- cross-posted to:
- showerthoughts@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- showerthoughts@lemmy.world
There’s clearly a lean to the left side of things in Lemmy instances, with many people attacking people at the right.
In some cases regarding the climate crisis, there’s people blaming it on capitalism while hinting that communism/socialism are the solution to the climate crisis, because somehow having the state controlling the entire economy will lead to stop CO2 emissions.
A bit from the article:
The best way to protect the environment is to get rich. That way, there is enough money not only to meet the needs of ordinary people, but also to pay for cleaner power plants and better water-treatment facilities. Since capitalism is the best way to create wealth, humanity should stick with it.
Not the first time I’ve heard about this concept, and the more i look into the world the more I agree with it. Being green is kind of a luxury that not many people can afford, and the poorer people are the less they can afford green technology.
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Also just below that-
“It should be stated plainly: It’s capitalism that is at fault…”
I wonder if they read the article at all lol
That part was from the original Times article that the author is criticizing. It’s hard to get, because the author doesn’t understand how to use quotes properly. But the fact that a liberal can even read and write is already an achievement, so let’s not ask too much.
The article is really bad on multiple fronts.
First, it somehow thinks that Marxist-Leninism is the original communism, which is just silly. It is neither original nor official. It was just a strand of authoritarian, central-planning socialism which is largely rejected in the West and by current socialist movements and revolutions such as the Rojava Revolution and the EZLN.
Secondly, it misses the point by a mile. You can’t ever earn enough money to make the world grener if you ruin the world while making money. Capitalist system has those who own means of productions, the capitalists, and their main goal is always to make more money and grow. A culture that has a arisen to compliment this need, consumerism, is what frives infinite growth within the finite world that is killing us.
Yes, some places should go richer and have more industries, but a lot od the world overoroduces by a huge margin, while at the same time running out of housing due to insane amount of landlord ownership over property.
There is no Green Capitalism. Not because they (the capitalists) don’t want it (they don’t), but because the system itslef relies on infinite growth, which inevitably leads to overexploitation of our common planet.
EZLN and Rojava aren’t socialist. They have some positive components but that doesn’t make them socialist
Let’s agree to disagree
No, you are wrong. You don’t know your definitions
I’d suggest either listing why or just move on. I can find multiple sources that at least claim it’s ideology is some form of socialism. For someone not educated on the details of these two entities, that’s enough to at least back up the claim its arguable. If you’re claiming it’s not even arguable, at least share why instead of just repeating yourself.
Agree. I am currently AFK but will share some useful links and my own arguments as to why I think that the Rojava in Syria and EZLN (Zapatistas) in Mexico are socialist.
Read my reply down the thread…
You’re not going to convince anyone of anything this way. You either don’t have a handle on the topic to make your point or don’t want to admit you’re wrong. If you want to prove someone got something wrong in math, you don’t just link to a book.
If you don’t care to participate in discussions aside from trying to show you know more than someone else, why interrupt?
Either explain it or get out of the way.
Please adress the actual question, not quote literature form the 19th centry. If Marx wasn’t interpertable in 101 ways we woudn’t have disagreements about what socialism is… but he was and he also lived in a different stage od capitalism.
Give me proper arguments concerning EZLN and/or Rojava.
EZLN doesn’t claim to be socialist. I’m not sure of any first party claim by them about socialism being followed. Rojava actively opposes socialism by working with the US to sell oil which is allowed to be sold by private groups and not the government. We have minor disagreements about socialism but even single socialist group agrees with the premise that the workers must control the means of production. That’s the basic meaning
Agree. I am currently AFK but will share some useful links and my own arguments as t why I think that the Rojava in Syria and EZLN (Zapatistas) in Mexico are socialist.
Jeez a communist disliking such an article, what a surprise.
Yes, I am a communist and I do dislike this article. However, whatever your own political orientation is, you ought to dislike it to for a simply for being untrue.
This is hardly a valuable response. “Ugh, someone who disagrees doesn’t like it. What a surprise.” Add something of value next time. If they were wrong with a statement or conclusion, etc.
What a croc - never trust anything “left vs right” from the Cato institute. Cato has never seen a problem that capitalist billionaires could not solve and “communism” did not create.
