Capitalism isn't evil, change my mind

I've noticed a good portion of lainons, perhaps even the majority of them, are economically left. Socialist at the very least, all the way to total Marxists. Let me be upfront and disclose I'm on the bottom right of the compass. Solid Libertarian, with the subtle, yet predictable streaks of anarchism. You could say I'm an adherent of the Mises & Rothbard economic models. So here's the thing; I don't have a problem with left-economics. Worker-owned companies? Brilliant. Communes? More power to you. Public goods & services? Fantastic. What I fail to understand is where the animosity towards Capitalism comes from. Don't get me wrong, I've heard all the "reasons" before; Imperialism, racism, class discrimination, wage slavery, pollution, fascism, property = theft, xenophobia, etc. Most of which is entirely related to Government and not markets or trade, and the rest is just laughably false. I've always been very individualistic. I find being self-sufficient to be fulfilling, even rewarding. That doesn't mean I don't see the value of my community. I don't hate collectives, I just wouldn't want to be forced into one. So, what are your criticisms of Capitalism? What are your criticisms of individualism? Can the ethos of Marx and Mises be reconciled or are we stuck with endless coups & revolutions?

>>29242 >Let me be upfront and disclose I'm on the bottom right of the compass. Solid Libertarian, with the subtle, yet predictable streaks of anarchism. I'm willing to believe Libertarianism doesn't go far enough, because it's not intended to actually help anyone, sans those already in power. A common Libertarian thought is Taxation is theft., but this doesn't actually go far enough; it's a stupid position, I believe merely chosen to trick some people. The truth is Property is theft., because all property is either taken from nature or by usurpation. What makes it legitimate that the property ownership in the UK decided by William the Conqueror largely still holds? If someone new came by and managed to take all of that property, it would then be his, and it would be just as legitimate. >What I fail to understand is where the animosity towards Capitalism comes from. That image is laughable, implying all of the problems with Capitalism come from government. It's the Capitalist version of Communism has never been tried. and I urge others to consider that Capitalism doesn't seek to bring prosperity and freedom, but always tries to manipulate the world around it until it destroys the so-called free market, just as Communism always results in bloody dictatorship. >I've always been very individualistic. I find being self-sufficient to be fulfilling, even rewarding. That doesn't mean I don't see the value of my community. I don't hate collectives, I just wouldn't want to be forced into one. We're forced into the collective known as society, and none of us are actually self-sufficient. This is another fantasy. Individualism isolates people and is a divide-and-conquer strategy for subversion. Now don't think I'm a leftie, this political compass idea is too limited; I believe a strong authoritarian government should lead society, and that the weak, who are most, should have no say in its operation. The idea that Libertarianism leads to weak people becoming business owners instead of slaves to stronger people, while at the same time being told that they deserve their slavery and the stronger have earned their domination, is silly. Now, that doesn't strictly seem too bad, based on what I've already written, but power in Capitalism is bad because it rewards total cretins and their offspring, when instead people who make money doing nothing but manipulating money should be murdered in the streets. Capitalism doesn't reward behaviour which is actually beneficial to society, such as intelligence, which a proper authoritarian government would; there'd be no more scorning beneficial technology just because the business is already based entirely around its predecessor, as one example.

>>29242 If you want a good idea of unchecked unregulated capitalism look at the gilded age of America where a handful of people controlled the country and union works got bombed, or in it's modern context where health insurance is solely tied to your job, when you need it most (during a pandemic) you lose it. In unfettered capitalism, capital, power and resources naturally consolidates to few and few hands.

>>29244 >I believe a strong authoritarian government should lead society, and that the weak, who are most, should have no say in its operation. >power in Capitalism is bad because it rewards total cretins and their offspring How would total power in Government not also lead to rewarding corruption and perpetuating leadership through bloodlines? Your own critique can be applied to your solution. Unless by "proper authoritarian" you're suggesting some kind of perfectly programmed A.I. >The truth is Property is theft., because all property is either taken from nature or by usurpation. Nature is not sentient and cannot lay claim to itself. The sun does not accuse plants of stealing it's photons. In regards to humanity, sure, enough violence can achieve almost any desired result. After that, it's just a matter of morality. So is my blood not my property? I mean, it's possible somebody needing a transfusion could use force to retrieve it from me... but you're saying that if successfully defended myself from that attempt, I would have stolen my own blood from them? The "property is theft" viewpoint is just something that really grates against my personal logic I guess.

>>29244 >It's the Capitalist version of Communism has never been tried. The difference is that capitalism has been tried (to a reasonable extent, obviously not perfectly) and the result has been millions of people being pulled out of poverty, improved quality of life and so on over the span of decades. Meanwhile all the attempts at communism seem to devolve into dictatorships with stunning rapidity. >The truth is Property is theft., because all property is either taken from nature or by usurpation. This is true, and is the fundamental contradiction of libertarianism. However, before we get too far ahead of ourselves I submit that all these competing ideologies are founded on contradictions. I believe that is always the case due to something analogous to (lots of handwaving) Gödel's incompleteness theorem. The takeaway is don't take your ideologies too seriously, but that doesn't mean you can't learn from them. >>29245 >look at the gilded age of America where a handful of people controlled the country Weren't those people all put in power via state monopolies on railroads that had been eminently domain'd from the commoners/indians? >health insurance is solely tied to your job This is a terrible example because it is 100% government meddling. It started with tax incentives for paying people in insurance instead of paying them properly, and then the ACA made it mandatory. Nobody wanted this soykaf.

>under capitalism more government regulation is the only thing protecting you >the NAP is unenforceable and illogical as it places property over life >money is worthless in itself and has a value based on nothing but faith >capitalists literally murdered people countless times all for proffit >do you like being a product baught and sold? Why do you think websites collect data on you? > money is stolen from you by capitalists you work for and it's an amount much higher than taxes no it's from the cost of production and maintenance etc >do you like a future where the stars are blocked by advertising satellites? >inhereted wealth creates a borderline caste system >everything is comodified into a product sucking it's deeper value away >it pushes people into sociopathic thinking patterns of "I got mine fuarrrk you!" and "fite me" >technological advancements are the product of scientists and engineers NOT capitalism >capitalism has reached a point it holds back science because science itself is corrupted by capitalist interests because they are who fund it >fertile land is being squated on as an investment among capitalists >go look up what happened to farmers in India after being duped by capitalists into changing how they farm. They now have a huge suicide rate from going broke whenever there is a crop failure. >most well known Libertarian's either had ties to fascist parties or support things like ethnic genocide and seek to use capitalism as a means of creating racial segregation >"gold diggers exist because of capitalism I will leave it at that for now

>>29247 >How would total power in Government not also lead to rewarding corruption and perpetuating leadership through bloodlines? That's certainly a potential issue, I agree, but that's still better than pretending this doesn't happen, which Capitalism pretends. I'm not arguing people should be powerless against the government. Weak people with weapons are still weak, but strong people demanding their government adheres to its ideals can win. >Unless by "proper authoritarian" you're suggesting some kind of perfectly programmed A.I. I do like the idea of an immortal, inhuman ruler, but this is becoming science fiction. >So is my blood not my property? If it can't be defended, then no. >I mean, it's possible somebody needing a transfusion could use force to retrieve it from me... but you're saying that if successfully defended myself from that attempt, I would have stolen my own blood from them? The point is property only belongs to men so long as they can defend it. If people inherit stolen property, which is all of it, they have no right to complain if it's stolen in turn, unless they successfully defend it. >>29250 >The difference is that capitalism has been tried (to a reasonable extent, obviously not perfectly) and the result has been millions of people being pulled out of poverty, improved quality of life and so on over the span of decades. The point is whenever Capitalism is criticized, one of the first arguments is It wasn't a REAL free market., just like Communists. I've never been able to ask the Chinese laborers so distraught they kill themselves, necessitating suicide nets, feel as if their lives have been improved, but I'd think not. >Meanwhile all the attempts at communism seem to devolve into dictatorships with stunning rapidity. Yes, and all attempts at Capitalism devolve into business owners subverting government to put in place regulations which benefit them, gain monopolies, and as we've currently seen turn the entirety of society into an advertising panopticon. >The takeaway is don't take your ideologies too seriously, but that doesn't mean you can't learn from them. Well, my point is Libertarianism is divide-and-conquer trickery, which I've made well. My point in pointing out how property is theft is to point out that there's no inherent morality in society, and governments enforce a baseline. Without a strong central government, to quote the opening image, many of the most powerful businesses wouldn't be able to defend themselves from criminals. Something else that sickens me about Capitalism is how the companies which produce the least have successfully subverted society to serve them the most. Coca-Cola and Apple are two very large companies with big advertising budgets, and yet they don't produce anything necessary. The manufacturers of necessary goods produce commodities, but those two use copyright and trademark laws to be valued infinitely more than their worth. The most necessary producers are valued the least, and it disgusts me.

>>29254 >there's no inherent morality in society, and governments enforce a baseline I know this is the common wisdom, doggydog world and so on but I'm not entirely convinced. Is it not possible that people are generally not terrible? Consider: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months

>>29244 >but always tries to manipulate the world around it until it destroys the so-called free market Strongly agree. What we have now isn't some accident, it is what happens as capitalism develops. If the machine decides that a strong government (that it can manipulate) is beneficial to its continued campaign to turn the world into poker chips and paper clips then a strong government is exactly what it is going to create.

Capitalism necessarily creates poverty in order to work. Goons, thugs, and cronies are deployed to genocide, rape, and pillage a people, then after they are broken they are offered jobs and a general store to spend their wages at as their only recompense, generating wealth for the capitalist alone. Captialism works on there being an enslaved proletarian doing the labor for next-to-nothing. http://www.readsettlers.org/ https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-conquest-of-bread/

>>29257 How is this not true of literally every system? There are always people trying to co-opt the system to their own benefit, and they will be successful if nobody stops them. >>29258 Poverty is the default state of man.

>>29259 nope. how did i know that was coming immediately after?

