There’s a paraphrased quote by John Steinbeck that I’ve frequently seen that comes to mind
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
Socialism never took root in America because people who tried to organize got shot.
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Apart from some worker cooperatives socialism never took root anywhere.
Humans could never support actual real socialism. We are corrupt dicks and would always figure out a way to exploit it for personal gain. Some form of hybrid system involving some degree of greed(capitalism) will probably always be required.
Love these unironic self reports
When has socialism ever worked?
When it killed fascists
When has it killed fascists without being backed by capitalism?
Hum I would disagree.
First of all worker coops are pretty much everywhere. I could go to college for free and have healthcare because socialists who organized large scale strikes (they sometime then proceed to get shot by operation gladio). And then, quite a lot of country still pretend to be socialists. Oftentime with very real mutualities who actually helps people.
I hate homework too, but the post and title really got me amped to say:
Think back to what your teachers taught. Maybe not 100% universal, but teachers #1 job is to get you to question. Why do most people end up reading Steinbeck? Mice and men, Huck Finn, Gatsby maybe. Frigging to kill a mocking bird pushed on them by a high school teacher. They got yelled at for letting kids read Harry Potter.
The good ones pushed you to be better and realize self worth. Hell, in the US, teachers for a decade have been putting up with parents that are so. pissed. off. because your math is too hard for them (math is math!!). And the bullshit “all I learned was mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell!” Science is blasphemy at its finest. You weren’t supposed to memorize content, nobody remembers the content from middle school. You remember the processes. Here’s how to explore the unknown.
If this wasn’t your experience, I’m sorry. There’s more but this is too long now
Schooling in the 80s was still very much training us to sit still and follow the routine. Because we were all going to be happy worker bees for a living. And our classes had 30+ kids and one teacher for most of elementary school.
I’m not sure it has really changed much in most of America, especially since standardized testing became the norm and led to “teaching to the test” in many classroooms. I have since realized I had a couple teachers along the way who encouraged questioning your preconceived notions, 7 and 8 grade jr high science teachers specifically, and a metal shop teacher who they eliminated the year I would have taken it in exchange for a computer based “synergy” class.
This was pretty much my answer to a German expat who candidly asked: “WTF is up with the schools here?” I angrily answered in line with the above.
GP is correct in that school should be about learning how to learn and think critically. And there are elements of that still in play, but it’s not the focus, and it’s not evenly distributed.
Teachers are still in and ruled over by the system. Still waiting for a better way to feed information to (now 40 per teacher) middle school kids. I dunno if you’ve asked any teachers, but they DESPISE standardized testing and having 40 kids and zero parent support. They don’t control any of that.
(The Adventures of) Huckleberry Finn was Samuel Clemons, AKA Mark Twain, and is the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.NM just realized that none of the later books you listed were Steinbeck
Lots of bad takes in this thread.
Most people don’t even understand capitalism or socialism or even communism.
For a surface level understanding of capitalism, this video does a good job. https://youtu.be/C1Gs0uqqggc?si=EHli6_sWDCroIKpE
Good video. People get caught up in words and ideas without realizing most of us want the same goals. Instead of demonizing the “other” for some emotional validation, we should strive to listen and learn. Educate the hate away.
we should strive to listen and learn. Educate the hate away.
I see your point, but let me offer a counter point:
Fuck You
There is no hate in saying this is r-worded good old trickle down theory that have been disproved times and times again. Basic economics is like basic biology. Simplistic.
Seriously, I spent 15 minutes watching this crap. I’ll never get them back. This is just cruel.
EDIT: the best part is when it stops.
Capitalism dominates the world because it trades tomorrow for today in an attempt for exponential growth without regard for the future. Anyone doing less is dominated and exploited by the resource imbalance. Capitalism isn’t winning bc its good, its winning bc its not playing to win, its playing to die.
Is that a quote? Or an original thought. Either way, it’s golden.
Im sure others have had the idea, but i just wrote it.
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Hey man, I’d you work real hard or are born to rich parents you too might get an invisible handjob too.
Can I vet a visible one?
I like to see who is jerking me around.
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Simple son. Capitalism grew with us - the generation that has the most bodies. Over time we distorted it to fit our needs as we aged. We postdated checks and took credit. You have our capitalism because this isn’t your government- it’s ours. Don’t worry though you can have it when we’re done.
… Son…? You’re shaking…
Our capatilism worked post WWII. Then the gaps grew. If ownership still took modest gains and were closer to the workers, it would work. Now the gap is so great, they won’t change until there is a revolution. Either in government, or the standard kind in history.
