2y ago

The suffering is inherent, and intentional to RULE system

The Democracy of the founding fathers was Greek Democracy, predicated upon a slave society, and restricted to only the elite. This is the society we live in today, even with our reforms towards direct representation. The system is inherently biased towards the election of elites and against the representation of the masses. Hamilton called it “faction” when the working class got together and demanded better conditions, and mechanisms were built in (which still exist to this day) that serve to ensure the continued dominance of the elite over the masses. The suffering of the many is intentional. The opulence of the wealthy is also. This is the intended outcome.

189 comments

The only part of this statement that is flawed is the part that states that the only course of action is to dismantle the system. It is also possible to reform the system so that it doesn't produce It's previous flaws.
- Really? Where has this happened? Which countries have been able to reform away the exploitation and coercion inherent in the capitalist economic structure whilst maintaining it?
  
  Where has dismantling worked without giving way to exploitation and coercion?
  
  we’re conversing via a communications system where at least the very top portion is free of exploitation and coercion. probably lemmy.tf is hosted on an operating system also free from that coercion. not to be all techbro, but it’s kinda like we’ve achieved this in one specific niche and completely failed to apply it to anything real/useful (i.e. “the stuff that could kill you in its absence”).
  i used to contribute a LOT to the 3d printing space ten years ago: at the time it seemed like the way to bridge that (half the parts in my machine were built with a friend using his machine). i still think there’s something “there”, that we can build parallel systems that won’t be captured or killed by the existing powers rather than solely embracing destruction, but it’s just a long game. how long has the capitalist system had to develop? anything else has to endure nearly that same amount of catchup until it can provide for us in any way you would embrace.
  
  Quite frankly, first of all, that's not the statement being discussed.
  The statement in the meme is that if a system deprives people of something necessary for life it should be dismantled. Doesn't even mention capitalism.
  A system that deprives people of what they need was say the healthcare system, but it was reformed to better provide people what they need instead of being dismantled. In the abstract, the idea that every broken system, or system producing a non-perfect outcome needs to be dismantled is one rooted in simple minded black and white thinking, instead of understanding the system at play.
  If you want to make a separate argument that capitalism is a system that resists change and that it thus cannot be changed or reformed to produce the outcomes you want, then you can make that argument, but 'no one has done it yet' after a generation or two of half hearted trying, is not a convincing argument that it's an impossible task.
- Dismantle is a euphemism that can also include reform. It's used more to imply that every modern document of government is written in blood and to change it requires a blood sacrifice of a generally unwilling nature.
  Even prohibition and especially prohibitions repeal have a body count, it's just how you change people's minds because we're dumb animals.
The principles of economic choice and voluntary exchange are paramount to a functioning free market. If the alternative to a purchase is death, then the free market doesn't function as such, it approaches racketeering.
- This sounds like some right libertarian capitalism apologia, is that what it is meant to be?
  
  He’s basically agreeing with you.
Why would anyone grow food for a living if they couldn't sell their produce at a profit?
- If a person would rather allow land to go fallow purely because of profit incentive, and that fallow land will result in the suffering of others, the only moral thing to do is dispossess them of that land. They weren’t using it anyway apparently, in this hypothetical.
  
  the only moral thing to do is dispossess them of that land.
  And give it to who? Who's going to farm that land when they're not allowed to make a profit from it? It's not easy work.
  
  This is exactly why the dismantling of capitalism in a post authoritarian world has so far always resulted in starvation. You have no sufficient answer to this question that addresses actual human behavior. It inevitably results in forced labor and oppression in the name of humanity.
  
  My government actually pays mostly corporate (but not all) farmers not to produce or actively destroy their products, rather than buy it and have communities freely disperse it.
  