>>29259 I'm not really talking about people as individual agents, I'm talking about the macrostructure. The Coca Cola corporation didn't build it empire because some bad actors got in charge, it is acting in accordance with its reward function and even the CEOs are slaves to it. As an aside, I don't know why people view capitalism as individualist. You can't get soykaf done as an individual in a capitalist society.

>>29256 I meant governments enforce a baseline of morality not in the sense of Don't kill without reason., but in the sense of things such as Some people deserve to have two homes while others have none. Really, I suppose morality was the wrong word to use. Governments enforce a baseline of norms, say. I don't like copyright law, but governments enforce that.

Capitalism is garbage compared to the beauty and success of national socialism. Change my mind.

>>29266 How is anyone supposed to change your mind without any elaboration on why you think that?

>>29262 ok then

>>29266 I can agree with parts of national socialism, and agree it would be better than the current system, but try not to make posts like this. This is what someone would see on another imageboard. It's not even an original thought, but this pattern: X is Y compared to Z. Change my mind. >>29270 To salvage that post, just respond to my points if you want: >>29244 >>29254 >>29265

>>29274 you're gonna lose this one, sport no one is advocating for a return to the stone-age, but rather a society that does not have as its foundation exploitation. look up the concept of TINA (there is no alternative), and examine the media you consume where the alternative scenarios to exploiting black and brown bodies for relative comfort to settlers in the first world is an apocalyptic dystopia.

>>29242 Capitalism, just like Communism, or Monarchy, or Social Democracy, or Anarchy, are all perfectly viable political systems as long as human beings aren't involved.

>>29281 >>29274 >>29262 it went from politics to caveman and grunting so quick, I've never seen such a accurate lainchan thread yet.

First off, let's get something out of the way: little-c capitalism is not synonymous with free markets. It refers to a specific organization of labor wherein most people own little to no capital, and perform labor for capital-owners in exchange for wages which are then used to purchase goods and services from other capital-owners. Capital-owners (little-c capitalists) have absolute control over their capital(within reason, of course) and often own it jointly with other capitalists. "capital" refers to anything that can be used to produce goods or services, such as land, buildings, machines, "intellectual property" or (not so long ago) slaves. Big-C Capitalism is the ideology that this organization of labor is good or necessary. This is more or less how Marx defines capitalism and it's the only description I've ever heard of that makes sense to me. From this standpoint, capitalism and USSR-style communism aren't all that different. People worked for wages in factories owned by the state, which is really not that different from working for wages in factories owned by some corporation. >So, what are your criticisms of Capitalism? Philosophically, I am opposed to any ideology which presupposes that growth is always desirable and possible, because it's not. Historically, Capitalism has always resulted in draining natural resources, authoritarianism, and a profoundly dissatisfying economic life dominated by the market. I would prefer if most of my economic life was through gifts or barter with people whom I know, rather than dull financial transactions with strangers. >What are your criticisms of individualism? individualism, in the sense of respecting and encouraging the autonomy and individuality of others, is an excellent outlook on life. Individualism in the sense of being "self-sufficient" is silly. They say "no man is an island" and that has always rung true with me. You can be isolated but that does not mean you don't rely on others for your life, everyone needs somebody. Even if you live alone in nature and never see another human you are reliant on the fish and birds and trees and microbes to keep you alive. >Can the ethos of Marx and Mises be reconciled or are we stuck with endless coups & revolutions? No. They will fight until there is nothing left to fight over, industrial society is no longer feasible, and the survivors

>>29332 *and the survivors revert back to pre-industrial economics.

>>29325 Yeah every political system works as long as there's near-unanimous agreement... i mean, look at japan. A lot of their government policies are as close to "objectively retarded" as I've seen but it works for them because lots of Japanese people seem to like it that way. >>29332 What do you think of the various "market socialisms"? I've always had trouble conceptualizing markets without capitalism but I am familiar with the definition you've given here so I know at least logically it's possible.

>>29343 they seem to degenerate into either state capitalism or plain ol' capitalism pretty fast. The natural evolution for a profit-motivated firm is towards capitalist organization because it is the most effective at generating profit.

>>29344 do you think profit motives and markets are inseparable?

>>29345 well, yes. If you aren't concerned about profit then there is no reason to take your goods to market, you could just exchange them in a gift or barter fashion.

>>29346 i see what you mean, but markets do a decent job of finding efficiency, in a certain sense anyway. obviously market failure exists, however an alternative that can allocate resources at scale isn't obvious to me. perhaps rejecting global logistics/trade entirely is necessary since i don't see how it could be viable without markets.

>>29348 this is my position exactly.

>>29349 well maybe giving up on globalism isn't such a huge price to pay, but i would personally be sad to see my world close in. i am motivated to find a conceptualization of the "free market" that preserves it's emergent self-organization without requiring the incentive structures of capitalism to keep it ticking.

What mechanism in capitalism prevents early winners from capturing regulatory power and using market forces or even physical force to prevent competition and establish corporatism nearly immediately, repressing the essential competition the system relies on for merit and egalitarian principles? What force can keep that from happening, if not a strong, centralized state? If you can't explain what could serve that purpose, then capitalism isn't just being incorrectly executed. It inherently is just a larval stage for corporatism. It can't be done right by it's nature, it's just an unrealistic ideal.

>>29359 Not to mention we've seen that even a strong federal state eventually just gets captured and rigged by the early capitalist big players.

>>29242 I partially agree, OP, capitalism is good and works economically, however, I cannot agree with leftie economics, now that isn't to say that market regulation, public services, and unions aren't necessary, because they are, however, "public-owned" businesses aren't the answer. The reason behind this is because historically they have failed and in the environment, we have today where any kind of business can be formed by whoever dares to, we have had businesses that have attempted to be mutually owned by the workers and not one has ever been competitive or more productive in comparison to capitalist ones, I really cannot see how they can be superior or better than capitalist ones in any sense if everyone attempted ends up obscure and failing. >So, what are your criticisms of Capitalism? When things aren't regulated properly or the system becomes corrupted, you can get companies like Enron or Standard Oil that use the power and money they have to unfairly destroy their competition and oppress their customers who are forced to buy from them. >What are your criticisms of individualism? Individualism tends to emphasize and even encourage anti-social and selfish beliefs that end up hurting everybody as a whole in the grand scheme of things, it is important to preserve individual identity and independence, however, it should not come at the cost of the nation's people as a whole. >Can the ethos of Marx and Mises be reconciled or are we stuck with endless coups & revolutions? I am not sure about Mises, but the beliefs of Marx have died long ago, people may pretend to be upset with capitalism and the society we live in, but in reality, few want to get rid of it, they just wish to implement more reforms and regulations, Marx's beliefs will likely never see the light of day again in the mainstream political sphere.

>>29242 >What I fail to understand is where the animosity towards Capitalism comes from One reason is misunderstanding of terminologies. Capitalism is how the left would refer to the current economic structure, whereas you would perhaps refer to it as corporatism, as you pointed out in your OP image - if we go by your definition of capitalism, we could easily reach a state of affairs that an interesting chap called Pierre Joseph Proudhon would refer to as "free market socialism", so going by your definition I'm a capitalist socialist. that's essentially the reason not to use the term capitalist, but instead "free market" where such things are concerned. >Most of which is entirely related to Government and not markets or trade, and the rest is just laughably false. It is worth pointing out that a monopoly is merely a government writ small, or at least compared to western governments, let loose a monopoly could set up shop with an african colony in seconds, as we saw in India and Indonesia with the British and Dutch East India Companies respectively. The point being, government is the greater evil but monopolies are still evil, and without a government to limit their size the populace must be able to forceably overthrow a corporation once it becomes a monopoly the same way they would a government. At what point is that decided? Well it's just as vague for overthrowing a government when one emerges. If you're alright with limited government then of course that can simply do some trust-busting, Theodore Roosevelt style. >Can the ethos of Marx and Mises be reconciled or are we stuck with endless coups & revolutions? Kevin Carson makes a good attempt to. In any case there are priorities to all this that essentially all anarchists and libertarians usually and should agree to: 1. overthrow or downsize the current state/government. 2. end the current economic state of affairs, be it named corporatism or whatever else. 3. set up a new system of organization 3 is where I see the most disagreement, but of course it can differ by area as well. local self-governance will be a great facilitator of trying all manner of ideas.

>>29359 You cant play a fair game with people not willing to participate. People not being capitalist in a capitalist system is the flaw in the system. If you aren't playing you are losing and this is the situation of the majority. Ask around and most people know what their stars and fav whores are up to but not what legislation passed. They dont even take notice of how they are getting exploited. And this happens independent of the system as it happened the same in communism. The smart guys with money run while the dumb drown further to compensate for the capital flight. For anyone not paying attention: This year we got a new heavy tax legislated in eu for people leaving abroad which is essentially them acknowledging they turned it into a mess. No need to run if it is still a good place to stay.

>>29373 Your good points are sadly overshadowed by the antisemitic image.

>>29377 Explain i see nothing about jews in there. Its a rather accurate list of major goals that have been frequent talking points in the last 2 decades which is why i found it interesting enough to save.

>>29253 Looks like this got overlooked from being shortened. >>29373 https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-alinsky-social-state/false-claim-saul-alinsky-listed-a-scheme-for-world-conquest-creation-of-the-social-state-idUSKCN2252LY

>>29382 Does it matter who wrote the list? The interesting question is whether the listed points do give more control or not. After all regardless of who believes in them or not its clear that the listed points were implemented or are still being implemented. Take for example how gov relieve currently happened. Big guys got straight money injections while small ones got credit they got to pay later back. Which means more longterm weight to choke on. The less money you have the less freedom you have. The poorest cant escape from the sweat shops they are born in. Its a very simple form of control. Welfare is how soykafty parties get free votes. Promise more free soykaf and they gain votes. Best is you only need to promise. Its a nobrainer to retain control. No religion is what allowed new doctrines to be implanted in the void left behind. The one point i strongly disagree with is that you need to disarm people for a police state. I think the mistake people make is the assumption a message has to be either completely correct or its garbage. Its just a collection of ideas. If you can extract something from thinking about it, it still has a merit.

