A world beyond Capitalism

@BetweenKittensandRiots No absolutely the way the USSR came to be does not really fit into marxist theory or was the best course of action.
Rapid industrialization was needed in order to compete with western Capitalism but was a huge mistake at the same time. Probably as many people died under western industrialization as under soviet industrialization with the difference that the Soviet one took place in a few years.
Totalitarianism was a product of the first world war and a civil war that made it impossible to build a democracy in the aftermath of the revolution.

@Gloomy Yeah I tend to view marxist leninism as a distortion of marx as my view is that marx talked about how Socialism would rise from fully capitlalist society and that what leninism did was essentially just ignore marxs whole theory of how socialism would emerge, leninism just went all fuck hagel and marx and Historical Materialism, and it's sad some socialist disagree with me they're like the USSR was already along and largely captialist and it's like actually I think you over state just how much of the USSR was already developed before they took over.

So I tend to view the ideology as having broken with what marx and hagel actually said. the soviet union wasn't really ready andI think what's most sad about the whole thing ist that the result of going before they were really ready to do so means the modern world has people thinking if it happened here for instance in the good old usa it would go down the same way it did for the soviets and that's just and insane view that isn't even true, the US of course has a much better shot at actually pulling it off. if anyone could do it it would be us.

@Gloomy [media=https://youtu.be/_AvvqDk-hME]

So Leninism just violated Historical Materialism

@ArishMell The "we" I am talking about are mainly our US politicians in Congress and a large swathe of the American public who are still mired in the era of anti-communist China mania. Even highly regarded commentators like Rush Limbaugh referred to China as the "chi-coms" (Chinese communists). I live abroad 6 months a year, and used to spend time mainly in the UK, Netherlands, Italy, and France. When Europe lost its allure, I shifted to Asia and lived mainly in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Toyko. Those are popular cities to American expats and businessmen whose perceptions of China are quite different. I have never met an American who doesn't like Hong Kong and mainland China. Even I miss the social order and sense of public safety there every time I am back in the USA. Oppressive? I never felt that. I don't even see cops in the airports or cities in Singapore, Hong Kong or anywhere in China. Perhaps the Chinese police are relying on camera surveillance. I would rather have that than to see cops in flak jackets and handguns in the public space. Every Monday morning, there are news report of shootings in the city (where I live) over the weekend detailing how many dead (usually 4 or 5) and wounded (30 or 40). I don't even use the trains anymore. It's not just that someone would shove me onto the tracks, it's the stench and the graffiti. No, we are not oppressive at all. We have big hearts and inclusive. Give me a break. The only reason why I still prefer life in America is that I am insulated from the mess. I live in a crime free area where the property taxes are as high as the Great Wall of China that was built to keep out barbarians. I am a capitalist at heart, a true American. I like my western lifestyle and have grown used to it.

Religion, to me, is not the Bible or the Church. It's the way of life shaped by Christian values. I see it in the affection my grandma (devout Catholic) had for me. I see it in the set up of my family that provides a place for everyone in the same fashion Mother Nature runs her show. Immorality is a lack of divine order. And it is poisoning western society. I think we are done. Not just the US. It's much worse in western Europe. America was founded by pilgrims who fled religious persecution. We are prudes compared to you guys. Can you imagine that prostitution is a crime in the US? In Europe, hookers beckons to prospective customers from glass windows in public streets, coffee shops are packed with patron high on drugs, I don't even want to imagine how you guys deal with your underworld.

@sree251 I see your point. Surely though most of America is not that bleak and dangerous? There are areas of cities in many countries where you'd not want to be, but that does mean the whole place nation is like that.

Though the USA seems the only country outside of parts of Mexico and Colombia, where casual shootings are almost a "normal" part of life. I know too that that is one America's most sensitive and difficult problems.

Most European countries have the same sense of civic pride as you found in Asia. That bit about hookers in windows and "waccy-baccy" cafes is grossly exaggerated. It does, or did, describe an area of Amsterdam - one city in one of over twenty countries that form "Europe" - that became famous, or infamous for it. I don't know if that still happens but prostitution exists the world over. Like you, I wish it did not, for the women's sakes, but it usually far more discreet than that.