  Farming requires a lot more than land
  
  Farm machinery isn't free
- You said it yourself: for a living.
  Growing food with a main goal of profits in a private enterprise rather than just sustenance or profit through government grants without private market interference has a lot of downsides, including to farmers themselves.
  For example, optimisation for profit means a lot of waste:
  Perfectly healthful produce with aesthetic faults has to be left to rot on the ground as it won't sell and nobody's going to collect it for those that need it but can't afford to pay the "market price"
  If you have an exclusive deal with a grocery store or other intermediary, the excess of an unexpectedly good crop yield will likewise in most cases have to be destroyed because the buyer can't receive all of it and you're not allowed to sell to their competitors.
  Likewise, any excess of a particular good harvest across a crop will also be destroyed to avoid losing money on the market value of the crop dropping due to increased supply.
  All of this while a few megacorps sit between farmers and consumers paying the same or less to farmers and charging much more of consumers while the cost of living and business expenses of farmers keep rising, making it harder and harder to make ends meet if you're not the aforementioned megacorps.
  And that's not even mentioning all the issues of long hours and some of the worst working conditions of any industry, all to save a buck or two to stave off bankruptcy and eventually starvation for a little longer while the megacorps and their billionaire owners and executives gobble up almost all the value of what you produce.
  
  I'm perfectly happy not spending 90% of my time and energy feeding my family. You may think that would be a better life but industrial farming does have a lot of benefits, through either command or liberal economics. It's there that the liberal system shines bright as a command economy requires local production to motivate workers for the above reasons.
  
  Jesus christ, you people and your text walls.
  Be Concise.
- You not understanding why someone might want to do good for others simply for the sake of doing good, and/or never being able to bring yourself to do so, doesn't mean no one else does.
  As always with bootlickers, it's projection all the way down...
  
  You are simply ignorant of human nature, I think.
  
  Are enough altruism-motivated do-gooders able to support everyone in a large society? Or would people starve?
  Just maybe the other person is referencing the selfish tendencies of humanity rather than being a projecting bootlicker.
  
  I suspect if we banned the ability to earn profits from farming, there wouldn't be many people who would want to farm. Personally, I'd rather choose an unprofitable job that was less exhausting, like being a starving artist.
  
  While you seem to be ignoring a significant consideration that sometimes oppression, violence and dominance is a natural human instinct, I do applaud your mindset as a cornerstone of how civil society continues to uphold its virtues, we shouldn't forget that goodwill and faith, no matter how much of it we have in a society, will always be limited and not nearly as contagious a disease as many often hope for it to be, which is why ads, internet memes and newsfeed algorithms have been developed simply to spread such positive messages.
- The problem isn't the profit per se rather it's the maximization of profit favoring capital over human beings that's the problem. The meme strikes me as extreme.
I'm fine with discussing politics here, but I'd rather the post be funny. There's plenty of jokes you could make about this, but this post is just a wall of text.
- Ok. Well I’ll be sure to change what I’ve been doing for months to cater to your desires. Thanks for letting me know!
  
  You cannot even define the difference between capitalism and fascism. I do think you should change what you are doing.
Are we discussing politics* in r/196? Is this a new low?
- You haven’t been here long, and weren’t in the old 196, because I’ve been discussing politics in 196 for at least 2 years, 6mo of that here, and the old 196 was 85% political memes, mostly trans positive and pro left content. In fact, this meme came from 196, as did every other one I’ve posted in here previously.
  
  Theres a reason why 197 was created, full of specially people in 196
- Politics? In my political shitpost lemmy? It's more likely than you think.
Yeah farmers shouldnt profit, they're our food slaves!
- The government should pay them.
  
  A profit?
- Farmers are already food slaves under the current system
  https://modernfarmer.com/2020/11/study-finds-1-percent-of-farms-own-70-percent-of-worlds-farmland/
  
  So let's make ANY chance of profit, what, illegal?
  How about we don't base policy on propaganda cartoona
- Individual Farmers often don’t profit. They survive through subsidy. The grocers who hold monopoly on supply chains and corporate industrialized farms with near-slave immigrant laborers make the majority of the profit. Also, paying yourself a wage isn’t profit. They can pay themselves a living wage that allows them to thrive, no one is calling for enslavement lmao.
- That's exactly what is written on the image. You are so right.
  