Either way - capitalism does not care to solve climate change because we allowed the capitalists to externalise the costs. If we prices climate damage into the cost of goods - sure capitalism could perhaps be less than evil. But of course capitalism breed oligarchs and oligarchy and thus markets were deformed to benefit the oligarchs (and socialise risks while privatising profits).
You know how you improve capitalism? You add a very large dose of socialism
From 2023 perspective that does seem like a viable path indeed.
You can’t “add socialism to capitalism” If the workers don’t own the means of production then it’s not socialist
You can inject state socialism in various aspects. The welfare state is a form of state socialism. It’s in terrible form right now, but yeah it’s still socialistic. Firefighters, police, and the military are all forms of social services, with the keyword being social, as in socialism.
I agree with you that I’d rather socialism than capitalism, but to say you can’t “add socialism” is simply untrue. It’s better than nothing, but not what we should strive for as a goal. Plus socialism will never occur without a gradient with the only caveat being an apocalyptic world war.
Having state apparatus does not make socialism. Those are not the means of production so they are not related. Lenin discussed this
Lenin doesn’t own socialism. And I didn’t say it would be socialism. You can have socialistic concepts. Those things are still in and of themselves socialism but don’t exist in a socialistic system in wide scale.
No one is saying socialistic capitalism is socialism. So don’t argue that point. When that’s your conclusion, it means you argued against the wrong thing. If you enjoy strawman and scarecrows, have at it I guess…just don’t expect anyone to want to have any worthwhile discussion with you until you actually respond to what people are saying and not something else.
Because those practices are not socialistic. If it is not related to socialism, it’s not socialistic
It literally is related to socialism. Ffs, I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall. You’re offering nothing of value to counter with other than “no.” I can’t tell if you’re even serious or just trolling now. What is wrong with your ability to communicate?
Those are literally socialistic services. They’d be enacted the same way in socialism. You understand one little bit of socialism and you’re grasping on it with white-knuckles hands and closing your eyes chanting “I can’t hear anything else.”
It’s tiring. I’m done trying to discuss with you. You’re as aggravating as a cavity and as amusing as the appointment to fill the aforementioned cavity. There’s nothing of value in talking to you.
But of course capitalism breed oligarchs and oligarchy and thus markets were deformed to benefit the oligarchs (and socialise risks while privatising profits).
In my opinion when you start having oligarchs and this amount of wealth inequality, it’s only a symptom that the state is failing to do what was created to do, at-least in theory.
The state should be only a regulator, more like a referee in the market. Currently everywhere in western democracies the state is failing to do it. We have the lower income people getting taxed to hell, either directly or by proxy while the uber-rich are influencing the state regulation directly.
Do not take this as a personal attack but your perspective is naive. All around the world capitalists argue for libertarianism or other forms of state stepping back from regulating oligarchy. It’s a feature of capitalism to aim for oligarchy. At least in practice.
Just like 20th century Soviet/Chinese/Cuban communism did not prevent oligarchs. Neither does the current crop of capitalism. They both - in practice- created easy path to oligarchy.
I understand your point, that’s why I consider that the state should be an independent regulator. What’s happening right now is that due to corruption the state is failing to do it so.
I’m changing the user note I added to you from “right wing nut” to “confused socialist”
Cato institute capitalism by nature tends toward maximum inequality
Exactly. It’s Cato directly that it arguing for unregulated market in an oligarchy. So OP needs to be clear who wrote the source.
Regulation is inherently anti-capitalist. All regulation is some form of restriction essentially adopted to try and fix a flaw in capitalism.
The article keeps referring to “socialism” and then referring exclusively to communist societies, and so can safely be disregarded entirely if you are pursuing absolutely any form of democratic socialism.
They refer to Venezuela which is a socialist country, and of course not the greenest country in the world.
Venezuela is an autocracy. The social programs are bribes to delay the next revolution
Venezuela is relative green by consumption by capita which is the more important metric
Could it be because their economy is in crumbles?
It’s easy to be green if you don’t consume too much energy.
