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Remember, the social Democrats sided with the Nazis over the socialists. They’ve done it every time they’ve been given the opportunity, and will continue to do so as many times as people fall for their shtick.
“The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."
-Audre Lorde
Yeah, that's not true is it? The SPD fought against the Nazis all the way up until the end and were the largest force against them in the Reichstag. It was the communist that refused to ally with them against the Nazis as the Stalin enforced policy was to not collaborate with "social fascists" (i.e. any party not taking orders from Moscow) and directed far more opposition to them than to the Nazis until it was too late.
No. Social Democrats protected democracy again both nazis and communists. Communists don't want democracy. They want dictatorship of workers over everybody else. Nazis want the dictatorship of their people iver everybody else. Social democrats want a democracy of free and equal people.
As much as Lorde didn't like capitalism, she was talking about the idea of using division and difference in minority movements, enforcing a rigged view of a shared black experience or a shared woman experience. White feminists were the majority of feminists, and often left little room for minoritized women to share the way their racial identity and gender identity intersected. Lorde didn't want Black feminists to be relegated to their own groups and separated from the white feminists. She wanted them to have a voice in the feminist movement. To work with her white peers on liberation from patriarchy. She just wanted them to acknowledge that the experience shared by the majority of white feminists didn't speak for all of them. She wanted them to no longer look at differences in their midst as vice, but as a virtue. Setting one experience as the norm is the master's tool, and it would never dismantle the master's house.
If there's one thing we don't need when fighting fascism, it's leftists purity testing people who use the levers of power at their disposal. I don't give a fuck if a person thinks capitalism just needs limits and liberal democracy is a great system. If you stand with me in opposing fascists, I'm not going to say that you can never be my ally.
I don't like people like you who think current day China is great. Lorde certainly wouldn't like a queerphobic authoritarian state that paves over cultural divisions and crushes dissent. However, if you actually stand with me in defeating fascists, and won't use this fight as an excuse to mandate your ML agenda, I will work with you. I will stand with you against our common enemy. I will not ignore our disagreements, but fascism is an existential threat. Everyone from Joe Biden to Noam Chomsky must work together to defeat these fuckers.
If you refuse to work with capitalists because you think you can also grab a chunk of a country the fascists are taking, don't be surprised when they invade you and kill of most of a generation. Fascists must die.
So, what definition of Capitalism are you working with here?
If you're basing this on the theoretical concepts of capitalism and communism, remember to also base it on the theoretical concept of democracy. It's kind of stupid otherwise
Great idea to not align yourself with the social democrats - the closest thing we've ever gotten to a functional communistic society.
Yeah, if I believe in the march of progress it seems like I would be aiming at social democracy. I feel like in europe, this is just vibes btw, they have more social governments but the people in power are sort of pissed about all of these checks and balances and protections. Like they just want to rule the way the US does and be evil and vitriolic, or maybe even worse than in the US, but they can't. So theoretically you could have people in power who aren't really social democrats? But OP probably knows the history better than I do.
If you heavily regulated companies, nationalize every major public service, place an upper cap to overall wealth for any one individual, eliminate inherited wealth and redirect all available resources to public education, health care, housing and UBI .... then democracy could exist in a capitalist system.
But chances are we'll more likely start WWIII with nuclear weapons than do any of that.
But that's not capitalism, that's market socialism
I thought regulated capitalism and market socialism were the same thing
the difference between capitalism and socialism is whether companies are privately or publicly owned, so while it looks similar, it's really not the same. this would be a social democratic society, and therefore not socialist
socialism, by definition, means that "companies" are publicly owned. so while this would be a good start for a socal democratic society, its nowhere near democratic socialism or even communism
What about all the non-USA countries? They are all mostly capitalist but are more regulated (like Canada in NA and most of the European Union) while also having true healthy démocraties?
they do not have healthy democracies.
Under TRUE capitalism the market is free but regulated as needed.
We don't live in real capitalism, there is no regulation, the oligarchy has captured the agencies that were supposed to regulate the market.
I don't even know what to call what we have, plutocracy?
True capitalism is what we live in. Competition has winners, those winners gain outsized advantages. They use those advantages to purchase regulatory frameworks which benefit them. This is inevitable, and has happened in every single capitalist society in the history of the ideology. Monopoly is the natural end state of capitalism. (Actually, fascism is, but monopoly happens along the way also)
I found this interesting tidbit in Wikipedia trying to find where I read my source.
Capitalism 1.0 during the 19th century entailed largely unregulated markets with a minimal role for the state (aside from national defense, and protecting property rights)
Capitalism 2.0 during the post-World War II years entailed Keynesianism, a substantial role for the state in regulating markets, and strong welfare states
Capitalism 2.1 entailed a combination of unregulated markets, globalization, and various national obligations by states
You're right ... It sounds like we need another paradigm shift. Fuck web 3 ... we need Capitalism 3 ...
Or how about we just stop using capitalism?
If version 1.0 didn't work, version 2.0 didn't work and version 2.1 didn't work, then maybe the problem is capitalism itself.
Given Web 3 was a shithole of a collective delusion, maybe don't.
Under TRUE capitalism the market is free but regulated as needed.
The market can't be free if it's regulated. Any intromission of the State in any voluntary exchange is stepping in the natural rights of its citizens.
We don’t live in real capitalism, there is no regulation, the oligarchy has captured the agencies that were supposed to regulate the market.
The agencies are the oligarchy. The politicians and lobbyists benefit each other by the existence of regulations, taxation, subsidies, FIAT money, intellectual property, public licenses, monopolical privileges, etc.
Yes, we don't live in "real capitalism" (that is, in a free-market setting), we live in a corporatocracy.
capitalism is a broad term. if the means of production and distribution are privately held, then its capitalism
It would appear that democracy benefits the rulers, as democracy alone has provided the most consistent means for those formerly in power to sleep and die in peace. And the same holds for the courtiers, nomenklatura, and apparatchiks. These sycophants need no longer dread midnight's knife and muffled cries, and the subsequent crowning of a new king. The elite and bureaucracy can retire to their farms and while away their passing years without fear — their riches and posterity intact. As I see it now, democracy is not to the advantage of the demos, it is to the advantage of the power elite. Something to think about.
What is true democracy anyway? The government always doing the will of the people? I don't think that can really happen under any circumstances.
The people directly controlling the society collectively, rather than private ownership of said societies social wealth.
True democracy requires democracy at all levels of society. Workplace democracy, state democracy, community democracy, etc. Democratizing the electoral system but maintaining private ownership of production merely results in exactly the situation we are in now, with an illusion of democracy, where we choose from a pool of candidates selected by the elites in control of production in order to maintain control of their production.
There are different elites, and they have differing goals, but one thing they all have in common is they believe in the subjugation of the working class and the hoarding of the products of the labor of the working class. That’s why imperialism is non-partisan in the US. It serves capital.
That’s why there’s no meaningful changes to the status quo for the working class unless on the back of a social movement. They don’t serve us, they keep us placated while they serve the people who pay them.