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- cross-posted to:
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The US has the largest government in the history of the world, it is not remotely pure capitalist.
It’s absolutely Capitalist and additonally Imperialist. Having a government doesn’t mean it isn’t Capitalist, especially if the bourgeoisie controls the state, rather than the proletariat.
Who do you think the US government works for?
Many of them work for the rich, some of them have integrity, but most are just in it for their own power and benefit.
Power and benefit, also sometimes referred to with the term “capital”
Not really, its more control of people. The ability to feel power over a domain.
Which is a form of capital. Our politicians use that power for monetary profit. That shits just intrinsic to building an entire system with capitalism at it’s heart like we been doing since the late 60s
You are shoehorning the word capitalism in there.
You could argue that, but are these personal benefits not just checks from lobbyists? And does this power not come largely from the leverage they gain expanding their influence in order to justify bigger checks?
I think we agree, and the only solution that I see as workable is to greatly reduce the power of the government on all levels.
Do you think the capitalists who say exactly that, have integrity? Could you name one?
The part about reducing government size?
Yes the part about reducing government size. You have project 2025 that wants to get rid of the EPA and the Department of Education. Do the billionaires support this project because they have integrity or because it’s good for their bottom line?
“So long as I’m free to exploit you into subsistence, you’re free to die in the gutter when you’re too broken to produce value for me!”
-The capitalists destroying us and the habitability of the world for any future humans, solely to run up their ego scores, with our obedient consent.
I’m about three-quarters through Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and I wonder how she would interpret how reality played out in this country, being that her biggest fears would come from the value system she thought of as the solution.
They always double down with a no true Scotsman defense that we didn’t go far enough or didn’t implement the idea in full. This kicks the can down the line to ensure further exploitation.
We all sit back and act like we know how to fix it all but really we don’t. What we do know, and what we need everyone to understand, this ain’t it. Everything else we are capable of improving given the flexibility to make nessisary change and allocating the resources to appropriate people who have real philosophies and experience to make the change. Getting everyone on board needs to happen first.
How? How? How?
Stop listening. Stop listening to the internet. Stop listening to cable TV. If someone says nothing is wrong and nothing needs to change they are benefiting from the broken system. Stop listening.
Listen to your neighbor. Listen to the teachers. Listen to community’s. Once we can do all that. Then we need to unite all communities under the common goal of providing rest. The builders have built. The creatives have created. The workers have worked. Now they need to rest. They need to heal. They need to raise children who know what a bright future looks like so they can appreciate this life and their own humanity.
Now, everyone panic and tune out because sadly, I’ve given you an impossible task and you will never overcome your own programming.
You’ve got a chicken and egg problem here. If you don’t provide any solutions why would anybody follow you? You need an idea for people to get onboard with. Currently leftists mostly don’t know what they want, just that it isn’t this. How is that supposed to convince anyone? You can’t just say the current system doesn’t work then not provide any viable alternatives. Lots of people know the current system isn’t great, but they see it as the best system we have because essentially it is until someone comes up with something that doesn’t turn into the CCP or USSR.
This is your programming speaking. Fear, uncertainty, doubt.
People don’t unite under solutions. They unite under ideas.
There are a million fucking problems, each require their own solution. Each need to be defined, examined, and tested. No one can sit there and say, “just do this.”
The work we are doing, and the work that needs done are in opposition to each other. Right now we are working to feed the system. We need to be working on maintaining the system to feed the people.
There are a million fucking problems, each require their own solution. Each need to be defined, examined, and tested. No one can sit there and say, “just do this.”
This is obvious and I never claimed otherwise. You are reading things into what I have said that aren’t there. Different solutions will always be needed for different problems in different contexts. That’s like engineering 101, and should be applied to politics and economics more.
I don’t care what you claim. It’s not helpful. It’s not having any impact. Change course.
And you think you are? Literally one of the most salty people I have met. You aren’t convincing anyone.
You haven’t met me, you don’t know me, this is an anonymous forum. I could be a salty dog or maybe a limp dick lime you but I won’t change a damn thing.