Economy isn’t bad. They are feeling the effects on the US blockade but seeing the circumstances Venezuela actually is doing very well
Not the first time I’ve heard about this concept, and the more i look into the world the more I agree with it. Being green is kind of a luxury that not many people can afford, and the poorer people are the less they can afford green technology.
You should look a bit more into the world if you didn’t notice how good capitalism is at making the poors poorer.
There’s tons of data showing that capitalism actually makes the average joe a lot richer.
And how many homeless does the US have?
Prior to capitalism, the homeless would just die every winter, so I think any number >0 is actually an improvement
I mean that’s not really something capitalism did, it’s just that the country is so big that it has places with mild climates. Well, I guess paying for homeless peoples’ bus tickets to actually go to those places is a thing, but not quite positive especially when you look at the context of it.
Mild climates like Chicago and New York?
Like California, which has the most homeless per-capita.
Though those places certainly don’t have the worst winters (like Minnesota), and NY (after CA w/homelessness) does have milder winters than Chicago. In either case summers are on the mild side, too (for comparison, being homeless in Arizona summer heat would not be good).
Also, from wiki:
Over the years, the city of Chicago, Illinois has gained a reputation as the city with the most homeless people, rivaling Los Angeles and New York City, although no statistical data have backed this up. The reputation stems primarily from the subjective number of beggars found on the streets rather than any sort of objective statistical census data. Indeed, from statistical data, Chicago has far less homeless per capita than peers New York, and Los Angeles, or other major cities such as Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Boston, among others
Exactly. And the homeless people do not all die off every winter in Chicago. Hence my point. Improvement.
I know, the US is just a little socialist, just enough to avoid having to see elderly and poor dying in the streets
Is the US the only example of a capitalist country you know about?
It’s the exact most capitalist
Considering capitalism is based on the concept of separating average Joe from the actual value of his work, I can’t see this being true unless it has some major caveats that only make it sound good when unspoken (like comparing capitalism to some undeveloped country and saying “look, poor people live better in capitalism”).
What do you think is the mechanism by which “undeveloped” countries become “developed” countries rofl
I’ll give you a hint, it starts with “CAPITAL” and there’s an “-ism” at the end.
There have been empires that didn’t rely on capitalism and were successful. Comparing a country with no infrastructure to one that does and saying it’s only because of capital is not how logic works. I had a headache one day due to a hangover, your logic dictates if someone else has a headache, it must be due to a hangover. That’s fucking idiocy and you should feel bad for thinking it.
Ok, explain to me how mercantilism and feudalism is better than capitalism
Not that either is even feasible nowadays but I’ll entertain it.
Did I say those are better?
There have been empires that didn’t rely on capitalism and were successful.
The empires you reference were built on those two systems
Those data are carefully crafted to create that narrative. It’s pretty easy to say you’ve “lifted so many out of poverty” when you define the term to suit your needs.
"Who We Are
HumanProgress.org is a project of the Cato Institute""/
Sounds about right. You’re quoting a right wing rag from a 20 year policy analyst with no practical experience.
You want to know what poor people can’t afford? Extinction.
Thank you for pointing this out before I bothered reading that long-ass propaganda piece
Ignore this shite and move on, folks
I figured I’d do the diligence since I have to put up with enough Cato for other projects. I didn’t know the authors name, so I had a good laugh at the 3 lines on his linkedin.
When you’re so poor that you don’t know what you’re going to eat tomorrow, or if the money of your wage may run out until the end of the month, will you care much about that?
You are conflating socialism’s view of money, with food. A maximalist socialism would contend money is not for food, give away the food use the money for the stuff you don’t NEED.
To some degree I agree with that. Any stance that socialism would do anything other than prioritize the well meaning of people over capital is either a compromise (and some of the Nordic models would be an example) or a deliberate straw man, just like the author is building here.
The idea that you can’t ‘afford’ to feed the world and ideas just like it is the entire reason there’s a socialism in the first place.
(money is also for luxury food)
I mean this logic chain is good! But it makes me sad in all the wrong ways.
Even as someone whose not a vegetarian we devote a shit ton of land to things like feed corn, which I don’t know if you’ve tried, but it’s only barely edible. The amount of yield in terms of nourishment is way tipped towards a subsidized industry around making meat.
