But "socialism" is a scary word

The flaw in capitalism and the flaw that makes it unmanageable is how over time capitalism will find ways to extract more for less.

This will always fall to the workers. The recent recession had tax payers bail out the banks as well as pay bonuses. all because banks got very greedy.

Its not a flaw, its working as planned. But yeah, our "market solutions", basically any problem created by capitalism just gets exploited for profit. Even when the economy crashes its actually a good thing for the very rich, as it " disciplines" labor, moves people down and out of the middle class which lowers wages systematically, takes out a few competitors, etc.,
- Even when the economy crashes its actually a good thing for the very rich, as it " disciplines" labor, moves people down and out of the middle class which lowers wages systematically, takes out a few competitors, etc.,
  If you look at it, every crisis always results in transfer of wealth up. Covid was the biggest up to date.
That's a main feature dude!

We don’t have a lot of dyed in the wool capitalists on Lemmy
*dyed in the wool liberals
Liberalism is the philosophy of capitalism, capitalists are people who owns significant amounts of capital.
Usually complaining about "tankies" is just another way to hate Socialism, the Red Scare never ended and being aware of it doesn't make you immune to its effects in any capacity. "Left" anticommunists have a long legacy and have done immense damage to Socialism worldwide.
Blackshirts and Reds is phenomenal in total, but specifically the subsection Anticommunism & Wonderland should be necessary reading.
- My friend, there is an ideological ocean between "workers should collectively own the means of production" and "we need an authoritarian state with a monopoly on violence to enforce communism."
- complaining about “tankies” is just another way to hate Socialism
  Even if you've got a legit beef with 1950s Stalinists, the idea that they've teleported through time to argue with you in English on a 4th rate social media forum is so fucking self-aggrandizing.
  Blackshirts and Reds is phenomenal in total, but specifically the subsection Anticommunism & Wonderland should be necessary reading.
  Would that Michael Parenti, David Grabber, and Richard Wolfe had been as ravenously consumed by Americans as Milton Friedman, David Brooks, and Anne Coulter.
User: "we don't have a lot of problems with capitalists here"
Also user: immediately starts to shit on a flavour of socialism
Removed by mod
My sentiments exactly. Couldn't have said it better.

Strong "I can fix him" energy out there.

People blame capitalism, but capitalism isn't the problem. The problem, as always, is power.

Under feudalism things were much worse. Serfs worked 6 days a week, 12+ hours a day. Up to 3 days of that week was spent tending your lord's lands for free.

Under absolute monarchies, dictatorships and police states you work as hard as you can for whatever hours your employer sets, and you keep any complaints to yourself or you're dragged off to a camp, or summarily executed.

So far, every time "communism" has been tried, it was just a dictatorship or police state where the leaders pretend that there's a higher ideal.

Capitalist republics don't give people at the bottom much power, but they get a little bit. And, that little bit is the best that the people at the bottom have ever had, even if it isn't much.

The fact that there are people at the bottom isn't the fault of some political system, and especially isn't the fault of capitalism, it's the fault of human nature.

