this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
544 points (80.7% liked)
Leftism
2117 readers
1 users here now
Our goal is to be the one stop shop for leftism here at lemmy.world! We welcome anyone with beliefs ranging from SocDemocracy to Anarchism to post, discuss, and interact with our community. We are a democratic community, and as such, welcome metaposts that seek to amend the rules through consensus. Post articles, videos, questions, analysis and more. As long as it's leftist, it's welcome here!
Rules:
- Absolutely no fascism, right wing extremism, genocide denial, etc.
- Unconditional support of authoritarians will not be tolerated
- Good faith discussion about ideologies is encouraged, but no sectarianism
- No brocialism/sexism
- No ableism
- No TERFs/ anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric
- No racism
- No trolling
- No insults, dunking, or personal attacks
- No posting of misinformation, disinformation, or fake news
- Mods have final say
Posting Expectations:
- Comics/memes/shitposts/propaganda are only allowed on weekends
- Try to avoid liberalism unless discussing electoral politics. Even then, try to focus on tactical agreement towards leftist goals
- Only one meta post seeking consensus per person per day
- Posts about a particular ideology are ok, but remember the rules above
- Remember that there is no “right way” to implement leftist theory. This rule does not prevent academic criticism.
- Try to avoid extremely sensitive topics unless approaching them with appropriate care for intersectionality. Use your best judgement, and be prepared to provide respectable sources when having these discussions. Wikipedia is not an acceptable source in these cases.
- Post titles must be meaningful and relevant, except on weekends
Sister Communities:
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Solarpunk memes [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Making things or selling things is not capitalism. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production; things like factories, tools, intellectual property, etc.
On the point of greed, I disagree that it's just simply "human nature". However, even if it was, why should we have an economic system that prioritizes greed?
Capitalism is the ideology that defends capital as the main desirable quality in society.
Greed is a consequence of the desire for ownership, which is part of human nature.
Capitalism is the exaltation of that greed... and no, we should not have any system that blindly defends a single aspect of life.
Life is full of nuance, no single aspect should rule it all; sometimes ownership is good (like my pants), sometimes sharing is good (like riding on a bus), sometimes defending a life is good (like preventing a murder), sometimes ending a life is good (like euthanasia)... and so on.
Just a bit of pendantry as a treat, I think that greed is a consequence of people seeking to meet their needs. In a system that requires obtaining money to obtain needs that are not simply provided, it causes precarity. This precarious position is a threat to existence. Our instincts fear of this precarity, and this instinctual fear manifests as greed to make sure our needs will always be met. This isn't to say that greed is imaginary or a product of capitalism, it is human nature. But I think that nature is influenced by nurture, and vice versa.
Agreed. I'd only add that until we switch to a full post-scarcity world, a system that does the opposite, that tries to eliminate all private ownership, also causes that same fear of precarity, which also leads to greed.
As long as scarcity exists, a system trying to minimize greed requires a tough balance between providing enough to meet basic needs, but at the same time not stifling people's sense of safety derived from ownership.
Anticapitalist critique of private ownership isn't about private ownership of pants it's about private/centralized ownership of the means of production. This is a critical distinction, as many models still want a free market which doesn't work without private property.