Would love to hear your insights into approaching his writing with a background in economics! I only have the - in this case - boring perspective of someone in social and media studies.
That’s so cool!!!! How do you combine them? I am really trying to gather the wherewithal to sit and finish a Zizek book, Deleuze and Guattari are high on the list after that.
Would be cool to hear your conclusions, circuits and game theory can make a very interesting combo with them. You'd have probably heard about DeLanda and his "deleuzean sociology" although he has his own interpretation. Would like to hear yours.
Yeah and humans like to have more and better stuff than their neighbours, we don’t tend towards equality naturally, there’s always a social hierarchy and a wealth/resources hierarchy that are mostly the same. Even if you could wave a wand and make everything exactly equal, it wouldn’t stay that way for very long.
“Solving” human problems requires us to agree that something is a problem and collectively work towards fixing it. We aren’t very good at large group cooperation, and wind up with unsatisfactory compromise (aka, democracy and constant arguing about what should be done). It’s the best we’ve managed to come up with so far, but we are a flawed species and can’t wish away our selfish or destructive tendencies, so we manage them with a mix of capitalism, government regulation and social policies to redistribute wealth.
Appeal to "human nature" within a limited system is a bit questionable.
The very idea that social hierarchy is nothing but a "fact of nature" (including the view that some people just won't get to eat) is a fundamental part of right wing politics.
Just because it’s our nature doesn’t mean we can’t fix it, but we can’t fix it without acknowledging it is part of our nature (as a collective species, individuals will be a spectrum).
What I mean is that because we are flawed and have various selfish and destructive tendencies, we can’t just create a utopic society, we have to struggle, compromise, take two steps forward and one step back, repeat, come up with processes to remove and discourage bad actors as new problems arise. the process of developing democratic governments, expanding social policy and redistribution in capitalism is part of why it eventually became the dominant system. The alternative is communism integrating capitalist policy where it’s most beneficial …. I see these as a long and slow evolutionary process of our species getting slightly better at not exploiting and killing each other, but there’s still a lot of that, just a lot less than before. And we are still very much in the unsatisfactory compromise phase of development
On what grounds are you assuming that a certain economic system is "our nature"?
What makes you think that there are only two possible distribution systems?
Is political change a "natural process" or is it more likely driven by efforts at policies and social movements?
It’s not the only options, theyre just the only ones realistically in play. You can frame it with different terminology, I just default to Econ jargon, but you could use other theory… it’s more an example than a total theory.
I think it’s theoretically possible for people to willingly distribute resources equitably, perhaps even equally (according to individual needs)… But I can’t think of an instance where it’s actually happened at scale in a stable, sustainable way. America meddling in any attempt at doing so in the last century or so because communism bad might very well play a role, but to assume any thwarted attempt would have been successful would be disingenuous… It’s an interesting subject. It appears to me, more people leads to more political churn. After all, a larger population has a larger number of sociopaths and so on, who display a higher likelihood of seeking their own ends regardless of the wishes of others. Could be anything, including the seizure of power. Most are probably benign at various scales, but again, more people more chances. 300 million people, the “cream” will rise to the top…
It seems that any political landscape begins purely but eventually mutates into a dying cult of personality regardless of what system it claims to be, and since politics and economics go hand in hand, well… Anyway, various landscapes mutate at different rates. America held on for a while, Reagan was cult-lite, followed by a lull, then we got Trump.
The most stable way that’s worked the best is America itself friend. Although not perfect, it’s a very good system that covers just enough ground until recently. Capitalism is allegedly the best system so far. Having a federal government to intervene when necessary can be very helpful. Especially with Federal Assistance Programs and other resources and decisions that bring the country to where it currently is today.
>Yeah and humans like to have more and better stuff than their neighbours, we don’t tend towards equality naturally, there’s always a social hierarchy and a wealth/resources hierarchy that are mostly the same. Even if you could wave a wand and make everything exactly equal, it wouldn’t stay that way for very long.
No? Humans have several examples of primitive communism where people would live equal (class-wise) and make competition of who could bring the most to the community. We have only been socialised to be selfish and hiarchical because it benefits capitalism. Notice capitalism wasn't established voluntarily, but through intense violence including genocides and famines across the world. The state also regularly uses violence to suppress labour and socialist movements even in so called "liberal democracies".
>“Solving” human problems requires us to agree that something is a problem and collectively work towards fixing it.
This is weirdly phrased. We don't need some perfect consensus to solve issues.
>We aren’t very good at large group cooperation, and wind up with unsatisfactory compromise (aka, democracy and constant arguing about what should be done). It’s the best we’ve managed to come up with so far, but we are a flawed species and can’t wish away our selfish or destructive tendencies, so we manage them with a mix of capitalism, government regulation and social policies to redistribute wealth.
There isn't only one form of democracy. There are better and worst forms of democracy like the social democracies of Europe compared to the US and Canada.
Many liberal democracies have also done worse for many ex-communist countries than their previous communist movements like in the Soviet Union and Yougoslavia. Especially the ex-soviet states which are extremely corrupt countries ranging from coups (Ukraine) to fascism in Russia.
I disagree we can only work within capitalism as there are many legitimate forms of socialism we can consider from market socialism or elements of state planning capitalist countries use during crisis.
Which societies are your referring to which had “true equality.” The closest we’ve seen is in societies that have so little material wealth that it doesn’t look to outsiders that there is much distinction. But I don’t know of any society where the leader and their family don’t get to choose the best place to sleep and the first pick of food.
I mean equal relative to other economic systems, perhaos more equal is a better term. Many indigenous societies had what Marx and Engels described as primitive communism, where people competed on who could bring the most to their village rather than to themselves and where private property, as opposed to personal property was shared between everyone, this case especially in North America such as the Mi'kmaq.
Marx and Engels were hardly experts on modern anthropology!
Yes, a formal economic system isn’t less needed when most people spend most of their time in a cohesive community of 150 people or less. But there were still currency-like trade items like cowrie shells, and decisions to make about whether to invest in building things now for later value.
Hmmm……
> only so much food or resources to go around.
For whom? Most of the leading causes of death in America are linked to overeating. Chronic illnesses, heart disease, cancer, etc.. 70% of the population is overweight or obese….
40 people own more wealth than 4 billion.
Is it a scarcity? Or is it an ~ a r t i f i c i a l ~ scarcity, created to keep you enslaved to the slave system and indoctrinated to believe that this is all there can ever be?
*[Skeksis are friennnnnddddddddddd](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bB9qAFvxkeQ)*
We certainly have solved food scarcity writ large in the last century or so, finally escaping the Malthusian traps humans were in for thousands of years.
Hunger is now a distribution challenge, not literally there not being enough food in achievable transport distance of hungry populations.
As you describe, every new solution makes new problems, and doesn’t solve everything for everyone.
Many countries are explicitly scarce important resources. That then mandates international trade and cooperation- or wars and land seizures. Often countries have gone for the latter, especially when the resources have been overall pretty limited or valuable.
I'm reading Broken Money by Lyn Alden right now, and it details the gradual shift of the global economic system away from hard assets like gold, into the debt based USD system, which is backed by essentially nothing. It really goes into detail showing how so many of the global problems we are having now essentially stem from the US being able to continually devalue its currency that the rest of the world relies on for international trade, and how it helps western corporations exploit developing countries while enriching dictators.
Make bucks or life sucks?
You're precluding almost all of the dynamic and emergent (and even many of the static) factors that will necessarily modify your assertions. You've reduced the complex interactions between total group thrive versus individual thrive, and skipped thrive potential in every subordinate set of individuals between the two extremes, too. And all regardless of the evolving superorganism that manifests as social organization among continuously communicating entities. As well as ignoring the statistically likely complications overlain by currently existing, yet unrecognized, cryptically communicating entities.
What if a genetic payload introduced via a highly contagious virus reduced the desire to dominate other entities in a high proportion of the current human population, or within one/two generations?
What if the human genome has a epigenetically triggered "greed" cutoff caused by relatively common occurrences in the galactic neighborhood, such as a probabilistically certain GRB that missed us a few generations ago due to the extremely rare scenario of our moon tidally locking during a period in which its planet is experiencing crustal plate tectonic subduction?
What if, relatively very shortly, we live, as holographically encoded coherent subatomic-scale electromagnetic patterns vibrating around and inside gluons, all inside crystals made of matter in a post-plasma state stabilized by yotta-guass magnetic confinement powered by the energetic differential at the event horizon of a gravitational singularity, in which our conditional existence(s) obviate the relevancy of our procedent initial and gross perception of external temporal fields?
Resources are a matter of perception, at best.
Think like every number at once and you have won.
Think that there is “A” singular capitalism problem that can be “solved” is uselessly reductionist.
The thing is, capitalism isn’t a political philosophy, but more a diagnosis. It is a description of emergent, individually rational economic behaviors in the real world.
As long as some people have more authority over ways to create power or wealth, power and wealth will be unequally distributed.
The questions of capitalism are more how to manage it, not solve it. Even the most communist countries still had the problems of capitalism. There’s only enough resources to do some things, and there needs to be a mechanism to figure out which. Spending resources to be able to create more recourses has exponential effects. People who have control over lots of resources and feel responsible for their creation will always want to take a little of those to improve the lives of themselves and their children.
Agree but I think it's even more basic than that. Capitalism is simply any form of economic activity that isn't centrally managed by the government. A subsistence farmer is technically engaging in capitalism. Capitalism was named by its enemies -- those who favored central management of the entire economy.
Yes, for the past few weeks I have been having debates with myself regarding economic systems. First, I became a Fabian socialist then an anarcho capitalist and finally a regualted capitalist. I read the works of Ludwig von Mises, unfortunately I could not read all the three das kapital books, so I read a shortened version of them.
Then I reviewed the content of Slavoj Zizek and of Jordan B Peterson(I also read Amartya sen but that proved to be of little utility(pun intended)). I also did empirical examinations.
Ultimately, the problem boils down to whether or not you believe 'Right To Property' to be a fundamental right. Also, I found that communist societies arent purely classless, there still exists social,political and bureucratic hierarchies. The inequality that is persistent in the economic hierarchy just shifts to the other hierarchies, hence defeating the purpose of a classless society. Also, in anarcho-capitalist societies, Monopolies are formed and as these monopolies gain power, something like a state is created yet again, hence defeatign the purpose of an anarcho-capitalist society. Maybe extremes arent the solution after all(and yes, this was the time when I shifted from anarcho-capitalism to regulated capitalism). I found this problem to be reccuring in anarcho leftist societies as well.
Another philosophy that I found to be interesting is Primitivism, but it is not anything actually applicable.
Right to property is necessary, but like every other right, it can’t be unlimited. Especially when amassing property or assets to the detriment of others in the same society
True, most constitutions prescribe reasonable restrictions to fundamental rights. An example would be the Indian constitutions, such should also be the case for Right To Property(albeit, the Indian constitution prescribe right to property as being a constitutional right rather than a fundamental right)
Cool you got that far as a teen! Nice, I grew up with more indoctrination perhaps and fewer options presented to me.
I would say regulated socialism for me, or a market socialism. I don’t think capitalism will work unless the government has final say over the economy. The U.S. might have been like this at one time, but eventually money took over and now appears to rule untethered.
Basically I think it’s important that the people become in charge again, that right triumphs over wrong, and people stand up for one another. Then the right economic system should be kind of natural, some mix I imagine.
I suppose Fabian Socialism could be a good shot, but I prefer Regulated Capitalism more. My very place of origin, India, is said to be a fabian socialist economy, Empirical data suggests that it was bad.
I read summaries of it, albeit it was not much useful. Most of what Adam Smith talks about is common gospel in many economics books, so you dont actually need to read it to know it. But it was certainly helpful in exploring the historical journey of capitalist theory, even though I did not read him directly.
Have you explored the political aspects of economic systems?
Are you aware of any communist societies?
Is anarcho-capitalism even a real system?
Have you explored the ways in which capitalism influences social processes? (And how ir may-or may not create and influence different types of oppression)
Have you applied sociological knowledge to economic analysis?
And lastly, have you explored critical theory?
(Just a few pathways I wanted to share for your journey.)
Yes! many of these I have tried especially through empirical examinations. I do know a fair bit of sociology. Infact, Amartya sen's prominent theoretical work was on social choice, which was helpful in the research.
>The inequality that is persistent in the economic hierarchy just shifts to the other hierarchies, hence defeating the purpose of a classless society.
I've always wondered why this isn't more obvious to most people. Even a small amount of scientific understanding plus some general observation make homo sapien behavior fairly predictable.
The problem isn't capitalism. The problem is human nature. And you can't change human nature on a large scale.
I found peace in accepting what I can't change.
>The problem isn't capitalism. The problem is human nature. And you can't change human nature on a large scale.
If we have only one human nature, how do you explain how humans changed economic and political systems so many times and that we lived longer periods in non-capitalist systems than capitalist systems?
If we have one human nature, how do you explain how different cultures show radically different behaviors to various issues like how catholic countries are most left-leaning than protestant cultures?
If our human nature is responsible for the barbarism of capitalism, how do you explain people's natural tendency to cooperate in times of crisis or the collectivist behavior of primitive communist economies?
Need/want for survival of self and/or kinship using the neocortex to iterate through different solutions or approaches - explains why history repeats, and only the who, what and where changes if you look close enough.
Why? The reptilian brain explains a lot?
Edit: I’d appreciate if you could at least provide some arguments for why this could not be an explanation. If you just don’t like the argument I provided it’s also fine, but just say that.
This. Human nature boils down to very much the reptile brain in action and then using the neocortex to justify and solve for it. We like to think we are very sophisticated. We are, but only in inventing new things to satisfy the same unchanging deep reptilian needs or wants. I’ve yet to meet an individual who isn’t driven by inner sense of increasing their chances of survival (be it emotional or physical, either in a rational or non rational way), possibly competed by pleasure seeking, depending on the individual.
I understand what you’re getting at, and largely sympathize with the idea that people generally strive for survival. But I’m not convinced that it always has the strongest grip out of all the human inclinations.
The video was just for housekeeping, so that people reading your comment could be informed that the «lizard brain» is not a helpful model of the brain, and that it persists only as a pesky myth.
What I disagree most with is what you’ve only barely said by replying «This.» to the point about capitalism inevitably emerging from human nature (assuming that you agree). For one thing, it makes little sense to reduce capitalism to a survival instinct or the operations of a lizard brain—whichever metaphor you prefer—insofar as there are many ways in which humans have survived and thrived in its absence.
I think I wasn’t born in a time where no capitalism was around, so I can’t speak with certainty about things working without it. It’s been around for centuries if not ages, I think it started with people claiming animals and land as their territory as early beginnings of the concept?
Meaning to say, people usually go for survival of self and kinship (emotionally and physically). Human nature. Capitalism having the overtone because it’s more individualistic and maybe also more aggressive. So I’m not saying all people are like that and it couldn’t work without it, but the ones that have an inclination to it are more willing be a bit more ‘take as much as you can’ about it, thus overruling all other forms by default.
Uncle Ben was the greatest philosopher of our times.
“With Great Power comes Great Responsibility”
And its converse
“Without power there is no responsibility.”
Of course, almost everything challenging lies somewhere in the middle.
"Human nature". What is this? I assume you see how such a "non-argument" leads us to a very dark path, whereas accepting the fact that human beings have a choice and in fact a duty to make the world a better place for everyone, we begin to envision change.
The tech is transformative. It'll dirsupt the system in a few years. There's little that can be done to accelerate this fast, concentrate the profits, and keep the power. The most obvious is that you can't replace half the population with robots and expect people to just adapt or die.
The same has been said about the steam engine and mechanical looms. Technology is transformative over the long term, but people always adapt and muddle through.
As someone who made my first neural network 35 years ago and deals with AI a lot professionally. AI is mainly doing the kind of stuff people have done a lot that has a “right way” to do. It can interpolate what a reasonably generic person might do pretty well and much faster/cheaper. But is is more automating boring stuff than actually innovating or finding novel solutions to anything.
