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Explaining capitalism to aliens (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] nifty -2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

The errors you’re seeing are due to your biased assessment of the systems and processes, there are a lot of assumptions you’re baking into your own understanding and then blaming me for them. Like this,

Even without any corruption whatsoever, this process will continue, it’s a consequence of markets in general. Those that outcompete absorb or kill off those who undercompete until few large syndicates remain.

Monopolies are not an inherent consequence of free market economics, in fact that’s why we have anti-monopoly actions in many industries. That’s why regulatory concerns exist in the first place.

Second, claiming that because corruption exists in all Modes of Production doesn’t mean it exists to equal degrees and scales in all Modes of Production. This is, again, more of a point of nihilism, by refusing to analyze the causes and mechanisms of corruption and just applying it in blanket terms, your analysis is not very useful for addressing it.

That’s fine, but historically what we’ve observed is that centrally planned economies tend to lean autocratic. Or do you really believe that select groups could petition Stalins committees for anything that deviated from his vision of what society should be. Even with Trump trying to do away with birthright citizenship it can’t be undone constitutionally.

Third, you never justify why a system based on public ownership and planning is harder to root out corruption, you just leave it as a hanging thesis. What democratic means are more effective when you have a handful of unaccountable individuals in charge of firms, instead of Socialist organization along democratic lines?

Simply because of what I’ve observed in existing places which follow Marxist ideology. The average Chinese citizen does not have any power over what the state does. The same goes for the average Vietnamese citizen. Meanwhile even small business owners can provide input to their states in western democracies and effect regulations.

As for your second point, I legitimately have no idea what you’re trying to get at. Shifting to public ownership and planning would dramatically increase the level of influence the average individual has over the economy and how it runs

This is patently untrue based on anything that’s factually happened over the course of recent history. This tells me your perspective is either misguided or disingenuous.

Capitalist countries are controlled by the wealthy few, there isn’t a genuine democracy in place.

People in western democracies can effectively vote for different types of representatives, and the pov of those representatives have wide ranging consequences. In fact that’s exactly why western democracies are experiencing destabilization via nation state propaganda which makes their citizens hate their very countries and the systems they’re based on. This is very different from any scenario that has existed in any socialist or Marxist state, including USSR or China or Vietnam.

The fact that people want to extol the virtues of Marxist ideas based on nothing but magical and wishful thinking is sad.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago

Regulations and anti-trust laws are a band-aid. Competition reduces the rate of profit, which is only combatted through expansion, whether it be joining firms together or international expansion a la Imperialism. To not do so would lower the rate of profit to zero and collapse the economy.

Centrally planned economies have been autocratic towards Capitalists, sure, but have had their own democratic structures. See Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan for more on how they functioned and if they functioned well (they did, though not without imperfections).

The average Chinese and Vietnamese citizens can absolutely impact government, especially local gocernment. Democracy for business owners isn't genuine democracy, that's a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

As for citizens having more control in publicly owned and planned economies, it is true. See the formerly linked Soviet Democracy, as well as Is the Red Flag Flying? Political Economy of the Soviet Union as well as This Soviet World as well as Blackshirts and Reds as well as Workplace Democracy In Action in the CPC. Simply stating "no" isn't a point, I can tell you what AES states are and were like but if you're going to respond with "no," all I can do is show you sources proving otherwise.

As for the destabilization in western countries, its because the representatives have a narrow vision of what you can vote for and ultimately serve the Bourgeoisie over all else. There isn't some foreign conspiracy to take down the US from within the electoral system, that's chauvanism on display and is utterly divorced from reality.

Marxists are Marxists because of the real benefits of Socialism worldwide that are measurable and trackable, calling it "magical and wishful thinking" is just a thought-terminating cliché.