People don't realize that not every implementation of Socialist policies have to involve a vanguardist dictatorship like China or USSR (which is what almost every American have in mind when they think of "Socialism")
this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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Well it depends on how you define "socialism" which is used to mean anything from a socialist policy to a fully socialist society. For some socialist policies, you can simply vote in some socialists into a parliamentary system and get them to pass some.
But there's never been enough socialists peacefully voted into power to make a fully socialist/communist society, so those attempts have always come at the barrel of a gun, which so far has always resulted in an authoritarian regime.
I'd love to see one actually get voted into power someday, but I have a feeling I will be waiting for a very long time.
There are many examples of elections won by socialist/communist parties. There would have been more of they weren't outlawed or suppressed historically.
There are also examples of revolutions that didn't end in authoritarian regimes, for example the ones that ended in anarchist communities.
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We're angry about unbridled end-stage capitalism
Just like with everything in life, there's a right amount of something and its not zero. Properly regulated free market is probably the best economic system we've come up with. I challenge you to come up with a better system.
Its the fact that we've voted in greedy leaders and have such lax rules about lobbying and open bribery that's allowed so much shit to happen.
By the way, commerce is not the same thing as capitalism.
It's not but it can't be divorced form capitalism either.
A farmer does not produce grain out of the goodness of his heart. He's doing it to provide for his family's needs and wants, maybe new clothes for his kids or a new stove, etc. We work jobs to get paid so we can feed ourselves and our families and maybe buy something nice or shiny once in a while and save for retirement.
Production of commodities and services, profit-motive, capital accumulation, If that's not the basis of capitalism, I'm not sure what is?
Capitalism is private control over the factors of production. So you can for example have a socialist society in which the factors of production are owned by the community, but there's still markets and commerce.
One hurdle we have to deal with is the assumption by the general public that markets = capitalism.
You tell people capitalism has failed them and they worry that you mean to take away their ability to buy a latte.
That has been gone over by Marx over 150 years ago. I'm not going to go over everything Marx said about capitalism, he wrote an entire book called Das Kapital about it. Here's a summary that does a pretty good job at getting Marx's ideas across. You can skip the first 2-3 chapters as the main criticism of capitalism starts around chapter 4. But some things refer back to the previous chapters so you might want to watch them if some parts of Marx's ideas aren't very clear.
As for you points, I'll do a short summary:
- Production of commodities and services is not capitalistic, we've been producing commodities and services for more than a millennia before capitalism was even a concept.
- Profit-motive is a poorly defined concept if we want to divorce it from capitalism. Profit-motive in the sense that I want to make all the money is capitalistic. But if we talk about the "profit-motive" in the sense that I want money so I could buy things I want to use, Marx argues that is not capital and not capitalism.
- Marx has a very specific definition of capital where capital is something that exists for the purpose of making more capital. If you make $10 mil and you buy a fancy house, that $10 mil you got is not capital and the house you bought is also not is not capital, but if you take that $10 mil and you for instance invest it with the purpose of getting $20 mil later, now it's capital. The capitalist definition of capital doesn't acknowledge the purpose money or things, so everything is capital which also makes it impossible to separate capital accumulation from just owning things you need to live your life. Your house is not capital, your car is not capital, your phone is not capital, the money you're saving up for a trip to the Bahamas is not capital. But if you own a company and the means of production within that company and you're buying in labor to use your means of production so you could siphon surplus value from the laborers work, that's capital.
The things you've brought up aren't necessarily the basis of capitalism. They're the basis of capitalism only if you want them to be the basis of capitalism.
To answer your rhetorical question, a lot of people think Capitalism stands for the corrupt ignoble western governments, unlike their own glorious reputable eastern "socialist" governments. /ironic
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Greedy people vote for greedy leaders. Money mattered more than morals in at least the last federal elections since 2000.
Propaganda works
"There was a famine in China, which means we now only can have the most extreme forms of capitalism!" - 70% of the propaganda.
