• fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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    9 months ago

    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.

    • treefrog@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      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.

        • treefrog@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          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.