>>29381 >Explain i see nothing about jews in there. Saul Alinsky was Jewish. So he's usually accused of being a communist, and this supposedly proves that communism in America was Jewish controlled, even though he was not a communist. >Its a rather accurate list of major goals that have been frequent talking points in the last 2 decades Saul Alinsky never wrote any of that, however. Whilst Obama was a fan of his during his time as an organizer, certainly not a time he drew from in office, Clinton certainly wasn't, and the goals in the article are quite contrary to Alinsky's goals and beliefs.

>>29384 >The poorest cant escape from the sweat shops they are born in. Its a very simple form of control. Welfare is how soykafty parties get free votes. Welfare could allow the poorest to escape said sweatshops, and with restriction of monopoly what that combined with welfare then leaves us with is ALL HUMAN ECONOMIC ACTIVITY ENABLED - i.e a real free market. >The one point i strongly disagree with is that you need to disarm people for a police state. Unfortunately it would seem that the US has failed in this regard, and not recently either, it failed as soon as Washington took up arms against his own people. Ultimately however it isn't disarming that is needed for a police state but rather being armed to enable it's prevention. Guns will allow a police state to exist but make it possible to end said police state, and that's what's important.

>>29359 >>29360 This is why I'm skeptical of the corporatism distinction. I am not aware of any capitalist system that has not turned rotten in that way.

>>29373 How is any of this able to illustrate a mechanism that prevents early accumulators of capital in a free market from quickly abolishing those free market conditions behind them and installing themselves in permanent, corrupt positions of power by stifling competition? Either through overt, physical violence like the Pinkerton agency, or through market forces and sophistry in a rigged system like central banks and reserves, or through perverted state mechanisms like capturing regulation and manipulating it to favor your corporation and make it incredibly onerous for new entrepreneurs to start competing enterprises? Even without a state, they can use their accumulated power to pursue one of these strategies and they are enormously incentivized to. For non-corporate capitalism to be a coherent plan, there has to be some mechanism to prevent this. So far I can't imagine what it would be, and no capitalist advocate I've spoken with has been able to explain one. Even in vague terms. You can't just expect people to do the right thing just because they should. That's not a strategy, that's just a moral condemnation and it's empty unless you can enforce some ideological structure that compels everyone to follow your same moral code. How would it work?

>>29244 I was with you in the first half but then you started talking about dictatorship

>>29389 The way welfare is implemented it can allow to avoid the sweat shop but it will not help social mobility. Moment you start getting any income welfare is cut and the amount is the absolute minimum to survive which makes it high risk for people not versed in how to traverse the regulations to even try getting out. To participate in capitalism you need however capital. People not able to save money cant make it. And then come entry hurdles like flat fees eating up small investments which makes the bottom unable to participate and earn same as people with higher net value. What welfare does accomplish is it keeps riots in check by giving the bare minimum to survive so people still have something to lose and dont storm the bastille. In this manner it helps retain the status quo and prevents people from fighting for a better outcome. >>29402 Crab bucket. It takes time to gain monopoly. If people cared they would kill uprising trash in its initial steps while their collective power was still above the target. Also you could vote out any party that corrupts the system for lobby money. The next group will get bribed too of course but it raises the market price if they cant survive a term instead of what we currently have were people reelect the same party every term and parties rule for centuries with their members working til retirement to corrupt the system. Want to make it more stable? Give politicians bigger income by taxing companies more - so now everyone is forced to pay the lobby money either way and the politicians dont have to play ball to get it. Secondary they will be harder to bribe since a bribes worth is relative to base income and the risk is higher as they lose more losing their job. Lastly if people cared they could simply stop buying from companies caught in corrupting the market on a personal level. Starve them to dead. Currently everyone complains and most still buy. All these measures are not directly part of the games rules but rely on people caring enough to act. The core issue is as said that if people dont care they auto lose.

>>29411 >Moment you start getting any income welfare is cut this is a bad implementation, yes, but UBI is also welfare, so a good implementation of welfare remains positive. >To participate in capitalism you need however capital And this is the issue with capitalism, which ought to be replaced with a non-capitalist free market. The only function of the economy should be the provision of goods and services, and nothing else, none of this "participation" crap. if we're going down the "everyone must participate" road we reach fascism, where forcing someone to be productive and healthy and so on can somehow be seen as good. >In this manner it helps retain the status quo and prevents people from fighting for a better outcome. That's a fair assessment of the current implementation.

>>29242 >So, what are your criticisms of Capitalism? A system which is leaded by money and profit ends up serving people having more money than others, not necessarily good people. In my opinion unregulated free market always leads to monopoly and corporatism - once one corporation has more money than others, it can effectively buy its competition and change the law to sustain its monopoly. In the system driven by money, it doesn't matter if you're good or bad, the only thing that matters is your wealth. That's why capitalism rewards not the people who serve mankind, but people who manage to suck money out of consumers, you can see examples everywhere: undermining cancer research, planned obsolescence, paying a "rock star" more than a scientist, etc. You can tell me "but that's corporations", my answer to this: Small businesses will always connect their forces forming a corporation for temporary profit, if they didn't, they would die out.

>>29398 You're right to be skeptical.

>>29412 I believe ubi & welfare is commonly regarded as two different things explicit for the distinction that ubi is not conditional while all existing forms of welfare have some conditions attached. As for whether its a good or bad implementation depends on who is viewing it. I think the current implementation does as intended for those who designed it.

>>29425 there's difference of opinion, which used to be the case on imageboards in general before the dark days. before /n/.

Capitalism is supposed to have all the features that most americans claim to want from communism/socialism. Public goods, safety nets, etc. This whole privatize everything/personal responsibility thing is a meme started to roll us back to corporate feudalism.

>>29411 All of the mechanisms you explain to prevent corruption and transition to corporatism haven't ever worked, nor do any of them really have any force that holds them in place (which will be incredibly difficult, because lots of the most powerful organizations in the world will constantly be trying to capture or break them down as they are lucratively incentivized to do). These are just idealistic fantasies. None of it really prevents the inevitable rise of corporatism out of capitalism. People who advocate for this kind of thing, who split hairs and say "oh no that's not real capitalism," are naive academics making nothing more than mental models and ignoring practical realities. Exactly the same as people who say "oh no that's not real communism" when confronted with every single real-world application that has gone wrong due to fundamental structural flaws.

>>29384 They don't though. Religion is the best way to control people's minds. Capitalism is best to control people's personal lives. Welfare is best described as nothing but a means to perpetuate acceptance of capitalism not as an argument for no mutual support systems.

You can be reductive and explain everything in Freudian lens, but that is only partially true. All three main political ideologies that were left off after 20th century work in sense of controlling humanity for purpose eugenics/dysgenics. The capitalism (that always ends in corporatism, there is no escaping it) feeds on idea that 8 billion humans is "too much". This is why all people are stretched thin in all terms of their lives, the people that can't make the lemonade out of lemonds are dead or turned into literal human cattle. A couple of us that are left "normal" have a hard decision to make. Either become psychopath/sociopath or high functioning autist. Don't worry though, it is a longer standing cycle waxing and waning over human genome. Not even the rich want this to continue on ad infinitum, we all dream of socialism that can't be in current way of existing, even the rich that have little rush of primal desire for power that won't last after their death. We haven't developed such strong inter species communication to create a stable socialism. Chaos, and in turn "order" put in place day in day out are there to test us as a species and leave us closer to the goal. Something like "there is no holding grudges in business" holds true in every walk of life for a person that searches for absolute truth, even in politics. Learning from the past in a negative feedback loop, little by little... FASTER NOW, why? Information exchange helped things push over the ledge. Stress on body and mind, we will need to slow things down or at least localize/regionalize them for the time being because a lot of people can't handle so much chaos. It hurts the system that enables its own existence. Surely, we got more psychopaths and aspies out of it than before but it doesn't quite justify all the rest of suffering. And no, culture of romanticism of today doesn't work in anyones favor, it is just a coping mechanism for "normal"s. Waiting around for a "new normal" is also dumb. Looking over word "normal" in dictionary leaves you bewildered. Sure, average has always been the same and its unquestionable that solid ground is a template for something great, but with such wide standard deviation could you call these vast differences around the normal, the "new normal"? Everyone pulling on their side, the only person left standing will be the one that stands unmoved. Rejecting modernity and reinfusing the learned experiences into your genome will leave future generations closer to the goal. Going out in the unknown and coming back with something of worth will not only be cherished but put on pedistal and mythicized. Documentaries and "fiction" shows will be created in names of those heroes that broke their programing. You can see this happen today. Serial killers and necrophiles? Hackers working for government? High risk brokers that snort cocaine mountains? Slimy corrupted politicians and their wall street boys? Illegal arms dealers? Proxy wars on proxy wars? Fake revolutions funded and instigated by 3 letter agencies? Wikileaks getting coopted? CRISPR biohackers in their basements? High profile assasinations on public jetliners televized to make a point out of them? Evil? Good? These are weird words to use in these unsure days. I would only use word "self-actualized". Everything else? Not worth time we have very little of, COLLECTIVELY. Bow down and succumb or be slayed down like the enemy. Fence riders need not apply. Do or die muffuga. Do or fuarrrking die and be replaced. Sorry for the chizo rant, had to get it out of my system.

>>29435 Pic related I forgot to add Also to just add up, try becoming your own God. It will help tremendously in the process of rebirthing yourself.

There are no actual free markets in the world, all markets have government intervention. Using the dichtomy of 'capitalism' and 'socialism' only limits your toolkit for creating prosperity.