Gaps grew (in part) because of capitalism. Back when the previous generations were working- people were compensated fairly and given regular raises… it wasn’t uncommon to work for the same company until you retired. What changed? Line goes up above all else. Cut raises, mandatory pay cuts, layoffs etc. Line went up. But that has an effect that amplifies over time.
Raises were largely responsible for offsetting inflation - this is the gap that steadily widened. There are of course other factors but most of these are, at least in part, also effected by inflation.
Generally speaking capitalism works, sure. But this is no longer capitalism. We have too big to fail, price fixing to choke out competition, and a governing body bought and paid for by megacorp.
Competition drives that gap, Capitalism is still what drove that chance.
We did it for a hundred years without the gap being that big. I credit greed as the problem.
Society is driven by material conditions, not people and ideas. Capitalism’s competitive nature drove itself to increasingly exploitative measures.
Which can only happen when markets and corporations are deregulated.
A 20% increase in worked productivity should result in a 20% increase in employee compensation under the force of law.
Executive compensation should be limited to 3-5x the average or median employee compensation (whichever is lower) under the force of law.
Corporations are not people and should not be given the same rights as people, such as the right to free speech. If we are going to treat them as people, then any action that would result in a person going to jail for 5 years should result in a 5 year ban on doing business. Crimes like…oh, I don’t know… killing 1000s of people or causing millions to lose their homes should be punished by permanent dissolution.
All workers, from janitors to executives, should be compensated via the same medium. If the exec gets paid in stock them everyone does. If the janitor is paid hourly/salary, then everyone is. Again, all under the force of law.
The highest marginal tax rate should be 100%. No individual should have access to $1 billion. That last penny in the millions and every cent afterward is totally taxed. You won capitalism. Congratulations.
I really do think that humanity is innately both cooperative and competitive l. Harnessing that cooperation is a proven and highly effective means of sriving society forward. Harnessing that competitiveness is a proven and highly effective means of improving material conditions within thay society, AS LONG AS THE PLAYING FIELD IS LEVEL.
Nobody wants to watch a sporting event where 1 team has to play handcuffed. That might be a bad analogy. The more I think about it that could be funny. But if it was always the same team that had to wear them, it’d get old pretty fast.
Everything you’ve said assumes the playing field was at one point fair to begin with, really.
Don’t get me wrong, I would much prefer a more regulated Capitalism than what we have now. However, what we have now is a result of Capitalism and the power of accumulation it has, as those in power stack the deck in their favor. To rely on good people in government fighting back against Capitalists is to rely on hopes, not plans.
Workers should share ownership, without a Capitalist. Plain and simple.
Did you mean “regulated?”
Or maybe because the only currently known feasible alternative always ended up being even worse.
How so?
Revolutions tends to lead to powerful people seizing the state and centralizing everything.
The usual theory they bandy about it is that they are a “vanguard” of “elites” who will prepare the ground for socialism. And when they are done they will turn the system over to the workers to control it like promised, from the bottom up.
Spoilers : They never do, so far at least.
Instead they will take over any worker-led initiative and stifle it and shoot the organizers if they don’t get the memo. You wind up with the state owning the means of production and the workers owning next to nothing and being worked as hard as under capitalism. You typically wind up with a centralized, bureaucratic dictatorship.
On top of that, because the rest of the world is in a different system and to become a socialist state one must break the other system’s rules, you’ve pissed off most of the powerful people outside your border. This leads to a besieged mentality (and assassination attempts, and coup attempts, etc.) which keeps up the pressure on that state to keep being a dictatorial, paranoid mess. Oh and it can also lead to stiffened trade as you become a pariah. And historically the USSR’s economy for instance performed worse than the US’s.
That said, other alternatives don’t have to include armed revolution. You can start a worker coop, and that is technically socialism (or anarchism? I forget), because the workers would own the means of production. You’d be able to do that within a capitalist framework without too much conflict and without pissing too many people off (really I can’t see anyone but ideological goblins and competitors bitching about this. And competitors always bitch anyways). Of course, contrary to wage labour, you have to bear the financial risks yourself.
Anarchism is always Socialist in form, co-operatives are Socialist, while anarchism is more about societal structure at large.
Either way, the issue with co-operatives is that there aren’t systems in place to make them more common, nor will that ever be the case under Capitalism.
As for whether or not other systems have “always performed worse than Capitalism,” that’s just incorrect. You compared the USSR to the US, why? Would you compare Brazil to the US today? Both appear to be Capitalist. What’s interesting is if you compare metrics of the USSR vs the Tsars and vs the Russian Federation, you’ll find that quality of life was overwhelmingly tied to development, not economic system.
