyen

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Well, no; systems of government that bear resemblance to fascism, or which you may consider analogous, have existed for thousands of years. Fascism as we tend to speak of it dates to the 1910s.
Mussolini gave it a name, but the core conceits of fascism are as old as demagoguery itself.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Pretty much this. /end thread

Those acting like capitalism (the system) is the problem and wanting a different system to fix everything don't understand humans at all. Any other system implemented will have the same (or exact opposite) issues unless fail-safes are put in to protect us from ourselves.
The main reason that we have the issues under capitalism that we do now is because those protections have been eroded by asshats.
 
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Phoenixmgs

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Not sure where you're pulling this from, although I have my suspicions.



State-run or publically-owned companies exist in hundreds of countries.



Indeed, and I'm glad you recognise the need for stringent regulation.

No systems have them inherently built in. Yet not all systems require the same regulations, and not all systems incentivise their destruction or circumvention.
Pulling it literally from you...
Not inherently, I don't think; we've just been convinced that an economic system that's less than 300 years old is the natural state of a ~2 million year old species. Somehow.
So if the last 300 years is not the natural state of our species, that means the other ~2 millions years is the natural state, correct? Then, that natural state is even worse than our current "natural state".

I didn't say that state-run companies don't exist and don't work. I said that you will inevitably end up with a situation where the company/industry "being in a few managerial hands". You said that the ownership of the means of production being in that way was bad.

Humans even find ways to circumvent leisure and fun activities like video games let alone work and political issues.


I don't believe private enterprise needs to be ended, or that all industry must be run communally. But I believe utilities should all be state-run-- transport, energy, water, rail, post, Internet, phone, healthcare, dentistry, banking, veterinary care, insurance, etc. I also believe that all vital industries (farming, supermarkets, housing) should have prominent state-run options, even if they're not the only options.

Private enterprise can exist alongside-- but heavily regulated, with compulsory worker involvement in decision-making (either through mandatory board positions for delegates or something else), and with payscales for the highest earners tied to those of the lowest earners.
See, you keep arguing vehemently against me yet we are in agreement with many things. I agree with most what you just said here in at least our current capitalist setup. You can have the state running industries when unfettered capitalism becomes detrimental. Or you can heavily regulate capitalism so that it doesn't become detrimental. For example, I think Amazon is at the point that they've become way too big and is actually detrimental to society so that state should be able to buy it and run it so that Amazon's resources and infrastructure could be utilized in a positive manner for society. Or you can have regulations in place so an Amazon could never become what it is now.
 
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Silvanus

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Mussolini gave it a name, but the core conceits of fascism are as old as demagoguery itself.
Sure, in the same way that the core conceits of capitalism and socialism (in some form) have been around for tens of thousands of years, but they themselves as we understand and refer to them have not.
 

meiam

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Even kings didn't have AS much power as we like to portray. A king can't run things by themselves and so they need the support of others and by that token they must enrich those that work with them in some way. Ironically, if we look at history "right by birth" is a more moral system than we give it credit for because it gives the singular leader an amount of security in their position so that they less likely to become paranoid and start cutting the heads off of all the competent people around them that could possibly usurp their power.
Irrelevant, the point that distinguish capitalism from various version of monarchy is that a monarch power is indivisible, the king is not less of the king because he gets support from someone else. When king delegate power they do in narrow way, they might give some noble the ability to oversee taxation matter in a specific area, but the king never lose that power and that noble cannot go to the local barrack and order the men to take over the capital. Power flow from the king to others and can be rescinded at will.

But in capitalism, a rich person will have to pay someone to get something done, in this way he transfer part of his power to that person, power that he lose in doing so because flow from the capital, regardless of who posses it. That power can then be used in any way the person who receive it want to. In this way accumulation of all the power in capitalism isn't possible because to exercise power in capitalism means empowering some other entity and weakening yourself. Also, because capital is measured by money, and money only has value when widely used in circulation, if too much money is accrued in too small a number of hands, it stop being used as a currency and become worthless. So capitalist have good incentive to keep market functional and money circulating. Whereas king have good incentive to keep the number of pretender to the throne low and rigid class system that prevent people from moving up.