You can tell by some of these comments
The only real problem I have with capitalism is the people that refuse to consider any other way of operating, refuse to rein it in, or immediately make it a binary choice between capitalism and “scary” communism.
Economic systems don’t need to be corralled into boxes and never be allowed cross lines. The people forcing that take are the ones profiting from the status quo, by power and/or wealth.
Any of the systems can be combined, the problem is fight against greed that makes people bend the system to funnel power money to a specific group. Whether it be the dictator and his cronies or a bunch of oligarchs. If this cannot be prevented, then no system will work without eventually crushing the average person.
No....not everyone hates capitalism. Everyone hates uncontrolled capitalism.
Socialism isn't some magical bandaid that will make everything better. It has a shit ton of it's own problems and downfalls...nearly all of which are conveniently glossed over by leftists.
Then you have a fundamental problem. Capitalists hate control. They hate regulation. They hate competition. And they spend a lot of money in power trying to get rid of all of it. The system is broken by design. Or rather, it was designed to benefit someone who is not you.
~~capitalists~~ the upper class / those in power. This exists in communism and every other system as well.
Exactly. Greed and self-interest are not eliminated by changing economic systems. They wil justl manifest differently (for example, the nomenklatura in the USSR).
Was it not improved by upgrading from Feudalism to Capitalism?
At first, yes. To make that shift you have to throw the aristocracy, and perhaps a monarchy here or there, into the trash and divvy up the spoils. Over time, the new system can (and some say will inevitably) revert. Once you have enough wealth concentration in the hands of a few, you essentially re-create an aristocracy and the feudal system that goes with it.
It can also be argued that a feudal system is capitalist to begin with. Land and laborers to work it, used to be the key deciding factor in wealth and therefore, power. Wars are where you steal land from others, assuming control of the people that live on it, thereby securing more wealth and power. The industrial revolution saw a gradual shift towards energy production and consumption as a defining factor. So still somewhat land based, but with very different constraints and far less dependence on who lives on it. Now, in the late information age, access to energy and data are emerging as the main deciding factors. But it's also not hard to imagine players that have the most access to energy and data as feudal lords, provided they can influence politics and people's lives in the same way a feudal system can (just without borders). And all of that is top-to-bottom running within a capitalist framework.
Did we improve things? Well, moving towards a central government that supports an actual justice system that isn't prey to your employer or landlord's whims (feudal lord) is a huge win. For instance in the UK, that happened a long time ago. In practice, I think that is still mostly true, but there are some lingering artifacts and maybe even some creep backwards. Consider de-facto class systems, institutionalized bigotry, and racism. On balance, I'd say yes, but I can't say with certainty that it's an absolute win.
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I hate that people are shit and will ruin any economic/political system no matter how high-minded it may have otherwise been.
Similarly capitalism wouldn't be a burning pile of diapers and old wigs if those involved didn't have a complete and total disregard-bordering-on-antipathy for humanity and the common good.
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You clearly have never read anything about it, so I’d be curious to know specifically which part of socialist theory you disagree with.
Everyone hates uncontrolled capitalism
Yeah, that's capitalism. By definition, capitalism demands to be uncontrolled and without rules to bring the most profit. So when you're done pulling stuff out of thin air, let us know
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Socialism and capitalism have a lot of overlap. This belief and meme that they are completely separate is incredibly simple-minded and indicative of US thinking patterns. US Americans have had it beaten into their heads that there are only two sides for so long that it permeates their very being.
To have a fair system, components of multiple philosophies and systems will have to be mixed. Treating capitalism as all bad is plain dumb.
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"Everything is fucked.... how can this be?!"
Socialism won't keep dragons from hoarding their gold. You would just be taken advantage of for the same thing, your labor, through a different channel.
Which channel specifically are you referring to?
Your comment smells of "enlightened cantrist trying to sound reasonable (but failing at it)"
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As an Indian guy, I-
Yes...
Well, sometimes events pushed into motion or accelerated by a "root cause" develop lives of their own. Without concerted effort neither with capitalism nor with the absence/alternative of/to capitalism will we solve climate change or patriarchy.
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