It seems reasonable to me to say that if a developed country was to become Socialist, it would perform better than a developed Capitalist country, as you remove issues like rent-seeking and worker exploitation. I think that’s a reasonable conclusion, and I’m not even talking about USSR style Marxism-Leninism, it could be Democratic Socialism, Syndicalism, Anarchism, or any other form of Socialism.
Capitalism is about creating a bigger pie.
Politics is about more fairly distrubting the pie. Don’t mistake failings of politics as failings of capitalism.
America once had a income tax of 90% for the highest tax bracket. Just because it is low now isn’t due to capitalism
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Capitalism is about individual ownership of the Means of Production. Socialism is about worker ownership of the Means of Production. Both are about production.
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Politics is not about distribution of Production so much as it is about creating systems and networks that people can use. The failings of Capitalism are still because of Capitalism.
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The 90% income tax being removed was because of Capitalism. Wealthy Capitalists appealed to politicians to have it removed, simple as. That is 100% a consequence of a system centered around petite-dictators.
- the first part is only true In relation to the ideals of the supports of socialism.
Socialists care about the ownership of the means of production.
Capatalism dose not even consider the term. They only care about the result to indevidual growth.
As a example that makes my point. Elon musk and space ex is about rocket science to the engineers
To musk and other who consider space colonisation the only viable future for humanity. Rocket science is just the currently most effective way of achieving the goal.
To a socialist ownership of means of production is the goal.
To a capatalist it is just the best way the currently see of achieving the goal of indevidual wealth.
You’re actually 100% incorrect here. Capitalism requires the presence of Capitalists, ie owners of Capital, to exist.
Capitalism and Socialism are both about ownership of the Means of Production, with Capitalism it’s so Capitalists can profit, whereas in Socialism it’s so the Workers can profit.
For Musk, SpaceX is a means to make profit off of government contracts and subsidies.
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The only thing we need to do is donate a tiny portion of our money to independent media that fights the system such as Badempanada or GDF etc.
Capitalism has lead to a lot of nice things (the average person today lives better than a medieval king did) but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect or can’t be changed. Governments ensure people can use roads for free, provide education, pay retirement pensions, and fund all kinds of other social programs. There’s minimum wage, industry regulations, health and safety regulations. None of these things are really “capitalist” but they exist in capitalist societies anyways.
I think it’s possible to keep modifying what capitalism is until we have a system that does work for everyone.
Capitalism was better for more workers in 1950s America compared to now, but America was at the height of its overseas power and the country was competing against communism. But capitalism never stopped sucking. Let the capitalists earn their own wealth.
Also the huge huge benefits ww2 had on American
You think capitalism created minimum wage? You think it created regulations??? No, that was political reform and legislation. And capitalism today has people pissing in bottles because they can’t go to the bathroom because that would hurt the captial.
No I don’t think capitalism created minimum wage. I think capitalism created factories and advanced technology. Minimum wage and regulations came from the people demanding rights. The workers in France and Norway are not pissing in bottles like the workers in America. France and Norway are still capitalist countries, their workers just have more rights and protections because they demanded that from their governments.
My point was capitalism isn’t inherently a flawed idea nor is any other economic system. Regardless of what system is chosen, the people need to have rights. Economic systems don’t address that; governments do.
American workers being mistreated is a failure in the American government, not capitalism. Nearly all countries on Earth are capitalist, and there are many where the workers are very happy and healthy.
Capitalism didn’t create factories or advanced technology. It grew alongside them, yes, but did not itself create them. At the end of the day, Engineers designed them and workers built them, not one person owning tools.
France and Norway are seeing rising disparity as Capitalism reaches a later stage. The workers have more power than in, say, the US, but not enough to stop or reverse disparity from increasing.
Capitalism is inherently flawed. From the fundamental exploitation within, to the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, to the tie with Imperialism, Capitalism naturally gets worse over time. “Enshittification.”
American workers being mistreated by Capitalism because the Capitalists are strong enough to manipulate government in their favor is a fault of Capitalism. Even the happier Capitalist countries like the Nordic Countries are seeing increased rates of disparity and sliding protections. Competition pushes for this increased exploitation.
You think capitalism created minimum wage?
Minimum wage is usually not a good thing. When you set a minimum wage, you essentially disbar people who cannot reach that wage level from the workforce completely. It hurts the weakest people of the community the worst (they are the ones who become unemployable), and doesn’t matter for the strongest at all (they are always above the minimum wage level).