Yes, of course we have problems with the underworld. tell me a nation that does not. There may be some but not many, and yes, it is a serious problem. The main street-level crime in the UK is drug-dealing including by the dreadful "county lines" system, and stabbings in fights mainly between the low-level dealers and associated gangs. Terrorist attacks apart, by bomb or vehicle and knife, random "mass" shootings are extremely rare in the UK and most of Europe; about 4 in over 40 years in Britain. dealing with the problem is extremely difficult but many people and organisations are doing their best to turn youngsters away from crime.

Can I imagine that prostitution is a crime in the USA? you ask. Well, I don't know, nor how it might vary by State. It is not illegal in the UK but pimping certainly is.

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I don't doubt your or your grandmother's religious sincerity and affection, including concatenating the two; but immorality is not just sexual and the Church of Rome has historically been one of the most immoral and amoral organisations on the planet. It is doing its best to struggle into the 21st Century, but ask how their infamous Magdelane Laundries made it any more "moral" than in the days of the Holy Inquisition. Or how cruelty to women and children is Christian? Or on the other side, how was Protestant oppression of Catholics -with echoes even today - "moral"? It's not of course, that is the use of religion for sheer power, and we see it too in the Islamic theocracies.

Religions cannot assume any sort of ownership of "morals" because although the theology may be instrinsically harmless, even good, it also gives a ready excuse for the immoral to exploit it.

Also because you do not have to believe in supernatural beings to be able to respect your fellow men and women. Or not - people were at least as nasty to each other in the days when everyone went to chapel on the Sabbath not out of genuine conviction but because it was The Thing To Do. Possibly worse - society may be pretty horrible now but was generally nastier and more brutish in those days; and domestic abuse rife even in supposedly-Christian households..

@ArishMell Most of America is fine. It's only in the cities where the political climate is weird. Our political system is getting compromised by progressive, secular values. Despite the fact that only a minority can think, we practice the ideology of equality: one man one vote. Couple that with corruption that is allowed to breed in a state separated from church, we have a free for all society no different from a classroom without the teacher. This analogy would work 40 years ago when I was a kid. Now, the teacher is the cause the chaos.

As I said, most of America is fine. It is the control center (i.e. the government) that is not fine. The system has been hijacked by the few, who can think, running the whole herd of cattle and flock of sheep removed from the controls running the country. It is the same deal in every country on the planet. In my opinion, the Chinese sheep have a shepherd. There are no shepherds minding the interest of the flocks in the west.

I have no arguments to make against your perception of morality and religion. The conclusions you draw are not without merit. I suppose it is a matter of how one defines one's responsibility in society. In the west, it's all about me. Society has to work for me. In the east, it's about we. We have to work for society. In either case, someone has to come out short. The eastern model puts the welfare of the group above that of the individual. The super smart Chinaman would want to emigrate to America. He could leave and take his family along. I doubt he can take his billion-dollar fortune too.

Human nature is selfish. Religion taught by Jesus, to me, deals with selfishness and eradicates it. It has nothing to do with the biblical teachings and Christian theology of any kind. Without religion, there is only a selfish existence in a material world. And it is not a good place to be.

@Graylight I know what you were trying to do. The problem is the "different" capitalism you presented are creations of the internet almost entirely. They are not a real thing. So the argument falls flat.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Really.

https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/38626/chapter-abstract/335248510?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Capitalist Forms and the Essence of Capitalism, Ernesto Screpanti; Review of International Political Economy; Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring, 1999), pp. 1-26 (26 pages)

How emerging forms of capitalism are changing the global economic order
api107.pdf (471.17 KB); Date 2013-02; McNally, Christopher A.; Publisher: Honolulu, HI : East-West Center

The urban process under racial capitalism: Race, anti-Blackness, and capital accumulation, Prentiss A. Dantzler;
Pages 113-134 | Published online: 25 Jun 2021

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2015/06/basics.htm

https://www.earth.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/about/director/pubs/Oxfordreview_winter99.pdf

http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s10563.pdf

@Graylight Sure there are different sub-types but that doesn't change the fundamental problems of Capitalism.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow so you admit your beloved commies were a bloodthirsty disaster on every level.

Repeat after me: commies suck and should be eradicated

@Slade Pix uses the word, "we," all the time to refer to himself and his imaginary friends.

@Baremine
They are and should be. There is no reason why men and women should have set gender roles, different chances and treatments, different pay for the same work... you get my point.


Just a strawman and abolishing social inequalities and making sure people are healthy, educated and housed benefits the whole society. Your hatred is directed at societies weakest.