Also, a loooooooooooooooooooooooot of people (both related to monarch and unrelated) got they head cut off because king where insecure about their position.

Also using alexander as an example of alternative system, is pretty bad. He got his power because of monarchy, inheriting from his father, would have almost certainly passed on his power to his son had he lived on longer/his son being older and dethrone plenty of king to take over their kingdom. Might make rights is always an option and no system will ever avoid that.
 
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Silvanus

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Pulling it literally from you...

So if the last 300 years is not the natural state of our species, that means the other ~2 millions years is the natural state, correct?
What? No, that doesn't follow.

I didn't say that state-run companies don't exist and don't work. I said that you will inevitably end up with a situation where the company/industry "being in a few managerial hands". You said that the ownership of the means of production being in that way was bad.
Uh-huh, and we've got plenty of examples of companies where ownership has not ended up in a few managerial hands. Companies that have remained publicly owned. So it's obviously not inevitable.

See, you keep arguing vehemently against me yet we are in agreement with many things. I agree with most what you just said here in at least our current capitalist setup. You can have the state running industries when unfettered capitalism becomes detrimental. Or you can heavily regulate capitalism so that it doesn't become detrimental. For example, I think Amazon is at the point that they've become way too big and is actually detrimental to society so that state should be able to buy it and run it so that Amazon's resources and infrastructure could be utilized in a positive manner for society. Or you can have regulations in place so an Amazon could never become what it is now.
I vehemently disagree with you because almost nothing you say or write indicates that you actually do share those principles. Most of the time you just seem to forget what you said earlier, or say whatever is most convenient on the spot.
 

Phoenixmgs

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What? No, that doesn't follow.



Uh-huh, and we've got plenty of examples of companies where ownership has not ended up in a few managerial hands. Companies that have remained publicly owned. So it's obviously not inevitable.



I vehemently disagree with you because almost nothing you say or write indicates that you actually do share those principles. Most of the time you just seem to forget what you said earlier, or say whatever is most convenient on the spot.
Then what is the natural state of human society?

Sure, companies are publicly held but are still run by a few managerial hands. The Green Bay Packers are a publicly owned football team (in fact the only publicly owned sports team in the US), you think every partial owner has a say in roster moves or what plays are actually run during the games?

What are you talking about? I've said so many times that I'd totally be for copy/pasting a country like Sweden or Denmark's setup for the US many many fucking times.
 

Absent

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Then what is the natural state of human society?
There's no such thing. Human society is, by definition, social, cultural. It's a construct, and it's a differentiation from nature.

And there is no "basic", "spontaneous" one, because all are and have been organized differently, on different values, representations and structures. With very different pros and cons and fields of efficiency. Societies are diverse, and they are all man-made. There's a very interesting freedom behind all that, which makes all the more infuriating the fact that we feel -and are- trapped by traditions, habits, self-reproducing systems, and narratives that keep trying to present them as natural (biological or divine) and immutable. They just have very strong inertias - by design (because these models are always meant to last, they are always institutions : structures endorsed by the next generation).

The question of a "natural" state would have little meaning if it's an archeological study of humankind's oigins and drift away from the animal realm. The emergence of society. From the time it becomes a self-aware, deliberate organisation, it ceases to be natural, and is the product of arbitrary choices.
 

Phoenixmgs

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There's no such thing. Human society is, by definition, social, cultural. It's a construct, and it's a differentiation from nature.

And there is no "basic", "spontaneous" one, because all are and have been organized differently, on different values, representations and structures. With very different pros and cons and fields of efficiency. Societies are diverse, and they are all man-made. There's a very interesting freedom behind all that, which makes all the more infuriating the fact that we feel -and are- trapped by traditions, habits, self-reproducing systems, and narratives that keep trying to present them as natural (biological or divine) and immutable. They just have very strong inertias - by design (because these models are always meant to last, they are always institutions : structures endorsed by the next generation).