Living costs is the actual problem there, and that can be fixed by lightening up the governments: e.g. freeing up zoning permits and lower taxation of things essential to the poor.
This is actually an entirely-debunked far-right talking point. Minimum wages help everyone.
Giving capitalism credit for any forward progress in society that happened to occur after it started is absurd. It slows progress, this is a well known fact. If we’re living better than medieval kings now, I wonder how much better we’d be without that crap
It slows progress, this is a well known fact.
Opinions are one thing, but claiming an untruth to be a fact is just not ok. Data shows clearly that capitalism has been one of the most rapid sources of growth everywhere where it has been applied.
It could have some other problems when paired with weak governments (corporatism & external costs are poorly solved, for instance), but lack of progress is clearly not one of them.
Capitalism has led directly to advances in medicine and cures and there is no question about that. For all its faults the greed for money has no doubt led to faster advances.
Real socialism just won’t work for people. We are too corrupt and would just find ways to take advantage of it for personal gain. Some form of greed needs to be worked into the system to promote advancement and satiate the need for greed.
Capitalism didn’t lead to any of those things, and actively works against them.
Additionally, you’re ignoring increasing rates of disparity due to Capitalism reaching greater and greater stages, and simply think band-aids can fix everything. It can’t, the system itself is broken.
the thing i like about Karl Marx is he never actually accomplished a damned thing in his life, and he got laid anyway
BUT YOU CAN DRINK THE TAP WATER. NUFF SAID
Not in Flint you can’t
You might want to do a little research first before saying something like this unless you like being absolutely wrong
How many kinds of capitalism are there?
How about a meme looking forward to the solution?
Many, many kinds of Capitalism, but they all generally share the same structural, underlying flaws, even if it’s exacerbated in some forms.
There are many pro-socialism memes, but anti-capitalism still has its place, considering we likely both live in Capitalist systems.
No, it’s because despite being worse for the lower rungs of the human experience without strong controls, well-managed market economies lift countries higher than their alternate economy peers. Markets are more efficient because incentives drive the economy to prosperity at a faster rate. Feudalism, communism, anarchism, corporatism, etc are comparatively inefficient and eventually lead to a scenario where the market economies outpace others, and trade imbalances magnify that disparity. You eventually run a high risk of social upheaval when the people look at their more prosperous neighbors with envy, and wonder “why don’t we have what they have?” You see either political instability to drive change, or authoritarian strongmen who delude the people that regardless of reality, the system in place is best. Economic power generally leads to military power too.
What happened to the USSR? Why are China and Vietnam now market economies? What kind of economy does North Korea have? Why don’t countries still engage in mercantilism or feudalism?
I feel like you’re pointing at a Ferris Wheel, trying to explain why the top-most cage is actually held there permanently by physics.
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What lifts people, development or individuals owning tools, rather than the collective? You seem to think it’s the latter.
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The profit motive drives profit, not development. See: rapid enshittification and exploitation.
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Prove the inefficiency in Communism and Anarchism, this is a baseless claim.
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Development drives material conditions, not individuals owning tools.
All in all, you’re full of it.
The profit motive drives profit, not development. See: rapid enshittification and exploitation.
The important thing there is ‘how are incentives aligned?’
With a lightbulb factory, both the capitalist and the public wins if they’re making better, cheaper lightbulbs. Because incentives are aligned, both the capitalist and the public wins when they figure out how to improve the factory. Look at the prices of LED bulbs or TVs over the last few decades.
Enshittification is due to the public being the product. The public does worse when the capitalist does better.
The profit motive is fundamentally a mixed bag.
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Capitalism doesn’t work for you?
You’re no different than those Religious extremists and science deniers using their mobile phones to screech about the evils of science.
Simply put : capitalism has issues that really must be resolved, few people would deny that. Capitalism also is the reason you have your mobile phone to complain about it, enough food on your table to be alive to complain bout it, and medication to make you stop complaining about being sick so that you can get back to complaining about capitalism.
Its been by far (and I really mean FAR) the most successful system of all. Yes, there are a bunch of abusers that should probably even be jailed, but don’t stop capitalism, limit it. Put better rules in place to stop the abuse.
What? Communism had no abusers, you say? Sure dude, oh, I have a bridge here to sell you, you seem gullible enough to buy it.
Use limited capitalism to fund a well working socialist network
Capitalism is not the reason mobile phones exist, or that food exists. Engineers designing phones and workers building them are why phones exist and farmers growing food is why food is on the table. The fact that individuals own industry, rather than a collective, is not what enabled or even encouraged this.
