this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2024
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Late Stage Capitalism
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And theres the rub. You are willing to grant this system that HAS committed great evils every kinda leeway in the book. You'll handwave away any kind of evils it has committed as "well those things just happen, and its not really capitalism as a systems fault" but when it comes to communism you will do away with those same excuses. So lets play the game where no system has excuses, count the bodies and then compare then? Or we excuse both for their human failings, count the bodies and compare. Either way you cut it, capitalism comes out worse, so you wont do that. You'll excuse the one and not the other. It's the only way you can see past your bodies.
Yes, because there is no system that's perfect. You have to accept shortcomings. Nowhere have I said that capitalism is the perfect system and solution to all of humanities problems, but when I look at the raw numbers, it's dozens time better than practiced communism.
With the introduction of capitalism, extreme poverty rates have decreased MASSIVELY, from ~85% during the 1800s to 9% today. It has set the stage for economic growth, technical innovation and improved living conditions for many many billions of people. Only thanks to capitalism, we even have stuff like the internet.
On the other hand, we look at practiced communism, and all of those states that attempted it either collapsed rather quickly (soviet union) or is a authoritarian hellhole like North Korea, Laos, Cuba or Vietnam. The living conditions in these countries are disastrous, political freedom basically non-existent. The only country that is still communist (or rather socialist) on paper and very successful is china, but only because they have massively adapted to the modern world and are actively employing capitalist ways for their economy. However, the country is still an authoritarian shithole like the 4 I mentioned before.