>>29429 Of course no methods have worked. And of course its an eternal fight. Life is struggle til dead. This makes the issue however as said not a problem of the methods but the peoples will to fight. People don't even understand what there is to fight for or value safety in doing nothing over the potential of risk. Talk with people about how things are fuarrrked and they will say its not that bad someone else can fix it later when it gets worse. There is no desire in the majority and the same people discourage those who have the desire to fight which merely instills the thought of "fuarrrk em all". If they wish to get exploited then they shall have it. Its much easier to join the winners than help the losers anyway. This is how idealism dies. >>29432 You can only serve one king. The point of removing religion is to replace it with your own religion. Even Christianity acknowledged that itself with purging the old religions to gain a monopoly in the west. I believe ussr did the same for the same reason. State ideologies are atheistic religions that merely dont label themselves as religion which allows to use the "religion bad" mantra without being targeted themselves and thereby retain a monopoly on believers.

>>29444 I think you're oversimplifying. It takes more than a will to fight, we would need real tactics that work. You're essentially taking about creating a behemoth and saying "man wouldn't it be great if we could tame this thing and ride it around" but no matter how much you wish to be able to do that its a dangerous beast that can eat you up in one bite. Without a plan that has some demonstrable efficacy you're just marching people into its maw.

We live in a socialist country for the rich

>>29359 Its pretty much been understood that monopolies are bad the entire time. They just managed to take control. The best solution is to HAVE YOUR fuarrrkING GUNS.

>>29452 >They just managed to take control. The best solution is to HAVE YOUR fuarrrkING GUNS. How is this related to capitalism and how guns are going to save you from corporations? They have bigger guns and more money to take you down. Americans have guns and it didn't save them from corporatism.

>>29402 Thanks for being the only one who had the priority to address the argument instead of dismissing it outright just because the image was "problematic." Really shows peoples real priorities.

>>29242 At the center of marxist animosity towards capitalism is exploitation. Two classes exist, the proletarians-- those who work, and the bourgeoisie-- those who own. The proletarians are practically slaves to wage labour. They work machines owned by the bourgeoisie in order to feed themselves and live, while the few bourgeoisie accrue vast wealth by robbing the workers of profit simply by virtue of owning machines in an economic system that is supposedly advanced enough to provide excess commodity. But Marx goes well beyond just exploitation in his criticism of capitalism. Marxism is nuanced, it's its own school of socio-economic thought that has had a century and a half to develop. It's a stereotype among marxists where whenever you argue with them that they'll tell you to "just read" but half the stuff you question can be answered by reading almost any introductory text on Marxism, and it's probably less inflammatory than arguing with anons. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ I think a lot of what's contrasting within your perspective is the idea of the individual. I'm not at liberty to say much because I'm not that deep with Marxism. I'm not even a Marxist, I like capitalism a bit, but from what I understand it, Marxism is extremely deterministic in its perspective of people. Materialism and the idea of historical materialism is everything under Marxism, and this is something that Capitalism is heavily in conflict with because under Capitalism people are fed the illusion of free-will, and the domination of ideas over material conditions. I noticed this because Marxists have a heavy contention with psychology, and the idea that a lot of capitalist psychology ignores this extreme force of capitalism. Take the idea of education itself. Universities are an institution built to increase your own "value" towards who you work for, your career which is said to be your meaning in life. Or the family structure, where you're made to live with people who share common property in order to ease material stress, whether your parents are good people doesn't matter, you need them to live. The very way you see how your life is structured "education-> career -> retirement -> death" is a construct of capitalism. A personal criticism I'd have against the ideals of liberal capitalism personally is that it's archaic. Liberal capitalism isn't going to survive artificial intelligence and automation, but Marxism was prophetic (https://urpe.wordpress.com/2018/05/20/marx-on-automation/) to its existence and as a theory it's the most easy one to integrate with.

>>29452 Being able to defend your land is an important concept but you won't gain much unless you also raise a self-sufficient community away from big state and big corp. Smaller rural American communities embodied this somewhat but with the invasion of large retail chains and the acceptance of the American consumerist lifestyle most independence is nullified.

>>29459 Good post, especially for someone that proposes to 'like capitalism a bit' (may I ask why?). Hopefully other lains will read some of this instead of whatever this >>29462 brain damage is. Marx and Engels were so vastly ahead of their time, reading any of their works leaves you shocked at how right they have been proven to have be even hundreds of years later. In regards to individuality, the only way you guys well ever achieve this is with communism, trying to lean into the disaster that is capitalism with anarcho-capitalism will only lead you to being slaves. Only when the ruling class, who own and do not work, are destroyed can we move on as a society, and every man can be free. Free to earn the value of their labour, and free to decide democratically how their labour is used. Time will surely tell, at this point in the climate-collapse timeline it truly is either socialism or the end of human society as we know it, the endless growth of capitalism is simply not possible. It will solidify itself as a relic of the past, like how kings and queens and fuedal lords seem a farce to us now, so will the concept that someone could make a living without actually exerting labour, that someone could be born to extreme wealth and power while others starve.

>>29242 Based, very based. I'm an agorist, because I find agorism to be a more consistent version of anarcho capitalism, but still, I get along with ancaps pretty well. I made a thread about agorism on /r/. Anyways, yeah, I more or less explained the same thing you're explaining here, that there's a difference between the current state capitalism we have right now (aka corporatism) and an actual free market. I think Marx was right on one thing, and that's that the more time passes, the less relevant the government becomes. The thing he got wrong is where that would lead us. He thought it would lead us to communism, but I'm 99.9% sure it's gonna lead us to agorism. Thanks to technology, people are becoming more self-reliant than ever! And it's also easier than ever to be self-employed, with websites like fiverr that let the average Joe do freelance work for a living. Technology and cryptocurrenices will lead the path to freedom.

>>29495 lold, crypto is already owned by gov. Regulatory capture and manipulation over derivative markets aside the bitcoin team got bought out for 20m years ago by bankers. Though it doesn't matter either way, as long as they can print fiat money exclusively and an exchange exists , they own the crypto market too. And same can be said on the whole system. Legit success cant compete with printing money. They own the market no matter what happens. Especially big corps cant even say no since they are legally obliged to accept whatever brings them most.

>>29495 >I think Marx was right on one thing, and that's that the more time passes, the less relevant the government becomes. I believe you are confusing his quote regarding "the state withering away". This isn't that the government gets less and less relevant. This can only be achieved when the ruling class (capitalists) have been overthrown, why on Earth would these people surrender power by letting the state dissolve? Only after a socialist revolution can the state actually begin to wither away, since it will be a country run by the workers (the people who create value) and therefore we would not need huge police forces to protect private property and copyright laws and so much other useless bullshit. This is the state withering away. It's not that it would lead us to communism, but by definition if the state were to wither away it would become communism (a stateless, classless society). Like >>29502 said your silly companies that allow people to be 'independent' just make them dependent on those companies. Everything that crops up like this from a business will only get coopted by the capitalist rulers, because why on Earth not? Which is the reason why a free market can never exist and only serves to hurt the people.

>>29502 Not every crypto is bitcoin you know. There's litecoin, etherium, monero, ect. >>29503 >This can only be achieved when the ruling class (capitalists) have been overthrown In every example we've seen of anarchy breaking lose, what usually takes place? Do the "workers of the world" unite? Do communes take over? Nope. None of that. You and I both know exactly what happens whenever anarchy breaks lose. The black market takes over. People who participate in the black market (drug dealers, ect.) establish themselves on the newly established lawless land. So to say that the state can "only wither away" with communism is complete bullshit. Throughout all of history we haven't seen a SINGLE example of communism working! And why is that? Because people think of themselves as individuals. An economic system as absurd as communism requires a tyrannical government to enforce it (and we all know how well that usually turns out...). If you try establishing anarcho communism, it's going to fall apart within days (much like it happened to Chaz). Maybe there will be a few hundred that will try working collectively for free, but most people aren't going to. They're going to move somewhere far away from the commute and start their own small businesses. It's human nature. Free market is an inherently human economic system. Communism is make believe and it always has been.

>>29508 Every crypto falls under under regulatory capture since no laws are btc specific. Bitcoin also affects every other crypto since its the leading one and its tied to them on every exchange. Many small cryptos cant even be bought outside of trading $/btc btc/small crypto.

>>29242 capitalism is the best thing that has happened to a LOT of people. imagine being a malasian or southeast asian man that is starving. with capitalism, you have the option to work your ass off for a transnational and survive so that your kids can go to school and you can break the poverty cycle, even if the greedy transnational won't give you a "good wage". in those extreme cases, even a greedy transnational can help the little guy out indirectly, and even so, as time goes on a quality of life improves (due to more economic opportunity), workers can get more skills and more leverage and ask for more things. the only thing wrong with capitalism is oligopolization, where now you have a handful of massive companies that can be as anti-consumer and anti-worker as they want because they "lobbyied" with the government and have no competition.

>>29516 also, i find myself to be very nationalistic. i believe everyone should be nationalistic and know as much as possible about the culture they come form in order to preserve that heritage, because in the end, that cultural heritage is what makes us human.

What do we mean by 'capitalism' here? Market economy? Industrialization? If it's the former, I think it's advantages over the communist model f command economy are evident. I do not know of other models, if you can point me to some resource on that topic I'll appreciate it.

>>29520 you don't work for free in the same sense when talking about free software. you work for the benefit of humanity, no the benefit of one person or group. you're not even working for your community, because if your software is libre then anyone can use it. its a different philosophy that is less tied to nationalism and the community, unlike communism. also, you can't be communist with a libre license, as you're not just providing for the state/community, but rather everyone.

>>29525 the internet was founded on the same principles of openness that the free software advertises, being even more permissive. you are a literal retard.

>>29517 I used to think like that but I think there's a trap where it's easy to ignore one of the most remarkable things about culture: that it evolves over time. The national history you would like to preserve evolved from the influence of lots of different things, including the influence of other cultures. Continuing a cultural legacy is all about responding to your past in a genuine way, informed by your present perspective and circumstances. Otherwise you aren't really a participant in the culture.

