The Foundation for Government Accountability - a Florida-based lobbying group backed by the richest 1% - is working to get basic income experiments banned by state legislators across the U.S.
As a well-known quote often wrongly attributed to Mahatma Ghandi says, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at
Capitalism is a domination based economic strategy that’s killing most of the life on this planet.
There’s also partnership based economic strategies that probably would be more in harmony with the earth as well as other human beings, like cooperatives, non-profits, and of course socialism etc.
So, I guess as far as domination based strategies go, Capitalism is very efficient. And offers a veil of autonomy that feudalism and slavery didn’t. But it’s only a veil. The rich get richer, the poor relatively poorer. And while the planet burns, most human beings are still slaves to their paychecks while the oligarchs call the shots.
I don’t really understand. Perhaps you’re looking for a net benefit. As I said, things aren’t all bad or all good.
As you said yourself, Capitalism is very efficient.
It’s technological or administrative requirements are minimal. If you want to get from a pre-industrial feudal society to a sophisticated modern utopia, you can’t go straight to socialism. We needed capitalism.
It’s very efficient at extracting resources from the environment and working class. It’s more efficient than slavery and feudalism. That doesn’t make it a net benefit for either the planet or the working class.
And plenty of non-Western cultures had economic systems similar to socialism before we colonized them and forced capitalism down their throats. So no, your socialism must follow capitalism equation isn’t real. Sorry.
What Marx meant was if we don’t evolve past Capitalsm, we’re fucked. That’s what he meant by socialism must follow capitalism. It’s a moral must if we want the planet and species to survive. He wasn’t talking about causation.
First of all, you’re cherry picking one paragraph out of three while ignoring my point. Second, you seem to be doing so in hopes of creating a false dichotomy (technology is dependant on capitalism, it’s not) and a strawman (that all extraction is bad).
Non-captalist economic systems can certainly extract resources from the environment and they’re quite capable of producing new technologies without worker explotation. Capitalism is ruthlessly effecient at it because it ignores things like negative externalities while passing them onto local governments, workers, and consumers. Ruthless being the keyword here. In fact, I’d say it’s inefficient and simply irresponsible.
If you want to argue that the economic system we’re all watching literally destroy most life on this planet has some benefits the burden of proof is on you. List the benefits and compare them to other systems. If the benefit is that it’s better than slavery well, you’re basically comparing two diseases to each other and saying the benefit of disease A is at least it’s not cancer. If my Dr used language like this I’d fire him.
Capitalism is a disease on this planet. Diseases don’t have benefits. Only worse choices. Feel free to prove me otherwise, but you’ll have to do better than tired right wing and neo-liberal talking points. I’ve been through them to many times, sorry.
Whenever anyone tells me that capitalism leads to efficient solutions or some such BS, I point them to things like this.
Come on. You realise things aren’t all bad or all good right?
Yes it’s true that capitalism hasn’t worked out, but it’s not true that capitalism has no beneficial qualities whatsoever.
Capitalism is a domination based economic strategy that’s killing most of the life on this planet.
There’s also partnership based economic strategies that probably would be more in harmony with the earth as well as other human beings, like cooperatives, non-profits, and of course socialism etc.
So, I guess as far as domination based strategies go, Capitalism is very efficient. And offers a veil of autonomy that feudalism and slavery didn’t. But it’s only a veil. The rich get richer, the poor relatively poorer. And while the planet burns, most human beings are still slaves to their paychecks while the oligarchs call the shots.
I don’t see any benefit in this, but you do?
I don’t really understand. Perhaps you’re looking for a net benefit. As I said, things aren’t all bad or all good.
As you said yourself, Capitalism is very efficient.
It’s technological or administrative requirements are minimal. If you want to get from a pre-industrial feudal society to a sophisticated modern utopia, you can’t go straight to socialism. We needed capitalism.
It’s very efficient at extracting resources from the environment and working class. It’s more efficient than slavery and feudalism. That doesn’t make it a net benefit for either the planet or the working class.
And plenty of non-Western cultures had economic systems similar to socialism before we colonized them and forced capitalism down their throats. So no, your socialism must follow capitalism equation isn’t real. Sorry.
What Marx meant was if we don’t evolve past Capitalsm, we’re fucked. That’s what he meant by socialism must follow capitalism. It’s a moral must if we want the planet and species to survive. He wasn’t talking about causation.
Like it or not, contemporary tech was created from those resources extracted from the environment and the working class.
First of all, you’re cherry picking one paragraph out of three while ignoring my point. Second, you seem to be doing so in hopes of creating a false dichotomy (technology is dependant on capitalism, it’s not) and a strawman (that all extraction is bad).
Non-captalist economic systems can certainly extract resources from the environment and they’re quite capable of producing new technologies without worker explotation. Capitalism is ruthlessly effecient at it because it ignores things like negative externalities while passing them onto local governments, workers, and consumers. Ruthless being the keyword here. In fact, I’d say it’s inefficient and simply irresponsible.
If you want to argue that the economic system we’re all watching literally destroy most life on this planet has some benefits the burden of proof is on you. List the benefits and compare them to other systems. If the benefit is that it’s better than slavery well, you’re basically comparing two diseases to each other and saying the benefit of disease A is at least it’s not cancer. If my Dr used language like this I’d fire him.
Capitalism is a disease on this planet. Diseases don’t have benefits. Only worse choices. Feel free to prove me otherwise, but you’ll have to do better than tired right wing and neo-liberal talking points. I’ve been through them to many times, sorry.
What? Capitalism has no intentional benefits that aren’t personal.
Every single feature benefits specific people instead of… Everybody.
Are you high?