  What if I told you all of nature was a system where if you lack resources you die.
  hierarchies and competition and the weak dying off while the strong oppress them...thats all a feature not a bug
The problem isn't necessarily entirely capitalism, but rather capitalism that is heavily skewed in one direction with regulatory capture, therefore it's no longer true capitalism. Large corporations have the protection of numerous governments to shield them from a truly free market.
In other words, a local farmer selling his reasonably sized crop yields for fair profit is fine. A large multinational food corporation that manipulates food prices for greedily high profit margins--and this same corporation gets laws passed to ensure smaller farmers are kept under thumb--is not.
True large scale socialism is a pipe dream. It mostly works in small groups, but it most certainly does not when that group consists of millions of people. A balanced approach of moderate, well regulated capitalism and social democracy is the best solution, in my opinion.
Edit: The first few sentences appear to have been poorly worded and many are mistaking me for someone advocating for true/unregulated capitalism, but that is not the case. I'm simply remarking that even if our system was meant to be completely capitalist originally (which is still bad), it's not even that anymore. It's a bastardized version of it where corporations no longer have to compete fairly, as they've made themselves keys to the kingdom to ensure no one can potentially challenge them, so to speak.
My last paragraph of my original comment is essentially my point. True socialism isn't possible at scale, but a mixture of it and capitalism is.
- Brain dead take, capitalism always ends in the consolidation of capital and power. It naturally flows resources into fewer and fewer hands as the only goal is to make more and more profit. We're living in it and you're denying it. Take a look around you.
  
  Apparently you didn't actually care to read what I wrote and comprehend what I meant. I am specifically calling out the system we're currently living in.
- Power always accumulates within capitalism. Large corporations don't usually start that way, Walmart and Target started as single stores that got lucky. Capitalism is reliant on the state. We have a name for the system where capitalism existed without reliance on the state; it's called feudalism. A competition will always end with one winner and several losers, so free market competition results in a monopoly and several failed businesses. To prevent this, governments make rules to prevent the competition from ending, which results in more wealth and capital to influence government even more and break down those rules. In capitalist society, it is the ultimate goal to become the international megacorporation that manipulates markets and suppresses worker rights to maximize profit. So, I'll ask you, what's the difference between corporate capitalism and this 'true' capitalism?
  
  You misunderstood what I meant. What I'm saying is that corporations have taken over the governments that are supposed to be regulating them and now write the rules that benefit themselves, a.k.a. regulatory capture. This is bad. Thus why I wrote what I wrote.
  Capitalism isn't inherently bad. Unchecked capitalism will eventually become corrupted, this is known. I'm not advocating for true capitalism, I was merely making a remark about the current situation. If you read my last sentence, I'm a proponent for well regulated capitalism that's run by a system of social democracy.
- That’s why Capitalist nations always win hard to ensure socialism can’t work! That’s why Juan fu i got mine is teaching at a Florida college, amirite?
  
  No country on Earth is practicing true socialism. Nor has any actually attempted it in full earnest. Practically ever government is a bastardized version of ideals left to fester.
- Yea yeah no true Scotsman. Where is this “true capitalism” in existence? Or is this another “homo economicus “ that definitively can never exist?
  Large scale socialism has worked, multiple times. Do you not think industrializing a peasant society, more than doubling lifespan, cutting working hours in half, I could go on but I’ll leave it there, are things successful countries do? What determines success?
  
  Arguably the most capitalist societies were probably nomadic hunter gatherers where everyone was always on the move, every man and woman was out there for themselves. Not really everyone's cup of tea let alone particularly enjoyable to be fair
  
  You have a very generous definition of the word "worked."
  It's just a simple fact that managed or hybrid capitalism produces by far the best results for the most people. I will never understand the need to see the world in black and white terms when it's quite obvious to nearly everyone that mixed economies provide the best allocation of resources together with the highest quality of life. This is a subject that mainstream economists see as largely settled, apart from the details.
  I can't believe I'm seriously arguing with a communist. Maybe this is enough Internet for me for today.
Me when I had to go to 3 gas stations last night to find one with a functional air pump for my tires, and the one that was working was not automated, and it even cost me 2 dollars for the privilege of reading that stupid analogue gauge in the dark.
The broken free ones were automated.
Amen
Why use Finn without a mention to scrat scrobblin?
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189 comments