this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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The Democracy of the founding fathers was Greek Democracy, predicated upon a slave society, and restricted to only the elite. This is the society we live in today, even with our reforms towards direct representation. The system is inherently biased towards the election of elites and against the representation of the masses. Hamilton called it “faction” when the working class got together and demanded better conditions, and mechanisms were built in (which still exist to this day) that serve to ensure the continued dominance of the elite over the masses. The suffering of the many is intentional. The opulence of the wealthy is also. This is the intended outcome.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The only part of this statement that is flawed is the part that states that the only course of action is to dismantle the system. It is also possible to reform the system so that it doesn't produce It's previous flaws.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Really? Where has this happened? Which countries have been able to reform away the exploitation and coercion inherent in the capitalist economic structure whilst maintaining it?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Where has dismantling worked without giving way to exploitation and coercion?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Exploitation and coercion exist now. So, that would be a maintanence of the status quo, not “giving way” to it. But we can look at the by every single measure that we have objectively better lives of the vast majority of people in countries where they have dismantled capitalist systems. The average life expectancy in pre-revolution Russia was less than 30 years. Before the Communists started their labor struggles, the average work weeks was over 100 hours. The average literacy rate was among the lowest in the world, as was the education attainment rate.

They by any and all measures reduced exploitation by entire orders of magnitude. They reduced coercion, especially on women, by granting equal rights(5 decades before the us even attempted to do so, btw), and by making housing, food, and education legal rights that ALL citizens are entitled to. When your basic needs are met, then and only then are you even capable of laboring without coercion. Meaning, coercion is already a driving force behind our entire economic system, and exploitation is literally, not figuratively, LITERALLY the entire basis upon which capitalism rests. The extraction of profits is known as the process of exploitation.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd say dismantling the German Reich was a great improvement albeit the successor states weren't without exploitation.

Same for dismantling the US confederation, all the independence wars against colonizers, many revolutions and so on.

You cannot demand dismantling to only lead to a perfect solution, while any form of reform is okay with even the most miniscule improvement.

Both have their place and time. But you will always need to dismantle, when the problems are intrinsic to the system.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

we’re conversing via a communications system where at least the very top portion is free of exploitation and coercion. probably lemmy.tf is hosted on an operating system also free from that coercion. not to be all techbro, but it’s kinda like we’ve achieved this in one specific niche and completely failed to apply it to anything real/useful (i.e. “the stuff that could kill you in its absence”).

i used to contribute a LOT to the 3d printing space ten years ago: at the time it seemed like the way to bridge that (half the parts in my machine were built with a friend using his machine). i still think there’s something “there”, that we can build parallel systems that won’t be captured or killed by the existing powers rather than solely embracing destruction, but it’s just a long game. how long has the capitalist system had to develop? anything else has to endure nearly that same amount of catchup until it can provide for us in any way you would embrace.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Quite frankly, first of all, that's not the statement being discussed.

The statement in the meme is that if a system deprives people of something necessary for life it should be dismantled. Doesn't even mention capitalism.

A system that deprives people of what they need was say the healthcare system, but it was reformed to better provide people what they need instead of being dismantled. In the abstract, the idea that every broken system, or system producing a non-perfect outcome needs to be dismantled is one rooted in simple minded black and white thinking, instead of understanding the system at play.

If you want to make a separate argument that capitalism is a system that resists change and that it thus cannot be changed or reformed to produce the outcomes you want, then you can make that argument, but 'no one has done it yet' after a generation or two of half hearted trying, is not a convincing argument that it's an impossible task.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Capitalism has been dominant for over 4 centuries, and has murdered hundreds of millions of people in that time to maintain its dominance. It’s not only resistant to change, it actively kills those who try to change it for the better.

The healthcare system despite its centuries of reforms still serves the needs of the wealthy over the needs of the many. Even in countries with socialized healthcare but capitalist economics, elites are able to use their wealth to purchase higher quality of care than the average persons. Not to mention that those systems are being strangled to death the world over by governments in service of wealth, including the biggest success stories, the UK, and Canada.

In my country, it was never even reformed, and millions of people still have absolutely no way to receive healthcare without bankrupting themselves.