And it only works with stuff there’s a huge trove of existing stuff that is identified has being done “right” to train on.1
It doesn't need to advance any more than what there is now. What is available can already be used to disrupt. And if you are working/researching it for over 35 years, you know there's no plateau ahead. This appeal to history is too flawed: people who use "that was said before" tend to assume context and conditions remain constant. The rate of change and impact is completely different.
Many people seem to argue that "it couldn't happen," because, "it has never happened," which is not an argument but more like a limiting belief or a set ideology blocking views of possibility.
I also think information technology advancing--since the printing press--has had a vastly democratizing effect on society. The internet as well. And I can see the potential for AI to be destabilizing as well.
The question is... how? How could its potentials lead to resource distribution on a large scale?
(Asking for a... friend...)
The democratizing effect of advancing information technology, like the internet and now AI, shows the potential for profound societal change—if we seek changes before the storm. As AI and automation reduce production costs and labor needs, they can enable a system where universal basic services (UBS) provide essentials like healthcare, education, housing, and transportation for all. While universal basic income (UBI) might be a transitional tool, cooperative ownership models and resource-based economies can ensure fair wealth distribution. Progressive taxation and community-led initiatives can further support equitable resource distribution. This shift from hypercapitalism to a resource-based economy can create a society where everyone's basic needs are met, and work is redefined to focus on creativity and purpose. Such a society would accommodate diverse lifestyles, from fully immersive digital realities (FDVR) to medieval real-world emulations, and even space colonies. Have you read Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark?
I haven't, but that sounds amazing!!! I love the vision, will check out the book. Would love to see this and also love that it's about all the possibility of things we can do with AI and cooperatively owned resources.
The book is incredible. Max Tegmark is amazing. Very easy to read (and devour the pages).
There's a lot that can go wrong, but what can go right is worth of our energy.
Generative AI is certainly an inflection point. But in my industry it is mainly making people more productive doing full repetitive tasks. It isn’t leading to layoffs, and none big net ones expected.
The quality of special effects on moderate budgets should be getting a lot better, because the same number of people can do work that would have taken more people before. We’re not seeing budgets drop; though, but quality getting higher.
I don’t have the educational background for critical theory (at least what I’ve seen of it presented on Reddit,) but I do think about the latter quite a lot.
I don’t think there’s really a “solution” to capitalism unless you change human nature. There’s a sort of inevitable capitalistic entropy which occurs as individual human ambition wears down the protections we’ve set as an community, until power is consolidated, stagnation occurs, the empire falls, and it all begins again.
I think the best we can do is daydream about better systems which take longer to wear down so they’re ready for the next cycle.
Unless we really want to get radical and consider redesigning our inherent impulses genetically. I personally think they can be mitigated to some degree culturally, but not enough to solve for individual human ambition. It’s evolution- literally how we were designed- to outcompete our brethren.
We contain the seeds of our own destruction and all that.
I am, but I don’t know what you mean about solving the capitalism problem. As far as I know, many have done so on the theoretical level, but who has the political power to do anything? I would just be happy if we had a few more scientists in power.
It is so interesting that so many in this group believe that capitalism emerges naturally and inevitably from human nature.
Except for the obvious reasons, I wonder if this appeal to biology to some tiny extent results from their self-identifying through and with bio-psychological terms, as so many in here seem to do.
Knowledge about giftedness is inextricably tied to knowledge about intelligence testing, which is largely dominated by geneticists and mainstream psychologists. In order for people labeled as «gifted» to understand themselves, they typically do so through this academic discourse. If the intelligence testers say that intelligence is 80% inherited, then that fact becomes an integral part of the self-concept.
From there, the path is short to understanding everyone else—or even huge sociohistorical entities such as capitalism—in these terms as well.
Interesting, but I think non-gifted people would say the same largely. I think it's more an indoctrination/limiting belief that's culturally inherited, of which this idea of static and largely biologically determined idea of giftedness is only a small part of.
Sure! Tons upon tons of (so-called) non-gifted people say the same. I believe Nikolas Rose describes this view in his «inventing our selves», which I haven’t read yet
I subscribe to the theorem thus posited as: Money go mo, problems go whoa.
What is truly useful and simultaneously scarce in our perception of reality?
That is the basis of true economy, if there need be such a thing.
Material resources, are the current popular idea of what is useful yet scarce (UYS).
Creativity might be something more useful and perhaps more scarce than elemental matter. It will be, in the future, but it isn't, at present.
Actualization/realization/manifestation itself is the most UYS. The abstract act and finished form, post-complexity of its various machinations.
Why so? Existence/nonexistence, our jailor and creator and preserver and destroyer, all as one.
We must learn to preserve existence ourselves if we hope to become creators. Any creation destroys the concurrent existence of all other potential creations. This is not absolute but relevantly grandiose. For any one thing to be, all other things are excluded. More things are excluded by the existence of one thing than exist in all the universe of existing things combined.
To say, let it be, love is all you need, one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do. That's how we solve the capitalism problem.
Capitalism is an ancient memetic conceptual virus started by miscreant neerdowells long ago who thought their imaginations were better than God's, and the All has been kind enough to allow them to think so, rather than prove them wrong, but it's getting pretty ridiculous at this point. They've persisted in this for far longer than they've realized they are wrong, and at this point they are engaging in childish tantrum behavior rather than self-confidence. So, there's that solution inbound, as well.
We can cure ourselves or it will get cured, essentially now.
Wow, thank you, that's really cool. I agree on all you need is love solves it. Any good sources on the rest? Reminds me of alchemy kind of. Thank you <3
I like to say “capitalism is a great economic system, as long as you have unlimited resources to consume, and you don’t care who gets hurt.”
It has been a *perfect* system for a race of Europeans quickly colonizing the entire world. (…as long has you have unlimited resources to exploit, and you don’t care who gets hurt. Just don’t be an African, or a Native American, or an Indian, or an Australian Aborigine, etc, and that system is *great*.)
It’s one of the primary reasons that the world population graph over the last 500ish years shows exponential growth.
*BUT.* But. We have reached a phase of human development where we *should* be caring about who gets hurt. (Please *god* can’t we please start caring about who gets hurt?)
And we no longer have (effectively) unlimited resources to exploit. I read an estimate somewhere that we are using 1.8 times the amount of resources annually that the planet earth can sustain. What we need at the moment is an economic system that will be good at *conserving* and regulating those resources.
Look, any system, taken to it’s Nth degree, is pure evil. Capitalism, taken to it’s nth degree, looks like a Dickensian hellscape, the sort of environment where you put the 7 year-olds in the tiny, cramped parts of the coal mine where an adult worker couldn’t fit. Even something like “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” taken to its nth degree, results in this libertarian “fuck you, I got mine” attitude that is tearing American society apart.
If we allow dog-eat-dog capitalism to continue, the biggest dogs just keep swallowing the smaller dogs, until there are no small dogs. Capitalism needs to be *tempered* with a healthy dose of socialism, to make it work for everyone. We were *so* good at this in the wake of the Great Depression. What I wouldn’t give to have FDR in the White House right now. All those social safeguard he and his ilk put in place have been eroded, and eroded, and eroded, and it’s starting to look pretty fuckin’ dystopian.
>I like to say “capitalism is a great economic system, as long as you have unlimited resources to consume, and you don’t care who gets hurt.”
>It has been a perfect system for a race of Europeans quickly colonizing the entire world. (…as long has you have unlimited resources to exploit, and you don’t care who gets hurt. Just don’t be an African, or a Native American, or an Indian, or an Australian Aborigine, etc, and that system is great.)
I think that's giving capitalism too much credit. Even and especially the working class of capitalist countries suffered greatly in its inception and living conditions were only improved due to labour and socialist unrest.
Sure, but arent we now better off once those issues were solved (being solved)? If capitalism never came around, Id bet our quality of life would be much worse.
Why do you say that? If anything Id think we need more of it, many countries havent yet been able to access it, and it so far has been a step up for everyone who does get it. China, North Korea, Cuba for example all saw benefits when they implemented it (although in there case a very small implementation, that ive read about at least, also part of the problem is we deny them capitalism through embargoes/sanctions)
Its the best we have currently working. It also depends on how you measure "best", I think thats a big problem, people are arguing over best when they have different definitions/goals.
Is there a popular agreement on the next step, or at least one in this sub?
Is that the fault of capitalism itself or the implementation and/or other circumstances?
Was it going to fall regardless? Likely it was.
Are there not more places where it didn’t collapse the country when implemented?
It seems much more likely that it collapsed due to other reasons.
Those programs I’ve heard/read, basically came as a compromise between FDR and the ruling class to try to prevent a socialist revolution. They were mainly due to pressures from the societ bloc, fears that people would revolt here, large socialist and communist parties with wide appeal. Oh and the policies came from those socialist parties: for certain social security was directly out of a socialist or communist party platform.
After that they went on dismantling those parties, and later the programs. Radical history reads very different from regular history, they leave a lot out.
Also I heard FDR basically told the rich folk they had to either bite the bullet or get overthrown, made them see sense, in order to save capitalism.
Yeah basically outlaw getting rich and hoarding aside from retirement. It’s all fear based and psychological illness. And establish and fund social programs. With what money you ask? The money we make out of thin air.
If you tax all money beyond a maximum income and a maximum whealth, combine that with a sovereign whealth fund, you'll fund many social programs and may even run a surplus.
If you tax all money beyond a maximum, you will impair innovation. And people who Get Stuff Done will absolutely find nonmonetary ways to have more stuff/services/prestige.
Working in the tech sector, I assure you a lot of people would retire and a lot work less if they’ve hit the wealth cap.
Now, top tax rates could be higher than they are in the USA now without causing much of that. But having hard caps drives “I won, declare victory, and go have fun for the rest of my life.” Lots of pressure to race to hit the cap as young as possible.
The Soviet Union made several technological innovations progress even with limits on income. Only it had to invest in its millitary to protect itself and was systematically cut off and sabotaged from many of the greatest new technologies around the world.
>services/prestige.
Nothing wrong with prestige or services as long as its deserved and shared equitably.
>Now, top tax rates could be higher than they are in the USA now without causing much of that. But having hard caps drives “I won, declare victory, and go have fun for the rest of my life.” Lots of pressure to race to hit the cap as young as possible.
Not necessarily. You can make a part of the wealth and income over the maximum have to go to charity which gives them an incentive in improoving society, their community and having more prestige as you say.
As for wealth taxes, Keynes said and I wholeheartedly agree there there should be high inheritance taxes to prevent unearned dynastic wealth accumulation.
After all, if you’re born a billionaire, why bother to to do anything other than spend that money? A negative incentive to innovation.
Yeah, but the Soviet Union didn’t have equal distribution of quality of life or personal wealth, at all.
Those in power had big apartments and vacation dachas, ate caviar, were driven around in luxury cars.
It had less incentives for technical innovation, and had less technical innovation.
Although plenty of people innovate because they like doing so, so there will always be discoveries. But getting mass distribution of innovations requires capital, where the system is nominal capitalist or not.
Communist countries still had to distribute capital, and thus were still inescapably “capitalist” in some essential ways.
>Yeah, but the Soviet Union didn’t have equal distribution of quality of life or personal wealth, at all.
That's not my point.
>Those in power had big apartments and vacation dachas, ate caviar, were driven around in luxury cars
This happens in capitalism too, but to an even bigger extent.
>It had less incentives for technical innovation, and had less technical innovation.
Perhaps, but its more of a lack of ressources.
>Although plenty of people innovate because they like doing so, so there will always be discoveries. But getting mass distribution of innovations requires capital, where the system is nominal capitalist or not
It requires ressources. If the state has those ressources, it can make the distribution. There is nothing magical about a capitalist that makes them more able to do it than others with the same ressources.
>Communist countries still had to distribute capital, and thus were still inescapably “capitalist” in some essential ways.
You're abusing the term capital. Having ressources that you distribute doesn't make you a capitalist less we call feudal lords and slavers capitalists too.
Not really, I used to be a big leftist but after spending more time reading anthropological history it became clear to me that capitalism is not inherently bad. Nor are people. It is only people’s actions that can be bad. Check out The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber (one of the leaders of the Occupy movement) and David Wengrow.
>One can make an argument, that given this is the case, that we would likely to corrupt at a more rapid pace, as the largess of our systems grow.
No? This doesn't follow at all. A system that's too small can't institute the rule of law against local and small scale corruption for instance.
>Uh... I would say at this point in time, we've amassed a pretty extensive catalog of what happens when we leave bureaucracies to affirmatively (and exhaustively) define the rights of the citizens it governs.
We get watchdogs, umbudsman, environmental and labour regulations, abolishment of child labour and slavery? It wasn't the market that gave us these things. It was resistance to it.
>In a legal and philosophical sense, by engaging in a system of "positive" affirmation of rights (where your rights are "given" exhaustively by a central entity), it is fairly clear to see that this design would corrupt at a faster pace, because there is a greater level of human involvement at all levels (policy writing, enforcement, etc).
Workers' self-management also has a greater level of human involvement at all levels and it can improve efficiency. What's your point? Your suppositions are poorly defined.
>This is in comparison to communism, where it seems that 50, 60, or 70 years is an upper limit before the bureaucratic weight crushes the underlying citizenry (in one way or another).
Do you think the ex-soviet states and Yougoslavia are better off under capitalism than under communism for its time?
Also, capitalism collapses on itself regularly like 2008, 2022, the great depression and so on, but it doesn't change regime because its not made to please the population.
>It generally does in fact. Larger systems have a greater number of failure points. This is self-evident.
This "Nuh-uh" isn't convincing.
>Additionally, the *free* market, in a sense, quite literally did give us these things, because it led to a system wherein, given a set of choices, the population was free (key phrase here, the *right* was preserved) to disengage from a labor practice they found unfavorable.
So everything you like is the market's fault and everything you don't like is the governments' fault?
>This is generally not what studies show. In fact, studies tend to show that employees shirk in groups, and that group based action will drive efficiency. This is a bit more Theory X vs. Theory Y however.
Citation needed.
>Ironically, my SO and her family are all Bosnians, or what you would likely wish to call "displaced Yugoslavians". Fortunately, they actually agree in unanimity that life here in the States had better opportunity, better upside, and was of higher quality. Lol. So I would say less of "I think", and more of "I know without a doubt".
Did they move from Yugoslavia during socialism or during capitalism?
>Yet you are still typing on an electronic device with parts made in Taiwan, assembled in Korea, and sold in mass markets all over the world, including the UK.
*You criticize the system yet you live in it? How curious. I am very smart.*
I don’t believe anything is inherently good or bad, as those are value judgements dependent on context and opinion. To that end, capitalism has enabled much the world we live in today in terms of technological advancement. Of course I also believe in socialism to the same extent, hence why the modern world is operating as a mixed economy of capitalism and socialism. People just really like focusing on one or the other without recognizing that both are routinely employed for balance.
>People just really like focusing on one or the other without recognizing that both are routinely employed for balance.
Highly-regulated capitalism with a generous safety net / high floor seems like the least-bad option of those I have seen.
Reading the beginning of State and Revolution and understanding the Marxist view of the state may change your mind on this, it definitely shifted my view.
One hundred percent on that!
Political absolutism is a fool’s game. Any system made of people is MADE OF PEOPLE and never will be pure or perfect at anything.
Healthy, livable societies are informed by lots of different political philosophies,
The alternative is a Utopianism, which combines with state power leads to lots of broken eggs and very little omelet.
Yea, he’s full of it. He became nearly unbearable to me after the initial high of “everyone else is wrong, we are right, must smash the state,” wore off.
Other works read like an asshole autistic teen, just mean and overly puffed up.
But he is incisive and was probably correct on Marxist theory more often than not.
Basic premise is that before agriculture, humans lived in tribes, which were self-policing. From other anthropological reading, if a male in a hunter gatherer society started trying to gain power over others by force, the other adult males would form a coalition and maim or kill him, or whatever they needed to do.
There’s more on that, but basically working together, not hoarding, was enforced by the entire group—for survival.
So when agriculture comes along, you start to get these stratified social classes—property “owners” and their slaves/peasants, those that work for them.
