That’s propaganda of the deed. Not all leftists are anarchists.
You criticize society, yet you live in it. Hypocrisy much? Chekmate liberal
I never understood why we’re stuck with just capitalism or communism, two economic systems developed before railroads were a thing and written down at night by candle light or a lantern burning whale fat. I think we should come up with something better. To quote President Not Sure, “The water doesn’t have to come from the toilet, but that’s the general idea.”
Everyone who advocates for a “third way” always just ends up advocating for capitalism.
Railways were a thing when communism was developing during Marx’s times and Lenin wrote extensively about railways. Their analysis is still very valid, and if anything, planning has become more feasible than 100 years ago thanks to computers. There are some modern proposals, but they are still very much based on socialism, since capitalism can only lead us to ruin.
“It’s socialism or barbarism!”. It’s because there hasn’t been any other convincing arguments otherwise. If you give the capitalists an inch, they’ll eventually take it all. You cannot allow capital to accumulate to the degree that it wields real political power.
Socialism hasn’t exactly worked out either. Replacing a flawed system like capitalism with something even worse is not a solution
“Socialism hasn’t worked out either” what exactly do you mean? Public schools have largely been more successful than not. Socialized medicine has been more successful than privatized insurance.
The blanket statement is simply a statement so sweeping it can only be incorrect. Because there are successful socialized portions of societies.
But that’s not what socialism is. Socialism is when the “public” (read: government) controls all of societies land, resources, and means of production and distributes them from ability to need. Socialism is a specific economic system where the entire economy is centrally planned.
You’re mixing like 3 definitions of socialism:
- as a state policy of central planning
- as a set of economic reforms
- modeled as a command economy (command economies pre date capitalism by a large margin)
Socialism encompasses a much larger group of movements and ideas with lots of differing thought schools largely tasked with improving society in economic ways. Democracy can be argued to be under the umbrella of socialism and socialist thought depending on how things are defined which is why there is such staunch anti democracy sentiments from capitalists.
Like the more developed ideas on socialism are where the benefits of capitalism are realized but the costs are offset or synthetic.
This is a load of nonsense. Socialism is not a blanket term that you can manipulate to mean whatever you like, the same goes for capitalism where you turn it into a pejorative for anything you don’t like. Democracy is also very much not socialism is any way, shape, or form and they have zero connection to each other.
Socialism is an economic model that revolves the concept that all the resources, property, and means of production in a society are publicly owned and managed, aka a centrally planned economy. Democracy is when the people govern themselves. There are ideologies that try to interoperate both, these are very much not the same thing. The same goes for capitalism which is an economic model which revolves around economies being run by free markets, aka unplanned economies.
Socialism is NOT state capitalism, it’s NOT welfare programs, and it NOT public schools or infrastructure. A country like Denmark is NOT socialist because it has universal healthcare and public schools. In fact when Bernie Sanders called them socialist in his 2016 campaign, the PM of Denmark at the time literally came out and correct him by saying that Denmark was capitalist. An actual example of socialism would be the Soviet Union or China under Mao.
Rich cant exploit socialism as easily, therefore they demonize it.
Socialism is a failure because it shifts the wealthy class from private individuals with a lot of influence to the actual ruling elite. Therefore the exploitation is happening by the very people running the economy. We saw this happen time and time again in socialist countries.
squawk “socialism bad” squawk
It is. You can smack your head against a wall, but reality won’t change.
Aight. I’ll keep smacking my head against my free universal healthcare and robust safety nets.
If you think a country like Denmark is socialist then you don’t know what socialism is
The real choice is capitalism or democracy.
These aren’t opposites. Democracy is a system of governance, capitalism is a system of economics. A society can be both at the same time.
You cannot have real democracy when there is a ruling minority class, as in capitalism, simple as that.
Europe has figured it out so has New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Japan, and so on. In fact, only capitalist systems have ever produced genuine democracies. All the socialist examples in history were authoritarian governed by an unelected ruling elite.
Yeah yeah, European chauvinism yadda yadda
“You don’t know? Chinese people liking their government means they’re a dictatorship for some reason, seeseepee!!!111!1!11!1! All factual data about China can be disregarded because I’m a racist prick who doesn’t conceive the idea that Chinese are free to speak their minds!!!”
Shut up, boring-ass pro-landlord propagandist
Things don’t need to be opposites to affect each other in predictable ways.
They are both decision making processes where different groups hold power over society’s resources. Democracy very much has economic power and Capitalism is very much about who gets to make certain decisions.
They have what you might call… friction.
That’s how all societies work though. We live in a world where sacristy is reality, and therefore there will always be people competing to control the same limited resources.
Okay, give me your wallet.
That’s not competition. I don’t think you understand what that means.
I can list at least one.
Can’t think of a communist democracy, though.
We can measure how democratic a country is by how much its actions favor the people rather than the capitalists. Most communist countries, particularly Cuba are more democratic than any country ruled by capital.
To be fair, any of the counties that attempted it had a coup enacted by fascist capitalist countries to prevent them from doing so.
