Seize the Memes of Production
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the “ML” influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Rules:
Be a decent person.
No racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, zionism/nazism, and so on.
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The main issue with capitalism as it stands now, is the refusal to let things fail.
"Too big to fail" just means "too big", the company should never have been allowed to get so large.
I want successful companies to last for a maximum of 30 years, then die off so new people can create new companies and build innovation.
Companies should also not be allowed to buy eachother.
I want successful companies to last for a maximum of 30 years, then die off
If a company builds a surplus of useful capital and becomes so entrenched in the economy that it functions as a utility, I don't want it to fail.
I want it unionized, organized into a national planned economy, and regulated to maximize utility divided by cost.
I would argue that the main issue with capitalism as it stands now, is capitalism.
Capitalism doesn't make innovation, it stops people from pursuing innovation to focus on profitability. How many people could be contributing to the world, but are stuck struggling to generate revenue for some business so they can have their basic life needs met.
As Marx pointed out, capitalism is inherently destructive, in an ever-repeating cycle of destroying and recreating its own society for profit.
On one hand, this is good, insofar as it allows extremely rapid progress in pre-modern societies that have never heard of wireless communication. The old feudal ways are churned up and spat out; the old mercantilist ways are churned up and spat out; even previous capitalist ways are churned up and spat out. At the end of it, you do have a shiny new set of institutions that are better suited to current conditions than existed before. Capitalism prioritizes profitability over innovation; but profitability is still better by-proxy for innovation than valuing stagnation itself, as aristocracies do.
On the other, much more obvious hand to us, this is, uh, bad, on account of the process of destroying our society, and the cost of constantly recreating it. I think churning up some 2000 years of feudal privilege, which had resisted numerous previous movements and revolutions, is a... good run. It did its job, now it's time to make sure it doesn't overstay its welcome any more than it already has. Which it has, probably by about [checks notes] 108 years, say?
It's time to take the system and its diminished returns to actual human wellbeing behind the shed before the net balance goes entirely negative.
How about we give power to workers to decide how the economy is run. Maybe we can call it socialism? Almost like if society runs the economy it would be better than two or three people running it.
I think the main problem is the private ownership of the means of production.
It honestly amazes me that that account is still posting given how often they get ratioed
A testament to the lie of Liberal Meritocracy is Dennis Praeger floating to the top of the punch bowl for thirty years.
Because happy people with a bright future and obtainable goals are hard to control.
Let me guess, the answer they were looking for is because young people reject pastoral expansion
Is that the Chelsea Manning?
God I feel stupid.
"She looks super familiar."
(Doesn't bother to read the name).
Dunno about most, but even if you assume only a good 20% of issues would be solved by removing capitalism...
... fuck, how massive would that be? Not just in the amount of problems we no longer have to fucking deal with, but also in the resources we can reallocate to the remaining issues.
Forget that fucking "We have a 50% increase in pollution because of a 7% budget shortfall" penny-wise and pound-foolish bullshit forced on us by a capitalist system. Many problems not directly caused by capitalism also have known solutions; only misallocation of the massive resources generated by modernity prevents their implementation.
And if new problems arise, in total or in implementation? Then we'll deal with those as they come. Nothing ever improved by fretting about how things might get worse if you take the leap. Serfdom wasn't abolished by timidity, but by the growth and exercise of power on the part of the people. We can't listen to feudal lords pleading that freedom from serfdom could be even worse than a subsistence level existence under terms of near-literal slavery to abusive, unchecked authority. We have to take a step forward, even with all the 'what if's and 'how about's.
... of course, insofar as we can think of, consider, and plan for any potential new problems, we absolutely should. Just that fear of the unknown shouldn't stop us.
The path to removing capitalism is likely to outlast us. But the steps towards it would help so much.
Capitalism is a tool, and if you use the tool wrong it will hurt you. Unfortunately we seem to be worshipping the tool and declaring any other tool as dangerous.
"Wow this knife is really sharp and cuts great, imagine how well it will cut if there was no handle, only blade!"
And of course capitalism should not have a place at all where demand is largely inelastic. That is to say, healthcare, mainly.
Capitalism is a tool to concentrate wealth into a small number of hands.
There is no good version of it.
Trade can work without capital ownership.
Trade can work without capital ownership.
It's always staggering to see people who know absolutely fuck all about supply chains and trade flows point to the Bitcoin trading desk of JP Morgan and proclaim "if not for these brave souls, nothing good in your life would exist".
I'm not even strictly against capitalism. I still subscribe to the old school Marxist "stages of history" theory that says "okay at some point you kinda gotta". But then you see people living in a rancid stew of monopoly middle men proudly proclaiming "Best of All Possible Worlds!" and my eyes roll so hard they practically fall out of my head.
What a bullshit argument.
What do you believe capitalism is actually a "tool" for?
A generous interpretation would be to focus production towards consumer demand independent of ideology.
Anybody thinking capitalism only has downsides for the people living under it is living in a fantasy world of their own making.
Any crticism of capitalism worth their salt will stop treating it like an evil force imposed by the few on the many and more like a way society organizes itself.
Have you tried reading a book?
Its a tool that hurts you just for knowing of its existence. Horrible analogy by the way.
A tool that is used for a purpose other than it was intended is useless.
Capitalism was built to exploit and repress the masses. Using it to accomplish something else will fail.
Probably because prager u is indoctrinating them into the Shitler youth
Man for a second my brain was adding a NOT in there and I was getting pretty mad.