What a Sociopoathic line and coming from you who lives in a country that looks down on low paid "low skilled" jobs that often don't even make people earn enough to be able to sustain their life.

@Baremine
A two party system with two capitalist options is the reason why you don't have democracy. You have to be rich and in the pocket of corporations to gain political power. Don't be stupid and think Republicans are different just cause they cater to your personal biases.


🤦‍♀️ We don't need a world policemen the mere concept is insane and just an expression of US military hegemony.


🥱🙄

@Gloomy best way you can improve your country is leaving it. Now

@Slade Spoken like someone who has never had an original thought in their life.

Still looking to the liars on Fox to tell you what to thing today?

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Socialism sucks and so does your mother

@Slade We know. Facts scare the crap out of idiots like you.

Feelings and outbursts are all you operate on.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow tedious, obtuse and stupid. But you did perfectly explain leftism - motivated by envy, hatred and feelz. No rationality at all

@Emosaur Is Native American spirituality right wing?

@basilfawlty89 Yes they are self justifying, else they wouldn't be able to exist in a free society.

@pianoplayingsteve "my great grand daddy earned money off owning slaves, and my family has had wealth ever since so I bought company shares and now grow rich off others work" is not a self justifying hierarchy.

@basilfawlty89 I started from the ground up. My parents weren't wealthy, didn't own slaves. I just worked hard and was as careful with my money as I could, volunteered for great causes which gave me connections and always tried to be fair with the people I worked with. How evil, huh?

@jshm2 Confusing a political governmental system with an economic one is very American.


The so called democracy index on it's own is mostly a political propaganda tool but that is another story.




Citation needed. Good luck finding a socialist policy particularly in the US economy basically anywhere.


And even so called regulated capitalism always looks for loopholes and use influence to undo any progress. That is why there is a massive loophole on slavery for prison labour.

Or why some US states are actually talking about debtor's prison and reinstating child labour.

And being a good capitalist nation the US has wiped out organized labour for the most part so there is no serious power to oppose this.

@jshm2 Oh wow, an honest, balanced critique by someone on this site, that is rare lol

@Ontheroad You are right, but to top it off, with socialism, the structures that allow the greedy to hoard power are enforced by the state. At least with capitalism, it is somewhat voluntary.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Those reforms in the quote were introduced in the late 1940s, as was large-scale industrial nationalising (the collieries, railways, public utilities, etc.)

Aneurin Bevan (Labour MP) based his NHS proposal on what had been already established in the colliery towns of South Wales, basically community, not commercial, medical insurance plans.

Free education in Britain was earlier still, dating back to the 19C whose latter half was marked by a large swathe of vital social reforms, including the start of employee-protection and workplace safety laws; and the introduction of home-building standards.

All before the height of the Cold War; and nothing to do with Communism!

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The show-trials in the USA were relevant as a contrast. They were of so many actors and academics, not only radical trades-unionists. People simply having left-wing views, not necessarily any political ambitions. In the UK the far-Left was kept under surveillance and your activities could bar you from sensitive areas of employment; but it was never made basically illegal just to express left-wing views. The Communist Party of Great Britain continued to exist, and the CND was very active in the 1960s.

I recall a Police Officer in the 1980s telling me the hard-Left were more dangerous to the country than the hard-Right though because they were far more organised and systematic, some were being groomed by the Kremlin, and some individuals undeniably had manoeuvred themselves into self-serving union officerships in an era of generally poor industrial relations. However, like all "Western" countries the UK did have agents for the USSR in its midst, and properly, MI5 was hunting them.

Their far-Right opponents tended to be merely unpleasant rabbles like the British National Party; and their ideology was hardly likely to be popular in a nation that had only recently recovered from having been very closely involved in a war against it.

Even then, from either side, no-one was arrested unless they broke existing laws anyway, including of course treasonous acts like passing secrets.

Since then, some organisations have been proscribed by law in the UK but their aims and ideas for gaining them have to be very unpleasant indeed.

The "Far" spectrum in Europe generally has moved though. Since the end of the USSR, there has been a rise in far-Right ideology even in one or two governments in countries you might think would abjure any sort of dictatorship.

@ArishMell I think what you are missing is the scares and purges I am talking about were already decades into the process by the start of the official cold war.

Most started before the Russian civil war even concluded. You can still find pictures of "report commies" scare pamphlets that had variations all across the empire as early as 1920.