So factory meat farming gets reframed as essential, with all of those questionable ethics in our food supply.
My contention is that a honest argument should frame around the minimum acceptance to what we could deliver, not are delivering.
I guess I’m lucky in that the meat I eat eats grass that isn’t considered suitable for crops
a honest argument should frame around the minimum acceptance to what we could deliver, not are delivering.
That sounds reasonable
Money really is for anything that needs to be rationed
An apartment is the basic need. Hilltop cottages need to be rationed as there are only so many hilltop blocks of land
Entirely acceptable! I don’t take issue with the concept of money, it’s all the weird hangups and abstractions of responsibility it brings.
I take issue with the idea that we can’t meet the needs of literally everyone on the face of this earth, and then expand the minimum.
As far as grass fed, I feel obligated to point out even the grass fed portion could be a crop in that same field, but the yield to calorie count in that decision is the important part to me when it comes to production or pricing, along with not planting acres of stuff essentially inedible humans.
If you want more horror stories methane production from the combination of deforestation and cattle emissions was unreal to read about too, it made me genuinely queasy and I don’t think it got enough attention.
But it’s just one industry example of how what we need is going to have to inform our actions. Maybe we have to host all our data centers in Siberia, I don’t know.
More importantly we have done this before (though nowhere near this scale). Under the banner of capitalism no less! You can have a prevailing socialist ethos to actually stop or change fundamental production of a thing, not extincting the species is a decent cause.
You don’t have to go back to Jonas Saulk either, CFCs got obliterated from production lines when we spotted the problem, all of which went down during the Regan and Bush years if I remember right.
Sorry to get wordy, Cato in particular is a sore spot when it comes to watching reasonable arguments get twisted into the windmills they want to tilt at.
And yet the United States with its unfettered capitalism has failed to be a world leader in environmentalism
That honour goes to Nordic and European social democracies
Sure you need to be sufficiently wealthy, but you also need to restrict capital so companies can not pollute, and have social policies to pay for the those solutions the market will not supply
The Nordic countries are all capitalist
The US is a bad example, and still is a greater example than the communist/socialist countries provided.
These nordic countries are pretty good example of how you can have capitalism with a great welfare state, without going socialist/communist. My guess is their main difference is that they don’t allow the richer companies to lobby on politicians, or at-least not as much as the US does.
The US — poster child for capitalism, creator of regulatory capture for ultimate best capitalism — is a poor example of a capitalist country?
Capitalism + regulation + welfare is the definition of socialism
Capitalism with strong regulation is so good that the Soviet Union used it; China uses it
Capitalism with strong regulation is so good that the Soviet Union used it; China uses it
Capitalism with strong regulation… the best example would be the nordic countries you believe are socialist.
Sure, I was using the examples I used to demonstrate that even revolutionary communism isn’t opposite to capitalism
Capitalism with regulations based in state socialism. Got it. It’s socialistic capitalism.
China isn’t capitalist at all
Except in their special economic areas
You just mentioned some of the most socialist countries. The welfare state is literally a form of socialism.
That an entire political party has been deluded into thinking other people in their own class are the enemy and are the reason they’re poor and not simply the wealthy being the reason, is the problem with the US. Democratic Party isn’t the answer, but they’re not as much of the cause as the GOP, which has simply co-opted hate into their repertoire as well. The problem in the US, is there’s a very vocal hateful minority that care about voting more than the apathetic, silent majority.
This entire article misses the point entirely with what socialism is. Socialism is just about who owns the company. All the principles that apply to capitalism also mostly apply to socialism, except it doesn’t pool money to the wealthy who are simply extracting value from people instead of their own skills.
Socialism can have wealthy people. Socialism does not mean state owned (that’s communism and they’re absolutely 100% not interchangeable like the article implies).
Communism could affect climate change because it’s effectively a dictatorship on what companies can do. Socialism can affect climate change because it effectively isn’t profit over humanity.
Capitalism is literally driving climate change the wrong direction. It’s asinine to be like, “no, no, let’s give it a bit more time.”