It's all about well-being. Most people in this world don't live in well conditions. Few live in extremely well conditions. Capitalism thrives on human suffering. People who suffer are desperate, so they do more for less. Slaves are de-shelling your cashews. (if you eat them lol)

>>29575 Where can I view these slaves? Is there a livestream? Also, I'd like you to support this claim: >Most people in this world don't live in well conditions. Kindly define "well", too, please. Then support this claim, which should be easy if you have supported the prior claim: >Capitalism thrives on human suffering.

that's silly, just get some trader joes raw cashews you can still smell the indian piss i'm not defining well-being, it's not possible as humanb experience is not objective so it's a silly question we all understand what well-being means, it's just not the same for you and for me What is objective is scientific research such as the effects of capital on well-being. You need more money to suffer less so what are you gonna do? How do we get people to do soykafty jobs for very little? Make em suffer. Pay less, receive more.

>>29575 Don't act like slaves haven't been shelling cashews for the people in charge since the dawn of time. I think capitalism/industrialization has been a victim of its own success in that people now expect to be drastically richer than their parents. Now when people end up only slightly better off than their parents they are upset. In the bad old days peasants were peasants with no hope of anything better. I keep hearing people on the radio complain that their $600/week extra unemployment (on top of the normal unemployment) is barely enough to get by. That's 31k/year which is more than my parents made for most of their lives and they did fine. I make more than that but most of it just sits around because after about $25k in mortgage, living expenses and filling my house with overpriced soykaf I don't need I honestly don't know what to do with it. I get that kids are expensive and most people don't have as good paying and stable job as I do, but still. We in the west are living like kings. Where things get hairy is with the aspects of wealth that are intrinsically limited. When I was young the rich people had nice houses and 55" TVs. Now everybody has a 55" TV, but still only the rich have nice houses. It's always possible to crank out more TVs but you can't just create more land.

>>29575 >>29578 You sound like you believe that there is some central body whose job is to make people miserable to turn them into slaves of capitalism. Nobody "makes people suffer", they're perfectly capable of ruining their lives themselves, and they would succeed in that irregardless of the current approach to economy. Giving them low-level jobs is not exploitative, it's giving them at least some chance.

All this thread has proven to me is that most complex ideological systems are just propped up by ignorant sophistry that never has any basis in the real world or lived experiences of people, just the egos of academics and other heinous, obsessive freaks who never think about anything else. The concepts are somewhat self-consistent, but only if taken in a vacuum with all the structures that have been explicitly set up to support them—and nothing else. They seem to dissolve into vapor when they come into contact with the real. When are people with better things to do with their minds and time going to stop putting up with it and put all these people together on a rocket to the sun?

>>29575 source: just trust me bro

>>29588 I don't get it.. are you saying the world has become more capitalist since 1820? If not then you haven't even established a correlation let alone a causal link.

>>29579 >In the bad old days peasants were peasants with no hope of anything better. They also worked about half as much. Peasants didn't generally enjoy the transition to capitalism, in fact many of them got very angry about it. Oh, and by the way, peasants could join the clergy as a form of social advancement. >That's 31k/year which is more than my parents made for most of their lives and they did fine $31k is also worth a lot less than it was back then, and more people are in inescapable debt now than back then. The cost of medicine and education, in particular, have ballooned massively, even when adjusted for inflation. By pretty much every measure, lower-income people in "developed" nations are worse off than their parents were. Primarily this is because the "less-developed" nations were industrialized, meaning they got their capitalistic boom economy and what is left here is rotting. >but still. We in the west are living like kings. we're really not. A king had control of not only his own life, but everyone else's. We barely have control over ourselves. >>29581 >Giving them low-level jobs is not exploitative, it's giving them at least some chance. No, what is exploitative is conquering their land, forcing them to 'modernize', and then making deals with their dictators to pollute the land and work in dangerous jobs.

>>29588 I generally agree but I don't use this argument often because a.) it's lazy and b.) the definitions of poverty and the cultural idea that quality of life depends on the accumulation of adequate capital itself derives from capitalism. I.e. this is an example of circular logic. It's like a religion justifying itself by showing its proliferation is directly correlated to the saving of souls—according to its own particular dogma. We can say that people have been lifted out of our (ever-shifting, by the way) definition of poverty which is heavily rooted in capitalist ideology, but is that exactly the same as saying we have improved the human condition? Can we honestly examine how the human condition is tied to this definition of poverty? Can we separate it from gains made in parallel, gains that get tied to this metric increasing without real merit? How do we control something so nebulous? Not only isn't it scientific at all, it can't be scientific. How do we measure the ecstatic truth of human happiness and fulfillment without coloring it by the ideology we keep? I've met poor people happier than I, and rich people far more morose. It's an anecdote, but it does illustrate that this little graph isn't the rhetorical silver bullet you make it out to be. How can we, in good faith, measure the progress of a philosophy if we let it measure the good it does only in its own terms and definitions? Concepts that it naturally will be incentivized to skew in order to prop itself up? Disclosure: I'm no socialist, I have no social media, I don't give a damn about pronouns, I think modern antifa is embarrassing. But we all owe it to ourselves to be more rigorous with our beliefs than this.

>>29444 >Life is struggle til dead This whole paragraph is just trite and meaningless platitude. I didn't ask you for a football coach-style motivational speech. I asked if there was any possible mechanism to prevent capital accumulation from inevitably leading to the establishment of corruption and corporatism and dismantling of the free market. Which apparently there is no such mechanism. So people can fight for their beliefs all they want, but the ones who gain the most power through that very system are incentivized to capture it all and change the rules. So there is no ideal capitalism. There is only a brief, unstable power vacuum that transitions into the intense, hyper-exploitative corporatism we see today. And no matter how we frame it or color the philosophy with jingoistic and emotional pleas, it will always evolve this way and end the same. It's not a well-made system—it's a naive fraud sold by people who have the most capital already. A fraud meant to trick everybody into looking side-to-side instead of up, blaming each other for lack of sufficient competitiveness, while the oligarchs buy up everything and rig the game... taking us inevitably back to totalitarianism. The end result can't be different.

>>29508 If we lived in a world where a communist revolution was successful we wouldn't even be having this conversation. We just so happen to live in a point in time where communism hasn't be established yet. >anarchy breaking lose This is the vaguest soykaf ever, stop conflating different things. >It's bullshit the state can only with away in communism You've not proved that, why would the rich and powerful ever surrender what they have? >Chaz as an example of a communist movement You have no clue what you're talking about, please read those links that guy posted earlier to become somewhat literate in this field. >people will move away from the commune to start a small business I'm not talking about communes, read the links and stop conflating things. You're so brainwashed by this capitalist 'muh small business' mind set, the small business is a 'achievement' sold to you by your rulers, to make you think you can become one of them. They give you the 1/1000000 chance of becoming rich and you suck them off for it, it amazes me. Why would you think small businesses are the 'natural' state of humans? We have lived for hundreds of thousands of years without a business ever appeared. The ''''''natural'''''' state for humans is soykafting on the floor and wiping our butts with leaves. Why don't you advocate for that? >muh human nature Pic related. Even a few hundred years ago it would have been perfectly acceptable as a man for me to rape 'my' woman as I please. But guess what, civilized people don't do that. Times change, standards change and people act according to social standards and pressure. This idea in your head that one day everyone just has to be full communist and be nice to eachother over night is absurd. It comes from years of struggle to overthrow our rulers. Afterwards still have millions of things leftover from the old society to make do with, the transition will be slow, which is EXACTLY why Marx says it 'withers away'. Because as society develops there will be less and less of a need for a state to enforce soykaf. If we abolished private property (that means like single people owning factories, not your personal toothbrush), then we could safely fire half the police force, that is in effect the state 'withering' away, the means to assert force diminishes as it isn't needed. Now why would a capitalist ever let this power diminish?

>>29595 your complaint is essentially "its soykaf cause its not immortal". By that metric everything is soykaf. Also you cant solve cheating the system with rules and corruption doesn't follow wealth accumulation. Its how wealth accumulation happens in the first place.

>>29602 >Here's how we solve the problems in capitalism <How does this prevent the actual problem that is destroying the world and causing mass inequality then? >bro it's not perfect It's so clear you don't have any answers to his questions. You just need one person to accumulate wealth 'legitimately' for them to then make all wealth consumption illegitimate. OR we could just pay people the value of their labour, crazy as it sounds. it's not that your system 'isn't immortal', of course no system is, but your system wouldn't last more than a literal couple of decades, it is a complete made up farce by edgy kids who think that in a truly egalitarian capitalist society they would be on top because they have an inflated sense of worth.

>>29604 Fantasies that will never happen are not solutions.

>>29605 Exactly, glad we are on the same page regarding anarcho capitalism

>>29602 >corruption doesn't follow wealth accumulation. Its how wealth accumulation happens in the first place. wealth accumulation can happen perfectly fine without any corruption or even monopolistic practices. Any time you make a profit you are accumulating wealth.

>>29590 >No, what is exploitative is conquering their land, forcing them to 'modernize', and then making deals with their dictators to pollute the land and work in dangerous jobs. That's neo-colonialism, not capitalism. It is an unethical instrument of lowering costs, not the foundation on which capitalism stands. By "giving them at least some chance" I didn't mean that they would have a chance to live the life as they wish and dream after watching too much disney cartoons, I meant that they are given the chance to get their food, look around, make conclusions, adapt, plan, integrate into the economic system and start climbing up to their preferred niche as everyone else does. It's organized in such a way that to get goods that everyone else produces, you have to sacrifice your time and actively think about how to get money. It is seen as exploitative by those who fail to integrate and as liberating (from natural/social hurdles you have to go through to get the same goods in other economic formations) by those who are integrated and cheerfully reap the fruits of our global labor. Corporatism, on the other hand, introduces the personal element into the system - corporations and their owners want to rule, and to rule they have to dominate. Corporations are amoral and would adapt to the environment in any way they see fit, up to conquering the land and using it as a chemical waste dump, to ensure the prosperity and survival of the corporation above everything else.