The question of a "natural" state would have little meaning if it's an archeological study of humankind's oigins and drift away from the animal realm. The emergence of society. From the time it becomes a self-aware, deliberate organisation, it ceases to be natural, and is the product of arbitrary choices.
It wasn't really a thing I brought up but more so just asking what someone feels is the natural state? I definitely feel the human natural state leans at least decently into selfishness (at least on a macro level). It's kinda hard to prove humans do anything for pure altruistic reasons because being nice to someone can just be due to you wanting people to be nice to you in return vs you actually wanting to be nice yourself.
 

Absent

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It wasn't really a thing I brought up but more so just asking what someone feels is the natural state? I definitely feel the human natural state leans at least decently into selfishness (at least on a macro level). It's kinda hard to prove humans do anything for pure altruistic reasons because being nice to someone can just be due to you wanting people to be nice to you in return vs you actually wanting to be nice yourself.
I see that as irrelevant - and I've already seen people on the left and on the right randomly claiming that humans as innocent or crooked at birth, giving random examples meant to illustrate it (there's plenty for both sides), as if it even meant something in regard to policies to support. Human behavior is essentially cultural no matter what. Even if there was a tendency at birth, one way or the other, it's very quickly reshaped by education and socialization (often even earlier than we usually realize). For the better and/or the worse. Because some cultures favor altruism and collectivity and others favor selfishness and individuality. And both can have disastrous implications, on many levels.

Basic example, some cultures value wealth differences, and see as heroes and models the individuals that distinguish themselves with their own personal accumulated material wealth. Other cultures shame and distrust such people, who are immediately suspected of witchcraft, both as means (how did they amass this wealth) and as mentality (greed being a witchy trait). Some cultures encourage you to think of yourself as an individual, others to think in terms of collectivity, village, lineage, network you're an element of. Some cultures value growth and innovations, others prevent growth and deny innovation (innovations still happen but are mythically retconned as having always been that way). Some culture let you benefit from your gains, others force you to distribute it entirely (and I mean : entirely), enforcing mutual co-dependancy. And these are never brute laws imposed on unwilling people, they are a system of value, embraced by most (there's always dissent in every society no matter the size) and internalized through pride, shame, honor, common sense, morality, etc.

Of course, it's a diversity that diminishes. Because it produces societies with different efficiencies on different levels, and the efficiency at technologically (or economically) stomping another society determines which one endures, at which cost (isolation), with which consequences (pollution), etc. The boom of transportation that shrunk the world made the co-existence of these systems very difficult - and quite often, hybridations are defined as "corruption" on both sides. But if you take a snapshot of that diversity, say, 50 years ago only, it really relativizes the idea of a system of organisation or values that would be more "natural" to mankind than others. All these systems have existed for eons, and systems that were unsustainable wouldn't have, well, sustained themselves so far, in isolation, technically or ideologically.

So basically yes, we keep learning and unlearning to be nice to each others, and our state at birth, whichever it is, clearly doesn't play a big role in that. The stable outcomes (barring antagonistic clashes between each others) are too diverse.
 

Silvanus

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Then what is the natural state of human society?
Difficult question. That would depend on the stage at which we consider something to be artificial. It would be some pre-agricultural form, though, closer to hunter-gatherer.

Sure, companies are publicly held but are still run by a few managerial hands. The Green Bay Packers are a publicly owned football team (in fact the only publicly owned sports team in the US), you think every partial owner has a say in roster moves or what plays are actually run during the games?
Managed by a few hands; not owned. The separation between those two roles is the key. After all, even a commune doesn't necessarily lack managers.

What are you talking about? I've said so many times that I'd totally be for copy/pasting a country like Sweden or Denmark's setup for the US many many fucking times.
Congratulations?
 