The concessions won are slowly taken away, bit by bit. We installed the 40 hour week and minimum wage as a de facto living wage and maximum working time. How many people work 60 hours today and still don’t have living wages? Because the concessions were just that, concessions, and as such, they can and are taken away as soon as it inconveniences the ruling class. Child labor laws are being stripped, because they’re inconvenient to those who seek to profit off of it. Socialized Healthcare systems are being dismantled, because they’re inconvenient for those who wish to profit off of it. Every area where we have won concessions has experienced a rollback when those concessions are maintained by a capitalist run state.

Its naive to think that you will be able to reform a system predicated on mass exploitation for most and orgiastic privilege for others to somehow be equitable while maintaining the private property systems at the root of all of the issues with it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Thank you for saying this. ❤️

I do not understand people apologizing for capitalism ever.

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[–] Madison420 9 points 1 year ago

Dismantle is a euphemism that can also include reform. It's used more to imply that every modern document of government is written in blood and to change it requires a blood sacrifice of a generally unwilling nature.

Even prohibition and especially prohibitions repeal have a body count, it's just how you change people's minds because we're dumb animals.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (17 children)

The principles of economic choice and voluntary exchange are paramount to a functioning free market. If the alternative to a purchase is death, then the free market doesn't function as such, it approaches racketeering.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Why would anyone grow food for a living if they couldn't sell their produce at a profit?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

If a person would rather allow land to go fallow purely because of profit incentive, and that fallow land will result in the suffering of others, the only moral thing to do is dispossess them of that land. They weren’t using it anyway apparently, in this hypothetical.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the only moral thing to do is dispossess them of that land.

And give it to who? Who's going to farm that land when they're not allowed to make a profit from it? It's not easy work.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Maybe some of the millions of people who are currently unable to even afford adequate food for themselves because of the profiteering of these very landholders, who engage in such sabotage as mass slaughter and burial of animals to prevent price drops. You know, profits are after wages, right? Profits aren’t wages. You only make profits after you pay wages and costs. So… you pay wages.

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[–] galloog1 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is exactly why the dismantling of capitalism in a post authoritarian world has so far always resulted in starvation. You have no sufficient answer to this question that addresses actual human behavior. It inevitably results in forced labor and oppression in the name of humanity.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Lmaoo. Mass starvation happens in this world under capitalism The Israelis are purposefully inflicting it upon Palestinians. The US is purposefully attempting to inflict it upon Cuba. So when starvation is the intended outcome, it’s okay? But when it is an accidental consequence of industrializing a nation of uneducated peasants with a less than 30 year life expectancy, and is followed by decades of life expectancy increases and increases in quality of life and equality of rights, that’s not okay?

I get it, suffering is okay if it’s the status quo, but if it happens in service of doing better, that’s not okay, so we should just be happy with the status quo, where the vast majority suffer daily indignities and violences, and are forced into exploitation by coercive structures.

You benefit from the current system, so the suffering of the many NOW is less real to you than the potential suffering of yourself in a situation that when enacted had objectively raised the quality of life for the vast majority of people who live in the societies where it was enacted, by all objective measures. Is that it?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

But when it is an accidental consequence of industrializing a nation of uneducated peasants

I bet you are thinking of the great leap backwards, in which tens of millions died of hunger due to that little accident in judgment, all the while Mao kept insisting that the uneducated peasants on the brink of starvation were hiding all their surpluses from the state.

But that's not the only example. The Holodomor comes to mind, the artificial result of Soviet rule in Ukraine, where millions died of starvation and the main authoritarian government pushing for the collection of non-existent "surpluses" apparently hidden by the starving peasants. Or the North Korean famines, explained perfectly in this video by asianometry.

North Korea/South Korea is an interesting case study, where after the war the North found itself near the two biggest communist powers and still managed to struggle to get basic products like food, while South Korea, an ocean away from their main ally and on terrible terms with all local powers (still hated Japan and at war with China) still managed to rebuild and, since the end of the dictatorship, managed to grow an impressively big economy.

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[–] galloog1 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think you realize how quickly things devolved into starvation under the Soviet Union or early CCP. They then very quickly shifted to centralized planning. This isn't a question of scale or perception. It was immediate and required a change very quickly.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Yes, centralized planning is significantly more efficient both materially and in terms of labor. Thus why most modern mega corporations are run as planned economies within themselves. There’s entire books about it, if you care to read them. The first one I read on the subject is called “The Peoples Republic of Wal-Mart”.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

My government actually pays mostly corporate (but not all) farmers not to produce or actively destroy their products, rather than buy it and have communities freely disperse it.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)

You said it yourself: for a living.