Solutions start with ideas. If you are someone who can’t turn an idea into a workable solution then why would I follow you? The world is full of people who want to be idea people, yet they have no understanding of practical reality. That’s another thing that’s missing from the current leftist movements: understanding of practical reality.
Also I would stop generalising people. I follow solutions, not just ideas. That’s how any engineer should think. After all we are the people who turn lofty goals into reality.
Leftists are at their best when they can see practical problems that everyday people have, and explain why they happen in the context of the larger system and its flaws. Some leftists are great at this. What you need to do is take the next step and propose how you could change, improve, or replace the system and how that would solve the current problems without creating bigger ones. If you can’t do that then ultimately you aren’t going to win in the end, even if you manage to get popular support, even with a revolution.
This is again another type of programing. People arent an engineering problem. Politics will never be removed from emotion.
I’ve told my solution but you instead want a silver bullet. Everyone wants a silver bullet. The silver bullet doesn’t exist and will never come.
We need to build our communities stronger, and need to stop being divided by people with obscene wealth, something to lose if we do so. Thats what will get us to the next obstacle.
Instead you will wait around for a charismatic leader with come to save us all.
I’ve told my solution
You haven’t done that.
I’ve told my solution but you instead want a silver bullet. Everyone wants a silver bullet.
You haven’t though, just said some vague phrases and hinted that if everyone else just thought like you the problem would resolve itself.
Know how I know you are completely fucked in the head. You think you can fustrate me more than I am already frustrated with the current state of things. We are rock bottom. There is one way out. If you want to stay in the mouse trap you are going to stay in the mouse trap. Nothing I say or do will lead you out.
I am asking for solutions, not some perfect leader. We have seen how leftist ideas of charismatic leaders go, and I don’t want another Lenin, Stalin, or Kim Jong Un. The fact that you jump to the conclusion that solutions = charismatic leader tells me a lot about how you think about politics. Believe it or not not all ideas, systems, and solutions come from the same person. Science isn’t a cult of Sir Isaac Newton so why should politics be this way? Heck why do we even have a single powerful position like President or Prime Minister or King?
Also no you haven’t provided any solutions. All you have done is provide excuses as to why you do not need any. I am not asking for a magic bullet here. I understand that real life systems are necessarily complex and multi-faecited. That’s why having a single leader or person in charge isn’t a smart idea. You can’t ask a single human to have a grasp on the whole of society and all its problems, performance metrics, or trade-offs.
I haven’t provided the solution. Get fucked. HUMANITY hasn’t provided the solution, and it wont! Because if the goal is to have us both walk 100 miles that way and you won’t get off your ass until you think of some shit way to do it, it doesn’t matter if I ride a fucking dinosaur to Timbukto. Short of knocking you on your ass and carrying you there, I can do nothing for the cause.
heres some radom impractal ideas.
identify excesses fo power that do not work in the national interest and figure out what stable system can be put in place to regulate those excesses down to lower levels as effectively as possible. simples. /s
regulate banks so that they invest more of your savings in businesses and services that your country needs for your future. (this is a very long term fix as they’ve spent 40-50 years divesting from your society).
regulate capital gains so that business can not meet shareholder needs with asset price bubbles, only dividends. regulate dividends too. (aim is as Keynes said to avoid “whirlpools of speculation” and see only “bubbles” on a steady stream of investment).
nominal transaction tax (tobin tax), and transaction delay times for all exchanges to stop stock markets being ran so fucking stupidly they do not need to trade that much that often
dissociate commercial banks from building societies separate and minimise home loans- but regulate house prices to prevent mortgage bubble. (/ust accept low gdp growth , gdp is fucking made up number) basically do a load of FDR bank regulation stuff that got scrapped in the 70s/80s under dubious pretexts.
better to promote localised banking and local lending coops and such, then the power to make businesses loans is held closer to the savers and borrowers, and can be more accountable just by being a closer group that interacts mmore frequently.
regulate scarce situations that are hard to replicate , rent controls in centre of town or near transit (or other land use regualtion). try to manage away property bubbles - this is part of the reason businesses become uncompetetive, along with all the other stuff that pushes up cost fo living.