@ArishMell You also kind of confirmed one of my earlier points that alot of communists were forced out of unions and politics because being a Marxist at all made you a potential target and could be labelled a soviet spy. The truth of it was entirely irrelevant because even the suggestion would make you a social pariah.

The same shit happened years later with Muslims falsely accused of wrong doing.

@Gloomy I put labels onto the actions of a past group, based on what they did, for the sake of being able to have a discussion of their policies. However, I'm not going to give you -someone in the here and now with the sentience to update your views- a label and judge you on that label.

@pianoplayingsteve Not really. Almost every enterprise was privately owned. And even the companies that weren't private in the western sense were still owned privately in that the people didn't have democratic control.

@beaglehunter I'm not from the US and Capitalism is an economic system that is part of many different government types.

@beaglehunter freedom of speech is an expectation everywhere. That's why US aggression is the number one topic after the weather today.

@Gloomy corporatism is the US form of government and that's what most people think of when they say "capitalism" in the USA.

@Emosaur Aww, did I hurt your widdle fee wings? Are you gonna cry? 😭

@YourMomsSecretCrush That is a rather odd non sequitur.

@YourMomsSecretCrush i think they must have blocked me, to me it looks like you are replying to no one.

@pianoplayingsteve probably........ he will probably be blocking me next, im kinda lookin forward to it. hahahahaha

@Emosaur A strawman response is when you purposefully misinterpret someone's argument, then respond as if the person made a point they did not. It's a way of dismissing the argument and responding irrelevantly because you can't or won't respond in good faith.

@SumKindaMunster @Emosaur And then the strawmanning becomes even worse when you aren't just misrepresenting what someone said to you, but making that argument up about someone who isn't even in the discussion.

@beaglehunter seems like people are used to ignoring huge obvious things in the news

@beaglehunter but I wasn't only refering to the US while I do think it has implemented one of the most severe forms of Capitalism and like Roundandroundwego pointed out has global hegemony through military I am using Capitalism broadly and internationally. I'm not even from the US.

@Gloomy Next time you need help in your country go call somebody else

@SumKindaMunster

Because it's a dogmatic religion with them.

@Thinkerbell Indeed. Keeping the faith.

@TeirdalinFirefall Exactly that's why there should be no so called "free market". Indivdual freedoms are important but not within economics.

@Gloomy That's true, people abuse the system hard. Maybe someday we can have an AI that manages all of these things.

@basilfawlty89 What authority is going to uphold this system? You think every "worker" thinks all the same as one borg and wont all have their own ideas on what will bring the most prosperity? You think every "worker" will just fall in line without some central regulator enforcing that?

@pianoplayingsteve do you think workers can't democratically vote? Have you ever heard of consensus decision making? Do you honestly think would prefer a shitty wage over shares in the actual profit that actually goes up if the company does better?

@basilfawlty89 And you think they are all going to vote in unity for every single decision? Considering workers span across every culture, background etc? Workers can already buy shares in a company.

@beaglehunter Really enlightened.

@Jackaloftheazuresand Not only Capitalism, systems prior did so as well but human relations have always been determined by power and socioeconomic conditions. Under Capitalism ecological problems have been added to the list of pre-existing problems.
We have to diminish exploitation and power hierarchies especially within economics in order to improve life. In a way Capitalism was a necessary step out of feudalism so in order to improve and progress it's time to rethink and abolish Capitalism and make way for something new.

@Gloomy For what purpose, hmm? Where do these goals lead when they have been completed, what end will you have waiting for you?

@Gloomy No, that's the literal reality. Anything contrary to that is ideology. The only alternative to that is non consensual trading of resources.

As for the second paragraph, I recommend looking into the pareto principle. People are not equal in ability, productivity or creativity, and so there will be unequal outcomes. Evolution, and all natural laws and existence, requires inequality to function. And discrimination - in every decision you make, you are discriminating against certain other actions based on a value judgment. Your issue really is with the inevitable suffering of being. And as for "surplus labour is stolen in the name of voluntary exchange". Me and my partner own a private school. We started it by gambling with our own money, we put a lot of energy into running it and we employ teachers who are able to use their pay to support themselves. Am I "stealing" from them? I used to teach music in a music shop. The owner would be paying rent etc on the building, he'd get me students and I'd pay him a fraction of what I made teaching. Is he "stealing" from me?