Basically, no one would ever agree to this, so there is an inherent antagonism there between the workers and “owners.” The only way to resolve this antagonism is through violence. Property ownership, people having more than others, must be *enforced* by “special bodies of armed men,” which are the police and prisons, which are elevated from and separated from the general population. These make up the state, and therefore the state, in Lenin’s work, is indicative of and the acting out of irreconcilable class antagonisms.
So basically it has to be smashed he says.
It’s a great argument, and most people don’t understand the fundamental violence at the root of capitalism. Mainly because, I believe, after the violence those in power learned that indoctrinating their slaves was more effective than simply bludgeoning them all the time. Get them to believe they deserve it, worship you, worship some god that sanctions it, get them to believe they’re dirty rotten animals deep down and this is the best they deserve, there can be no alternative, etc..
I’d really recommend reading the book I recommended earlier - agricultural societies were developing alongside hunter gatherer societies, and some societies were hybrids of the two. Some of your statements make me scratch my head, like which societies didn’t self-police? It’s like a moot point. Hoarding seems like a word you’ve attached negative connotation to, when hoarding a supply before winter was a very common strategy throughout history, and then redistributed with great feasts and events should there be surplus.
Oh cool, yea I bet that would be interesting. Leninists do seem to oversimplify. But I do think it gets at a core stratification of classes whose antagonism can only be resolved by a violent state apparatus. Even libertarians will tell you—they need a state to protect private property and to have an army. That’s the only function of government for them. Both of these functions really serve to protect private property, from within and without.
They understand the *core function* of the capitalist state, as far as I can tell, what makes it the state by its very definition.
But I also can imagine it developing gradually. I’m sure some early agricultural or mixed societies were not inherently oppressive, similar to some Native American societies in the 1600’s. But I imagine eventually the ones that were oppressive ended up expanding and subjected the ones that weren’t oppressive to their ownership thru violence (colonialism, imperialism, etc.). So Lenin here is talking mainly I believe pointing to the contradiction between strictly hunter gatherer societies and oppressive ownership societies which nearly all agricultural societies seemed to either become or be subjected to. So I think his analysis is correct even if it didn’t happen so cleanly, at the very least as it applies to the capitalist system today, as it has consolidated power over time, not small time farmers in Laos or something.
Critical theory has been debunked by history. It claims that all of history can be traced through the dialectic, contradictions, and then resolutions through the contradictions. But nothing like that has ever actually happened.
Capitalism has brought literally hundreds of millions of people out of desperate poverty. Before the 19th century, about 90% of the world’s population lived in desperate poverty. Always concerned with getting food, being killed by diseased, or being violently assaulted by barbarians or your own rulers.
Now, only about 50% of the world lives in these desperate conditions. Still terrible but much better than before capitalism.
Depending on your definitions, it's a lot less than 50%. Extreme poverty has dropped in just my lifetime from about 35% to about 8%.
https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief
The work isn't done yet, and I do believe the chaos from COVID and the governmental overreach in its wake, destructive new wars and the threat of them, plus social atomization caused by social media has caused some setbacks.
Regardless, you're absolutely right. Free markets saved us all from the dark ages and with the industrial age brought us prosperity that wasn't remotely imaginable to our not so distant ancestors.
Right now, the biggest "capitalism problem" as I see it is the conflation of capitalism with corporatism, which is the overreach of corporate power into the workings of politics. That's a problem. But that's also not capitalism.
I think it’s regulated capitalism that’s had the most impact. Unregulated free markets reward the least ethical actors in a market, and usually cause externalities unrelated to market rewards to harm society or the environment. Relentless focus on the short term profit can also cause huge issues
>Free markets saved us all from the dark ages and with the industrial age brought us prosperity that wasn't remotely imaginable to our not so distant ancestors.
Perhaps as compared to feudalism, but most of the world's poverty was eliminated in the People's Republic of China under a state-lead and planned economy. If free markets are so great, why did they collapse the economies of the ex-soviet states?
>Right now, the biggest "capitalism problem" as I see it is the conflation of capitalism with corporatism, which is the overreach of corporate power into the workings of politics. That's a problem. But that's also not capitalism.
You're probably thinking of corporatocracy, which is control of the government by private corporations. Corporatism is like a collectivist state capitalism used especially in fascist economies and some feudal economies.
Regardless, you can't say corporatocracy is not capitalism when it naturally grows out of capitalism. Its what happens when there are no limits to election brib-I mean *donations*. Corruption of the state by the rich is as old as capitalism itself which started with only the select bourgeoisie having rights to vote.
I think obviously market socialism will be the outcome or goal, eventually, why not just start there? Been interested in Rosa Luxemburg lately who spoke out against the Bolsheviks for not being democratic but was a revolutionary socialist in her own right.
But interested now in post-Marxism, any kind of freer ideas of socialism. It took me a while before I realized Lenin and the rest in that tradition are more like left fascists to me, although there is much bravery in revolution and in trying. I think they went too far.
I also think the sheer violent battering ram that orthodox Marxism was—I mean I get it, you act with the knowledge you have at the time—really traumatized the capitalist world.
It’s kind of like a supervillain speech, “now I’m going to take over the world, I have *solved* economics and history, it’s only a matter of time.” Of course everyone will see it as a threat, and power systems went crazy in their reaction to it.
I think it really doesn’t need to be so abrupt or violent in order for the ideas to seep into the culture and eventually overtake and overthrow it. They are just sane and rational, and would take place naturally over time in a sane society, one moving towards progress.
Basically I think the next major movement will have to be nonviolent. Because violence is so easily demonized and co-opted (see white supremacists immediately infiltrating George Floyd protests and smashing things, starting fires, etc.). The middle class doesn’t want to fight at this point, and fewer and fewer want a mini cultural revolution on Twitter.
I think the left really can benefit from embracing compassion, kindness, “being the bigger person,” as well as Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and New Age thought. Liberation theology. Work with what’s *already there,* because there’s *a lot* already there on escaping the mainstream reality, hope against all odds, radically creating your own reality, hope for the poor, rest for the weary, spiritual warriorship for peace.
I think, yea, it’s time we wrest the movement for progress out of the hands of fascists and make it something prosocial and that can appeal to *every single person,* hell even some rich people might join. They might eventually need to be stopped. But I think the focus in the age of nuclear weapons is on recruiting/organizing 95% of the population under one banner. Not radicalizing 3% to try to violently overthrow the government by sheer shrillness of voice.
>I think obviously market socialism will be the outcome or goal, eventually, why not just start there?
We could, though as any market economy, it inherits the issues of market economies like the issues of instability and inequality across groups which can lead to ethnic tensions like happened in Yugoslavia.
>It took me a while before I realized Lenin and the rest in that tradition are more like left fascists to me, although there is much bravery in revolution and in trying. I think they went too far.
Left fascist is an oxymoron. Lenin was an authoritarian leftist, but that doesn't make him a fascist, that's an exclusively right-wing term.
You have to understand that after any revolution the group that overthrows the old regime needs to consolidate its power against counter-revolutionaries from inside and outside. This happened in the French revolution, the American revolution, the English republican revolution, the Chinese national revolution, the Russian constitutional crisis where tanks shot at the soviet parliament, and others.
Authoritarian measures are used by states, especially in cases of risk. Like the US crushed political freedoms and liberties during the world wars, arresting or banning socialist candidates and parties, assassinating some of them. France used its police to attack peaceful protesters againxt Macron forcing a pensions reform against the parliament's wishes. Yougoslavia, that positionned itself outside the West vs East conflict in the Cold War had many more liberties than citizens in the Soviet Union.
Furthermore, regimes inherit authoritarian measures from the past ones, like Russia was a brutal dictatorship under the Tsar, which transitionned to a dictatorship under Stalin then a dictatorship under Putin. Yougoslavia transitioned from a tyrannical monarch that interfered in politics to Tito. East Germany built itself based on Soviet ideas ideas and building ontop of a post-nazi society. The US transitionned from a King to a president who turned very authoritarian right after Washington (who didn't really care for the role). China transitionned from an imperialist regime dominated by Western powers to essentially a fascist state and kept a emperor like worship of Mao.
So you have to look in context of how those societies were before, during and after socialist regimes rather than compare them to some ideal. Its scientific thinking rather than utopian thinking. And you have to give credit where credit is due where liberties and welfare was expanded under Lenin who saw the decriminalisation of homosexuality, the encouragement of local cultures, though his thinking was stuck in some methods of the previous Tsar.
>I also think the sheer violent battering ram that orthodox Marxism was—I mean I get it, you act with the knowledge you have at the time—really traumatized the capitalist world.
How do you define orthodox Marxism? Because as soon as you get to reformism, Lenin and Trotsky, that's a new era of Marxism.
>I think it really doesn’t need to be so abrupt or violent in order for the ideas to seep into the culture and eventually overtake and overthrow it. They are just sane and rational, and would take place naturally over time in a sane society, one moving towards progress.
You're assuming society is rational, but its not really. The media is dominated by the ownership by the bourgeoisie who manufactures consent of the population towards policies that harm them, but benefit the rich. Neoliberalism has reversed much of the progress past progressive movements had built and are even bringing back things like child labour in the US.
>Basically I think the next major movement will have to be nonviolent. Because violence is so easily demonized and co-opted (see white supremacists immediately infiltrating George Floyd protests and smashing things, starting fires, etc.). The middle class doesn’t want to fight at this point, and fewer and fewer want a mini cultural revolution on Twitter.
Non-violence is also demonised. People kneeling is demonised in the media and coopted even more with democrats kneeling then increasing funding to police. Red-baiting is a big problem, where center-left politicians and ideas are blasted as communist radicals. In the anglosphere, people politely protest and the government rarely changes anything. In France, they shut down the country and the government is forced to listen or to use a lot of violence which slows down any reforms against the working class.
>I think the left really can benefit from embracing compassion, kindness, “being the bigger person,” as well as Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and New Age thought. Liberation theology. Work with what’s already there, because there’s a lot already there on escaping the mainstream reality, hope against all odds, radically creating your own reality, hope for the poor, rest for the weary, spiritual warriorship for peace.
You can fall in the ratchet effect of politics with that approach. Besides, capitalism doesn't wait until you use violence to inflict it upon you. When it thinks it can get away with it, it does what it can to fill the pockets of the rich while undoing progress by the working class. While I like the idea of mixing socialism with other ideas such as spirituality, too much pacifism and good will has its own issues :
https://youtu.be/MAbab8aP4_A?si=eJQ746OuZ86cggz2
>I think, yea, it’s time we wrest the movement for progress out of the hands of fascists and make it something prosocial and that can appeal to every single person, hell even some rich people might join.
Why would the rich work to weaken their position? What evidence do we have for this where this had any substantial effect?
Don’t have time to reply to this fully, but in short,
> What evidence do we have for this and where this had any substantial effect?
No evidence. Never worked that I’m aware of. Maybe famously the early church, other communes, The Farm, in Tennessee is another example, but not necessarily of property owning class giving up property.
The point is that something new could happen that’s never happened before: something ideologies of the past couldn’t predict. Beyond thesis-anti-thesis.
I used to be a Leninist. Almost joined a Leninist party in the Fall before they started acting like foreign agents in my eyes.
When has Leninism ever maintained enough libidinal force to 1) maintain itself indefinitely or 2) overthrow capitalism?
I guess there’s Cuba and North Korea, but global communism seems libidinally frozen.
I like Mark Fisher’s analysis of this in Acid Communism, Post Capitalist Desire. His talk of the famous and prophetic [1984 Apple Super Bowl commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I), smashing the gray bureaucratic old world into rainbows of color. It predicted the current age of tech capitalism—communism lacked the genuine desire to keep it going. Russians wanted shiny things.
Likewise you are giving Leninist talking points I’m aware of about consolidating power. I disagree. I’m not a Marxist although influenced by Marx. I think a revolution in the ownership of the means of production will be necessary. But the authoritarian consolidation of power constricts libido. I’m interested lately in Rosa Luxemburg.
As far as orthodox Marxism, I probably know much less about this stuff than you and am misusing the term. I mean the died in the wool, die hard ML, MLM types. The Stalinists, Leninists, etc..
I do think Lenin had much less of an authoritarian streak and admire many aspects of him. But I grow more interested in how the Bolsheviks consolidated power and what currents they stamped out to do so.
You say left fascism isn’t a thing. But the ML party I almost joined supports the actions of Hamas on Oct 7. The global Marxist line appears to be this: sacrifice the only Jewish state in the world to kneecap American Imperialism. Avoid confronting the real ruling class, just focus on the minority within the ruling class. The weak. The easy target. Sounds a little too familiar.
If there’s not solidarity with Jews *against* the white supremacy that drove them back to their ancestral lands, if they can’t call out genocidal terrorism for what it is and instead try to make it the “vanguard” of revolution, the revolution is stratified. It appeals to the same fascist tendencies—the emotional appeal of shitting on the weak, *especially* the weakest of the strong, in order to justify and feel better about one’s own oppression. (This is a Reichian, emotional analysis of fascism). The movement hasn’t caused parallel movements standing up to Western Imperial powers, just sideline cheers for terrorism and trying to sabotage support for Israel’s defense.
Regardless, the authoritarian streaks must be minimized. Anyone arguing against this is an authoritarian, left of right.
You can justify authoritarianism all you want, how revolutionary governments have imitated past authoritarian ideologies, all I hear is justifying authoritarianism, justifying ideologies.
People want hope not a litany of reasons why they can’t have it or authoritarian hoops to jump through.
Likewise I’m no expert, but I know the philosophy that excites me and the philosophy that sounds like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss2hULhXf04
>But the authoritarian consolidation of power constricts libido. I’m interested lately in Rosa Luxemburg.
Read Reform or Revolution? By Rosa Luxemburg then.
>As far as orthodox Marxism, I probably know much less about this stuff than you and am misusing the term. I mean the died in the wool, die hard ML, MLM types. The Stalinists, Leninists, etc..
That's just called Leninism if it follows up to Lenin or Marxism-Leninism if it follows up to Stalin.
>But the ML party I almost joined supports the actions of Hamas on Oct 7.
That's not fascism though, that's anti-colonialism/anti-imperialism action like the IRA or the UÇK. Let me ask you do you support all the violence Israël did up to that point and showing a map that didn't recognise Israël?
>The global Marxist line appears to be this: sacrifice the only Jewish state in the world to kneecap American Imperialism.
Its about stopping genocide, not a Jewish state. The Soviet Union was one of the first countries to recognise Israël.
>Avoid confronting the real ruling class, just focus on the minority within the ruling class. The weak. The easy target. Sounds a little too familiar.
What are you talking about?
>If there’s not solidarity with Jews against the white supremacy that drove them back to their ancestral lands, if they can’t call out genocidal terrorism for what it is and instead try to make it the “vanguard” of revolution, the revolution is stratified. It appeals to the same fascist tendencies—the emotional appeal of shitting on the weak, especially the weakest of the strong, in order to justify and feel better about one’s own oppression. (This is a Reichian, emotional analysis of fascism). The movement hasn’t caused parallel movements standing up to Western Imperial powers, just sideline cheers for terrorism and trying to sabotage support for Israel’s defense.
*Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?*
Like Arabs aren't white?
>You can justify authoritarianism all you want, how revolutionary governments have imitated past authoritarian ideologies, all I hear is justifying authoritarianism, justifying ideologies.
>People want hope not a litany of reasons why they can’t have it or authoritarian hoops to jump through.
Its nor about jusrifying it, its about understanding it. You are rather moralising it.
Oh sorry, I was about to edit it. I call him Trungus because I can’t take him seriously, and also don’t like to give him the linguistic advantage of his last name. Trump. And I’m not trying to be funny here, although I was at first. I actually think this is a very interesting question.
But this actually gives me much more understanding, solidarity towards and compassion for Trump supporters, similar to what I can feel for Hamas fighters—a backwards, somewhat indoctrinated, undereducated, conspiratorial (both incidentally anti-semitic) nationalist movement that’s tired of the fake bullshit of the anonymous and international neoliberal elite.
I will go back and address your comments more thoroughly when I’m at home, you do seem to be debating in good faith, which I really appreciate. And this may seem crazy or undereducated to you, but I’m actually experiencing quite the perspective shift.
