when a lot of you post complaints about "capitalism" I fully agree with everything except the word "capitalism," which I understand to mean something different than most of you
this is 99% a me issue. I'm not saying to change
I'm just saying I'd agree w/ a lot of posts w one word changed
No, in this case you're absolutely right. Many people here seem to think "capitalism" means "a thing about the economy that I don't like."
And the thing that they would like: a world without scarcity. But until we get to that world, we have to use some system to allocate scarce resources.
in some sense, the first part especially, you are right
the second part, there are other organizational structures that can help efficiently distribute resources without using a capital-ownership basis of arrangement
there are several examples of hybrid models that attempt this, with mixed success
so one doesn't necessarily need a post-scarcity society for us to adopt something other than "capitalism"
which is very important because you can't really "blow up" capitalism as much as you can change how different actions are rewarded, so the same resource arrangements don't come back
That’s true. But in a scarcity world, every economic system will have losers, and will have opportunities for the powerful to enrich themselves at the expense of the less powerful.
I’m not a capitalism super fan by any means. I think the idea of stanning an economic system is dumb. 1/
I do think that capitalism is a powerful tool, though, as long as we don’t worship it and establish guardrails to protect the vulnerable.
I’m absolutely open to the idea that another system would create a juster allocation. But there would be trade offs, including justice ones. 2/2
my main point for you, with the post-scarcity claim is that, at some point we have to realize we're actually in post-scarcity
if we excessively rely on capitalism and allow it's greatest benefactors too much of a say keeping it in place, they may attempt us from realizing a post-scarcity society
it's all well and good it drives engines of growth, but that shouldn't preclude us from trying different approaches
nor should we excessively worry about going "too far" in reigning in the excesses of capitalism
I just… what about government could possibly lead you to think that if we shift the incentives from “make money in business” to “gain power in government” that things won’t get even worse? I understand this looks genetically like the Ronnie Reagan government bad arg but I swear it’s not
Like,my concerns - and I’ve had people call me a self centered monster and block me over this no matter how much I qualify it - are very material, with lots and lots of progressive policies. It’s that I lived in Texas in the past decade and I know for a fact the gov’t hates trans ppl more than busns
Yes this is my point
Like on an emotional level I’ll fully admit that my bias here is that after years of leftist activism and hoping for a better world, my life got massively better when I decided I needed money to chase my dreams and thus became financially independent of my abusers
People will always reply to this with “well in my system, you would never have felt like you needed to depend on other people for support,” but you don’t have a system! We have a system and it works the way it does! No amount of whining got me out of rural hell, but learning to code did!
And the money that has specifically allowed me to live with friends and flourish in a place I like to exist comes from a corporation that pays me not because they like me or want to support me as a marginalized person but because I can do a thing they want
And that feels safe. “Justice” doesn’t.
what's the difference when money is given absurd influence over politics in the first place?
not saying that capitalism become completely obsolete (especially in the short term), but there are areas where its use can/has become problematic to outright abusive, when left mostly alone
I’ve been abused by people with money!
I just… I don’t think that the solution is promising a future that we cannot build, when if everyone simply followed the most logical collective action steps and supported liberal capitalism, we could save and help so many more people
Socialism would be great, but all I’ve seen my entire life is people prevaricating about their principles and needing a new system and how x candidate would have been great, and then Nader gets us Bush not Gore and Bernie gets us Trump not Hillary. When do people pack it in and get realistic
“Just imagine a better world” nothing in my experience of the world has indicated to me that the kind of better world people who promise this exists. If that’s the better things you want to think are possible, they’re not.All I see is demanding too much and making things worse,over and over and over
All I ever get in response to this is basically cold shoulders and “well people who are jerks say the thing you’re saying”
No one ever actually makes a serious case that there’s a better option than “what the coalition of reasonable liberal people called Democrats want”
To me, the most compelling case for socialism is not necessarily that it would be better on merits, but that the nature of liberal capitalism gives rise to capitalists who have the wealth and power to seek to destroy it.