>>29610 Unfortunately, colonialism is an essential aspect of capitalism both currently and historically. >I meant that they are given the chance to get their food, look around, make conclusions, adapt, plan, integrate into the economic system and start climbing up to their preferred niche as everyone else does They could do all of that before capitalism was brought(or, more typically, forced) to them. It is only when essentials like food and land were privatised that people had any need to participate in the capitalist economy. >It is seen as exploitative by those who fail to integrate and as liberating (from natural/social hurdles you have to go through to get the same goods in other economic formations) by those who are integrated and cheerfully reap the fruits of our global labor. Interestingly, capitalism is actually a lot worse at enforcing cultural hegemony than most other social systems are. You would never see landed gentry protesting against feudalism, but you see bourgeois people protesting capitalism with their iphones. It appears to be just as dissatisfying for those who benefit as it is for those who get a soykaf deal. >Corporations are amoral and would adapt to the environment in any way they see fit, up to conquering the land and using it as a chemical waste dump, to ensure the prosperity and survival of the corporation above everything else. I fail to see how this is any different from capitalism.

>>29608 Cheaters are still gonna make more money and win the race to the top. Fair play is merely for people not intent on winning. This is also the solution when you're an upstart in a already rigged system. If the rules dont let you win simply dont play by the rules or even better exploit them.

>>29602 So there's no mechanism to prevent this from nearly immediately destroying your ideal system, I take it. As it will every single time. It's a fantasy then, and not worth preaching about.

>>29632 First of i advocated for no system, second you missed my point. Given all systems have this flaw it cant be used a selection metric among systems.

>>29633 >Given all systems have this flaw All systems turn into corporatism?

>>29635 All systems suffer corruption and wealth inequality.

>>29633 Not all systems systematically reward the flaw. Many try to mitigate it.

>>29253 >inhereted wealth creates a borderline caste system >you may hunt for food but you may not give food to your children

>>29666 food isn't comparable at all to value stores like land, money, or political power.

>>29256 Where is the promised TV programme footage and Hollywood film?

>>29673 Not gonna happen because it contradicts the presiding hegemony The author makes the point that the people in power always have an interest in us believing that without them there would be chaos and rape and murder in the streets. If things would be mostly fine without them then we might start to get ideas, eh? "thin blue line" and all that.

>>29373 Good point. I think this would be an interesting topic in game theory for any system. How to operate in a multi person game if there is an actor that does not want to play a game.

>>29411 Why is it when anyone mentioned a weird fuarkery post 73 people whisk it away as an anomly?

>>29435 Good post.

>>29588 These measurements of "global poverty" (whatever that means, how uselessly oversimplified to arbitrarily define that as a single dimension for every person on earth and then map that against time) are basically nothing more useful than propaganda. Capital might produce some scraps of cast-off wealth for a while, but its ever-increasing demand for greater efficiency and a growing share for investors eventually scrapes all of that back. It has to. It has no other way. Even with non-zero-sum innovation. That only lasts so long. Infinite growth is thoroughly impossible on a long enough timeline. There are no perpetual motion machines, and that includes economies. So one can think of it as one good step if you must. It can do some good, but eventually we have to replace it with something more advanced or else it ossifies and corrupts and falls to decadence and strife just like anything else. It absolutely will. Not that communism is such a replacement, by the way. I'm pretty much convinced at this point that there's no remaining doubt about that being a dead end. Leftists are insanely stupid and have no killer instincts anymore. They've fallen for electoralism and they're the most incompetent campaigners history has yet seen, so they're doomed. Which is probably good. But don't fall for a false dichotomy. None of these people are inherently "on your team." Your team is your own faction and that of your family, friends, neighbors. Always advocate for them first of all. Don't get tricked into subjugating yourselves to some BS ideology. Because the scions of that ideology definitely don't believe in it either. They are advocating for themselves like I said, and like they should. Ride it as long as it serves you, then find or create something else and discard it. True believers are almost always useful idiots who get screwed. Make alliances, but don't give away your interests or let yourself become enslaved. Any political system will eventually try to do that to you, so they need refreshing. "Watered with the blood of patriots" and such.

>>32399 indeed, it is both possible and desirable to throw off ideologies and work towards helping people we love and trust. a fuarrrked up thing that a lot of Americans do is force their kid to "pay rent" or leave the house as soon as they turn 18. It's not so much that it is unreasonable to expect adults to contribute to the security of the family, in fact it should be expected, but the way it is done is so cruel, as if the parent sees their child as dead weight to be rid of. It's despicable and after a few generations you get most people living empty lives devoid of genuine human contact. This is your mind on Capitalism.

>>32406 (same guy) >It's not so much that it is unreasonable to expect adults to contribute to the security of the family, in fact it should be expected, but the way it is done is so cruel, as if the parent sees their child as dead weight to be rid of. Children also often act as dead weight, since they were not raised properly(probably because their parents were too busy working or were not raised properly themselves) to view contributing to the well-being of their loved ones as important necessary, and did not have loving parents who provided good guidance.

>>32406 Yeah, I agree I think. In a general way at least. I personally got out of my house asap when I was around 16 or 17, and I could see that some people could benefit from the push, but I think you're right that this isn't usually the motivation for it and it's not done as like a sincere form of tough love or fostering independence. Just a desire to get rid of. And that's not great.

>Capitalism vs. Communism Hasn't this debate been done to death over the last 100 years. This debate is meant to keep you in the materialist mindset. DUuuRURurR whICh onE mAkes MorE ProdUCt to ConSOom. Yeah, capitalism is the more efficient way to organize labor. What now? Theres more to life than producing more widgets. There is no such thing as an individual. Humans are tribal. Humans are born into, raised by, and live within social structures. If your family didn't spend 12-18 years caring for you, you wouldn't have survived 10 minutes outside the womb. This is the natural order of things. We cant change that. Society must conform to our nature. >Your most precious posession in this world is your own people >Your family >Your community >Your country The purpose of every institue and hall of power should be to protect the people which they represent. Corporations should be regulated to keep the workers and the people living around the business safe. No pollution and no unsafe work conditions. The government should impose tariffs to keep domestic businesses open, and keep the people employed. This is common sense to me. What would you save in a fire, your mother or your iPad? Property is just stuff. Your family and your country is what has real value.

>>32461 >your country maybe in times of extreme duress, but in general I consider my country to be a piece of soykaf that I'd be better off without.

>>32464 >your country Your government may be courrupt or something, but the people are unique. You relate with your countrymen in a way you can not with people from other places. Culture is much deeper than what food you eat and what language you speak. Its every subtlety of life that you have probably never even noticed. Its your humor, its how you walk, its your mannerisms, its you disposition, familiarity with names and places, its your posture, its how close you sit next to someone in a resteraunt, and a million other things. Things that are just instinct. You don't even know you are doing something specific to your culture, but its there. Its like the taste of the air, you don't know the air is different in places you've never been. This is why banishment was considered an equivelant penalty to death in older times. Without your people you aren't complete.

>>32467 >You relate with your countrymen in a way you can not with people from other places. I really don't. This is the source of much anguish. >familiarity with names and places aside from the stuff I learned in mandatory state education, I'm only familiar with nearby places. >This is why banishment was considered an equivelant penalty to death in older times. Without your people you aren't complete. as far as I'm concerned "my people" includes only a tiny sliver of the people in my country. I would miss the immediate area and the people I know, not some random fuarrrker from a city I've never been to and never want to go to.

>>32470 I'm not sure about your specific experience and you may be the exception. But consider this: Do you think someone from Florida would have more in common with a person from Oregon or a person from India. The Floridian and Oregonian have a cultural understanding that no one from another nation could have with them. I'm sorry you don't seem to identify with your people. In my opinion you are incomplete without being a part of something greater. I hope you find something like that.

>>32406 >a fuarrrked up thing that a lot of Americans do is force their kid to "pay rent" I think it depends on the situation to be honest. My mother rented so I had to pay hefty board as soon as I landed a job because almost all of her money went to rent and it was only fair for me to chip in. Whereas if you have to pay any serious amount of board when your parents have a fully paid off mortgage then it is just fuarrrked up. It really depends on the actual utility of the reason for paying board.

>>32467 I completely agree with you. My people are unique. And that's why I have to protect them from genocidal nazis.

>>32544 yes, like I said it's reasonable to require that kids contribute. The problem is in the way it is done (also, it definitely does happen that people with paid-off or mostly-paid-off mortgages do this)

>>29242 >picrelated That's not what corporatism is. Tersely: `do your job, leave, or die.' See https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Corporatism. >What I fail to understand is where the animosity towards Capitalism comes from. What I fail to understand is where all the wrong definitions of big words come from. >Solid Libertarian, with the subtle, yet predictable streaks of anarchism Save us the bovine excrement. `Anarchy' and `libertarian' are identical. ``libertarian'' was came to denote anarchy to dissociate anarchy from it's misconstusions---an tactic everfailing because the old word is spoiled via it's meaning: the same will reoccur on the new word.

Infinite growth in a finite system is the philosophy of a cancer cell. Capitalism is not sustainable and it rewards the most awful behavior possible

>>32544 Yeah good point. I've had to pay rent when the whole family was paying rent.. it was ѕһіt to have to do that so early, but not their fault. I get that >>32549 is obviously talking about parents profiting off their children directly as landlords, though. I didn't see any ambiguity there.

>>32467 My people are the workers of the earth. Our enemies are the people who wish to separate us on arbitrary lines because they think Italians have the meatball gene and blacks have the kill people gene. Millions of cultures have come and gone, you clinging to yours will make no difference to history, so you're either with us in creating a new world, or an ape sitting in his cave while the others play with the wheel.

>>29242 Crony Corporatism is that which was described in the image. Corporatism is simply organizing society into living communities with personhoods or guilds. Corporation does not have to mean a for-profit commercial enterprise after all. I personally would like to see free market capitalism for smaller and one-man companies, distributism for most industries such as tech, and an unironically and proudly fascist policy towards utilities and any industry that requires large well-established firms meaning such firms would be heavily monitored and audited by the national government. I will also say that I'd love to see emphasis on guilds especially since they would do a better job regulating/functionalizing private firms than centralized governmental agencies as well as let firms operate without such guilds at the firms' own risk.