Capitalism is better than feudalism, yes. The problem is that Capitalism inevitably gets to the point where it is more detrimental to the population as a whole than it is beneficial (Global Warming, Wealth inequality, power imbalances, etc.), and that point is now.
Capitalism did bring us many advancements, but we have outgrown it. Just because it did good things at some point doesn't mean that there isn't something better. We should all be striving towards better as a species, but we aren't.
- The problem is that Capitalism inevitably gets to the point where it is more detrimental to the population as a whole than it is beneficial
  That's humanity, not capitalism. The Olmecs weren't capitalists. But, they formed a hierarchical society and there were some very rich people. "This highly productive environment encouraged a densely concentrated population, which in turn triggered the rise of an elite class.[14] The elite class created the demand for the production of the symbolic and sophisticated luxury artifacts that define Olmec culture." They grew and expanded until they caused "very serious environmental changes that rendered the region unsuited for large groups of farmers". After that, they died out and the region was sparsely populated for centuries.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmecs
  It's not Capitalism that causes this, it's humanity. Also, no political/economic system is beneficial to the population as a whole. The whole purpose of political/economic systems is to allow the many to exploit the few. You can have an egalitarian society if you only have a few dozen individuals. More than that and you get hierarchies, and when you get hierarchies, the people at the top want to find efficient ways to make use of the people at the bottom. Capitalism is at least better than serfdom or slavery, both for the people at the top and the people at the bottom. The people at the bottom have a bit more freedom and a bit more agency. That makes revolutions and collapses less likely, which makes bigger hierarchies possible, which benefits the people at the top. But, it's not like feudalism, capitalism, or any other "ism" is designed for the benefit of the people at the bottom. The people who have the power to make the changes are the ones at the top, so they're only ever going to adopt systems that are beneficial to them.
I agree with most of your individual points... But your thesis relies on a false assumption.
Capitalism is the current problem for 95% of the world.... Just like monarchies were a problem for that particular country. Just because many political and economic systems throughout history reflect an aspect of human nature to control and bequeath that control to their offspring, doesn't take capitalism off the hook. Hell, if that were the case, we could blame everything on the evolutionary drive to be sexually successful, and not place the blame on anyone or anything else. That's what those at the top would love the rest of us to believe.
- Capitalism is the current problem for 95% of the world
  Capitalism isn't the current problem for 95% of the world. The problem for 95% of the world is 1% of the people who have the power/wealth. Whatever "ism" you use, there will always be people at the top who are exploiting people at the bottom. Capitalism succeeded because it provided a new and more efficient form for the people at the top to exploit the people at the bottom. But, it was also better for the people at the bottom. Instead of being tied to the land where they were born, born into a trade, and so-on, now they at least had a tiny bit of agency in their lives.
  Capitalism isn't the cause of any of these problems, humanity is the cause of the problem. Humanity forms hierarchical groups, and people at the top exploit people at the bottom. In fact, you could probably extend it well beyond humanity. This is pretty common even in apes, and even in other mammals. Dolphins don't know about capitalism, yet they still have hierarchies.
  political and economic systems throughout history reflect an aspect of human nature to control and bequeath that control to their offspring, doesn’t take capitalism off the hook
  Ok, so what puts capitalism on the hook? In what ways are people exploited more under capitalism than any other previous system? What makes capitalism so uniquely bad that you have to call it out rather than just acknowledging that it's human, or even animal nature?
Inequality isnt the fault of the system that creates inequality. It just is.
- The system doesn't create inequality, the inequality was always there.
A better angle might be that currently in the US capitalism is rarely actually scrutinized for the disadvantages it does have. Capitalism is almost synonymous with America and people often see critiques of capitalism as an attack on the nation itself, even though most of them don't actually know the principles or characteristics of capitalism.
It goes the other way too where people automatically think that characteristics of America are capitalist
As an example a majority of Americans probably think that American politics and democracy is part of capitalism, or that the economy is pure capitalism.
If people were more willing to critically evaluate capitalism without feeling attacked it could increase support for more worker friendly policies that are generally socialist in nature while still having a capitalistic foundation.
You were two steps away from discovering libertarian socialism/democratic confederalism and then you crawled backwards.
The fact that there are people at the bottom isn’t the fault of some political system
If your political system is based on hierarchy, there will always be someone at the bottom of said hierarchy. It's the logical consequence.
and especially isn’t the fault of capitalism, it’s the fault of human nature.
This is literally capitalist propaganda. Humans are a social specie, by nature they seek cooperation, not competition.
- There will always be hierarchy with complex, large scale production. Management and administration are necessary roles in production. It is better to make said hierarchy work for the people through the abolition of classes, and democratization.
- You were two steps away from discovering libertarian socialism/democratic confederalism
  Riiight, a tried and true political/economic system which is sure to work perfectly as soon as it's tried, just like communism.
  If your political system is based on hierarchy
  If you're human, your political system will involve hierarchy as soon as more than about a dozen individuals are involved.
  This is literally capitalist propaganda
  Suuure... it's capitalist propaganda to acknowledge that all mammals act in ways that are hierarchical and unfair.

Blaming "capitalism" for all of society's problems is about as useful as blaming God or some gremlins. For example, if you're in the USA and you blame "capitalism" for your problems, then what are you gonna do about it? There is no path to change this society from capitalism to socialism or communism. We have entire armies of military and police who will ensure that the status quo stays in place. You also can't vote your way out of this. No candidates advocating such changes will be elected.

The best thing we can do is aim for better regulation of the systems that have allowed for the oligarchy to take it all over. Which won't be easy or quick at all but is at least somewhat possible.

the systems that have allowed for the oligarchy to take it all over
They didn't take it over, they created it. The lack of democratic influence isn't a bug, it's a feature. They have been laying to you all your life!
The path has been laid out by Mr Luigi
Look, you can have nuance or you can have performative outrage, you don't get to have both. Lemmy has made its bed
there are paths you're just not willing to consider them.
- I think they meant, like, practical actionable paths, not like 'I'm playing a Sim and everyone does what I say'. Perhaps they were trying to think about what people could do in the real world that we actually live in
- So what are you gonna do about it then? In reality.
We could have utopia tomorrow. The path to change worldwide is to effect change where you live. If we all started there, then the local changes would spread. People would want what they have locally to work in larger scales. We don't have to call it socialism, capitalism, communism, conservative , liberal, freedom, whatever. Terms are proxy enemies used to make us fear or love based on heuristics. We inherently know what a just world would feel and look like. It's in our nature. If someone has to convince you to override your intuition, then it's shit. Don't look for answers elsewhere. Don't blindly follow anyone. Build the world you want in your heart at home. It will grow out from there. Also, I used to love orange juice as a kid. I drank it from a silly clown cup I got at a performance on ice one time when my parents took me.