That’s just cope. The reality is that communism is fundamentally flawed to the point where failure was always going to be the inevitable outcome. That’s why despite a century of nonstop attempts across all cultures and lands, not a single attempt panned out well. They all either collapsed or reverted to some version of capitalism. The opposite never happened.
I’m all ears for ideas.
So am I! I just can’t believe Adam Smith and Karl Marx are the Einstein and Newton of economics. It feels like capitalism and communism are the luminiferous ether and fluid theory of electricity and we never bothered to advance any further.
Technically aether theory was never ruled out. People love to claim that the Michelson-Morley experiment ruled it out, but this is historical revisionism. The MM experiment was conducted in 1887. Hendrik Lorentz proposed his aether model in 1904. Obviously Lorentz was not such a moron he would not take into account the findings of MM, but that is what people are unironically suggesting when they say MM somehow retrocausally ruled out his model. Indeed, both Michelson and Morley did not believe their own experiments ruled it out either but continued to promote such models.
Lorentz’s aether model and Einstein’s relativity are actually mathematically equivalent so they make all the same predictions, so no possible experiment could rule out Lorentz’s aether theory that would not also rule out Einstein’s relativity. Indeed, if you read his 1905 paper where Einstein introduces special relativity, his criticism of Lorentz’s model is only a philosophical objection. He never posited that an experiment can rule it out. MM only rules out some very early aether models, not Lorentz’s model.
I would recommend also checking out John Bell’s paper “How to Teach Special Relativity,” where he also discusses this fact, and how the mathematics of special relativity are perfectly consistent with a reality with an absolute space and time. Taking space and time to be relative only comes at the level of metaphysical interpretation.
To paraphrase Tim Curry, communism and capitalism are both red herrings.
Oh that big punch up between the Soviet Union and the United States, decadent capitalism vs brutalist communism. Who won? According to the scoreboard as of 2026: Israel.
The catch phrase I’ve always heard about communism is “the people own the means of production.” Has that ever been true in practice? Did Soviet citizens own any piece of the means of production? Did anything resembling “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” ever once happen under the hammer and sickle? Or was that the false narrative the idiot asshole in charge used to cow the unwashed masses?
Similar questions could be asked of my fellow capitalist Americans. Capitalism is allegedly about the free market, supply and demand, if there is a demand someone will provide a supply, probably multiple someones, competitors will compete, those who do it faster, cheaper or better will succeed until someone else does it even fasterer, cheaperer and betterer repeat until someone else comes along with a completely different idea, welcome to the infinite cycle of meritocracy where the cream rises to the top. How’s that working out? Some substance has risen to the top, not sure it’s cream.
A common problem I see between the Soviet Union and the United States: Weak systems for preventing psychotic despots from ruining it all.
Further expanding on this: My understanding of the Soviet Union: Something something the Bolsheviks, something something communist revolution, They just about have an election, that Lenin overthrows because it isn’t going his way. Lenin is King Shit Of Turd Mountain until his death, then the dumb guy from the ghetto he kept around because he’s good at hurting people, Josef “probably worse than Hitler” Stalin takes the throne. The entire run of the Soviet Union is essentially a dictatorship with a command economy and remains thoroughly miserable.
The United States, meanwhile, has gone through phases. Tides have ebbed and flowed, robber barons have come and gone, consumer protection laws have come and gone. Times when a very few, very rich men have been mostly miserable for most people; times when those assholes get knocked down a peg and the common man has a chance to make a decent living get better.
The problem is a few ultimately rich assholes in charge.
I did some ‘back of the napkin’ math a few days ago to see what it would take for the employees in my company to purchase enough shares for a controlling stake in the company. I figured that we’d never get 100% of the employees to buy in, but we also don’t need 100% of the shares, so to keep it easy I calculated if 60% bought 60% of the shares… and it would cost each employee around $2.3 million.
That tells me that each employee provides $2.3 million worth of value to the company… and we’re not getting paid anywhere near that. Not even close.
Company value is just the result of shareholders expectations for the future company value. It doesn’t directly reflect the employees worth
this is interesting to me. can you show your work? Id be interested in going through the thought experiment as well.
Here’s a site that calculates basically how much you’re being exploited in a company. It’s mostly for American stock exchanges, but if you can find the financial reports of your company you can apply the same method (it’s nicely described).
The top comment doesn’t really work, because even if workers pooled the money together, shareholders or execs might refuse to sell their shares if they are expecting it to grow and pay them out more in the future. Buying up companies to turn into coops doesn’t work (except for failing/bankrupt companies), because it takes capital to do that, which workers don’t have by definition.
Market cap is around $141 billion.
Number of employees is around 60,000.
60% of employees: 36,000.
60% of market cap: $84 billion.
$84B / 36,000 = $2.33 million.
If you want to compare it to salaries, I think you would need to do the year-over-year change. But even that wouldn’t factor in all the bloated C-suite bonuses and such, so I feel like the calculations would end up being much more complex.