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TheMysteriousGX

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Have you never been around a kid in your whole life?
Yeah. They're pretty great long as they aren't raised by people who think you need to be cruel and selfish to survive

[QUOTE="Phoenixmgs, post: 13257679, member: 27"
Pretty much agreed with everything you've said in the thread. Also, that is literally the problem with the US, "they" get the public to get up in arms about rather pointless shit to keep your eye off the actual important stuff.[/quote]Don't you get mad at the phrase "pregnant people" or am I thinking about someone else?
 

Terminal Blue

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Mussolini gave it a name, but the core conceits of fascism are as old as demagoguery itself.
Yes and no.

Fascism is reactionary, and it is very much an outgrowth of things like absolutism and millenarian christianity. But, as a reactionary ideology, it is also a product of the things its reacting against (namely, liberalism and socialism). Fascism requires a belief that we live a special, exceptional time and that our society is facing an exceptional crisis that can only be rectified through violent and immediate action, it requires a belief that liberalism and socialism have failed, that they have created a decadent world that needs to be "purified" and rejuvenated. That belief is quite specific to the 20th and 21st centuries.

Then what is the natural state of human society?
There isn't one.

Humans are completely socially dependent. If we aren't socialized, if we don't have other humans around to acquire language and culture from, we don't revert to some state of "natural" humanity, our brains don't develop properly. Humans evolved to think and share complex ideas with each other, and those ideas visibly impact our behavior to a far greater extent than any intrinsic nature we might have. Humans can and have adapted to all kinds of social arrangements, and are still doing so today.

In terms of intrinsic tendencies towards selfishness or altruism. Beyond the fact that there's no evidence these intrinsic qualities actually affect us very much, then the very simplified mathematical likelihood is that both selfish and altruistic traits are present within the population. Altruism is a huge advantage for social animals. Selfishness can be an even bigger advantage, but only if there are enough altruistic individuals to take advantage of, thus the selfish population will never drive the altruistic population to extinction because their strategy becomes less effective as the number of altruistic individuals decreases. It's good to be selfish if everyone else isn't, but if everyone else is equally selfish it stops being an advantage.

We don't know enough about the evolutionary environment that produced early humans to really confirm or deny any of this, but it seems more probable than the entire species being naturally selfish. That species wouldn't cooperate very well.
 
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Kwak

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Capitalism abstracts the real world away to a virtual concept made of numbers and data, which protects people from seeing the impact of that system on the worlds ecosystems and individuals.

We get the lovely pile of tasty sausages without having to process seeing them made from start to finish.
We are privileged to not have to deal with all the injustices and destruction that go into giving us something we end up taking for granted or not really wanting anyway.
 
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Kwak

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We don't know enough about the evolutionary environment that produced early humans to really confirm or deny any of this, but it seems more probable than the entire species being naturally selfish. That species wouldn't cooperate very well.
Or made it this far in the first place.
 
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Silvanus

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You know, on this subject of capitalism and how it works.

Banks moving shit around/investing users' money unsafely and then being incapable of fulfilling their obligations is absolutely a thing, but Wells Fargo isn't in a solvency crisis right now, and the scale of unfulfilled requests at the moment appears low.

On a side note, that guy is... uhrm, not providing the most reliable commentary. Numerous retweets for Musk and Carlson, and blaming unspecified "leftists" for US economic woes. Methinks this tweet is just trying to exploit current frustration to sling shit at the left and make shit up.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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I think it should be pointed out that Capitalism!™️ as defined by a lot of it's ardent supporters is just as much of a utopian pipe dream as Communism or The Meritocracy: True Capitalism has never been tried don't you know. It requires an insane level of sportsmanship from nominally ruthless businessmen, it requires corporations to actually voluntarily self-regulate instead of harming thousands and thousands and thousands of people to make a buck, it requires the already rich and powerful to allow upstart competition instead of crushing it in the womb, etc, etc, etc. It has never, does not, and (god willing) will never actually exist.

And that last bit is deliberate: for a utopian ideology, Capitalism is awfully dystopic. Not a lot of consideration given for those that *don't* Win Capitalism, y'know? It's a utopian ideology with a built in underclass.