@pianoplayingsteve I don't advocate for equal outcome but with a wealth gap growing and people creating wealth through owning Capital and the work of others is something I consider a gigantic flaw.
I don't know how you run your school therefore I am unable to assess it. In general I am critical of private schools since it leaves the door open to a two class education and operates on a profit incentive.

@Gloomy Socialism creates those very flaws, too. In any system, a small number will be hyper productive and intelligent and do a lot of the work and become very successful and lift the group up as a whole, whilst a great number of people dont have such great ability and so they don't produce much, and so also do not bring the group up as a whole. The productive can use the extra resources to become even more productive, which then creates even more resources and now because there are more, these resources can now be purchased more cheaply. This sets a chain reaction off of the productive creating more and more and being able to provide it for less and less, which in turn means the less well off will have more opportunity. However, if you were to say to the hyper productive "you've got to give 50% of everything you produce to the less productive", these productive people now have 50% less to produce with, and so that society will now produce 50% less. I can make a great example of that with welfare scroungers. Where I'm from, the UK, almost everything is socialised. It is very easy to claim welfare for "mental health" to such a high level of resources that you could live off of it and never bother working. And many do. The money redistributed to them then goes to drugs, overeating etc ie producing nothing, money which if it was allowed to stay in the hands of the productive, could have produced even more for society. And again, from the UK, we have a sales tax of 20%, an income tax of 20-40% (which also sneakily rises to 60% in some cases), property tax and so on. This results in goods becoming more expensive, and the consumer having less money to buy these more expensive goods. This also reduces the amount of people being able to attain middle class living standards which would afford such people spare money to invest into business which would cause competition for the established big businesses and force the lowering of prices to avoid being undercut. It would generate more jobs for the working class etc. That all works to create an even bigger wealth gap between the ultra rich and the working class. I could go on, but it's the absolute opposite of the emancipation of the working class that it may be on the surface. Only voluntary socialism, among a high trust closely united (by whatever unit) group for a short period would be beneficial at all.

It is a constant in existence, it's literally a natural law referred to as the Pareto Principle, which states that in any given system, 80% of the power/resources/whatever else will be produced or wielded by 20% of the components/members/whatever else. And that is found among plants, socialist states, free market states, primates, colony species etc and you even find it in cosmological, anatomical etc processes too. You can't exist it, and attempts to stop it through forced manipulation of the free market by the state just makes things worse. Inequality is just a fact of life. A fact of evolution. I'd rather suffer the struggles of life voluntarily, then in a forced system that also claims to be above the free market.

Well, there isn't much too how the school runs. My partner invested the capital built up over several generations of wealth and attained a master's degree in child psychology and made the gamble of using all that to rent a building and build all the classrooms within it. I myself am an experienced educator and have had managerial roles within organisations. Parents contact us, they pay us a set amount per month, they all go to the school and we have several teachers who look after the children for a set pay. We also pay cleaners, builders etc. We organise and pay for school trips, additions, school meals etc. We also provide healthcare assistance to the employees. Basically, we do the admin stuff because it's our money that is being gambled with. We can leave the premises whenever and the business will keep going. We are hoping to expand to create a 24 7 day care, and courses for parents. I'm also hoping to use some of the profit to invest into a music school my friend started that I promised to help with. And with all that I hope to invest into charities I care about, and to provide opportunities and support to my family and close friends. And I just want to randomly give passers by money if I see them doing a selfless deed. I want to create opportunities for people with my capital, and I also invest it into physical wholesale that I sell undercutting big retail, making it cheaper for everyone. I have a capitalistic mind mixed with a genuine care for people and human progress, which means i want to keep reinvesting and creating. Capitalism isn't the issue, money isn't an issue. They are both conduits for the intentions of the person with the capital. And I'd like those with good intentions to have the freedom to invest that capital in ways they care about. Sure, I'm sure some people aren't nice with their money, but that's their choice and I can explain how socialism helps those people.

I'm glad private schools operate on a profit incentive. It means they have to provide a good service! It means they will have to lower their fees to outcompete other schools. It means if someone doesn't want to take a certain course, they aren't forced to pay for it through socialised education. If I were a state teacher in socialised education, there would be no incentive to go the extra mile. I'd just do the bare minimum as I'd get the same pay regardless. However, I teach piano on the side, and because i need to make a profit, I have to go the extra mile to make my lessons good!