For instance, if you work somewhere for 23 years making on average $100,000 per year, you’ll have received about $2.3 million from that company over time. If that company’s market cap increases by $2.3 million per employee in that course of time, then you would be about even by your metric.
gotcha. What about assets? Im not an accounting person, but we routinely buy tooling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Raw materials have costs/value associated with them. How would that figure in?
Those are operating costs, I’m referring to control of the board of directors.
Why is this highly upvoted? This is just a poor understanding of economics.
The market cap just shows the aggregate value of shares that are being publicly traded. It has nothing to do with labor value. You can’t derive labor value from the market cap because there’s no correlation. If you want to find out how much each employee contributes, you would have to use something like company revenue.
So get to shitposting!
Market cap doesnt reflect the value of labor, its purely speculative these days.
These days?
You should subtract initial investments in the company, value of real estate owned, value of machines etc.
each employee provides $2.3 million worth of value
Market cap is just the value at which shares are sold on the market, not necessarily the actual value of the company. It implies a lot speculation for investors on how much they expect to gain from the ownership. The company equity/net worth is a more accurate indicator. What you’re calculating is the accumulated value in time, not yearly.
If you want the ratio of generated value to wages paid, it’s hard to accurately calculate with just public data, but you can approximate it so: in a given year, take the operating income and divide it by the number of employees. Operating income accounts for overhead expenses like SG&A (Sales General & Admin), which includes things that you can argue are useless (like wages for execs, middle management, and sales), but they also include admin costs like office rents, etc. Then you also have to find the average/median wage of a worker at the company, so the total is:
yearly value created by a worker = (operating income / n. of workers) + median wage
You can also do a quick calculation using this tool: https://yourfairshare.info/
It’s interesting to note how in all of these top companies, for every 1$ paid to workers, another ~1$ is transferred to capitalists through dividends and buybacks.
shitpost until AI can replace you by doing an equivalent job is a dicey proposition.
The techlords told me when AI replaces my job I can just be on the beach with full pay.
And they’re billionaires so they must be smart.Replace you, no no no, replace you trying to do as little as possible… that’s more of a problem. I’m not saying work your ass off, but don’t not-work yourself out of a job to a clanker. The boss will fire you if he ‘thinks’ he’ll save some money with AI.
There’s literally a running joke where I work called the “Union Shit”. You run to the bathroom to take a 15 - 20 minute shit between your breaks.
Whether or not you’re actually shitting or just shitposting is between you and those walls lol
In Germany, you’re having a “Sitzung” which is the word for a conference meeting, but literally just means “sitting”.
When you return to your desk, coworkers will ask if the “meeting” was productive.It roughly means “session”, which also derives from sitting.
Do the bare minimum to avoid getting fired.
Actively sabotage your employer.
why are you doing the bare minimum?! you’re so lazy!
bruh I’m doing literally only what the job asked, unless you pay me more, I’m not doing more
This but I’m self employed 😭
😂
“Communism in one country as opposed to the glob” - that’s the problem.
How u gonna handle competition from non communist countries?
competition
That’s a weird way to spell bombs.
What makes socialism less competitive?
You have far fewer desperate people to feed into the meat grinder, you have to be right everywhere every time or the oppressors will magnify your failures both at home and abroad, your researchers aren’t researching almost exclusively weapons of mass destruction.
Also you know the whole “holding any value for human life” bit.
You have far fewer desperate people to feed into the meat grinder
Funnily enough, socialist countries typically don’t feature unemployment, making the utilization of labor more effective. Also, planned economy has immense potential in the information era.
you have to be right everywhere every time or the oppressors will magnify your failures both at home and abroad
You have tools to curb this, there’s a reason why the great internet firewall exists.
your researchers aren’t researching almost exclusively weapons of mass destruction
Fair enough lmao
These are things the most competitive countries on earth do though?
commenting on shitposts at work until my value matches my pay 🫡
Remember, people, the economy depends on you. It is important to be responsible, and to #ActYourWage
I thought shitposting at work increased my value.
Communism is just as easy of an answer as fascism. Just a different direction.
No. You’re wrong.
I’m from Spain, we had fascism for 40 years. We had no public education for everyone, no free healthcare for everyone, no guaranteed employment, no right to unionize, no pensions, no guaranteed housing, university was only for the rich families, farm workers were exploited by the landowners, there was immense racism and ethnonationalism as state policy, and other cultures and languages (see Basque and Catalan) were forbidden and repressed.
Communism is literally antithetical to fascism, it provides universal free healthcare, universal pensions, guaranteed right to employment, guaranteed housing at affordable prices, universal free education to the highest level, respect for local cultures and languages, socialist internationalism as opposed to ethnonationalism, highest unionization rates, redistribution of the farmlands… This is the reason why the first thing fascists do is murdering all communists, anarchists and socialists
I suggest you read more on what fascism actually was, and what communism has historically actually been.