It can definitely be argued that capitalists themselves fucking hate capitalism.

Not everyone. Capitalists love capitalism. It's the people who aren't capitalists but think they are because they love capitalism.

Sort of like how people think they are Christian's because they go to church believe in Jesus, but don't actually follow the teachings.

People think they are all sorts of things they are not and make themselves and or other miserable because of their fantasies.

We haven't had capitalism in any sense of the word for about 60 years at this point. What we have seen is government interventionism in a protection of certain businesses that align with the interests of the sitting politicians - in other words, a form of Oligarchy.
What has transpired is an increasing degree of government deficits to fund entitlements, that drive inflation, which create more dependency on the entitlements and a call to do things like raise minimum wages.
The actual solution is: Trim federal spending, go into deflation, and drive the buying power of the currency up. This would allow people to pay down debts while maintaining standard of living, and allow for a reduction of dependency on hand outs - which would allow for a further reduction in government spending. The problem here is that the first step ABSOLUTELY SUCKS for a LOT of people - but it needs to be done.
From here: The big hedge funds, and such need to be ripped apart systemically.
- This is so fractally wrong that it would take two hours to untangle this hodge-podge of confusion. So I’ll just say, the only way out of neoliberalism’s problems is to do neoliberalism even harder. 😂
- You're just describing how Capitalism has reached its later stages, its death throes. You can't turn the clock back, we have to turn it forwards to Socialism.

I think the flaw is human nature. All governments and organizations are corrupt. All implementations are always twisted to suit the greed of individuals.

It's entirely possible to create policy and enforcement mechanisms that would mitigate or eliminate excessive greed but nobody with anything votes for it because they'll lose out on their own personal greed by their measure. They want that chance to fleece the masses even if they aren't in the club that's already doing it.

Blame humans.

All implementations are always twisted to suit the greed of individuals.
So it would be best to live under a system that doesn't encourage and reward such behavior, no?
- I'd love one, I don't think humans are capable.
  In very small organization sizes it's possible but as people come and go eventually someone will get control to make decisions that put their interests or their connections interests ahead of the masses.
No
- You're wrong.
I would argue this is more an issue of when citizens get complacent and stop holding those who govern them accountable. This is when any form of government will eventually start turning to the corruption. Those in power can change the rules while citizens are going about their lives. It works even better if the citizens are too busy and stressed out to worry about "silly things like politics".
- Getting everyone to be involved and knowledgeable about absolutely everything and to fight to make things right is beyond the capabilities of current humans. The more I know the more I understand I don't know a lot about so many things beyond what i've experienced. Ignorance drives so many reactions (including the personal attacks from my comments here.)
  I have met many individuals in this world who get very, very angry that someone else is doing x, y, or z - even if it has zero impact on them. Some of the reactions to my comments here about a very logical challenge that could have solutions with technology are attacked with illogical non-arguments and are a perfect example of how impossible it is to get humans to think critically about things when they have their own biases.

https://www.waterworksofmoney.com/

Posts like this one are chasing people away from Lemmy.

Lemmy doesn't need people to "succeed," it already does its job. It's not a commercial product to be profited from. Further, you aren't going to be able to chase away the Socialists from Lemmy, the structure is appealing to Leftists and its developed and maintained by Communists.
Good, we don't want that kind of person.

Survivors bias. People in Russia or China don't appear to complain about their systems because... they can't.

https://redsails.org/anticommunism-and-wonderland/
In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
- not an american, I grew up in the Soviet empire, don't care about your dumb walls of propaganda. Try again.
Modern Russia is Capitalist, the Socialist system was looted and sold for parts over 30 years ago. As for the PRC, people don't complain as much as they do in the US because over 90% of the citizens of China support the CPC.
Westerners continue to be the most brainwashed people on earth
- Do they think Russia is a communist country?
- Nope, grew up in Soviet occupied eastern europe. Fuck that, I'll take flawed capitalism over whatever torture and misery was that thanks. You are free to disagree more politely tho.

That's partially because like many other words and names (just consider Isis, an important goddess of ancient egypt), "socialism" to most people means the type of absolute control that communist countries usually feature. But of course, as a word/concept, socialism is just the application of socialist policies, not even remotely alluding to some absolute end goal or so. And naturally as a part of society except a tiny minority at the top, most people would benefit from more socialist policies.

Socialism isn't really as simple as "socialist policies." Such a character classification into binaries like "Capitalist policies" and "Socialist policies" doesn't make much sense, Capitalism and Socialism describe much larger systems and what drives an economy. Social programs are good, yes, and Socialism is a good thing too, but they aren't the same.