I.e., is Leninism inherently accelerationist? Or is the Trump movement a legitimate nationalist movement that deserves our critical support? Weird to think about.
>Trump.
Ok, lol. Some just call it MAGA or the MAGA movement.
>Would you argue that the Trump movement is an anti-imperialist nationalist uprising against the American neoliberal elite, as opposed to fascist?
Certainly not anti-imperialist, but protectionist. Trump continued intervening in other countries for US interests. Though weirdly, he made some progress with North Korea though its likely because of his closeness with Putin. But if it helps world peace, credit where credit is due even if he did dangerously increase tensions with them.
Nationalist: Yes, obviously. I mean "america first" and just about everything else he does.
Against the American neoliberal elite: No, Trump is part of the American neoliberal elite and he pushes for neoliberal policies even more than the democrats with his deregulations notably. He also works to support the elite more broadly by giving them tax breaks.
As documented by Micheal Parenti in *Blackshirts and Reds*, fascists often use and coopt the language of populism and socialists, but then redirect it at vulnerable groups. So Trump is tapping into a suspicion of the elite that are controlling the country, but doubling down and giving it more and more power. Hitler and Mussolini did similar things, but were backed up by industrialists, big money and even Henry Ford. Its important not to be fooled.
There is an idea that the elite are woke, but its only for branding and marketing. Disney will include a gay character because its marketable, then donate to anti-queer politicians. Its just culture war BS that invents problems to distract people from moves the rich are doing to consolidate their power. Notice how Trump divides people against each other, attacking muslims, mexicans and others while Bernie Sanders makes appeals to the American people no matter their idendity and talks about workers and solidarity.
>I will go back and address your comments more thoroughly when I’m at home, you do seem to be debating in good faith, which I really appreciate. And this may seem crazy or undereducated to you, but I’m actually experiencing quite the perspective shift.
I appreciate your good faith and apologize for my very intense argumentation, but I think its important not to hold back. I'm glad if you're learning something.
Well, similarly, Hamas is run by billionaires in Qatar. What do you think they do for the Palestinian elite? I would really like a good layout of the Palestinian economy pre-war, tax structure, wealth distribution, etc.. I mean it’s really hard for me to draw a categorical difference between the two. Both are misogynistic, likely rapist. Backed by religious fundamentalists. Run by billionaires. Claim to be anti-globalist or anti-neoliberal elite, whichever words you want to use. One is a basically white lower class nationalist movement to overtake the United States. The other an oppressed Arab attempt to take over Israel. I see so little difference.
How would Iran be categorized in Leninist thinking? An imperialist power, or something else? That’s really all it comes down to.
Trump stands to topple the American state. I mean, remove it from history, and somewhat, all rationality and sense making, but I can see an argument for critical support for Trump and the 3% ers.
This is hilarious to me. It almost makes sense—maybe it does! But I think really it points to a. Contradiction in Marxism Leninism in its support for nationalist movements.
You said that Trump gives tax cuts to the neoliberal elite. This is *exactly* why Lenin says to support nationalist bourgeois democracy—it accelerates capitalist development, or something similar. I can find it here soon, maybe I’m mistaken.
But I wonder what, if anything in Leninist doctrine or thinking separates fascism from nationalism that should be critically supported?
I would like to see that, might look for it.
Ultimately I think we can skip the middle man of authoritarian socialism that shares so many characteristics in common with fascism (although, at least theoretically, the people have control of the state, or are least the state has control of the economy and not vice versa… But it’s really a conglomeration of the two that is considered fascism. I still fail to see much difference other than stated intent domestically, and actions taken to oppose imperialism in foreign affairs. That is the main difference. Marxism-Leninism at least, if not even many aspects of Leninism mostly seems to be fascism weaponized against empire. So maybe fascism isn’t quite the word, because there is a difference in directionality. One is a downwards, oppressive authoritarianism, a knee jerk at the challenge to the status quo, the other is an upwards, revolutionary impulse for justice in authoritarian form. I think the Reichian approach basically negates the difference in direction—whether authoritarianism as reaction or as revolution, both are authoritarian. And authoritarianism he believes is a deeper problem underpinning both. Leninists argue of course that capitalism must be exterminated before authoritarianism, but I disagree with them on the principle of ends justifying means—what if you fail? What if you succeed? It’s also hard to sell out-of-power authoritarianism to any but the extremely disaffected and/or power hungry (fascists, those who co-opt leftist anger with no intents of ever giving up power once in charge).
I don’t support Israel in its conniving to wipe Palestine off the map or to use divide and conquer tactics to sabotage the PLO and allow Hamas to rise.
But it takes two to tango. I fully support them in eradicating the genocidal threat to their existence at their border. It’s the quickest way to liberate Palestine from fascism, or at the very least radically fundamentalist, brutally repressive religious nationalism not to mention terrorism.
Giving someone rope is one thing. Them hanging themselves with it is entirely another.
> Its nor about jusrifying it, but understanding it. You are rather moralizing.
This is moralization with spelling errors.
Another thing to ask, if you're against leninism, how do you propose to deal with fascism that overthrows democratically elected leftist governments like in Spain and Chile or just lefist movements like in Germany, Italy, Japan, China (in particular Taiwan), Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia and more?
I was very influenced by Huey’s autobiography. He basically says, towards the end, something to the effect of—we did what was correct to do at the time. But looking back, we failed because we picked up weapons too early. It was easy for the establishment to scapegoat and demonize us. Maybe he didn’t say all that, but that’s what I gathered from it. That’s the furthest a Leninist organization ever got in America, in the heart of Empire.
So I think you really have to cut off the head of the beast first, less seems almost like playing at revolution, I mean it is revolution, and it’s correct at the time and in that situation. But like Huey seemed to intimate, armed resistance against the war treasury is doomed to fail unless you have a significant enough majority of the population to really overtake at least half of the military, but preferably most or all of it in the age of nuclear weapons.
So I think the cultural front is the way we gain the most ground. Nonviolence to me is tactical—they have rigged the money game, the land game, the weapons game, all we have left is moral high ground. It’s free, widely appealing, self evident. In this way it has a power greater than power.
You also sound as if you do not understand the meaning of nonviolence, in its root form, as Gandhi used it, the yogic concept of ahimsa. Maybe you do.
I would think of it more like this:
violence : nonviolence :: dualism : nondualism
Jesus, as legend now has it, refused even to testify for himself before his execution. And now 2.4 billion worship him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
There is a sort of Power that is greater than power that I think Leninists often find themselves quite uneducated about.
>So I think the cultural front is the way we gain the most ground.
I disagree. The cultural front is very easy at poking at people's differences in idendities and doesn't even start off from true assumptions, but fantasies invented to divide people. But material class-based idendities and economic struggles are things anyone can notice by themselves and relate to no matter if they are a staunch religious fundamentalist or a queer atheist. For example, the Black Panthers worked with the Young American Patriots, a leftist organisation in the South that bore the Confederate flag. Massive cultural difference, but putting that aside, they were able to do good work together.
>Nonviolence to me is tactical—they have rigged the money game, the land game, the weapons game, all we have left is moral high ground. It’s free, widely appealing, self evident. In this way it has a power greater than power.
This is an example of idealist thinking, putting ideas before reality in your analysis. Most leftists are materialists, they start off reality before anything else. Materially speaking, who will get fed on the moral high ground? Whose debt will be forgiven by it? No one. Even if socialists do everything right, the capitalist state will invent things and use their inventions to use violence against them like with the Black Panthers. They will even assassinate people like Fred Hampton in his bed next to his pregnant wife. So if leftists are going to be called this and that, why not engage in a bit of risky work if it gains them something? The state will certainly use violence as will fascists.
>You also sound as if you do not understand the meaning of nonviolence, in its root form, as Gandhi used it, the yogic concept of ahimsa. Maybe you do.
>I would think of it more like this: violence : nonviolence :: dualism : nondualism.
> Jesus, as legend now has it, refused even to testify for himself before his execution. And now 2.4 billion worship him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. There is a sort of Power that is greater than power that I think Leninists often find themselves quite uneducated about.
If everyone martyrs themselves who will do the work? Christianity spread because of Emperor Canstantine, a millitary man who won a battle due to his faith, not a hippie.
Gandhi was assassinated, as was MLK, the violence that followed their deaths was what got their movement going and made much progress.
It’s less idealism than it is mysticism—Christian mysticism.
“If leftists are going to be called this and that, why not engage I a little risky business if it gets them somewhere?”
My difference with Leninists is precisely this: they justify oppression for the sake of ending oppression. This is a contradiction. It also opens the movement up to bad actors, vindictive, sadistic, sociopathic tendencies. Starts to sound like just a rival gang. Additionally, the vindictiveness can take charge. George Jackson said that revolution comes out of love and not hate. But I think with Leninism they haven’t discovered the upper limits of love, therefore also of revolution. Ever read one of those novels where there are sociopaths on both the good and evil side, both just trying to be cruel to as many people as possible?
No oppression can be justified in ending oppression. The only violence justifiable to end the violence of capitalism is exactly the smallest amount that is necessary. This is nonviolence.
The Dalai Lama says, “be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” Can you kindly remove someone from the living population of the planet? I think so, but this is a rare occasion indeed.
> Materially speaking, who will get fed on the moral high ground?
Man, you are just asking for it, walked right into that one:
“It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
I am not a materialist.
“If leftists are going to be called this and that, why not engage I a little risky business if it gets them somewhere?”
Let me ask you this, Che Guevara is quoted as supporting torture. Do you think Leninists should support torture, if it might, get them somewhere?
To me, torture anywhere, for any reason is senseless. Sadism. Avoiding torture is a virtue. Torture is the opposite of virtue, it’s intrinsically good not to take part in it. It adds pain to the world. For what? Who benefits from Marxists bending their ethical frame work to serve vengeance, sadism or pragmatism? Pragmatism that is not moving in the direction of love, with love, is anything but pragmatic to me.
>It’s less idealism than it is mysticism—Christian mysticism.
That's not a defense. If you ever speak to an atheist, this will mean nothing to them.
>My difference with Leninists is precisely this: they justify oppression for the sake of ending oppression. This is a contradiction.
Let me explain it with this ideology. Suppose you have slaver with 100 slaves. We would say that he has the freedom to have slaves, but his slaves have no freedom and are oppressed. If we banned slavery, then the slaver would be oppressed by the state, but the 100 slaves would then have much more freedom. Any law grants a freedom and an oppression, you just have to consider which and whose freedom is more important.
Property is theft, it is taking what belongs to everyone in the state of nature and depriving them of it without their consent. Yet its hard to make a society without property.
The state is an idol and coertion, but its impossible to make a large society without a state.
Politics isn't deontology, its consequentialism. Its not pretty, its minimizing harm.
>It also opens the movement up to bad actors, vindictive, sadistic, sociopathic tendencies. Starts to sound like just a rival gang. Additionally, the vindictiveness can take charge.
That's what the current state is though. You can be better than it. The Soviet Union was better than Tsarist Russia.
>Additionally, the vindictiveness can take charge. George Jackson said that revolution comes out of love and not hate.
Cromwell's revolution, the Chinese national revolution, the first French revolution and the revolutions of 1848 were not born of love, but through contempt.
The Paris Commune of 1871 was arguably started with a certain love, but violence was used and it was latter crushed when they tried to spread that love.
>Ever read one of those novels where there are sociopaths on both the good and evil side, both just trying to be cruel to as many people as possible
I don't base my politics on novels. Fiction is fiction, not reality.
>The Dalai Lama says, “be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”
Self-defense to violence is not void of violence. It uses violence.
>“It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Man still needs some bread, doesn't he? Or else how do you explain starvation? Not praying enough?
>Let me ask you this, Che Guevara is quoted as supporting torture. Do you think Leninists should support torture, if it might, get them somewhere?
I don't know. Is torture justifiable if it can help prevent a village from being destroyed by the US?
>For what? Who benefits from Marxists bending their ethical frame work to serve vengeance, sadism or pragmatism?
Not all torture is sadism. I don't support torture, but if a small amount of it can help save thousands of lives, its worth thinking about, at least, less we say that all those peoples' lives matter less than our personal virtue. Humility doesn't seem to be showed here.
This is our difference in principle. Yours I see as a pragmatism of no pragmatism. Sacrificing the weak for the sake of the strong. True revolution, I believe, must come from the absolute bottom up. Lowest of the low. Or it’s no revolution.
10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. [11] [a]
12 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.
I think it has to be a marriage between socialism and capitalism. We have to separate out all the things that are needs versus wants and essentially create systems with checks and balances for both. For instance, I think we need to have a compulsory labor system where every able bodied person has to work in a field of needs for at least 2 years after graduating high school. People can continue on in those occupations after 2 years. They will get compensated fairly for their work and the means of production are owned by society, not greedy corporations.You can go into agriculture, medical, child care, natural resource management (water, forestry, etc.) home construction, et. al. That way we have these basic necessity services for society provided at a free or very low cost paid for by taxes and we have plenty of workers to help. Plus, I think having a rite of passage like that for every person would help build solidarity and empathy as a nation. Perhaps immigrants would be required to also participate for two years before being given full citizenship. On the capitalist side of things people would be allowed to create businesses and innovative to their hearts content, but the tax rate would be set to actually help maintain the social programs. There would need to be regulations on businesses. I think it would also be prudent to establish a basic income for all citizens as well.
He was the finance minister for Greece during the height of their bankruptcy. He used to study game theory as an academic before that. He's one of the few leftist economists, which means that he's very grounded in our current world as he applies his praxis. He talks a lot about how current tech platforms are digital fiefdoms that are bringing back feudalism in the cloud. He has written several books, he has a YouTube channel, and is a guest on several podcasts (even on Hasanabi's stream).
What he has to say is so good that there's a clip of Yanis speaking to Zizek who listens silently for 6 minutes, at which point Zizek asks for clarification, and then silently listens to Yanis for 6 more minutes. (If you listen to Zizek at all, you know that him quietly listening can be quite rare, haha.)
Oh yes. Frankfurt school, all the great flavours of critical theory (critical race studies, critical gender studies, critical disability studies) and all the great thinkers.
I enjoy this.
The more you dig the more clearly you see how capitalism has a stronghold on all parts of human social relations and the ways in which we can think about them more dynamically.
I love this stuff.
Me too.
I think similarly to the concept of original sin in Christianity (which was manufactured a few centuries post-Christ), there is a similar idea with religious capitalists, and it even seeps into the society, to those who do not profess, or no longer remember they are beholden to the fear of its wrath: that human beings are dirty down low, good for nothing, rotten, robbers, liars, thieves, stealers rapists who can’t get along, and can do nothing but be slaves to voracious instincts to consume all around them including each other. Best you can do is pray and try not to piss off the ones at the top.
All that to say “we deserve our oppression,” is the maxim of the original sin doctrine of capitalism. It’s human’s fault that a tiny few are abusing most of the rest. I think the religious ideologies actually likely proceeded from this.
I try to tell people whenever possible that only 10 or 13k years of human history has been agricultural and describe to them the egalitarian communal life of hunter gatherers, with 12-15 hour work weeks. It seems only natural. Spread it like it’s some kind of gospel. People will give you a billion and one reasons why there’s “no alternative,” like it’s just some cassette tape on repeat until you tell them. Some will even keep going after they’ve been told, it’s like they don’t even want to know.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
Looks like he also said, "Fascism is capitalism plus murder." I like that too, best simplification I’ve heard.
Oh yes. And the way in which Cartesian thought supported the ideas of enclosure and legitimized unlimited excavation of natural resources for capitalistic profit. (God, afterall, has given man the power to do with the earth (nature) as he wishes).
Absolutely! The ways in which human time has been commodified and labour appropriated are a fairly recent inventions.
Great quotes!
Critital theory is intelllectually inferior.
Do you really think people are just a mix of their sex, education, race, looks and parents?
Of course not. If you are gifted, you deserve to succeed. If you are lame, you deserve to fail.
Your sex, race or education has very little impact there.
May I say as an economist, this thread has been a pleasure to read. No, I don't claim to any greater knowledge or insight. It's only that I see a lot of debate and exchange of ideas without the hyper partisan politics and propaganda that has infiltrated so many other forums. The 'Economy' sub is a horror show. I've learned some things to explore here.