It’s not about the IDEA of communism its the implementation. People can’t be trusted. Read the gulhag archipeligo. It might show you some of the implications of how communism is actually practiced. They both suck and we need better. Ideology is fine as long as you don’t try to apply it to reality one to one. I can’t find a group of ten people who I could stick in a room that would agree 100% on how a government should be run. We live in a world where the perception of a thing dictates how it is thought about and implemented. Communism as an idea is a fluffy utopis where everyone gets a cut and a say. But if you build them in the real world where people actually exist with differing opinions on who should and shouldn’t get exterminated for arbitrary party ideology. There are minor situations where communities thrive o. Their ideology. Until the rest of the world comes knocking. What are you guys gonna do to the people that don’t want communism once you get into power? A position of power is a position. Of power over people. Power corrupts. Money corrupts. Humans are corruptable. The biggest example of communist implementation is China and they are a pretty capitalist for a communist nation. Communism and fascism are ideologies that people subscribe to.
It’s not about the IDEA of communism its the implementation
Let’s see what this person’s sources for how socialist implementation looked like:
Read the gulhag archipeligo
Lmfao, a fucking fiction book written by a fringe fascist-tsarist right wing nationalist. Your comment can be safely disregarded once we learn that your source on “socialist implementation” is literally a work of fiction. “Communism doesn’t work in practice, you should watch The Avengers: Age of Ultron”-ass comment
You should try and read a normal book for adults, you know, an actual essay discussing the facts from a scientific standpoint and not a propaganda novel.
Go and read a real book for adults. I suggest you Albert Szymanski’s “Human Rights in the Soviet Union” or “Is the Red Flag Flying”, or Robert C. Allen’s “Farm to Factory” if you’re as concerned with the realities of Soviet people as you’re showing us.
Communism is a meme. It will never work and there will never be a silver bullet revolution.
You’re such a boring anticommunist proapgandist, you’ve been educated a million times in this platform and you refuse to absorb the smallest knowledge.
If communism doesnt work, why did it take 1bn people out of poverty and save Europe from Nazism?
You’re such a boring anticommunist proapgandist, you’ve been educated a million times in this platform and you refuse to absorb the smallest knowledge.
Lmao you’re an idiot. You’re NOT knowledgeable, and the fact that you’re so arrogant that you think you’re in a position to educate just shows how much of dimwit you are. Idiots like you seethe every time I make the most obvious criticisms of this shitty ideology because you can’t prove me wrong. I bring up
If communism doesnt work, why did it take 1bn people out of poverty and save Europe from Nazism?
It quite literally did neither. The Soviet Union were literally the closest allies of the Nazis. Stalin and Hitler signed a pact and invaded Poland together. They’re literally half the reason why WWII started. Things only changed when Hitler betrayed Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union, and even then, the Soviet Union did not save Europe from the Nazis. That ignores the massive contributions from the rest of the allies, mainly the US and the British Empire, who liberated the other half of Europe AND took down the other two axis powers by themselves. Not to mention that the Soviet Union didn’t liberate shit, they were occupiers themselves who were just as brutal as the Nazis in a lot of ways. There’s a reason why every single Eastern European country despises communism and the Soviet Union as much as they despise fascism and Nazi Germany.
Also communism is notorious for dragging societies into poverty. There’s not a single example of communism taking a society into a better place then where it has left it. Every single instance in history has either resulted in collapse or revert to capitalism in some form. I assume you’re referring to China’s economic rise lifting 800 million people out of poverty. But if you had even the most elementary understanding of Chinese history, which you very clearly don’t, then you would know that this rise started in the late 80s because that’s when China officially adopted capitalism.
Mao was a true communist and China under him was well and truly socialist. This was the darkest chapter in China’s 5000 year old history. Socialism was such a colossal failure that it has resulted in the biggest man made disaster in human history, the Great Chinese Famine, which killed somewhere between 15 and 55 million people. This coupled with the Great leap forward and a bunch of other campaigns, somewhere between 40 and 80 million people were killed as a direct result of Mao and his policies. This makes Mao the dictator with the highest death toll in history. All the while, the Chinese economy was in complete shambles and the country was on the verge of collapse yet again. When Mao died in the 1976, the next leader of China, Deng Xiaoping made it very clear to the public that country was going to go into a de-Maoization similar to what Khrushchev did after Stalin died.
Starting in the late 70s and throughout the 80s, Deng Xiaoping made a series reforms where China adopted capitalism and liberalized the economy. He allowed foreign investment to come into the country, he allowed people to hold private businesses, he allowed farmers to keep surplus crops and sell them for profit, he loosened restrictions on free markets, state owned corporations were restructured to have a lot more autonomy, he established “special economic zones” all over the country where capitalism ran free. China’s GDP growth correlates with these reform 1:1. If you look at a graph of China’s economic growth it starts and directly correlates with these reforms. The vast majority of the world, including China itself acknowledge that capitalism is what’s responsible for China’s economic boom.
This basic information. If piss poor propaganda and misinformation that can easily be debunked with a 30 second google search is your “education” then you take the crown for being the biggest clown on lemmy.