Of course regulation is difficult, prone to corruption, as al) the freedoomers will say. It is after all an excess of power - but it it not the only one and might be the only one with a chance of reducing the ppower of the others unles you cound bloody revolutions every now and again that also end up investing a new set of powerful people… And it doesn’t help that one of your(assuming i’m talking to usa by context) parties just works solely on behalf of al those power mongers that most need regulation; their real neat trick,“govt is shit”, “look at us we’re govt”, “you’d better reduce the power of regulators in case you elect idiots like us again” And that line of reasoning is so successful that the other party imitates it.
So you need a way to make the regulators accountable, and elections are not a necessarily the best way to improve regulation , but they can be part of a wider system to hold the regulatros to account. On a more local scale , something like having to explain themselves and their decisions to random anonymous juries. They should also, as public officials have to submit their income and weath statements to the jury of the people to try to demostrate no bribery.
you dont need perfect, just a framework where it can improve bit by bit, and gradually weed out those with excess power orwho abuse it. which basically needs transparency and accountability at a level and frequency that matches the circumstances at hand.
Oh man seething sarcasm, I’m great at this.
These ideas are actually good. I can’t imagine why they won’t be implemented immediately.
I don’t pretend to know the full and total solution, but I do know what need to happen… but I know the historical flashpoints tsld to at has so often forced these issues? Th
I do know what need to happen
And what’s that?
I asked kora what they know.
The stringed instrument, or the avatar?
Just read theory, it’s not that hard, and people have been discussing how to get out of this Capitalist hellhole for hundreds of years.
You cant even see there is something fundamentally missing, that being the call to action. People rather endlessly argue about for hundreds of years.
You mean just vibing a revolution into action?
That’s why I am recommending you read theory. For the why of Capitalism’s inevitable demise, Wage Labor and Capital and Value, Price and Profit both do a much better job of actually explaining the inherent unsustainability of Capitalism.
I mean, not treading the same path. I mean defying what we think is the inevitability. Human brains are capable of great things but they are not capable of predicting the future. The future needs to be shaped and molded real time.
Your incredgulousness is so fucking bizarre. You see the same thing day after day, with no changeand you are upset. And I tell you change needs to just go ahead and happen. And you rather it not.
You’re misreading me. Change happens every day. Socialism is the answer
Make socialism happen then
Then we need to unite all communities under the common goal of providing rest.
“How? How? How?”
First step is to organize. Join an organization, any organization, or form your own.
First step is to organize.
Then what?
Then, that social movement (organization) puts forth it’s own candidate(s) to displace the corrupt government.
LOL
There is a reason Marxists promote reading history and philosophical theory; because the class struggle has been going on for a long time, and there is much we can learn about our current situation from those that wrote about their experiences in the past.
I don’t know, man.
This problem won’t be solved by me alone.
I don’t care. I am perfectly comfortable nestling into my giant pile of cold hard guns.
Sounds healthy.
Lauren Boebert levels of mental healthy.
Looks Pension and savings look like they’re all there. Looks Still employed. Looks Still have free health care. Looks Still seem to be churning out graduates with pace. Looks No debt.
🤷♂️
So things are working out for you, specifically. Great, nothing needs to change.
So things are working out for you, specifically.
I didn’t say that, this meme just seems ridiculously off target.
I’m not afraid of either socialism or capitalism, they’re both abstract ideas. I’m much more concerned with actual, real assholes who are aplenty under both socialism and capitalism.
Hear that everyone? He’s worried about the assholes and not any cockamamie abstract ideas!
Hi everyone! :-)
Especially the one in the mirror.
You don’t have free healthcare, unless you don’t live in America. And if that’s the case, your comment means nothing.
And if that’s the case, your comment means nothing.
That’s not very socialist of you.
your comment means nothing.
WTF?!
Seriously though who the fuck still has an actual pension anymore?
I do. But that’s because I’m in a union. This country needs more unions!