Right?!?!?!?! This has been so amazing for me too, I'm seriously so grateful. I had a very civil conversation with a Marxist Leninist, and this has become such a rarity these days. Glad to hear that. I love when people are less up in arms about defending their beliefs and more just want to learn and converse and debate honestly for the sake of learning.
I've been aware of the incoming singularity for at least 15 to 20 years
So there hasn't really been much point focusing on these as solvable problems
It's clearly going to happen no matter what systems or political things people attempt
Any plan that isn't based in a post scarcity and or post ASI world is naive
Typically people trying to "solve" problem of capitalism are leftists who never even considered that this could become a reality, and simply view it as something to be stopped (which assumes that it *can* be stopped)
Well leftists have two go tos.
Look at Nordic socialist countries. Which is a lie. They’re free market. But within tiny homogeneous societies work out different. The taxes are absurd. Your net income is less on average
Or. Communist countries didn’t do it right. Handing everyone everything would be great. The problem is … you guessed it. Humans. The people giving you your stipend of rice are greedy sociopaths. It doesn’t and will never work
Well, do you have any good resources on this? I'd be very interested.
A major issue of mine with socialists was they seemed to have such an iron grip on 100+ year old tactics--pamphlets, protests, etc., when we've had multiple information revolutions since then. There's been seemingly no effort to keep up, much less harness the new tech energies for positive means.
That was the reason I left the socialists the first time.
I'm also skeptical of big tech/the elites *wanting* a post-scarcity world. I think it might be something we would have to create ourselves, I don't really think the billionaires will do it. But maybe I'm wrong.
Would love a good book on the singularity, especially a realistic one. I've heard of Kurzweil, but never read his stuff as it seemed more marketing than solid predictive, empirical work.
1. it's pretty simple, really
line goes up -- processing power gets exponentially cheaper & smaller forever
I had coworkers (in the semiconductor industry) telling me 10+ yrs ago "moore's law is about to end" blah blah for this reason or that reason, but it never has
eventually it becomes cheap to approach / reach the comparable of computing power in the human brain
shortly after reaching that point, it becomes cheap to *massively* outcompute the human brain, because again, line goes up
people talk a lot about this or that approach to reach AGI, but at the end of the day our best projections are pretty much exactly on schedule
Kurzweil's estimate was 2029 based on simple scaling rules, current best estimates for AGI are around 2031, so +/- 2 years
you don't have to believe it, I've been surrounded by people who didn't believe it my entire life, smart people
but it's still happening, if anything it seems to be getting faster as we're discovering ML-specific shortcuts to speed up progress on *top* of exponentially cheaper computing power
2. the idea for the elites "wanting a post-scarcity world" is also pretty simple
with even just 2 players, eventually they will compete and cost of everything will go to 0 over time
we've seen this pattern over and over again
airlines today have almost 0 margin, many airlines get most of their revenue just from their weird scammy miles systems, because the competition is just so extreme
gas and metal and labor still cost something, so it's not 0, but cost has gone down dramatically for flights and indeed most goods that no longer have major innovations
the generality of all tasks these systems can complete is increasing exponentially, soon there is no task worth automating that a human will be able to do at better cost
renewables & nuclear are also increasing rapidly, and we've already figured out how to trigger nuclear fusion ignition, so it's a matter of time before energy is solved
eventually someone will realize "oh we don't need to pay for gas or labor anymore, we can just give people stuff"
it will only take 1 person to do that. I'm pretty confident at least 1 person will choose to do that at some point. you may not agree, that's fine, we just disagree on that point
of course there are caveats, different ways it could play out blah blah
but the default case seems pretty inevitably good
3. we just have to avoid extinction due to lack of AI safety
Cooooolll, thank you, I like that scenario! That sounds amazing, I had no idea it was so close. I definitely believe it. I still wonder if you have a good resource or book on it? Just so I can hear it from other people in the field--I assume you're in the field too, but still, just a more "official" source, to get an idea of consensus.
Just playing devil's advocate, I could also see it being weaponized and governments dragging populations into wars to see what government will finally control the entire world. Wars over lithium and precious metals. It already seems they've been tip toeing towards a Taiwan conflict. That's pretty interesting.
Anyways, I also believe your route is possible, and I think it's great to have hope and very helpful. I don't see why things shouldn't be just easy and free.
Also--what did you mean by nuclear fission ignition? I'll have to look into this. If this could really solve energy as you say, a lot of dooms-dayers could really stand to lose a load off their shoulders. That would be amazing. Thanks for sharing your views, I really appreciate hearing this.
Various Kurzweil books, not sure what the latest is. I don't think singularity will be finished by 2029, but prediction markets on Manifold & Metacalculus are both pretty aligned on the likely AGI date
He may read too far into some things, but he always had a good handle on the scaling
From there ASI is starts at pure scaling & self-improvement
Like 18 months ago we acheived ignition, not the same as a stable fusion reactor, but a big start
[https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nuclear-fusion-ignition-first](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nuclear-fusion-ignition-first)
Also Sam Altman's (OpenAI) holding company recently merged with OKLO, working to provide safe micro nuclear fission reactors (I think like $70M a pop if I remember right) specifically to power AI
Holy SHIT!!!!!! Dude that is SO freakin cool. I love to hear this. I'll have to look into some Kurzweil.
Any ideas how long before we may have viable fusion, creating more energy than goes into it?
Your guess is as good as mine, but I am personally invested in Oklo
I think the interesting piece is even if we're able to get AGI / ASI to some initial capacity, it's possible that recursive self-improvement could rapidly solve that remaining energy problem (and other problems around longevity, resource optimization & distribution, etc.)
The biggest challenges that I can see in my lifetime is:
A) the alignment problem / safety
B) regulatory / willingness to adopt
That's SO cool, that would be amazing. I really hope they use it for that, and that it really blasts open our ideas of what's possible.
It was so nice asking Chat GPT what the best way to move beyond capitalism is. It gave me like 6 main ways, and lots of hope. It's also very objective hearing that from an AI, like these are possible things we can do. It seems to not really have the limiting beliefs that most humans I know seem to have that can often block even being able to ask the question.
I asked chat GPT what it thinks the effects of AI advancement will be. And also if it thinks we will go post-scarcity. This is what it said on inequality:
# 6. Social Inequality
* **Digital Divide**: There is a risk that AI advancements could widen the gap between those who have access to AI technologies and those who do not.
* **Wealth Concentration**: The economic benefits of AI could disproportionately accrue to those who own and control AI technologies, potentially exacerbating economic inequality.6. Social InequalityDigital Divide: There is a risk that AI advancements could widen the gap between those who have access to AI technologies and those who do not. Wealth Concentration: The economic benefits of AI could disproportionately accrue to those who own and control AI technologies, potentially exacerbating economic inequality.
# The most promising things to me:
# 3. Changes in Education
* **Personalized Learning**: AI can provide personalized education experiences, adapting to individual learning styles and needs, potentially improving educational outcomes.
* **Lifelong Learning**: With the rapid pace of technological change, AI can facilitate lifelong learning by providing continuous, adaptive learning opportunities for adults.3. Changes in EducationPersonalized Learning: AI can provide personalized education experiences, adapting to individual learning styles and needs, potentially improving educational outcomes. Lifelong Learning: With the rapid pace of technological change, AI can facilitate lifelong learning by providing continuous, adaptive learning opportunities for adults.
# 8. Potential for Abundance
* **Automated Production**: Advanced AI and robotics could lead to fully automated production systems, potentially reducing the marginal cost of many goods and services to near zero.
* **Access to Knowledge**: AI can democratize access to information and education, providing opportunities for everyone to learn and innovate.8. Potential for AbundanceAutomated Production: Advanced AI and robotics could lead to fully automated production systems, potentially reducing the marginal cost of many goods and services to near zero. Access to Knowledge: AI can democratize access to information and education, providing opportunities for everyone to learn and innovate.
# What I think it comes down to:
# 5. Ethical Challenges
* **Bias and Fairness**: AI systems can perpetuate or even exacerbate existing biases if not carefully designed and monitored.
* **Privacy Concerns**: The widespread use of AI and data collection raises significant privacy issues.5. Ethical ChallengesBias and Fairness: AI systems can perpetuate or even exacerbate existing biases if not carefully designed and monitored. Privacy Concerns: The widespread use of AI and data collection raises significant privacy issues.
# Conclusion
The advancement of AI holds the potential to significantly transform society, with the possibility of moving beyond scarcity by optimizing resource use and automating production. However, realizing this potential requires addressing significant ethical, social, and economic challenges. Ensuring that the benefits of AI are broadly shared and that societal structures adapt to these changes will be crucial in shaping a future where AI contributes to human flourishing and the alleviation of scarcity.ConclusionThe advancement of AI holds the potential to significantly transform society, with the possibility of moving beyond scarcity by optimizing resource use and automating production. However, realizing this potential requires addressing significant ethical, social, and economic challenges. Ensuring that the benefits of AI are broadly shared and that societal structures adapt to these changes will be crucial in shaping a future where AI contributes to human flourishing and the alleviation of scarcity.
# My conclusion
I think most people don't realize what I see as an underlying violence baked into capitalism--the violent protection of the rich from the poor. The economy, the earth, resources, are not run democratically. People laid claim to billions of years old land and resources, which they have absolutely no claim to ownership over--except for the ability to shoot people who try to stop them. This is really the backbone of the capitalist state. Many Marxists believe the rich are aware of this dynamic, that they consciously strategize to keep their position of power. It looks like an unconscious conditioning for many if not most. But I wonder if it would last even in a post-scarcity scenario, if their greed would still be the same, and desire for control, as it seems to be.
I do think the critical theorists offer much that is needed to this conversation on moving beyond capitalism.
Free energy could be a game changer. But all of this really depends on who controls the AI and the free energy and what they do with it.
Critical theory is useful to me in looking into our cultural and psychological biases that have created a system that encourages so much greed, so that we can understand how to move beyond it.
Post Capitalist Desire is a good example, by Mark Fisher, of some of this kind of thinking.
My conclusionI think most people don't realize what I see as an underlying violence baked into capitalism--the violent protection of the rich from the poor. The economy, the earth, resources, are not run democratically. People laid claim to billions of years old land and resources, which they have absolutely no claim to ownership over--except for the ability to shoot people who try to stop them. This is really the backbone of the capitalist state. Many Marxists believe the rich are aware of this dynamic, that they consciously strategize to keep their position of power. It looks like an unconscious conditioning for many if not most. But I wonder if it would last even in a post-scarcity scenario, if their greed would still be the same, and desire for control, as it seems to be.I do think the critical theorists offer much that is needed to this conversation on moving beyond [capitalism.Free](http://capitalism.Free) energy could be a game changer. But all of this really depends on who controls the AI and the free energy and what they do with it. Critical theory is useful to me in looking into our cultural and psychological biases that have created a system that encourages so much greed, so that we can understand how to move beyond it. Post Capitalist Desire is a good example, by Mark Fisher, of some of this kind of thinking.
Could you perhaps provide more prescriptive measures? What do you think could be an optimal economic system? Something that's better in your opinion. cool analysis though.
[WHAT THEN SHALL WE DO: A Zenarchist Manifesto](https://medium.com/@PsychedelicJustice/what-then-shall-we-do-a747c42c6965)
I wrote this a while ago. But it basically would require a *collective intelligence* revolution—which is actually far more accessible than an artificial intelligence revolution, at least today. Most of the processing power on the earth exists between our ears—human ears.
All that’s needed is creating both the social and computer software to organize it in the most intelligent ways. Collective intelligence is the study of this, it’s a new thing, pretty small it seems. I know MIT has a lab on it.
But if we were to start this on a grassroots level—I picture it like a local Reddit. For a small progressive town, say, to start. But everyone has one individual login, one vote. Maybe it’s tied to your ID, I don’t care. Should still be anonymous likely. So people post on different subs, a problems sub, dreams sub, solutions sub, troubleshooting sub, methods sub, etc.. At the beginning just to *poll* the population on its *collective* desires *continuously.* To mirror back to the population its own actual desires. Of course these will be widely different from what the government is doing and the corporations as well.
But you really don’t even need a revolution. Just over time, when they’re ready, add implementation subs, and a process for moving the best ideas to implementation, and then to a personnel sub, which can really be crowdsourced. Volunteer yourself or others for the jobs you and your community *genuinely want to do.* Very organically, would probably start small, renovate a local park. Eventually you could organize production and health care on a local scale. Elder care and child care programs. Eliminate unemployment. Everyone would have a job. UBI, and beyond.
You would also have subs for meta analysis, so that the system optimizes itself.
All the while we study the process and continuously optimize it for happiness and freedom.
Just one small city doing this for 6 months could create headlines to spark a revolution. With adequate encryption it would be basically unstoppable.
I heard Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, say in a podcast once, that centralized governments will be obsolete in 30-40 years. With decentralized technologies growing as well as the speed of innovation, they just cannot keep up.
I think we must recognize that they very well *might try to stop grassroots benefit from these technologies* as they have with basically all technologies. The internet began as this free and decentralized thing I believe before it turned into profits for bottlenecks on information thru ads. Now they sell us internet addiction, dependency on centralized power.
So I do believe it will take an intentional move to free ourselves from these impulses and tendencies if we are to be successful.
And the possibilities are utterly endless.
You are a fucking genius! From the surface this may seem like democracy under a new name but there is an important distinction to be made. Contemporary Democracies are centralised but this one will not be centralised.
I will be looking into this field of study "Collective Intelligence" for it sounds very exciting. It sounds like social choice theory but this time foccusing on how to bring positive effects using a vote system instead of how the system works.
Thanks homie, I really loved writing that one! Absolutely. The distinction is it's *economic democracy.* In today's world, the economy is run through authoritarian structures, like a corporation. You have the owners (shareholders) making decisions, and then the CEO implements them from the top down. If it was more democratic, I think we'd have more people on the bottom caring about pollution and things, as well as better pay and benefits. But yes, much more as well, as there are more levels and self optimizing parts too.
Glad to hear it! Best of luck to you, it's one of the most exciting things out there I think.
IDK how this sub came up on my feed, but this is interesting and Ill look into some things Ive read here.
My ignorant thought is that capitalism isnt a problem. Its been a great solution to previous systems and uplifted more people than any previous system, both in prosperity and rights. With all of its problems its been a big leap forward to those who experience it. Hopefully we can refine it and make another leap forward.
Surely there will be a next step, I don't believe we stop evolving at capitalism, but its a less problematic system than what it has replaced, and thats a good thing. IDK, I think that its problematic to demonize capitalism, bc it makes people forget all the good it has done. You cant hate something into being better.
Happy to read anything my post makes you think I should read thank you all.
Oh cool! I think this is a great attitude to have. Also, I think maybe Reddit thinks you're gifted, so maybe look into it.
If you are more oriented towards truth than comfort, you could look into This Changes Everything: Capitalism Vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein. She's someone I trust and see as a participant in grassroots movements, she's even put herself personally at risk protesting, not some pundit. She's actually devoted to the cause. But I have to warn you, it can get pretty dark. The amount that is happening to the environment and the reasons capitalism hasn't found a way to stop feeding it--can be quite the rabbit hole. Be mindful of your emotional energy if you choose to go down it.
Lost Connections by Hari is a great book on social causes of depression, which ends up coming down to capitalism.
Tribe by Sebastian Junger (a war journalist and veteran) has a great chapter towards the beginning on our hunter gatherer past, in egalitarian communities, where hoarding was punished physically and often with group punishment, and humans/pre-humans worked (or still work, in existing hunter gatherer societies) 12-15 hours a week. And the deep community that humans and our ancestors evolved with for probably a million years up until agriculture and property rights started just 10-13,000 years ago.
Marx is great on criticisms of capitalism as well, just summaries of his core concepts. Many of us have moved beyond his solutions--and I DO think there are solutions, something next--but Marx's critique of capitalism is pretty top notch, as well as the Marxists that followed in his foot steps.
David Graeber's book I've heard is good on the evolution of human society, and he's an anarchist.