The Soviet Union were literally the closest allies of the Nazis
No, fuck you actually. I’m a Spaniard, and back in 1936 before any “Motherboard-Ribbedcock” anticommunist propaganda you’re making (I’ve educated you about this topic before and you just refuse to absorb the facts), the Soviets were the ONLY country in the world arming the antifascists in Spain against Franco and Hitler. You’re the saddest excuse for a propagandist I’ve seen, literally carrying water for genocidal maniacs and landlords while our societies collapse due to climate change and fascist takeover of our institutions. I refuse to entertain your bullshit, asshole.
communism is notorious for dragging societies into poverty
Socialist Romania had a growth of 800% of GDP per capita averaging at over 4% growth per year. Capitalist Romania averages out at about 2.5% GDP growth per year. A similar thing happened in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Bulgaria… Most Eastern Block countries saw massive destruction of living standards and economic progress during the transition to capitalism, you’d know this if you listened ONE time, you disgusting bullshitter.
You’re literally a fucking genocidal maniac supporting the destruction of Eastern Europe in the name of Capitalism.
Wtf are yountalking about?
I’m talking to this gorilla user, they’re everywhere whenever communism is mentioned carrying water for capitalism and its horrors
I doubt you can even define it.
It’s a shitty utopia thought up by a grumpy German philosopher from a bygone era where he thought that all the issues of Germany during the Industrial revolution could be solved by having all the resources, land, and means of production be publicly owned and operated as well as have the redistribution of them go from ability to need. He thought that this was the silver bullet solution to everything. He thought because there’s a theoretical equality of outcome, there would no longer be class division tearing society apart. Therefore, there will no longer be crime or discrimination or a need for money or even a state… as that’s the reason why these things exist in the first place. It should be noted that he thinks that the state would dismantle itself after the utopia is achieved just because, and it’s not just the government but also the state apparatus so things like the military, public schools, the courts, the media, etc would also get dismantled.
So basically it’s just a fantasy of anarchist society that doesn’t have state, money, or classes where all the people magically agree and get together to publicly manage all the means of production and redistribute all the resources in such a way where everybody has exactly what they need all the time. Oh, and all of this will happen after a violent revolution that overthrows capitalism followed by a transitional tyrannical socialist state that supposed to represent the workers that’s going to rule with an iron fist to bring about the necessary social conditions to realize communism. That’s the state that will voluntarily dismantle itself when communism is achieved.
The ideology is such a fucking joke that it can’t even withstand basic criticism and logical reasoning. It’s no wonder that it has literally failed every single time it has been tried. Hundreds of attempts across different time periods, lands, cultures, and circumstances. At one point communist countries controlled over 1/3 of the planet… and yet they all failed. Every single one is a failure. They all either collapsed, turned into authoritarian shitholes, or reverted to capitalism in some way. The opposite never happened. Capitalism is not good, it’s a very flawed system and idea, but at least it functions to some capacity. Marxist communism is so delusional and unsound that it literally doesn’t function. No amount of “MUH THEEREES” will change the reality of communism being a meme.
You are just ranting about something you clearly have no idea what it is. Nothing you have said is even close to relevant to anything Marx wrote. Someone told you to hate it so you hate it, but you cannot even articulate anything Marx actually said or wrote.
This is pure cope. I’ve read a few of his works like Das Kapital, Critique of the Gotha Program, and the Communist Manifesto and it is what opened up my eyes to how much of an idiot this guy was and how shitty his idea are in both theory and practice. You’re just mad because you bought into the bullshit and can’t accept that the rest of the world is also educated on his works, but come to a different conclusion because they have basic critical thinking skills.
Lying about having read books is just pathetic dude. If you read a word he wrote you could respond to a word he wrote rather than invent complete delusions out of your behind. You’re now trying to psychoanalyze me and attack my character. You have zero ability to actually respond to ideas because you are too intellectually incurious to actually engage with them at all.
You’re full of shit. You’re just mad because I’m openly critical of this shitty ideology instead of blindly accepting it like you. Keep in mind, everything you said here applies directly to you. Instead of asking me what I disagreed with it, you arrogantly assumed that I was ignorant and can’t define the ideology solely because you can’t accept that there are people who understand the ideology and hate it.
I could’ve told you to fuck off right then and there, but I actually gave you an honest summary of what the ideology is. Once again, instead of responding to what I said, you refused to accept that other people disagreed with your incredibly myopic worldview and you arrogantly assumed that I was ignorant and haven’t read any of his works. You even went out of your to insult me by calling me brainwashed, because apparently to you, that’s the only way people can ever disagree with his holiness, Karl Marx.
Once again, I could told you to fuck off, but I decided to just tell you the works that I read. You could’ve just started a discussion based on them. Instead, you rejected what I’m telling yet again, and arrogantly assumed that I was lying because how can anybody possibly disagree with the holy scriptures of the prophet Karl Marx after reading them? That clearly impossible.