Where’s do you live that you have a pension and free healthcare?
The golden palace in their mind.
Oh shit guys, nevermind! Rah says he’s doing great! Hows Bezos? Also great? Yelp, that settles it, we’re gonna be ok!
The golden canary I have in this mine says: I’m gonna be rich. dies to poisonous gas
Oh yeeeah, wouldn’t you know it, me and Bezos are comparable!
… And The anecdotes ride off into the sunset together, their anecdotal futures so bright, they gotta wear shades…
You are from the UK…?
He’s talking about things happening with pace rather than speed, so…
Skinny tails on bell curves always exist.
You will own nothing and be happy
Thanks for the link. I’d heard the expression in this context before, but never knew where it originated
preach it fam
Shareholders Uber Alles
Ü
No ü
I dont think the FED + state which printed 70% of USD money supplies during covid years has anything to do with capitalism and free market… They are anti free market and capitalism if anything…
rofl it’s not communism just because the government is involved…
The US is capitalist. Full stop. Period. The government BUYS its physical currency, for fuck’s sake.
You see only binary. I didnt said its communism, I said its not free market capitalism, if the state can devalue your money by half with a single action (why do you think basic groceries cost double since 2020 ?), and its not a free market capitalism, when they impose 50% tariffs on anything Chinese regarding EVs and stuff around https://apnews.com/article/biden-china-tariffs-electric-vehicles-solar-254546e92f823a78220c195a0a42a10e
They dont buy their currency, they print promissory notes, that they will repay the debt, in exchange for money. And if you still believe that US can once repay its debt, you are delusional… Especially now, as China and many others are trying to get rid of petro dolars…
bahaha You are the one with binary thinking… The government doesn’t magically mean “not capitalist”, fool. When the government spends money, it’s not magically “not capitalist”, either.
The US government is capitalist because they back up and enforce things for corporations’ bottom line. You speak of debt as if that magically makes them not capitalist… You are quite literally ignorant on what “capitalist” even means. Sad. Pathetically sad.
“Free market capitalism” is a fairytale we tell school children. Free market capitalism would be me filling up my car with leaded gasoline before going to work at a meth plant, but also I gotta pay the toll to use the private roads.
It’s simple, a State in Capitalist society serves the interests of the Bourgeoisie and defends Capitalism.
Capitalism naturally destroys free markets.
People miss that Adam Smith in his writing was arguing in favor of small enterprise and in favor of the government busting up monopolies
Well as long as we’ll have guns then things can be turned around…
Lol, as if their Wal Mart rifles are going to help them against reaper drones.
The USA loses to people less armed than the USA all the time.
But it would be an easy war of attrition no? How many died/almost died because Texas couldn’t handle a lil iced? How long could those states last without resources from outside? How much of their materials are usable raw?
Do the “much guns” states actually have a decent bit of knowledgeable people? Being able to shoot a gun is fine and all but a war is far more than that.
The biggest worry would probably be the ones already in the military who could/would easily sabotage any efforts. And yes, drones are easily beating rifles when it comes to depleting each other’s resources.
I know fuck-all about guns and war but my armchair is warmed up.
The US won all nearly all their engagements in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The difference was the lack of public support to keep those wars and occupations going.
You would think that the public wouldn’t support a war the US wages on the public.
The war on drugs has entered the chat
When half the people want it, it will.
This is it.
People keep insisting that the populace would win a war of populace against state… maybe it would, I don’t know and it’s not the problem.
The problem is a war of half the populace against the state and the other half of the populace. Fascism is carried into power by popular demand, it’s not like one day they just appear on the levers of power and have to put up with a revolting population. They will have been put there by the population, and it will be the better armed half of the population.
You’re gonna need a nuke, big guy. You aren’t taking on the American military with your lil pea shooter.
It can be done with guns or it can be done without. Can is the magic word here, and guns are optional.
At least if you lived in a socialist place before that naturally left you so helpless that you now wish for the heavy restrictions to be back because you rely on them.
“At least the walls of the prison kept me warm”…
What?