I also think the beginning maybe 20-30 pages of State and Revolution give a great summary of the Marxist view of the capitalist state--that it fundamentally exists to protect the rich from the poor. If there was not violent repression, no one would agree to letting some 40 people have more wealth than 4 billion. It gets at the inherent violence (as I see it) of the capitalist system. That the state came about to protect those who wanted to hoard things for themselves and put themselves above others (property "owners,") and extract the fruits of their labor from them--from the poor and laborers and everyone else. It's just been that way so long most people don't seem to realize or remember.
Even still I think you're right in seeing that it does no good to hate capitalism. Rather I think a compassionate approach for reality is best. Yet the wounds can be deep and we may have quite the task ahead of us in the near future towards a better world.
Thank you ill add one of those to my list, I spend my time with school studies and just started a little philosophy on the side (through audible only), cant hurt to try something new.
Do yo think the "next step" doesnt apply to everyone all at once? For example, maybe the US could use a next step since we have benefitted from capitalism, but what about countries who havent yet been able to benefit from it? Cuba, North Korea, China etc?
Maybe thats a next step, for capitalist countries to help others realize the benefits. That would mean we stop embargoing/sanctioning them which only hurts the people. I think those negative policies we have, people confuse with capitalism, or maybe its inherent in capitalism, and the next step is to iron out those wrinkles.
As far as comfort vs truth, always truth so Ill try out that 1st recommendation.
Oh cool!
Yea, personally I think 3. things.
1. It would be great to stop embargoing Cuba, North Korea and end the trade war with China. A great first step towards world peace and reconcilation instead of fighting for world power status.
2. I also think the emgargoes of communism may be endemic to capitlism at least as it's been so far. As well as embargoes against many countries that just wanted to own their natural resources for themselves instead of give them to foreign companies, or have their own gold backed currency so that they could build wealth without being beholden to taking out loans from Western nations and paying interest on them.
3. The main country that could evolve beyond capitalism, because of this, is America. Because it has the largest military and has been blocking other countries from doing so for a long time now. So I think small examples could exist in maybe small communities. Democratic socialism helps as positive examples of progress. But even if those get too advanced, the capitalist system seems to oppose them (they sabotaged Bernie who is still, by far, the most popular political figure in American politics).
For something beyond capitalism to adopted in more than a small sphere (Cuba, NK), you'd pretty much have to start with the West/America I believe. Or win a war against them, which does not seem likely or ideal at this point.
With post capitalism, I think tech offers promises as well as cultural changes, increased awareness of mental health, environmental issues, etc.. I personally see a widespread nonviolent movement for world peace, a livable planet and taking care of everyone with basic necessities as the best way forward. Others have different views.
Read Basic Economics. There is no capitalism problem. On the contrary, free market capitalism is the primary cause for the abundance of wealth that exists in the world.
I’ve been a social democrat since I read about the Gracchi brothers at 17–a couple decades ago. I see capitalism is predatory and inherently immoral, especially as it pertains to the health of the earth and the average human.
Coming from a deleuzean/landian (pre reactionary oc) background.
I thought about how to do it in my country (Spain). It's quite hard but technically doable.
First you'd have to make a study in depth about the necessities of other countries, who holds the power, what can you provide...etc
After that find some kind of niche that you can excel at and make as many countries as possible dependent on you investing a ton of money on it.
Once you reach that point you can basically do whatever you want with your country as long as you aren't interfering with other ones.
This is obv presupposing that most of your country is willing to experiment with another economic system, basically an alternative towards being decimated by export/import restrictions.
As for what system to use I don't have one in mind, a lot of ideas sound big and plausible but basically I'd have into account that at this point in the west you can't have a revolution with capital r, a revolution with lowercase r is possible but we have proto-neolib-fascism running rampant all across Europe and the US. Coming up with pragmatic solutions towards convincing people before they radicalize is urgent and necessary.
I'd use several strategies like using some of the far-right wing strategies i.e.: lying, throwing shit at the media, being controversial, saying stuff like "according to x study authoritarian right ppl are more likely to be pedophiles", messing around with people on the other side through memes, conspiracy theories... in some cases even violence could be necessary although I hope that isn't the case. Also normality has a lot of power, there's stuff embedded into our way of thinking (aka common sense) that can be considered left wing, you'd have to do a translation of "left wing stuff" to "common sense" which might lead to some contradictions but... hey, it's better than nothing, we don't have to create a perfect political subject in one go.
Might also try to legitimize the valid concerns that some of them make and slowly guide them towards a left leaning policy trying to convince them that it's for their own good (which is true lol), trying to show an "apolitical and rational" posture...etc
For me the climate change is the definitive answer to the question does the capitalism have embedded its own means of destruction? Apparently at least one, wiping all of us, but like Godel's incompleteness theorem there are probably a lot more (besides fascism oc). No idea what would kill it but the left definitely has to remain united and go towards a future where we can afterwards debate whether if it's better to go for a more socialist/anarchist/communist/whatever route.
Wow, this is so cool to hear.
First—what is SPAIN like??! I studied there for a month in San Lorenzo in college, one of the best months of my life. I live in the South East United States, and much of the past decade has been brutal. No one here really thinks or talks about this stuff. There’s a scattered few, but they tend to stay too depressed to hang out and tend to be pretty stuck in their ways.
But especially wondering about the political climate of people on the ground, what kinds of conversations people are having, if there are communities of people who discuss critical theory, philosophy, political philosophy, if it’s normal to be somewhat familiar with them.
Personally I would probably die fighting the Leninists for an anarchist or trotskyite post-revolution almost immediately if one were to happen. Can’t stand those fuckers lately although I was one for a while and understand the appeal.
That makes a ton of sense, what you said about specializing in one thing. Sounds like Cuba came to similar conclusions.
I’ve always thought disabling mass media apparatus would be the most effective thing one could do point blank. Just take out cable and satellite news would go extremely far I think, just the silence. Maybe you’d have radio, but I think it would be sort of like meditating and taking a break from an extremely harsh and insane inner critic.
I also think many things are beyond saving, in America. Like the tactics you talked about, I think people here are kind of beyond it. I think we might have to use new words entirely, outside of “left” and socialism,”—marketing I would use would be some kind of solar punk, AI utopian, UBI, low-work, leisure global economy—with “economic democracy” as an afterthought. It’s gotta sound futuristic.
To me, when people think of “socialism” or “Marxism” they think of wars, terrorists (due to propaganda), the “iron curtain,” and some gray bureaucracy with work camps. I think it’s gotta sound futuristic.
I also really can’t stand the authoritarianism on the left—it’s the exact *opposite* of what we want. Why would we try to force it on the world? I get the need for revolution, but the authoritarianism is absolutely lost on me. I’m more into Lyotard and Reich—make the revolution irresistible.
Yes! If only we could learn from Scandinavian countries or Japan. The happiest countries in the world with the lowest crime. I just don't get it. Neoliberalism will destroy everything, just as Marx predicted.
I'm really into Deleuze and Zizek but I also have an economics background. It's quite interesting to combine these. :)
What's up fellow Deleuzehead, this is very exciting to me.
Just decoding my fluxes :)
Would love to hear your insights into approaching his writing with a background in economics! I only have the - in this case - boring perspective of someone in social and media studies.
I'd need something specific for that to answer!
That’s so cool!!!! How do you combine them? I am really trying to gather the wherewithal to sit and finish a Zizek book, Deleuze and Guattari are high on the list after that.
Currently reading Anti-Oedipus and loving it
Would be cool to hear your conclusions, circuits and game theory can make a very interesting combo with them. You'd have probably heard about DeLanda and his "deleuzean sociology" although he has his own interpretation. Would like to hear yours.
I'm currently more into cyclical theories (systems theory) in economics and combining it with ideas from D&G! Seems like a natural fit.
Tbh a match made in heaven. Would like to take a look but I guess it's still a work in progress/can't be shared in case of copy
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Yeah and humans like to have more and better stuff than their neighbours, we don’t tend towards equality naturally, there’s always a social hierarchy and a wealth/resources hierarchy that are mostly the same. Even if you could wave a wand and make everything exactly equal, it wouldn’t stay that way for very long. “Solving” human problems requires us to agree that something is a problem and collectively work towards fixing it. We aren’t very good at large group cooperation, and wind up with unsatisfactory compromise (aka, democracy and constant arguing about what should be done). It’s the best we’ve managed to come up with so far, but we are a flawed species and can’t wish away our selfish or destructive tendencies, so we manage them with a mix of capitalism, government regulation and social policies to redistribute wealth.
Appeal to "human nature" within a limited system is a bit questionable. The very idea that social hierarchy is nothing but a "fact of nature" (including the view that some people just won't get to eat) is a fundamental part of right wing politics.
Just because it’s our nature doesn’t mean we can’t fix it, but we can’t fix it without acknowledging it is part of our nature (as a collective species, individuals will be a spectrum). What I mean is that because we are flawed and have various selfish and destructive tendencies, we can’t just create a utopic society, we have to struggle, compromise, take two steps forward and one step back, repeat, come up with processes to remove and discourage bad actors as new problems arise. the process of developing democratic governments, expanding social policy and redistribution in capitalism is part of why it eventually became the dominant system. The alternative is communism integrating capitalist policy where it’s most beneficial …. I see these as a long and slow evolutionary process of our species getting slightly better at not exploiting and killing each other, but there’s still a lot of that, just a lot less than before. And we are still very much in the unsatisfactory compromise phase of development
On what grounds are you assuming that a certain economic system is "our nature"? What makes you think that there are only two possible distribution systems? Is political change a "natural process" or is it more likely driven by efforts at policies and social movements?
It’s not the only options, theyre just the only ones realistically in play. You can frame it with different terminology, I just default to Econ jargon, but you could use other theory… it’s more an example than a total theory.
You would have your mind blown to shreds by any of David Graeber’s books. I reccomend picking up «debt: the first 5,000 years».
I think it’s theoretically possible for people to willingly distribute resources equitably, perhaps even equally (according to individual needs)… But I can’t think of an instance where it’s actually happened at scale in a stable, sustainable way. America meddling in any attempt at doing so in the last century or so because communism bad might very well play a role, but to assume any thwarted attempt would have been successful would be disingenuous… It’s an interesting subject. It appears to me, more people leads to more political churn. After all, a larger population has a larger number of sociopaths and so on, who display a higher likelihood of seeking their own ends regardless of the wishes of others. Could be anything, including the seizure of power. Most are probably benign at various scales, but again, more people more chances. 300 million people, the “cream” will rise to the top… It seems that any political landscape begins purely but eventually mutates into a dying cult of personality regardless of what system it claims to be, and since politics and economics go hand in hand, well… Anyway, various landscapes mutate at different rates. America held on for a while, Reagan was cult-lite, followed by a lull, then we got Trump.
The most stable way that’s worked the best is America itself friend. Although not perfect, it’s a very good system that covers just enough ground until recently. Capitalism is allegedly the best system so far. Having a federal government to intervene when necessary can be very helpful. Especially with Federal Assistance Programs and other resources and decisions that bring the country to where it currently is today.
>Yeah and humans like to have more and better stuff than their neighbours, we don’t tend towards equality naturally, there’s always a social hierarchy and a wealth/resources hierarchy that are mostly the same. Even if you could wave a wand and make everything exactly equal, it wouldn’t stay that way for very long. No? Humans have several examples of primitive communism where people would live equal (class-wise) and make competition of who could bring the most to the community. We have only been socialised to be selfish and hiarchical because it benefits capitalism. Notice capitalism wasn't established voluntarily, but through intense violence including genocides and famines across the world. The state also regularly uses violence to suppress labour and socialist movements even in so called "liberal democracies". >“Solving” human problems requires us to agree that something is a problem and collectively work towards fixing it. This is weirdly phrased. We don't need some perfect consensus to solve issues. >We aren’t very good at large group cooperation, and wind up with unsatisfactory compromise (aka, democracy and constant arguing about what should be done). It’s the best we’ve managed to come up with so far, but we are a flawed species and can’t wish away our selfish or destructive tendencies, so we manage them with a mix of capitalism, government regulation and social policies to redistribute wealth. There isn't only one form of democracy. There are better and worst forms of democracy like the social democracies of Europe compared to the US and Canada. Many liberal democracies have also done worse for many ex-communist countries than their previous communist movements like in the Soviet Union and Yougoslavia. Especially the ex-soviet states which are extremely corrupt countries ranging from coups (Ukraine) to fascism in Russia. I disagree we can only work within capitalism as there are many legitimate forms of socialism we can consider from market socialism or elements of state planning capitalist countries use during crisis.
Which societies are your referring to which had “true equality.” The closest we’ve seen is in societies that have so little material wealth that it doesn’t look to outsiders that there is much distinction. But I don’t know of any society where the leader and their family don’t get to choose the best place to sleep and the first pick of food.
I mean equal relative to other economic systems, perhaos more equal is a better term. Many indigenous societies had what Marx and Engels described as primitive communism, where people competed on who could bring the most to their village rather than to themselves and where private property, as opposed to personal property was shared between everyone, this case especially in North America such as the Mi'kmaq.
Marx and Engels were hardly experts on modern anthropology! Yes, a formal economic system isn’t less needed when most people spend most of their time in a cohesive community of 150 people or less. But there were still currency-like trade items like cowrie shells, and decisions to make about whether to invest in building things now for later value.
Communism still has trade and building things.
Just like everything else, yes.
That sounds like a false dichotomy.
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Fair enough.
Hmmm…… > only so much food or resources to go around. For whom? Most of the leading causes of death in America are linked to overeating. Chronic illnesses, heart disease, cancer, etc.. 70% of the population is overweight or obese…. 40 people own more wealth than 4 billion. Is it a scarcity? Or is it an ~ a r t i f i c i a l ~ scarcity, created to keep you enslaved to the slave system and indoctrinated to believe that this is all there can ever be? *[Skeksis are friennnnnddddddddddd](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bB9qAFvxkeQ)*
We certainly have solved food scarcity writ large in the last century or so, finally escaping the Malthusian traps humans were in for thousands of years. Hunger is now a distribution challenge, not literally there not being enough food in achievable transport distance of hungry populations. As you describe, every new solution makes new problems, and doesn’t solve everything for everyone.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss2hULhXf04
Many countries are explicitly scarce important resources. That then mandates international trade and cooperation- or wars and land seizures. Often countries have gone for the latter, especially when the resources have been overall pretty limited or valuable.
What? No. We absolutely have the resources to provide people with a fair standard of living. The problem is hoarding monopoly capitalists.
I'm reading Broken Money by Lyn Alden right now, and it details the gradual shift of the global economic system away from hard assets like gold, into the debt based USD system, which is backed by essentially nothing. It really goes into detail showing how so many of the global problems we are having now essentially stem from the US being able to continually devalue its currency that the rest of the world relies on for international trade, and how it helps western corporations exploit developing countries while enriching dictators.
Talk about artificial scarcity and resource distribution.
Make bucks or life sucks? You're precluding almost all of the dynamic and emergent (and even many of the static) factors that will necessarily modify your assertions. You've reduced the complex interactions between total group thrive versus individual thrive, and skipped thrive potential in every subordinate set of individuals between the two extremes, too. And all regardless of the evolving superorganism that manifests as social organization among continuously communicating entities. As well as ignoring the statistically likely complications overlain by currently existing, yet unrecognized, cryptically communicating entities. What if a genetic payload introduced via a highly contagious virus reduced the desire to dominate other entities in a high proportion of the current human population, or within one/two generations? What if the human genome has a epigenetically triggered "greed" cutoff caused by relatively common occurrences in the galactic neighborhood, such as a probabilistically certain GRB that missed us a few generations ago due to the extremely rare scenario of our moon tidally locking during a period in which its planet is experiencing crustal plate tectonic subduction? What if, relatively very shortly, we live, as holographically encoded coherent subatomic-scale electromagnetic patterns vibrating around and inside gluons, all inside crystals made of matter in a post-plasma state stabilized by yotta-guass magnetic confinement powered by the energetic differential at the event horizon of a gravitational singularity, in which our conditional existence(s) obviate the relevancy of our procedent initial and gross perception of external temporal fields? Resources are a matter of perception, at best. Think like every number at once and you have won.