All your comments follow the same pattern of: You reject the criticism that’s right in front of you -> you make a bunch of character attacks -> you pretend that I’m incapable of responding or articulating criticisms even though they’re, again, right in front of you. In fact, I’m the only one who has been articulating thoughts and criticism, you haven’t provided shit. You haven’t addressed anything that I said and you haven’t provided anything of substance of your own. All of you’ve done is cope with whats in front of you and attacked my character 3 times in a row without ever bothering to engage with me in good faith even once. Now you’re after doing this, you’re going to have the conceit to accuse me of attacking your character? You’re accusing me of being incapable of engaging in good faith? What a fucking hypocrite you are.
I was waiting for you to start saying something worthy of a discussion at some point, but it’s clear at this point that you’re not going to do that because you’re the one who’s incapable, not me. I think now is the right time to tell you to fuck off.
I’ll respond to your argument when you make manage to articulate single point Marx made and rebut it. Otherwise, there is nothing to say.
The Capitalist ideal is that you don’t need a state, cause if everyone only maximizes their own wealth with no barriers for the market, it will somehow work out to everyone’s best interest in the end.
If a global trillion $ corporation does shitty things, people will freely choose to buy from a newly sprung up competitor who doesn’t do that.
Homeless people won’t freeze in the street cause a benevolent billionaire will choose to help them.
And somehow, that system can keep growing exponentially forever in a world with limited resources.
We’re as far away from ideal functioning Capitalism as from ideal functioning Communism.The thing is that capitalism isn’t an ideology like communism. Capitalism is a purely economic system. There are ideologies built around it, but capitalism itself is not one. Capitalism can exist under wildly different ideologies and produce wildly different result. India, the US, Saudi Arabia, and Iceland are all capitalist but they very different from each other. That’s because capitalism is more like a tool. Communism actually tries to layout how a society should ideally be run economically, politically, and socially. The counterpart to capitalism is not communism, but socialism.
I disagree. Capitalists are definitely pushing towards running everything in society on economic principals, letting private businesses take over public infrastructure, social services, culture, communication and defense.
It just isn’t fully realized anywhere (yet).I mean the US isn’t the definition of capitalism. It’s just one hundreds of examples. There are other countries that do capitalism way better like Denmark for example.
Also a big part of capitalism is the idea that different factions will compete for influence. The idea is that the different fingers of the invisible hand (the government, the public, capitalists, corporations, institutions, NGOs, the media, etc) are going to keep each other in check. If tension breaks and things fall out of balance then you basically get a dystopia. That’s why checks and balancing is one of the most crucial things to any successful capitalist system. It’s also the reason why capitalism in the US is heading down the wrong direction. Money in politics has thrown everything out of whack.
It’s a shitty utopia thought up by a grumpy German philosopher
You know he wrote a book specifically attacking utopian communist projects, called Socialism: Scientific and Utopian. This should tell you everything else you think you know in the subject was just some guy making shit up to stop you from actually educating yourself.
You have to be an actual idiot to treat this subpar philosopher as some prophet and crappy works as the gospel. They hold ZERO legitimacy. He can claim that communism was not a utopia all he wants, but it’s literally an idealized fantasy of what a perfect society looks like, that’s what a utopia is by definition.
My point is you have no idea what communists are trying to achieve or have achieved. Also he was an economist lol.
My point is you have no idea what communists are trying to achieve or have achieved.
You don’t have any basis for this claim besides the fact you’re mad that I’m openly critical of Marx and this shitty ideology. If that was the case then you would’ve provided your case, but you haven’t and you probably won’t. Communism is very much a utopia no matter how much you twist it. It’s fits the definition to a T. Marx pretending his utopia isn’t a utopia and then going to attack other people for their utopias is like a closeted homosexual denying their sexuality and being homophobic to cope with their reality.
Also he was an economist lol.
He was both
If you’re calling marxists utopian, you have literally no idea what your talking about, and are just guessing at what is in that book.
Communism can mean a lot of different things. What kind of economic system do you advocate for?
Communism is just utopia. It’s the fantasy of a German man from a bygone era of how he thought a perfect society should look like. It’s not a realistic or practical ideology, and never was. This is why every single attempt at achieving it in history results in failure and it’s the reason why that’s always going to be the case.
You can’t run an economy based fictional utopias or treating some German philosopher’s subpar ideas as gospel. The economy, like with anything else in society, has to be run pragmatically. It needs to be studied like any other academic subject, and the research should be used to organize and refine what’s been proven to work and what doesn’t. Likewise, people who are experts on the subject should be the ones drafting guidelines that drive the economy, and the advice they give should be based on their society’s current problems. If it’s makes sense for their country’s economy to have socialized healthcare then they should do that, if it makes sense for their country to privatize their country’s musical instrument industry then they should do that. This idea that we have to box ourselves and our economies into some ideological box never made sense to me.
You didn’t answer my question and you ignored my point.
Communism can mean many things, and many things that call themselves communism have very little to nothing to do with what Marx wrote about. As an aside, Marx was not just a grumpy philosopher, he was also an economist who laid the foundation for thinking of the economy in terms of power, ownership and democracy. The Marxian school of economics is still influential today.
