we must maintain the status quo
we must maintain the status quo
To anyone who supports capitalism or otherwise opposes socialism:
Do you support the idea that one man can accumulate enough wealth to own all land of this Earth, making everyone born in his empire under his rule as long as he can kill to defend it? What prevents capitalism from accomplishing this in law? What law exists that limits the borders of nations?
Why, then, must we endure a system where a single man owning the Earth and enslave it is a feature, not a bug?
https://dice.camp/@sean/114698774200264413
I just wanna know what people think. Why must this be maintained? Why is any opposition to capping wealth just the end of the world when it probably would save it, just logically thinking it through?
If we hate capitalism and want socialism, we need to recognise that most people do not really know what those words mean, or are even intimidated by them. We need to use very plain language - fewer isms - if we want to bring people with us. Otherwise we are just preaching to the choir.
Tim Walz's attempt to rebrand social democratic policies as neighborliness might be a good start.
No doubt, but I'm talking to people who care about the term capitalism so much that they'll be considered "pro capitalism." That's fine if you're not a capitalist, but I'm not trying to argue that people who are already not pro capitalism should be against it, I'm trying to argue that people who are pro capitalism should be against it.
Fair.
Generally agree on not assuming a high level understanding but
fewer isms
Okay but this specific phrasing makes me want to violence you. Would you be amenable to this?
This is the first anti-capitalism post on Lemmy I can agree with. Not because I think capitalism is bad (but what we see now actually is bad and ugly, no question there), but because it poses a valid question: if you are against whatever looks like socialism, go on and explain how current fuckery should be the norm. Thank you for posting this
anyone who hates socialism must hate driving their truck on all of those free roads.
And they should pay the fire department for saving their home.
I honestly don’t understand this comment. Is the “free roads” part sarcasm? Roads cost money to build and maintain, so, what are you trying to say here?
the roads in america are socialized, even for those that dont drive or own a car (yet the infrastructure on/near the roads for non-drivers is lacking at best). taxes that arent related to cars pay for ~75% of the taxes that build and maintain roads (the other 25% is from mostly car-specific taxes).
Sometimes i think I'm great at that bit, then i meet a true master, and am humbled.
I look forward to seeing an evolution of thought, theory and practice in the next few years.
I think there are effective ways to undo this problem that are not born yet
There's sort of an unstated rule that capitalism needs black markets / organized crime to work, so, criminals would stop this
If only one man owns everything, then expropriation would be really fast in theory
Not if he's surrounded by dead bodies, but capitalism can't prevent that either.
UHMMM AKSHUALLY (🤓) a single man cannot own all of earth, given how liberalism is heavily propagated and maintained by concepts such as nationalism and by extension xenophobia, racism, bigotry - all that fun stuff.
If a single man or an entity tried to create some pan-cosmopolitan world where every piece of land is under a single world-wide country, you bet your ass there's gonna be countless of reactionary national liberation movements to proclaim sovereignty.
People using violence to gather resources and power to themselves has always been the state of humanity. Capitalism is just a present day version of that.
Power is never relinquished willingly. Only through the threat of violence, or by actual violence.
I highly recommend you read up on history. For most of humanity's existence we lived in small relatively egalitarian groups were people depended on each other for survival.
Your "always" is a very recent state of afairs and also not universally true even today.
Not only is it recent, it can also flip back relatively easily. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Paradise_Built_in_Hell
It’s an interesting and hard problem. Because most billionaires don’t own billions in cash - they own companies that are worth billions. These companies also don’t have billions of assets - they are valued at billions by investors.
The problem is that musks and bezoses of the world didn’t start with billions - they started with millions and lucked out. So to prevent this from happening you need some system that can fairly catch a moment where a business becomes too big and do something about it.
You can’t really cut the majority owner out, because well they own the company - you can’t just take away what they own. But you can’t really pay them some ceiling cost either - you’ll just end up making someone else a billionaire.
I think that idea is that a healthy, well-balanced capitalism (with working competition and anti-trust law) would make this imposible. It's a good argument agains cronyism and other broken form of psudo-capitalims... which most reasonable poeople would agree are bad regardless on theier political aligments. Capitalims shoudn't have monopolies. Period.
Capitalims shoudn't have monopolies. Period.
But the ability to accrue capital inherently enables one to buy out competitors. You need a massive regulatory apparatus to prevent this, and nearly everyone who self-identifies as a capitalist opposes this.
No if you have anti-trust law. In Europe state stopping someone from becoming to big is very normal. Do you remember that Microsoft was at risk of being forcebly splited into multiple companies over Internet Explorer being preinstaled? US just foritted those very needed state rights. There are plenty of capitalist that agree that regulations are needed. Some probleme are to big, and only state can fix them. No sain person is trying to fix global warning by deregulations. That's preaty much a prevailing opinion everywhere... outside US. But what's in US it's not capitalism. It's not even a rule of law at the moment it would seem.
What law prevents a nation from expanding its borders to include the entire earth as long as "might is right" remains unchecked in this world?
This part I don't get even as argument. What law would prevent one under socialism?
i understand the logic of "under capitalism -in theory - one could simply by every pice of land". I don't necessarily agree, but I understand. I don't see how it makes a difference if the invader is a socialist or capitalist country.
might is right == capitalism seams reductive
Right? Yeah we should still only be allowed to make or do stuff as the byproduct of a scam, we just shouldn't go over board with it.
I agree. The version of the philosophy of value where ownership is valued and labor is not, is just :violated by things like 'owning too much' and 'exploiting labor' and 'doing whatever you like with all the shit you own'.
Tired same old Internet argument garbage, where every argument is against the worst possible absolute of the Other.
The short answer is "numerous regulations and laws exist" and the long answer is that Capitalism pays the paychecks of everyone who controls basically everything, so it's not going away, and the best you can do is enact sensible regulations on it. Because you and everyone else don't have the ability to change any of that really.
It's simply asking "what are the safeguards of capitalism that prevents a terrible person from doing terrible things with its seeming limitless ability to affect the Earth and its inhabitants?"
So far the answer has been: Western Democracy
"Is western democracy is enough to keep capitalism from doing terrible things to Earth and its inhabitants" is my question. The framing obviously alludes to the argument:
Western democracy is either complicit in allowing genocide and conflict across the middle east over the past three decades, or it has been too powerless and ineffective to prevent it. Maybe we should give the opposition to capitalism (any form of anti-capitalism) a try to maintain peace across this beautiful world we all inhabit and need to live.
you and everyone else don't have the ability to change any of that
I beg to differ.
Go right ahead then, we will watch