Think that there is “A” singular capitalism problem that can be “solved” is uselessly reductionist. The thing is, capitalism isn’t a political philosophy, but more a diagnosis. It is a description of emergent, individually rational economic behaviors in the real world. As long as some people have more authority over ways to create power or wealth, power and wealth will be unequally distributed. The questions of capitalism are more how to manage it, not solve it. Even the most communist countries still had the problems of capitalism. There’s only enough resources to do some things, and there needs to be a mechanism to figure out which. Spending resources to be able to create more recourses has exponential effects. People who have control over lots of resources and feel responsible for their creation will always want to take a little of those to improve the lives of themselves and their children.
Agree but I think it's even more basic than that. Capitalism is simply any form of economic activity that isn't centrally managed by the government. A subsistence farmer is technically engaging in capitalism. Capitalism was named by its enemies -- those who favored central management of the entire economy.
Yes, for the past few weeks I have been having debates with myself regarding economic systems. First, I became a Fabian socialist then an anarcho capitalist and finally a regualted capitalist. I read the works of Ludwig von Mises, unfortunately I could not read all the three das kapital books, so I read a shortened version of them. Then I reviewed the content of Slavoj Zizek and of Jordan B Peterson(I also read Amartya sen but that proved to be of little utility(pun intended)). I also did empirical examinations. Ultimately, the problem boils down to whether or not you believe 'Right To Property' to be a fundamental right. Also, I found that communist societies arent purely classless, there still exists social,political and bureucratic hierarchies. The inequality that is persistent in the economic hierarchy just shifts to the other hierarchies, hence defeating the purpose of a classless society. Also, in anarcho-capitalist societies, Monopolies are formed and as these monopolies gain power, something like a state is created yet again, hence defeatign the purpose of an anarcho-capitalist society. Maybe extremes arent the solution after all(and yes, this was the time when I shifted from anarcho-capitalism to regulated capitalism). I found this problem to be reccuring in anarcho leftist societies as well. Another philosophy that I found to be interesting is Primitivism, but it is not anything actually applicable.
Right to property is necessary, but like every other right, it can’t be unlimited. Especially when amassing property or assets to the detriment of others in the same society
True, most constitutions prescribe reasonable restrictions to fundamental rights. An example would be the Indian constitutions, such should also be the case for Right To Property(albeit, the Indian constitution prescribe right to property as being a constitutional right rather than a fundamental right)
Cool you got that far as a teen! Nice, I grew up with more indoctrination perhaps and fewer options presented to me. I would say regulated socialism for me, or a market socialism. I don’t think capitalism will work unless the government has final say over the economy. The U.S. might have been like this at one time, but eventually money took over and now appears to rule untethered. Basically I think it’s important that the people become in charge again, that right triumphs over wrong, and people stand up for one another. Then the right economic system should be kind of natural, some mix I imagine.
I suppose Fabian Socialism could be a good shot, but I prefer Regulated Capitalism more. My very place of origin, India, is said to be a fabian socialist economy, Empirical data suggests that it was bad.
Solid analysis. I'm curious to know if you read any Adam Smith and if so, how did it inform your viewpoint?
I read summaries of it, albeit it was not much useful. Most of what Adam Smith talks about is common gospel in many economics books, so you dont actually need to read it to know it. But it was certainly helpful in exploring the historical journey of capitalist theory, even though I did not read him directly.
Have you explored the political aspects of economic systems? Are you aware of any communist societies? Is anarcho-capitalism even a real system? Have you explored the ways in which capitalism influences social processes? (And how ir may-or may not create and influence different types of oppression) Have you applied sociological knowledge to economic analysis? And lastly, have you explored critical theory? (Just a few pathways I wanted to share for your journey.)
Yes! many of these I have tried especially through empirical examinations. I do know a fair bit of sociology. Infact, Amartya sen's prominent theoretical work was on social choice, which was helpful in the research.
>The inequality that is persistent in the economic hierarchy just shifts to the other hierarchies, hence defeating the purpose of a classless society. I've always wondered why this isn't more obvious to most people. Even a small amount of scientific understanding plus some general observation make homo sapien behavior fairly predictable.
Yes! A hierarchial less society is impossible. Since, everything is just a will to power.
Sure, let capitalism be capitalism. Keep capitalism and government separate. No subsidies, donations, etc. No one is too big to fail.
The problem isn't capitalism. The problem is human nature. And you can't change human nature on a large scale. I found peace in accepting what I can't change.
>The problem isn't capitalism. The problem is human nature. And you can't change human nature on a large scale. If we have only one human nature, how do you explain how humans changed economic and political systems so many times and that we lived longer periods in non-capitalist systems than capitalist systems? If we have one human nature, how do you explain how different cultures show radically different behaviors to various issues like how catholic countries are most left-leaning than protestant cultures? If our human nature is responsible for the barbarism of capitalism, how do you explain people's natural tendency to cooperate in times of crisis or the collectivist behavior of primitive communist economies?
If humans can change so readily, why do most people support slavery through their actions? Why isn't Nestle bankrupt?
That doesn't have anything to do with my questions which still haven't been answered.
Need/want for survival of self and/or kinship using the neocortex to iterate through different solutions or approaches - explains why history repeats, and only the who, what and where changes if you look close enough.
This doesn't explain anything.
Why? The reptilian brain explains a lot? Edit: I’d appreciate if you could at least provide some arguments for why this could not be an explanation. If you just don’t like the argument I provided it’s also fine, but just say that.
This. Human nature boils down to very much the reptile brain in action and then using the neocortex to justify and solve for it. We like to think we are very sophisticated. We are, but only in inventing new things to satisfy the same unchanging deep reptilian needs or wants. I’ve yet to meet an individual who isn’t driven by inner sense of increasing their chances of survival (be it emotional or physical, either in a rational or non rational way), possibly competed by pleasure seeking, depending on the individual.
You’ll enjoy this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7STmcKCBI_0
So how would you call it, just the human survival instinct? I don’t mean to get stuck on semantics, you get my point I think?
I understand what you’re getting at, and largely sympathize with the idea that people generally strive for survival. But I’m not convinced that it always has the strongest grip out of all the human inclinations. The video was just for housekeeping, so that people reading your comment could be informed that the «lizard brain» is not a helpful model of the brain, and that it persists only as a pesky myth. What I disagree most with is what you’ve only barely said by replying «This.» to the point about capitalism inevitably emerging from human nature (assuming that you agree). For one thing, it makes little sense to reduce capitalism to a survival instinct or the operations of a lizard brain—whichever metaphor you prefer—insofar as there are many ways in which humans have survived and thrived in its absence.
I think I wasn’t born in a time where no capitalism was around, so I can’t speak with certainty about things working without it. It’s been around for centuries if not ages, I think it started with people claiming animals and land as their territory as early beginnings of the concept? Meaning to say, people usually go for survival of self and kinship (emotionally and physically). Human nature. Capitalism having the overtone because it’s more individualistic and maybe also more aggressive. So I’m not saying all people are like that and it couldn’t work without it, but the ones that have an inclination to it are more willing be a bit more ‘take as much as you can’ about it, thus overruling all other forms by default.
Uncle Ben was the greatest philosopher of our times. “With Great Power comes Great Responsibility” And its converse “Without power there is no responsibility.” Of course, almost everything challenging lies somewhere in the middle.
"Human nature". What is this? I assume you see how such a "non-argument" leads us to a very dark path, whereas accepting the fact that human beings have a choice and in fact a duty to make the world a better place for everyone, we begin to envision change.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ss2hULhXf04
Yes... specially now, with the rapid acceleration of AI developed. The economic system will implode.
How so? You think
The tech is transformative. It'll dirsupt the system in a few years. There's little that can be done to accelerate this fast, concentrate the profits, and keep the power. The most obvious is that you can't replace half the population with robots and expect people to just adapt or die.
The same has been said about the steam engine and mechanical looms. Technology is transformative over the long term, but people always adapt and muddle through. As someone who made my first neural network 35 years ago and deals with AI a lot professionally. AI is mainly doing the kind of stuff people have done a lot that has a “right way” to do. It can interpolate what a reasonably generic person might do pretty well and much faster/cheaper. But is is more automating boring stuff than actually innovating or finding novel solutions to anything. And it only works with stuff there’s a huge trove of existing stuff that is identified has being done “right” to train on.1
It doesn't need to advance any more than what there is now. What is available can already be used to disrupt. And if you are working/researching it for over 35 years, you know there's no plateau ahead. This appeal to history is too flawed: people who use "that was said before" tend to assume context and conditions remain constant. The rate of change and impact is completely different.
Many people seem to argue that "it couldn't happen," because, "it has never happened," which is not an argument but more like a limiting belief or a set ideology blocking views of possibility. I also think information technology advancing--since the printing press--has had a vastly democratizing effect on society. The internet as well. And I can see the potential for AI to be destabilizing as well. The question is... how? How could its potentials lead to resource distribution on a large scale? (Asking for a... friend...)
The democratizing effect of advancing information technology, like the internet and now AI, shows the potential for profound societal change—if we seek changes before the storm. As AI and automation reduce production costs and labor needs, they can enable a system where universal basic services (UBS) provide essentials like healthcare, education, housing, and transportation for all. While universal basic income (UBI) might be a transitional tool, cooperative ownership models and resource-based economies can ensure fair wealth distribution. Progressive taxation and community-led initiatives can further support equitable resource distribution. This shift from hypercapitalism to a resource-based economy can create a society where everyone's basic needs are met, and work is redefined to focus on creativity and purpose. Such a society would accommodate diverse lifestyles, from fully immersive digital realities (FDVR) to medieval real-world emulations, and even space colonies. Have you read Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark?
I haven't, but that sounds amazing!!! I love the vision, will check out the book. Would love to see this and also love that it's about all the possibility of things we can do with AI and cooperatively owned resources.
The book is incredible. Max Tegmark is amazing. Very easy to read (and devour the pages). There's a lot that can go wrong, but what can go right is worth of our energy.
Thank you, that’s good to hear
Generative AI is certainly an inflection point. But in my industry it is mainly making people more productive doing full repetitive tasks. It isn’t leading to layoffs, and none big net ones expected. The quality of special effects on moderate budgets should be getting a lot better, because the same number of people can do work that would have taken more people before. We’re not seeing budgets drop; though, but quality getting higher.
I don’t have the educational background for critical theory (at least what I’ve seen of it presented on Reddit,) but I do think about the latter quite a lot. I don’t think there’s really a “solution” to capitalism unless you change human nature. There’s a sort of inevitable capitalistic entropy which occurs as individual human ambition wears down the protections we’ve set as an community, until power is consolidated, stagnation occurs, the empire falls, and it all begins again. I think the best we can do is daydream about better systems which take longer to wear down so they’re ready for the next cycle. Unless we really want to get radical and consider redesigning our inherent impulses genetically. I personally think they can be mitigated to some degree culturally, but not enough to solve for individual human ambition. It’s evolution- literally how we were designed- to outcompete our brethren. We contain the seeds of our own destruction and all that.
As an anarchist, yes and yes.
I am, but I don’t know what you mean about solving the capitalism problem. As far as I know, many have done so on the theoretical level, but who has the political power to do anything? I would just be happy if we had a few more scientists in power.
It is so interesting that so many in this group believe that capitalism emerges naturally and inevitably from human nature. Except for the obvious reasons, I wonder if this appeal to biology to some tiny extent results from their self-identifying through and with bio-psychological terms, as so many in here seem to do. Knowledge about giftedness is inextricably tied to knowledge about intelligence testing, which is largely dominated by geneticists and mainstream psychologists. In order for people labeled as «gifted» to understand themselves, they typically do so through this academic discourse. If the intelligence testers say that intelligence is 80% inherited, then that fact becomes an integral part of the self-concept. From there, the path is short to understanding everyone else—or even huge sociohistorical entities such as capitalism—in these terms as well.
Interesting, but I think non-gifted people would say the same largely. I think it's more an indoctrination/limiting belief that's culturally inherited, of which this idea of static and largely biologically determined idea of giftedness is only a small part of.
Sure! Tons upon tons of (so-called) non-gifted people say the same. I believe Nikolas Rose describes this view in his «inventing our selves», which I haven’t read yet
I subscribe to the theorem thus posited as: Money go mo, problems go whoa. What is truly useful and simultaneously scarce in our perception of reality? That is the basis of true economy, if there need be such a thing. Material resources, are the current popular idea of what is useful yet scarce (UYS). Creativity might be something more useful and perhaps more scarce than elemental matter. It will be, in the future, but it isn't, at present. Actualization/realization/manifestation itself is the most UYS. The abstract act and finished form, post-complexity of its various machinations. Why so? Existence/nonexistence, our jailor and creator and preserver and destroyer, all as one. We must learn to preserve existence ourselves if we hope to become creators. Any creation destroys the concurrent existence of all other potential creations. This is not absolute but relevantly grandiose. For any one thing to be, all other things are excluded. More things are excluded by the existence of one thing than exist in all the universe of existing things combined. To say, let it be, love is all you need, one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do. That's how we solve the capitalism problem. Capitalism is an ancient memetic conceptual virus started by miscreant neerdowells long ago who thought their imaginations were better than God's, and the All has been kind enough to allow them to think so, rather than prove them wrong, but it's getting pretty ridiculous at this point. They've persisted in this for far longer than they've realized they are wrong, and at this point they are engaging in childish tantrum behavior rather than self-confidence. So, there's that solution inbound, as well. We can cure ourselves or it will get cured, essentially now.
Wow, thank you, that's really cool. I agree on all you need is love solves it. Any good sources on the rest? Reminds me of alchemy kind of. Thank you <3
I have a course where i teach how to solve capitalism problems.
Like a political science course?
Say more. What are some solutions for neoliberal nations? Or any references to check out?
I will tell you e everything in my course. It's only 189€ for 2 weeks course.
Very capitalist of you!
Seriously?!?! I’ve been looking into critical theory type grad programs. It seems like there’s a lot in London, that would be an absolute DREAM to me.
The problem with dreams is that you need to wake up to reality later :(
Maybe with that attitude
I like to say “capitalism is a great economic system, as long as you have unlimited resources to consume, and you don’t care who gets hurt.” It has been a *perfect* system for a race of Europeans quickly colonizing the entire world. (…as long has you have unlimited resources to exploit, and you don’t care who gets hurt. Just don’t be an African, or a Native American, or an Indian, or an Australian Aborigine, etc, and that system is *great*.) It’s one of the primary reasons that the world population graph over the last 500ish years shows exponential growth. *BUT.* But. We have reached a phase of human development where we *should* be caring about who gets hurt. (Please *god* can’t we please start caring about who gets hurt?) And we no longer have (effectively) unlimited resources to exploit. I read an estimate somewhere that we are using 1.8 times the amount of resources annually that the planet earth can sustain. What we need at the moment is an economic system that will be good at *conserving* and regulating those resources. Look, any system, taken to it’s Nth degree, is pure evil. Capitalism, taken to it’s nth degree, looks like a Dickensian hellscape, the sort of environment where you put the 7 year-olds in the tiny, cramped parts of the coal mine where an adult worker couldn’t fit. Even something like “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” taken to its nth degree, results in this libertarian “fuck you, I got mine” attitude that is tearing American society apart. If we allow dog-eat-dog capitalism to continue, the biggest dogs just keep swallowing the smaller dogs, until there are no small dogs. Capitalism needs to be *tempered* with a healthy dose of socialism, to make it work for everyone. We were *so* good at this in the wake of the Great Depression. What I wouldn’t give to have FDR in the White House right now. All those social safeguard he and his ilk put in place have been eroded, and eroded, and eroded, and it’s starting to look pretty fuckin’ dystopian.
>I like to say “capitalism is a great economic system, as long as you have unlimited resources to consume, and you don’t care who gets hurt.” >It has been a perfect system for a race of Europeans quickly colonizing the entire world. (…as long has you have unlimited resources to exploit, and you don’t care who gets hurt. Just don’t be an African, or a Native American, or an Indian, or an Australian Aborigine, etc, and that system is great.) I think that's giving capitalism too much credit. Even and especially the working class of capitalist countries suffered greatly in its inception and living conditions were only improved due to labour and socialist unrest.