Your ramblings about “communism has always failed” leads me to believe that you are talking about Marxism-Leninism, which I also believe is outdated and dominated by dogmatic thinking, but I digress. Let’s increase our scope to socialism as a whole. Now let me rephrase: Existing socialism has worked many times, but has always been stomped out by brutal capitalist imperialism. A brief look at the history of central and south america, and all other colonially exploited areas should show you that the system that has produced the most suffering, destroyed the most democracies, is capitalism. Let me rephrase: Capitalism has never worked.
So again, what kind of economic system do you advocate for?
Communism can mean many things, and many things that call themselves communism have very little to nothing to do with what Marx wrote about.
I’m talking about the original communist ideology as derived by Marx himself. I’m not talking about people like Stalin or Xi Jinping here who could be argued as not communist even though they described themselves as much.
As an aside, Marx was not just a grumpy philosopher, he was also an economist who laid the foundation for thinking of the economy in terms of power, ownership and democracy. The Marxian school of economics is still influential today.
Influential doesn’t mean it’s correct or has any actual value. His analysis was flawed and his proposed solutions were even worse. His work can only make sense if you accept his assumptions as axioms. A lot of people did, but when they tried to carry out what he prescribed… things didn’t go as planned because, well, his assumptions were flawed. Not every philosopher deserves respect just because they’re influential. Mussolini also invented a very influential ideology that’s unfortunately still popular today, but that doesn’t mean he and his ideology are above criticism or worthy or respect just because.
Your ramblings about “communism has always failed” leads me to believe that you are talking about Marxism-Leninism, which I also believe is outdated and dominated by dogmatic thinking, but I digress.
If you’re going to reduce my criticism to “ramblings” then you’re already in engaging in bad faith. You can’t seem to accept that the core idea itself is flawed. It doesn’t matter what flavor it comes in, the result will inevitably be the same.
Now let me rephrase: Existing socialism has worked many times, but has always been stomped out by brutal capitalist imperialism.
Why are you moving the goal posts? Communism is a specific ideology, socialism is just a general economic model. These are not the same thing. With that being said pure socialism in any form hasn’t worked either. What examples do you have to prove this? Just start listing them. I’m positive that your list won’t be based on actual results but on speculation and assumptions.
Also, this idea that the reason why socialism has never worked is because of US or Western intervention is pure cope. Not only does this ignore all the instances where socialism collapsed in on itself, but also ignores the fact the Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent China, also tried to brutally stomp out capitalism all around the world. They toppled democratically elected government, they installed puppet dictators, they committed genocides, they invaded countries, they employed propaganda campaigns, they’ve done it all. Marxists always conveniently forget about the other half of the cold war. Regardless, capitalism survived the onslaught, socialism didn’t. This is because socialism is simply a more fragile system that can’t withstand disruption.
A brief look at the history of central and south america, and all other colonially exploited areas should show you that the system that has produced the most suffering, destroyed the most democracies, is capitalism. Let me rephrase: Capitalism has never worked.
That’s such an odd, vague, and cherrypicked statement that proves nothing but makes a bunch of declarations. Why focus on South America and not the world at large? Capitalism has done wonders for China, India, Poland, Romania, Spain, Ireland, the Baltic countries, Germany, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Botswana, and the list goes on and on. Actually even in South America, countries like Chile and Uruguay have had their best economic stretches under capitalism while countries like Venezuela declined substantially under socialism. It’s silly to try and reduce an entire continent to a single misguided soundbite.
Capitalism is a very flawed system, but it is pure objective fact that it works, maybe a little too well. The criticisms of capitalism were never that it didn’t work, but that it has no breaks, it keeps going until things break. In terms of pure functionality, capitalism has been proven to take any economy and turn into something that’s much more efficient, wealthy, and overflowing with surplus of goods. Capitalism can increase the industrial capacity of any country that let’s it do it’s thing. Pretending that capitalism never worked is simply just a false statement.
So again, what kind of economic system do you advocate for?
I gave you my answer, you just refuse to accept it.
Pure objective fact lmao cmon. Okay I hear you though, I wasn’t sure what you meant by communism but I think I get what you mean now. I’m only something of a Marxist and I don’t really consider myself a communist in that sense If you’re interested in a discussion let’s try to find some common ground. What aspects of capitalism do you like? Markets and decentralized production? I like those too, although I think they should be used as means to an end, not worshipped as the end itself.
Pure objective fact lmao cmon.
If you want to argue against facts then go ahead and actually do it. Trying to laugh it off doesn’t make you right in the slightest nor does it disprove what I said in any way, shape, or form.
What aspects of capitalism do you like?
There’s a few:
- It works: That already puts it above it’s competition as it has been proven to actually sustain economies and generate wealth. Basically it’s been shown to work multiple times across multiple eras in multiple vastly different societies.
- Economic growth: Market competition and profit incentives push businesses to expand output and invest, which tends to increase overall wealth and GDP over time.
- Innovation: This is something we never saw from the Soviet Union or Maoist China or any other socialist country. There’s a lot to criticize the for profit system for, but one of the things it does extremely well is come up with new ideas and better products.