Edit: this article is why folks attack many people on the right. It’s straight up lying and deceiving the reader with misinformation.
Socialism means the workers own the means of production. The state is the vanguard of the workers so the companies are “state owned” in socialism
Communism is when the company is state owned. Socialism is when it’s owned by the workers. They are not the same. Financial incentives that exist in capitalism also exist in socialism. They do not exist to the same degree in communism.
Socialism is closer to saying all companies are co-ops.
You’re referring to specifically a subset of socialism, that is literally called state socialism that shares many aspects with communism.
But, in general, socialism does not have state ownership as a tenet of its belief.
Socialism has to. socialism has the workers controlling the means of production and the state is a vanguard of the workers that manages to companies
You are espousing one person’s interpretation of a concept. It is not the only one. It wasn’t even said by someone who adhered well to their own rules in practice.
Socialism does support the idea that all companies are co-ops. If you don’t work for that company, you do not own part of it.
Since capitalism is the best way to create wealth, humanity should stick with it.
Wealth, but also inequality. Socialism (and I mean Europe socialism, not Soviet Union communism) is also able to create wealth, and also distribute it better among people.
European socialism would include European socialist countries. Those were Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland, DDR
Do you have any example of a country with socialism that successfully made it?
Nordic countries are currently blowing the US out of the water on every measurable metric so you might want to rethink that argument.
I hope you are joking. Socialism is when the workers own the means of production. These social democracies do not the workers owning the means of production and hence are capitalist
Nordic countries are not socialist.
Sounds like your definition of “socialism” is (like Cato’s) “a state that is easy to criticise”. ACS did are some of the most socialist governments. They are clever about it for sure but that is why they are so inconvenient. Hell look as Norway socialising profits a from oil exploration to lift an entire nation out of poverty.
You what, mate? They’re among the most socialist nations in the world, more so than Argentina or China
They are social democracies. Even Wikipedia makes it clear.
Dunno where people got the idea these countries are socialist.
You are using a cold war definition of socialism. It’s outdated
Socialism isn’t the opposite of democracy
Socialism is what social democracies do.
I hope you are joking. Socialism is when the workers own the means of production. These social democracies do not the workers owning the means of production and hence are capitalist
Socialism is what social democracies do.
You’re now following in the most common argument fallacy between socialists/communists, called No true Scotsman.
Your wiki links first sentence says it’s within socialism which would make them socialist.
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism
Funnily enough Wikipedia’s entry for Saudi Arabia doesn’t use socialism anywhere in it, and Venezuela only has “socialist” in political party names
I wonder if to be socialist you need to implement social policies for the benefit of the people rather than for the benefit of the government (by preventing revolt)
I don’t understand if you’re dumb or just trolling at this point
Most of Western Europe have social programs (free education, free healthcare, etc.) and made it. The G7 counts France, Germany and Italy
I hope you are joking. Socialism is when the workers own the means of production. These social democracies do not the workers owning the means of production and hence are capitalist
Having social welfare doesn’t make a country socialist.
France?
France is capitalist
French economy is not a good example, as far as I know it’s stagnated.
You clearly know very little.
The data shows it’s stagnated. It’s a common symptom between western european economies. The more they lean left, the worse their economy gets:
If they are stagnating it’s despite leaning TO THE RIGHT - and hard - over the past 20 years. There are very few truly socialist parties left in Europe and very few are in power. Definitely not recently in France. Their stagnation and exploding inequality is due to capitalism taking over.
It’s like California - a poor mixture of hopeful socialism and neoliberal cynical Reaganism.
To drive the point home Macron is quite a bit pro capitalism right wing politician. Not any other way. P
Yes another “No true Scotsman” argument. Amazing!
GDP is not a good indicator for quality of life for a bunch of different factors. You need to get your theory right before you try to look for high numbers
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locations=FR
China, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba are all great examples
“Socialist economies also banned independent trade unions and, often, resorted to slave labour.”
The author’s inability to understand socialism is baffling. By the very definition of socialism, states that do this are not socialist. He is basically picking at capitalist economies that call themselves socialist for populist acceptance.
Socialism is when the government does stuff, communism is when the government does a lot of stuff/s