Being ‘left’ is being pro 2A, fumbled it there at the end.
I’m seeing a lot more libs understanding what 2A is really for.
Citizens will not stop a coup attempt using guns. You’re watching too many movies. Be realistic.
WDYM, it’s not like the structural problems of capitalism would favor fascists if we provide a market for buying guns. It’s not like fascists are the ones with more money and time from owning a business or something. I would totally show up to defend my country from a coup as long as it coincides with my work break. /s
Idk it seems like everytime a trained, well-equipped military goes up against a bunch of farmers the military loses so I’m not sure I agree with you.
Right, when was the last time that happened on us soil again?
Also, do you actually see Americans as some kind of guerilleros? With current obesity numbers, there’s no hiding in improvised shelters for most. Let alone simple but crucial things like “running”. Did you think of how the country isn’t totally unknown to the military, negating one of the major advantages for defenders in past such situations?
By all means, do not agree with me. You can’t convince me you actually believe us citizens have a fighting chance against the fucking us military, though. Absolutely delusional!
Students of history disagree. Remember when they told us we’d smash Vietnam in a month? Remember when they said the same thing about Iraq? You can come up with all the “but it’s different this time!” you like, I agree we probably won’t come to an agreement on this, have a nice day.
Why are you ignoring my questions? I don’t remember anybody saying “Iraqis are probably too fat and complacent for guerilla tactics”. “Students of history” won’t disagree that there’s a huge difference between the 1970s us army fighting guerilleros in Vietnam and the 21st century us army fighting a bunch of tacticool idiots on us soil.
Did you notice that your only argument is “nah, it wouldn’t be different” without any substantiation?
Why are you ignoring my questions?
I don’t owe you an argument. I’ve stated my position and you’ve stated yours. Have a nice Friday.
Is anyone on Lemmy worried about socialism?
Who is this for?
The choir. This is preaching to the choir.
I think the best solution is a healthy balance of socialism and capitalism.
Extremes always tend to be dangerous.
I think the best solution is a healthy balance of socialism and capitalism.
Why?
Extremes always tend to be dangerous.
WHY?
Too much socialism encourage laziness, incompetence and poverty.
Too much capitalism encourage inequity, exploitation and consumerism.
I think both socialism and capitalism have their own pros and cons. But both are necessary.
Too much socialism encourage laziness, incompetence and poverty.
Does it? Says who? The Chicago school of economics?
Too much capitalism encourage inequity, exploitation and consumerism.
All Capitalism.
What good does Capitalism do?
You sound like someone that never worked in his entire life.
I hope I’m wrong.
You’re very wrong, and failed to address any of my arguments or back your own claims up, it’s jusy vibes and mysticism.
I didn’t fail to address any argument.
If you actually worked at least once in your life, you would understand the value of working, making money, competency and being useful to society.
I think you’re coping because you’re useless and incompetent. You’re using socialism as an escape mechanism.
I have worked, and continue to work. I understand how my labor is exploited by the bourgeois class and I do not recieve the bulk of the Value I create. I suggest reading Wage Labor and Capital and Value, Price and Profit.
I am certainly not the most competent worker, but I am definitely more competent than the parasites exploiting me without lifting a finger.
You clearly have a misconception of what socialism is. Socialism does not mean sit around and collect benefits from the government. It means that workers (yes, people who WORK) own the means of production, rather than the do-nothing capitalist class which makes money parasitically from simply owning things.
“I think we need a balance between the system that wants to oppress workers to maximise profit, and the system which wants workers to control their own lives”
You mean market socialism
I think the best solution is a healthy balance of kindergartens and child labour factories.
Extremes always tend to be dangerous.
I think we need a blend of false equivalencies and dangerous extremes.
I know you disagree with me, but your joke was so good I had to upvote
Who’s going to pay your kindergartens?
in USA*
In most places under the American empire’s control to varying degrees.*
So “Capitalism” ( by which you mean crony Corps in league with government - a socialist system) took away socialist ‘benefits’ - huh. Are you sure you are looking at the right end if the stick?
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?