- Efficiency: This is one of the biggest strengths in capitalism. When it comes to generating the most value out of something, no other system deliver the same levels of efficiency, especially if there’s a healthy amount of competition that’s enforced.
- Consumer choice: Under a socialist system, for example, there’s no such thing as consumer choice. The “public” (aka the government) decides what gets produced for everybody, and that’s all you get. If you don’t like it then that’s too bad, and if you want to make changes then you have to go through gauntlet of government bureaucracy. Under capitalism, the economy is both unplanned and has for profit competition, therefore, there should always be variety in the markets… at least in theory.
- Adaptability: Fairly straight forward, capitalist economies tend to adjust relatively quickly to changes in demand, technology, or global conditions because decisions are decentralized.
- Resource allocation: People often think that this is a strength of a socialist system because the government can move resource where they’re needed the most, but I disagree. We’ve seen this not be the case one to many times. Supply and demand is simply a much simpler, much more effective way of resource allocation. Wealth creation: Capitalism has been shown time and time again that it’s very effective at generating large amounts of total wealth, raising average living standards in many countries.
That being said, I don’t think pure capitalism is a good system. Capitalism requires strong checks and balances that make sure it’s running correctly. There needs to be a strong government that effectively regulates harmful practices, enforces contracts, enforces competition, and protects the environment, workers, and consumers. There also need to be an active and educated public that holds corrupt politicians and bad companies accountable. Capitalism by itself is a good tool, but it’s not a solution for everything. There still need to be government programs on top of it all to fill the gaps. Imo a well regulated capitalist economy with a strong safety net that’s governed by a free, fair, and secular democratic government is the best system humanity has produced to date. This is what the best countries in history have, and this is what we should strive for.
I think they should be used as means to an end, not worshipped as the end itself.
I already told you that I’m not married to any system multiple times, you just refuse to accept my answer. I don’t think any system should be worshiped. Things like economic models shouldn’t be seen as religions, but rather as tools. Societies can and should mix and match whichever ideas meet their needs and work best for them. Things only start being a problem when a society becomes dogmatic with this sort of thing or some people try to force ideas that have been proven to be failures.
You sound pretty married to capitalism.
- By what metric does capitalism “work”? From my perspective capitalism has
- repeatedly led to fascism
- always subverts democracy by creating parallel power in the hands of the rich
- kept poor countries poor no matter what economic model they adapt
- been destroying the planet while everybody knows it’s happening for the last 40 years
I’m not saying nothing about capitalism works, but you can’t just say that it works as a blanket statement.
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Growth on its own is not an end, it can only be a means to an end. Looks like you’re worshipping here too.
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Just wrong. Like plain lie, the soviets were the first in space.
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Not necessarily. A short read of On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs might change your mind, but if you don’t have time, just look at the advertising industry. In theory it should inform consumers about the market, but in practice we know that’s not what’s happening, it’s all subliminal influence and inducing demand. Capitalism needs to keep inventing new ways to do dumb shit to get more growth. We are in the middle of the AI revolution, the dumbest and least efficient downgrade yet.
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I agree here, although this isn’t exclusive to capitalism. There are many forms of socialism that include markets and avoid central planning. I am a proponent of that.
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Sure capitalist economies can adapt without government intervention, but the only mechanism is prices. For example take an oil crisis. Oil prices will go up until people use less oil, and then it stabilizes. This sounds great on paper, but in reality it means people can’t drive to their jobs, and even if they still can, they spend less money on other goods, resulting in economic downturn. Without intense government intervention, markets are naturally instable. As proof, research any economic crash in recebt history.
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I agree here, markets are a useful tool.
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Sure we’ve seen wealth creation but capitalism also fails to recognize many forms of wealth. Especially care work typically done by women such as raising children and caring for the elderly. Having free time is wealth. Having a say at your workplace is a form of wealth. But capitalism only measures wealth as exchange value.
But let’s get back to finding common ground. What do you think about socialist market economies, where groups of individuals can start businesses just like in capitalism, but these businesses are always collectively owned by their workers? Existing worker coops have shown to be more stable and often more efficient than privately owned enterprise.
I just hope we do find an economic system that works at some point, before it’s too late.
Well, you can always go work for a non-profit organization. Your salary will be even lower.
Non-profit only means that any profits generated will be reinvested into the organization, donated or put in a trust fund that finances things the owners want, as a tax avoidance scheme. It has nothing to do with how high the salaries are.
Mozilla is a non-profit and their salaries aren’t that bad:
https://www.levels.fyi/companies/mozilla/salariesReinvesting profits in the organization is in theory much better than giving it to shareholders. In practice, most non-profit are quite poor, and yes, salary are usually lower than market. Partly because they can’t scale up by using investors money like for-profit do, I guess.
It depends on the npo.
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Your labor is more valuable as part of a business than as a freelance secretary. If someone increases the value of your labor in exchange for a cut that’s a fair deal.
Your labor is compensated more as part of a business. That doesn’t mean it’s fairly compensated.
That’s between you & your union