Why do you think it’s better for individual mini-dictators to control and own production, rather than democratically run production via worker ownership? Do tools work better when one person owns everything?
Secondly, Socialism isn’t “safety nets,” it’s worker ownership vs individual ownership like Capitalism.
Better than Capitalism unrestrained, but not exactly a long-term solution.
Why do you think it’s better for individual mini-dictators to control and own production, rather than democratically run production via worker ownership? Do tools work better when one person owns everything?
The current system doesn’t prevent worker ownership of any business. So, the obvious question is why businesses organized as owned by workers don’t tend to make those sorts of big developments rather than ones owned by one or a small group of founders or owned by whoever wants to buy a piece on the public market.
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Not preventing outright does not mean there isn’t downward pressure via already existing larger Capitalists. Competition + price of Capital provides a significant barrier to entry for Worker co-operatives.
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Worker co-operatives do make a significant amount of progress! Hell, FOSS itself is fairly leftist in organization, and we both seem to think at minimum it’s worth exploring. The fact that there are larger Capitalist entities does not make them better or more efficient, just larger.
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You’re posing a hypothesis without doing any actual analysis, and hoping to skirt by on vibes. Tell me, why do you think it’s better for individuals to own tools, than workers? Do you think Democracy is fundamentally a worse concept than dictatorship?
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That’s a funny way of describing antisemitism.
Kanye?
Why do you always post these anti capitalist memes? It’s like a plague trying to infect minds. It’s just as bad as a Nazi socialist spouting dumb propaganda.
What’s wrong with being anti capitalist? I mean, if capitalism was so good I’m sure people would post pro-capitalism memes, no?
Hey, that’s a good point.
Maybe because they aren’t funny haha? Wait this meme wasn’t funny either… Maybe we should have some capitalist memes
At least then we’d know for sure.
no such thing as a nazi socialist, and comparing anticapitalists to nazis is a hair shy of nazi apologia, attempting to equate bad stuff with not-bad stuff.
It’s not even short, it’s straight apologia.
It’s largely true, though. Capitalism benefits those with the most money. Go ahead and try and create a show that goes against their wishes and get it aired on a popular service/network.
It’s always funny how on Lemmy everything is always capitalism’s fault and the solution to every problem is socialism.
Careful there, don’t wanna get down voted for wrong think
Nazis were Capitalists, lmao. Either way, this is a leftist platform, so there are going to be leftist memes.
What I meant is that it’s the same level of propagandizing. Also, this isn’t a ‘leftist platform’. You can’t just claim things. FOSS isn’t inherently leftist.
In today’s world when the right is fascist and is deepthroating corporations, yes it is leftist.
It’s not propagandizing to post memes you personally don’t agree with. FOSS is in fact inherently leftist, it rejects both the profit motive and individual ownership of IP.
That is just not true. Free Software developers still have the copyright to whatever they make and nobody says that they can’t make money - it’s free as in freedom, not price. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Would you consider Meta’s Threads as FOSS? It’s connected to the fediverse. What about Bluesky? Are they inherently leftist?
The fediverse isn’t FOSS itself. FOSS kinda requires being Free and Open Source, lol
foss isn’t, no, but free software is.
@Freesoftwareenjoyer uh huh…
the free software movement has always eschewed the term “open source” since it was popularized by Eric Raymond.
further, Lemmy is developed by the admins of the flagship instance lemmy.ml who are avowed communists.
if you don’t know what you’re talking about about, you can just keep your mouth shut.
You should read these posts by the creators of Lemmy
First points out that lemmy.ml is not the flagship. Second goes through that lemmy was not intended to be left, but was intended to just not be US focused. I am okay with that but if the suggestion is that Lemmy needs to maintain leftist ideologies throughout the FOSS communities then that’s just wrong. If I get proven wrong and you can prove that these communities need to be leftist anti capitalist then I would be happy to close my Lemmy account asap.
whether they like it or not, they are the flagship: the lead developer is the admin. if they decide they need a feature, then it will be implemented and everyone else will get that feature, too. no other instance has such a short lead between their feature implementation and everyone else’.
>if the suggestion is that Lemmy needs to maintain leftist ideologies throughout the FOSS communities then that’s just wrong
i wouldn’t say that. i don’t think anyone did say that. but if you’re going to whine about leftist content in those communities, i don’t think you’re going to find much sympathy, and i don’t think you really deserve any, either.