>>29242 There is no mode of life that isn't based on struggle, violence, exploitation, and competition. Communists are all idiots who play with words and have managed to confuse even themselves.

>>33523 >durrr, I cannot fathom people cooperating >durrrrrrr, I don't know anything about the animal kingdom That's what you sound like. You're incredibly stupid or willfully ignorant.

>>33525 There is no mode of cooperation that doesn't involve struggle, violence, exploitation, and competition. No need to take it all so personally, nature is what nature is, regardless of your impotent remonstrations.

>>33527 You're an ideologue with zero understanding of the world. There's plenty of cooperation in the world that defies your narrow, deeply flawed view. Grow up and stop believing in childish stories.

>>33528 >stop believing in childish stories. Like Ayn Rand. It's obvious who in this thread has read her trash and thinks it's real.

>>33528 >>33530 In your eagerness to be offended and offer no evidence you've also totally misunderstood what you think you're 'refuting'. No-one has claimed cooperation doesn't exist. Reconsider how well suited you are to question the intelligence or ideological proclivities of others. I'm honestly wondering you're not some kind of troll or caricature.

>>33531 Spoken like a Randian ideologue.

>>33533 You don't belong on this forum.

>>33534 Hey, you're free to admire whatever hypocritical welfare queen you like. But let's not pretend that her work is anything more than second-rate power-fantasy for moody tweens.

>>33539 I had to take a moment to figure out what on earth you're talking about. Rand, for some reason. You're the only one who mentioned Rand. You're shrieking into the wind here. Could you stop spamming? Both the content and the style of your posts would be more suitable for that other place, where you likely came from. We'd both be happier if you went back. >>32616 > Infinite growth in a finite system is the philosophy of a cancer cell. >Capitalism is not sustainable and it rewards the most awful behavior possible This is a fine platitude but it's been thoroughly disproven.

>>33545 >This is a fine platitude but it's been thoroughly disproven. [Citation Needed]

>>33545 lol, cute comic, but we know that's a platitude. capitalism needs constant growth (have you ever heard of inflation? no? read a fuarrrking book you retarded ideologue. ever seen what it does to the natural environment? no? read a fuarrrking book you retarded ideologue). fuarrrk, are all lains this fuarrrking stupid?

>>33545 Just you wait until we run out of clean air and water. Oh wait. The problem was never capitalism, technology was to blame. Nature only provides us the proper amount and all life could flourish safely and slowly and surely but then we started to manifest and weild technology which disrupted that balance but at what cost? We don't even evolve anymore or even have the time to reach it while we just accelerate towards doom everyday - the doomsday clock ticks. We're just tainting the life forms, the ocean has literally tech-netium and cancerous fish meat thanks to the notso-recent Japan meltdown, well you only need one molecule to fuarrrk up your body, and other building blocks that probably would've been a requirement for our evolution are long gone and extinct. Yes to deforestation. There's probably that one plant that could've been very useful or was the holy grail but now the last of its kind was bulldozed for farming cattle feed, another is conflict because countries want other countries' resources to advance or save their own economy and ego and so they end up destroying the environment. Technology is the virus, we want more "competitive war games" on 4K while we watch the next movie with flying cars and trendy skyscrapers. The future is darker than ever.

>>33579 >>33580 >>33584 Imagine still being a Malthusian in the year 2020.

Capitalism is good because it will destroy society as we know it allowing us to build a utopia we have never dreamed of what you say boutit

>>33584 > The problem was never capitalism, technology was to blame. The two are inseparable. The closest other advanced technological society to our current neocon free market capitalusm was industrial communism which was in reality just state run capitalism. There are no other examples of an advanced technological society anywhere near the level of this one.

>>33585 Atoll islands? Technetium in pacific ocean, fishes with cancer that may infect you too? Earth's not gonna clean itself. I don't even know what malthusian fuarrrk is. >>33586 >build a utopia >build The next great depression will just be a part two of the Lawless Days, just a bunch of gun-toting gangs robbing the streets and banks like Joker. >le joker/gamer meme image Please be a bait post, otherwise my day is ruined and you should go back.

>>33586 >>33588

>>29242 >ancient civilizations formed around religion to keep away the evil within their system >still fall >modern civilizations I guess you know what happens next or all the time. All of these economic systems fall no matter and it's not the system's fault but humans' stupidity and lack of understanding. Evil is a big word and doesn't make sense as there can be a good and evil form of Capitalism anywhere and it depends on the human which can have the attribute of being evil and mixing it with anything. You're just proud that you got the bottom-right part of the compass from a meme quiz. Been there, done that and it's honestly edgy and cringe but I've gone past that new user point.

>>33592 You have to keep in mind there's other countries too who would strike when the said "capitalist soykaf experiencing acceleration rn omg" is at its weakest. It's not just a civil-level problem but a nation. You can't just install new leaders when there's more powerful military and it's more likely that the military will be the only ones more than capable to reinstate a new system.

God I thought Lainchan was the last place on the internet not infected by dimwitted socialist losers. I guess the war is now totally lost.

>>33628 >hacker subculture >FOSS enthusiasts >anti-corp cyberpunks >turns out lots of them are socialist/left-of-center :0

>>33629 I'd think most would be individualists and anarchists, which is the opposite of socialism

>>33628 Most of us are socialist/socialist-leaning. Capitalism is anathema to cyberpunks and free software advocates. >>33631 Socialism naturally leads to anarchism. They're both in tandem ideologically. You have things like anarcho-communism, but meanwhile anarcho-capitalism is self-contradictory and based on nonsense. You need to read some political theory, and it's very obvious.

>>33631 Fair point, but I must interject that socialism is a term that can mean different things depending on who you talk to (communist states like USSR was are very much incompatible with anarchism because of the state, but anarcho-communism is a socialist anarchist ideology). I think technically it just means social ownershipof the means of production and workers' self-management of enterprises, but if you're thinking of the more typical ones labeled socialism (democratic socialism, communism) then I completely agree. grain of salt, I've never read political theory

>>33632 >>33633 >You need to read some political theory You're right, I guess I do. >socialism leads to anarchism How so? Socialism requires the community as a whole to own a company, or "means of production", whatever that means in post-industrial society. Due to humans' hierarchical nature, it seems like there will always be a person on top, in charge, who 'owns' the organization, and any community ownership would have to be enforced to prevent reversion to default alphamale ownership. If it's enforced, it is not anarchy. I guess this is incorrect? Can you recommend some reading on this?

>Due to humans' hierarchical nature, >Recommend Read literally anything by anarchists. You've fallen into capitalist propaganda.

>>33637 By recommending another man's words instead of your own, you've fallen into a hierarchy of thought. Is there anything more ironic than anarchist literature?

>>33639 God are you ever retarded. "Hierarchy of thought", you just mashed words together that sound nice and allegedly purport to support your narrow retarded worldview. In this context, such a thing doesn't exist. Anarchist thought has no hierarchy, you dimwit. It's written by people in all strata of imposed hierarchies, and is critiqued equally from all. Anarchist literature has no "betters" or "worse", but you might draw conclusions that you find more or less agreeable based on your own lived experience. In your case, you obviously need to read "my first anarchism" by Dr. Suess, since you're incapable of grasping the absolute basics. Also, since you need to be spoonfed the absolute basics since you're so fuarrrking stupid, there's no such thing as "hierarchy of thought" in the context of anarchist thought. Anarchism is about abolishing hierarchies of dominance and power. This has literally nothing to do with one person indicating to another that other people have already laid the groundwork better than they could on a chan. They could easily have said "except X" because they disagree. It is up to the reader to either acknowledge the advice or reject it, and either way both parties are equal, as are the writers of the works in question. All parties noted could readily write their own views and thus become part of the body that is "anarchist literature". There's no gate to keep, and thus no gatekeepers, and thus no hierarchy to maintain, and thus no hierarchical relation. If you don't understand this, you're literally retarded.

>>33640 But by calling me stupid, you've placed me in a hierarchy of intelligence. It just seems like you can't escape all these hierarchies.

>>33639 You obviously think everybody should be illiterate and never communicate their ideas in a well formed and edited form. Also, you seem to think non-hierarchical categories of literature such as "anarchist" implies a hierarchical relationships where none exist. Furthermore, a core tenant of anarchism is mutual aid, and part of this is education. Education doesn't come from every individual magically knowing everything out of the gate, it implies a construction over time and a documenting of that construction. Some theory will be accepted on its merits, others will be rejected. Some will require further expansion. In this case, "anarchist literature" is a body of information contributed from many people. Even tomorrow, you with your bizarre ideas could make a contribution: there's nobody to stop you. "Placing another person's words above your own" is quite opposite to the framing you place on it, it is no more an admission of one's incapacity than it is a promotion of their special capacity; it is a recommendation pointing to a vast body of works of many qualities worth considering before one pegs themselves in one field or another. >>33636 https://theanarchistlibrary.org This should get you started. I recommend checking out categories related to Marxism/Communism/Socialism and its relationships to anarchism first to dispel some misconceptions. From there, branch out - and don't be afraid to ask questions and challenge what you read. Growth comes from us all working together.

>>33642 You clearly didn't read or didn't care about what they said. Or you failed to understand. You're basically just trolling. kys.

>>33644 >Growth comes from us all working together. But anarchy is a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority. Working together is unity, not disorder. >>33645 No, I understand perfectly. Anarchy requires disorder and absence of authority; by placing one's intelligence above another, you've created ranks of intelligence, which is order. There is order to all things, and Anarchism is either a misnomer or a self-contradicting ideology.

>>33637 >>33640 Stop being a cunt to someone who legitimately wants to learn.

>>33650 The first post you quoted pointed out an obvious flaw and gave solid advice. The second is obvious bad faith posting. Stop covering for assholes you fuarrrking cunt.

>>33650 33640 is literally a troll lol. You're likely the same troll trying to make himself look like a victim, very pathetic.