Growing food with a main goal of profits in a private enterprise rather than just sustenance or profit through government grants without private market interference has a lot of downsides, including to farmers themselves.

For example, optimisation for profit means a lot of waste:

  • Perfectly healthful produce with aesthetic faults has to be left to rot on the ground as it won't sell and nobody's going to collect it for those that need it but can't afford to pay the "market price"

  • If you have an exclusive deal with a grocery store or other intermediary, the excess of an unexpectedly good crop yield will likewise in most cases have to be destroyed because the buyer can't receive all of it and you're not allowed to sell to their competitors.

  • Likewise, any excess of a particular good harvest across a crop will also be destroyed to avoid losing money on the market value of the crop dropping due to increased supply.

All of this while a few megacorps sit between farmers and consumers paying the same or less to farmers and charging much more of consumers while the cost of living and business expenses of farmers keep rising, making it harder and harder to make ends meet if you're not the aforementioned megacorps.

And that's not even mentioning all the issues of long hours and some of the worst working conditions of any industry, all to save a buck or two to stave off bankruptcy and eventually starvation for a little longer while the megacorps and their billionaire owners and executives gobble up almost all the value of what you produce.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

The problem isn't the profit per se rather it's the maximization of profit favoring capital over human beings that's the problem. The meme strikes me as extreme.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (14 children)

You not understanding why someone might want to do good for others simply for the sake of doing good, and/or never being able to bring yourself to do so, doesn't mean no one else does.

As always with bootlickers, it's projection all the way down...

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (15 children)

I'm fine with discussing politics here, but I'd rather the post be funny. There's plenty of jokes you could make about this, but this post is just a wall of text.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (20 children)

Yeah farmers shouldnt profit, they're our food slaves!

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[–] Siegfried 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Are we discussing politics* in r/196? Is this a new low?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You haven’t been here long, and weren’t in the old 196, because I’ve been discussing politics in 196 for at least 2 years, 6mo of that here, and the old 196 was 85% political memes, mostly trans positive and pro left content. In fact, this meme came from 196, as did every other one I’ve posted in here previously.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Politics? In my political shitpost lemmy? It's more likely than you think.

[–] bassomitron 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

The problem isn't necessarily entirely capitalism, but rather capitalism that is heavily skewed in one direction with regulatory capture, therefore it's no longer true capitalism. Large corporations have the protection of numerous governments to shield them from a truly free market.

In other words, a local farmer selling his reasonably sized crop yields for fair profit is fine. A large multinational food corporation that manipulates food prices for greedily high profit margins--and this same corporation gets laws passed to ensure smaller farmers are kept under thumb--is not.

True large scale socialism is a pipe dream. It mostly works in small groups, but it most certainly does not when that group consists of millions of people. A balanced approach of moderate, well regulated capitalism and social democracy is the best solution, in my opinion.

Edit: The first few sentences appear to have been poorly worded and many are mistaking me for someone advocating for true/unregulated capitalism, but that is not the case. I'm simply remarking that even if our system was meant to be completely capitalist originally (which is still bad), it's not even that anymore. It's a bastardized version of it where corporations no longer have to compete fairly, as they've made themselves keys to the kingdom to ensure no one can potentially challenge them, so to speak.

My last paragraph of my original comment is essentially my point. True socialism isn't possible at scale, but a mixture of it and capitalism is.

[–] Sanctus 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Brain dead take, capitalism always ends in the consolidation of capital and power. It naturally flows resources into fewer and fewer hands as the only goal is to make more and more profit. We're living in it and you're denying it. Take a look around you.

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[–] rockSlayer 9 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Power always accumulates within capitalism. Large corporations don't usually start that way, Walmart and Target started as single stores that got lucky. Capitalism is reliant on the state. We have a name for the system where capitalism existed without reliance on the state; it's called feudalism. A competition will always end with one winner and several losers, so free market competition results in a monopoly and several failed businesses. To prevent this, governments make rules to prevent the competition from ending, which results in more wealth and capital to influence government even more and break down those rules. In capitalist society, it is the ultimate goal to become the international megacorporation that manipulates markets and suppresses worker rights to maximize profit. So, I'll ask you, what's the difference between corporate capitalism and this 'true' capitalism?

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