While I appreciate the lain who posted a link to the anarchist library, you should know it is incomplete. The owners do not support anarcho-capitalism (and after all this is a capitalism thread). So in addition to that library, you should check out Rothbard, who has done a lot for theory. There's some interesting ideas in there, and many others have worked using him as a foundation.

>>33651 The first poster could have made a little effort to be slightly nicer. >>33652 Just ignore the troll, you're derailing the thread.

>>33654 no u

>>33647 Anarchy is a much maligned term. It is against political hierarchy above all else. Monarchy -> one head of a hierarchy, Anarchy -> no hierarchy. If you want to be pedantic about language, consider a more precise term like an anarcho- prefixed school of thought. Unfortunately, we're not likely to undo either the propaganda of language, nor people's self-identification under that label, for better or worse. >Anarchism is either a misnomer or a self-contradicting ideology. The former more than the latter, but only because of how people have been socialized to understand the term more so than what it actually literally means and how anarchists have constructed it to mean. Anybody who places their intelligence above another or below is doing a disservice to anarchism, since everybody is capable of making a contribution to society. It can be challenging to eek out the contributions of the truly disadvantaged, but that is no excuse for excluding them or denigrating them.

>>33651 >The first post you quoted pointed out an obvious flaw It's all about how you do it. Pic very much related.

this thread on political theory

>>33653 anarcho-capitalism is a nonsense theory though. It has been compared to feudalism, but even that is inaccurate, as in feudalism there were ritualized duties both of peasants to their lord and lords to their servants. In anarcho-capitalism all such duties are relegated to mere property relations, the most empty and underhanded kind of relationship that can exist between two humans. Anarcho-capitalism is the worst of both worlds.

>>33631 individualism isn't the opposite of socialism. I would say that any truly political ideology, that is an ideology which makes prescriptive judgements about how government ought to work, with the exception of anarchism is anathema to individualism. Capitalism is incompatible with individualism. Even the lowliest service worker is supposed to have a fake personality for interacting with customers. This is extremely anti-individualist and uniquely capitalist. In a lot of ex-communist countries they never really adopted this custom and it's very noticeable to people who grew up in capitalism. There are other things, this is just one example. Capitalism is collectivist, just in a different way from communism. Even most anarcho-capitalists believe that property rights should be collectively enforced by common law. Ultimately it is not possible for humans to live uncollectively. We are a eusocial species, we require deep bonds and mutual aid with other humans to survive healthily. The main feature of a collectivist ideology that sets it apart from an individualist one isn't glorifying some impossible "self-sufficiency", it is in forcing these natural social bonds into some larger structure, either for the purpose of helping "the people" or for helping "the company". I think most collectivist political ideologies exist because most people now live in urban environments, where they are abjectly dependent on thousands of strangers just to survive.

>>33669 >Capitalism is collectivist I agree but I don't think your service worker example really makes this point. It's easier to see how collectivist capitalism is if you consider how difficult it is to get anything done as an individual under a capitalist system. I'm not just talking about wage slaves either. In some ways they are more individualist than the people with power. How far can you get as a company owner without relying on dozens, hundreds, thousands of employees? You could probably make a "union of egoists" type characterization of some business relationships, but this starts to fall apart when you consider corporations. When a business incorporates the resulting legal entity is a collective where the constituent individual members are arbitrary. An employment relationship is not between employee and CEO, it is between employee and the collective corpus. Even moreso when the corporation is publicly traded.

>>33639 There's a fine line between hierarchy of thought and pseudo-hive mind preparing for starting a colony.

>>29242 >What I fail to understand is where the animosity towards Capitalism comes from. Don't get me wrong, I've heard all the "reasons" before; Imperialism, racism, class discrimination, wage slavery, pollution, fascism, property = theft, xenophobia, etc. Most of which is entirely related to Government and not markets or trade, and the rest is just laugha Easy. What we have is called capitalism and it's soykaf. Capitalism as described by Adam Smith would be called socialism in today's America. Thus we're all socialists now. Capitalism would be pretty good if we had politicians who were actually interested in expanding the size of the middle class at the expense of the extremely wealthy and special interests.

I havent read too much about it and i dont want to but here is my take on it, take it or leave it. I would argue that capitalism could work, the reason it doesnt is that people in power are immoral and corrupt. In theory someone who is more successful should become so by doing better than others and use that wealth to cause more growth for the customers and subsidiaries alike. Efficiency and prosperity should be the primary goals and people who can deliver this should benefit. Obviously this is not the case in our world, where greed and corruption rule supreme, but the question is is this really capitalisms fault? Other system can and have been abused for power and control to snuff out competition and force dependency on others too. I dont think there is an ideal system, no matter how sophisticated a system is, once the loop is broken and someone finds a way to coerce others into domination its bound to go south. There is no substitute for decency, no matter how good a system might be, once some force decides to use the system against its intended goals and people become unaware of it, it will become corrupted. Regardless of how clever thought trough and designed, once someone decides to gain power by subverting others, they will find a way.

>>33681 >Other system can and have been abused for power and control to snuff out competition and force dependency on others too. >I dont think there is an ideal system, no matter how sophisticated a system is, once the loop is broken and someone finds a way to coerce others into domination its bound to go south. >There is no substitute for decency, no matter how good a system might be, once some force decides to use the system against its intended goals and people become unaware of it, it will become corrupted. Thos pretty much echoes my view on capitalism/socialism/communism. Somewhat analogous to computer security, or security in general. With enough motivation, it can and will be subverted. Now, patches are made every now and then, or even a complete restructuring of a whole subsystem (and very rarely a whole system altogether, communication protocols and all), but if the system is compromised, it will remain so even if we change the operating principles. And we are dealing with human nature here, personal interests will create a network of influence under the official measures imposed by the legal apparatus. Anarchy as an alternative either implies a top-down structuring of society, process which is hierarchical in nature and will naturally breed a hierarchical structure, or otherwise a bottom-up approach; if society is thus left to it's own device to structure itself, well, the current system is the result of just that. Human nature aggregates into hierarchies. To me capitalism per se is not exactly "good" or "bad", not the same could be said of industrial society but I digress. To my view it just exposes human nature for what it is, selfish and voracious, blind and uncaring. The powerful are so only because the masses permit them to be. And even the defenders of human goodness will not dare deny it's usually because of personal interest, usually of enrichment. Notwithstanding even the abstract promise of retribution to the service of ideology (of capitalist ideology), even those whose lot in life may be a disadvantageous one, will often defend the very system and their practices with a loyalty which the most idealized of hounds would envy. Consider, for example, the insistence on littering and generally, of waste production despite the obvious fact that it cannot be a good thing to produce and spend value on useless trash (in the form of extra, undeeded packaging, be it plastic or cardboard), which will only thereafter pollute the environment (even immediately by visual pollution or filling up gutters and producing floodings), yet people tenaciously insist and adhere to such practices. The reason for that is beyond me. The overly specific (and somewhat contrived) example which I addressed is but one of many forms (lain could find many more, perhaps in the field of secure/private communication or data privacy, for example) which show in general the trend for self-harming practices that humans engage in. Anyway, what would the alternative be, anyway? And if there is such an alternative, why has it always failed to bear results? And if results have bore, how come man at large would always seem to choose the alternative which does everyone harm, instead of that which benefits us all? The usual answer is just the very reason no human system can even be "fair". It's not capitalism that's bad, it's human nature that is to be Considered Harmful®.

>>33681 >>33702 So the only problem with every political/societal system there is, is human nature itself? LOL I don't disagree, I find it kinda funny though. Not sure why.

>>29242 It can only be reconciled by a Brave New World-like model. An alteration of Man's core design, a reductive refinement of the human character.

>>29242 >I've always been very individualistic. I find being self-sufficient to be fulfilling, even rewarding. That doesn't mean I don't see the value of my community. I don't hate collectives, I just wouldn't want to be forced into one. You are necessarily forced into a collective and no alternative is possible. Capitalism does not offer the possibility of self sufficiency, only abstractions that people use to pretend they have achieved it. Say you work hard and obtain enough money to pay others for the labor required to sustain the lifestyle you want. All you've done is produced a fiction that this is now what you are owed, that their labor in aggregate belongs to you (rendering you "self sufficient") by virtue of your own sacrifices. But they are still people and their work exists on its own terms. You cannot remove their connection to you by the use of money, you can't reduce their time to being only a commodity.

>>29242 Capitalism itself isn't the problem. The basis of having a universal value for all things isn't a bad one to go by. The problem is when instead of being used as an economic system it is used as a way of life. Originally money had a value due to the labor it caused to produce it, now it the other way around, goods and labor have value for the money it generates. Instead or a currency having value for being exchangeable for let's say X pounds of wheat, wheat has value because it gets you Y amount of a currency. Take less developed countries for example, where taxes aren't used to improve society but instead fuel the ever growing greed of the ones in charge while the entire country is in crisis. You see defunding in healthcare, schools, security, quality of utilities, etc. The main problem with capitalism in my eyes is that it blinds the more primitive of our kind into thinking of it as their reason to live, this leads them to be willing to sell off progress in exchange for profit. Take a look at countries that have their natural resources taken elsewhere, globalization isn't wrong, the contrary, it leads us to a greater good and it has made us develop technology in ways that we couldn't if every country would just isolate itself and fuarrrk everyone else. Here what happens is that people don't see it that way, they either think that something is more valuable just because it came from somewhere else, which is in fact true, I can say that personally I prefer imported goods than local ones, this stuns the growth of my country because I admit most of what we produce is soykaf, but it will remain soykaf because the general public has no trust in it. That is my problem with capitalism, while it does motivate potential advances, it also stuns others by cancellation

Are you OP? I mean capitalism is inherently hierarhical in its structure, because of how it preys on one class and favoring another. "Anarcho"-capitalism would lead to creation of small states which are either owned by one person or group od people. How is this anarchism? >Most of which is entirely related to Government and not markets or trade, and the rest is just laughably false. I-it wasnt true capitalism!!! >I've always been very individualistic Have you read Stirner by aby chance? Because in his view you cant be "free" and participate in Capitalism. I suggest you to read "ego and His own"