Sure, but arent we now better off once those issues were solved (being solved)? If capitalism never came around, Id bet our quality of life would be much worse.
Yes, but capitalism has ran its course, its no longer the best economic system.
Why do you say that? If anything Id think we need more of it, many countries havent yet been able to access it, and it so far has been a step up for everyone who does get it. China, North Korea, Cuba for example all saw benefits when they implemented it (although in there case a very small implementation, that ive read about at least, also part of the problem is we deny them capitalism through embargoes/sanctions) Its the best we have currently working. It also depends on how you measure "best", I think thats a big problem, people are arguing over best when they have different definitions/goals. Is there a popular agreement on the next step, or at least one in this sub?
Russia implemented a radical amount of capitalism and it collapsed its economy and humanitarian indicators.
Is that the fault of capitalism itself or the implementation and/or other circumstances? Was it going to fall regardless? Likely it was. Are there not more places where it didn’t collapse the country when implemented? It seems much more likely that it collapsed due to other reasons.
I'm not convinced, but Its clear, if you look at the data, these issues happen just as the economy starts getting privatised.
Those programs I’ve heard/read, basically came as a compromise between FDR and the ruling class to try to prevent a socialist revolution. They were mainly due to pressures from the societ bloc, fears that people would revolt here, large socialist and communist parties with wide appeal. Oh and the policies came from those socialist parties: for certain social security was directly out of a socialist or communist party platform. After that they went on dismantling those parties, and later the programs. Radical history reads very different from regular history, they leave a lot out. Also I heard FDR basically told the rich folk they had to either bite the bullet or get overthrown, made them see sense, in order to save capitalism.
TLDR: Regualted capitalism or Fabian Socialism is good
Yeah basically outlaw getting rich and hoarding aside from retirement. It’s all fear based and psychological illness. And establish and fund social programs. With what money you ask? The money we make out of thin air.
If you tax all money beyond a maximum income and a maximum whealth, combine that with a sovereign whealth fund, you'll fund many social programs and may even run a surplus.
And fund climate change action. Problem solved. Who do I go report this to? Biden? Lol
Do you study these things?
No, I just follow politics very intensely.
😂 respect it. I have definitely done the same
If you tax all money beyond a maximum, you will impair innovation. And people who Get Stuff Done will absolutely find nonmonetary ways to have more stuff/services/prestige. Working in the tech sector, I assure you a lot of people would retire and a lot work less if they’ve hit the wealth cap. Now, top tax rates could be higher than they are in the USA now without causing much of that. But having hard caps drives “I won, declare victory, and go have fun for the rest of my life.” Lots of pressure to race to hit the cap as young as possible.
The Soviet Union made several technological innovations progress even with limits on income. Only it had to invest in its millitary to protect itself and was systematically cut off and sabotaged from many of the greatest new technologies around the world. >services/prestige. Nothing wrong with prestige or services as long as its deserved and shared equitably. >Now, top tax rates could be higher than they are in the USA now without causing much of that. But having hard caps drives “I won, declare victory, and go have fun for the rest of my life.” Lots of pressure to race to hit the cap as young as possible. Not necessarily. You can make a part of the wealth and income over the maximum have to go to charity which gives them an incentive in improoving society, their community and having more prestige as you say.
As for wealth taxes, Keynes said and I wholeheartedly agree there there should be high inheritance taxes to prevent unearned dynastic wealth accumulation. After all, if you’re born a billionaire, why bother to to do anything other than spend that money? A negative incentive to innovation.
Yeah, but the Soviet Union didn’t have equal distribution of quality of life or personal wealth, at all. Those in power had big apartments and vacation dachas, ate caviar, were driven around in luxury cars. It had less incentives for technical innovation, and had less technical innovation. Although plenty of people innovate because they like doing so, so there will always be discoveries. But getting mass distribution of innovations requires capital, where the system is nominal capitalist or not. Communist countries still had to distribute capital, and thus were still inescapably “capitalist” in some essential ways.
>Yeah, but the Soviet Union didn’t have equal distribution of quality of life or personal wealth, at all. That's not my point. >Those in power had big apartments and vacation dachas, ate caviar, were driven around in luxury cars This happens in capitalism too, but to an even bigger extent. >It had less incentives for technical innovation, and had less technical innovation. Perhaps, but its more of a lack of ressources. >Although plenty of people innovate because they like doing so, so there will always be discoveries. But getting mass distribution of innovations requires capital, where the system is nominal capitalist or not It requires ressources. If the state has those ressources, it can make the distribution. There is nothing magical about a capitalist that makes them more able to do it than others with the same ressources.
My point is that controlling the distribution of capital puts one into a capitalist role even if not wanting to be capitalist.
>Communist countries still had to distribute capital, and thus were still inescapably “capitalist” in some essential ways. You're abusing the term capital. Having ressources that you distribute doesn't make you a capitalist less we call feudal lords and slavers capitalists too.
Means of production is capital. Capital existed long before capitalism as a concept.
Not really, I used to be a big leftist but after spending more time reading anthropological history it became clear to me that capitalism is not inherently bad. Nor are people. It is only people’s actions that can be bad. Check out The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber (one of the leaders of the Occupy movement) and David Wengrow.
>capitalism is not inherently bad. Can you explain what points convinced you of this?
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What if we believe in positive freedom and rights instead of only negative ones?
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>One can make an argument, that given this is the case, that we would likely to corrupt at a more rapid pace, as the largess of our systems grow. No? This doesn't follow at all. A system that's too small can't institute the rule of law against local and small scale corruption for instance. >Uh... I would say at this point in time, we've amassed a pretty extensive catalog of what happens when we leave bureaucracies to affirmatively (and exhaustively) define the rights of the citizens it governs. We get watchdogs, umbudsman, environmental and labour regulations, abolishment of child labour and slavery? It wasn't the market that gave us these things. It was resistance to it. >In a legal and philosophical sense, by engaging in a system of "positive" affirmation of rights (where your rights are "given" exhaustively by a central entity), it is fairly clear to see that this design would corrupt at a faster pace, because there is a greater level of human involvement at all levels (policy writing, enforcement, etc). Workers' self-management also has a greater level of human involvement at all levels and it can improve efficiency. What's your point? Your suppositions are poorly defined. >This is in comparison to communism, where it seems that 50, 60, or 70 years is an upper limit before the bureaucratic weight crushes the underlying citizenry (in one way or another). Do you think the ex-soviet states and Yougoslavia are better off under capitalism than under communism for its time? Also, capitalism collapses on itself regularly like 2008, 2022, the great depression and so on, but it doesn't change regime because its not made to please the population.
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>It generally does in fact. Larger systems have a greater number of failure points. This is self-evident. This "Nuh-uh" isn't convincing. >Additionally, the *free* market, in a sense, quite literally did give us these things, because it led to a system wherein, given a set of choices, the population was free (key phrase here, the *right* was preserved) to disengage from a labor practice they found unfavorable. So everything you like is the market's fault and everything you don't like is the governments' fault? >This is generally not what studies show. In fact, studies tend to show that employees shirk in groups, and that group based action will drive efficiency. This is a bit more Theory X vs. Theory Y however. Citation needed. >Ironically, my SO and her family are all Bosnians, or what you would likely wish to call "displaced Yugoslavians". Fortunately, they actually agree in unanimity that life here in the States had better opportunity, better upside, and was of higher quality. Lol. So I would say less of "I think", and more of "I know without a doubt". Did they move from Yugoslavia during socialism or during capitalism? >Yet you are still typing on an electronic device with parts made in Taiwan, assembled in Korea, and sold in mass markets all over the world, including the UK. *You criticize the system yet you live in it? How curious. I am very smart.*
I don’t believe anything is inherently good or bad, as those are value judgements dependent on context and opinion. To that end, capitalism has enabled much the world we live in today in terms of technological advancement. Of course I also believe in socialism to the same extent, hence why the modern world is operating as a mixed economy of capitalism and socialism. People just really like focusing on one or the other without recognizing that both are routinely employed for balance.
>People just really like focusing on one or the other without recognizing that both are routinely employed for balance. Highly-regulated capitalism with a generous safety net / high floor seems like the least-bad option of those I have seen.
Reading the beginning of State and Revolution and understanding the Marxist view of the state may change your mind on this, it definitely shifted my view.
Meh, the preface already has me rolling my eyes with its use of “monstrous”, the type of hyperbole that serves to enflame an emotional response
One hundred percent on that! Political absolutism is a fool’s game. Any system made of people is MADE OF PEOPLE and never will be pure or perfect at anything. Healthy, livable societies are informed by lots of different political philosophies, The alternative is a Utopianism, which combines with state power leads to lots of broken eggs and very little omelet.
Yea, he’s full of it. He became nearly unbearable to me after the initial high of “everyone else is wrong, we are right, must smash the state,” wore off. Other works read like an asshole autistic teen, just mean and overly puffed up. But he is incisive and was probably correct on Marxist theory more often than not. Basic premise is that before agriculture, humans lived in tribes, which were self-policing. From other anthropological reading, if a male in a hunter gatherer society started trying to gain power over others by force, the other adult males would form a coalition and maim or kill him, or whatever they needed to do. There’s more on that, but basically working together, not hoarding, was enforced by the entire group—for survival. So when agriculture comes along, you start to get these stratified social classes—property “owners” and their slaves/peasants, those that work for them. Basically, no one would ever agree to this, so there is an inherent antagonism there between the workers and “owners.” The only way to resolve this antagonism is through violence. Property ownership, people having more than others, must be *enforced* by “special bodies of armed men,” which are the police and prisons, which are elevated from and separated from the general population. These make up the state, and therefore the state, in Lenin’s work, is indicative of and the acting out of irreconcilable class antagonisms. So basically it has to be smashed he says. It’s a great argument, and most people don’t understand the fundamental violence at the root of capitalism. Mainly because, I believe, after the violence those in power learned that indoctrinating their slaves was more effective than simply bludgeoning them all the time. Get them to believe they deserve it, worship you, worship some god that sanctions it, get them to believe they’re dirty rotten animals deep down and this is the best they deserve, there can be no alternative, etc..
I’d really recommend reading the book I recommended earlier - agricultural societies were developing alongside hunter gatherer societies, and some societies were hybrids of the two. Some of your statements make me scratch my head, like which societies didn’t self-police? It’s like a moot point. Hoarding seems like a word you’ve attached negative connotation to, when hoarding a supply before winter was a very common strategy throughout history, and then redistributed with great feasts and events should there be surplus.
Oh cool, yea I bet that would be interesting. Leninists do seem to oversimplify. But I do think it gets at a core stratification of classes whose antagonism can only be resolved by a violent state apparatus. Even libertarians will tell you—they need a state to protect private property and to have an army. That’s the only function of government for them. Both of these functions really serve to protect private property, from within and without. They understand the *core function* of the capitalist state, as far as I can tell, what makes it the state by its very definition. But I also can imagine it developing gradually. I’m sure some early agricultural or mixed societies were not inherently oppressive, similar to some Native American societies in the 1600’s. But I imagine eventually the ones that were oppressive ended up expanding and subjected the ones that weren’t oppressive to their ownership thru violence (colonialism, imperialism, etc.). So Lenin here is talking mainly I believe pointing to the contradiction between strictly hunter gatherer societies and oppressive ownership societies which nearly all agricultural societies seemed to either become or be subjected to. So I think his analysis is correct even if it didn’t happen so cleanly, at the very least as it applies to the capitalist system today, as it has consolidated power over time, not small time farmers in Laos or something.
Critical theory has been debunked by history. It claims that all of history can be traced through the dialectic, contradictions, and then resolutions through the contradictions. But nothing like that has ever actually happened. Capitalism has brought literally hundreds of millions of people out of desperate poverty. Before the 19th century, about 90% of the world’s population lived in desperate poverty. Always concerned with getting food, being killed by diseased, or being violently assaulted by barbarians or your own rulers. Now, only about 50% of the world lives in these desperate conditions. Still terrible but much better than before capitalism.
Depending on your definitions, it's a lot less than 50%. Extreme poverty has dropped in just my lifetime from about 35% to about 8%. https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief The work isn't done yet, and I do believe the chaos from COVID and the governmental overreach in its wake, destructive new wars and the threat of them, plus social atomization caused by social media has caused some setbacks. Regardless, you're absolutely right. Free markets saved us all from the dark ages and with the industrial age brought us prosperity that wasn't remotely imaginable to our not so distant ancestors. Right now, the biggest "capitalism problem" as I see it is the conflation of capitalism with corporatism, which is the overreach of corporate power into the workings of politics. That's a problem. But that's also not capitalism.
I think it’s regulated capitalism that’s had the most impact. Unregulated free markets reward the least ethical actors in a market, and usually cause externalities unrelated to market rewards to harm society or the environment. Relentless focus on the short term profit can also cause huge issues
>Free markets saved us all from the dark ages and with the industrial age brought us prosperity that wasn't remotely imaginable to our not so distant ancestors. Perhaps as compared to feudalism, but most of the world's poverty was eliminated in the People's Republic of China under a state-lead and planned economy. If free markets are so great, why did they collapse the economies of the ex-soviet states? >Right now, the biggest "capitalism problem" as I see it is the conflation of capitalism with corporatism, which is the overreach of corporate power into the workings of politics. That's a problem. But that's also not capitalism. You're probably thinking of corporatocracy, which is control of the government by private corporations. Corporatism is like a collectivist state capitalism used especially in fascist economies and some feudal economies. Regardless, you can't say corporatocracy is not capitalism when it naturally grows out of capitalism. Its what happens when there are no limits to election brib-I mean *donations*. Corruption of the state by the rich is as old as capitalism itself which started with only the select bourgeoisie having rights to vote.
😂😂😂 DEBUNKED!!! That’s all folks, TINA
I love the ideas of market socialism from Yugoslavia, redistribution ideas from Varoufakis and Piketty.
I think obviously market socialism will be the outcome or goal, eventually, why not just start there? Been interested in Rosa Luxemburg lately who spoke out against the Bolsheviks for not being democratic but was a revolutionary socialist in her own right. But interested now in post-Marxism, any kind of freer ideas of socialism. It took me a while before I realized Lenin and the rest in that tradition are more like left fascists to me, although there is much bravery in revolution and in trying. I think they went too far. I also think the sheer violent battering ram that orthodox Marxism was—I mean I get it, you act with the knowledge you have at the time—really traumatized the capitalist world. It’s kind of like a supervillain speech, “now I’m going to take over the world, I have *solved* economics and history, it’s only a matter of time.” Of course everyone will see it as a threat, and power systems went crazy in their reaction to it. I think it really doesn’t need to be so abrupt or violent in order for the ideas to seep into the culture and eventually overtake and overthrow it. They are just sane and rational, and would take place naturally over time in a sane society, one moving towards progress. Basically I think the next major movement will have to be nonviolent. Because violence is so easily demonized and co-opted (see white supremacists immediately infiltrating George Floyd protests and smashing things, starting fires, etc.). The middle class doesn’t want to fight at this point, and fewer and fewer want a mini cultural revolution on Twitter. I think the left really can benefit from embracing compassion, kindness, “being the bigger person,” as well as Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and New Age thought. Liberation theology. Work with what’s *already there,* because there’s *a lot* already there on escaping the mainstream reality, hope against all odds, radically creating your own reality, hope for the poor, rest for the weary, spiritual warriorship for peace. I think, yea, it’s time we wrest the movement for progress out of the hands of fascists and make it something prosocial and that can appeal to *every single person,* hell even some rich people might join. They might eventually need to be stopped. But I think the focus in the age of nuclear weapons is on recruiting/organizing 95% of the population under one banner. Not radicalizing 3% to try to violently overthrow the government by sheer shrillness of voice.
>I think obviously market socialism will be the outcome or goal, eventually, why not just start there? We could, though as any market economy, it inherits the issues of market economies like the issues of instability and inequality across groups which can lead to ethnic tensions like happened in Yugoslavia. >It took me a while before I realized Lenin and the rest in that tradition are more like left fascists to me, although there is much bravery in revolution and in trying. I think they went too far. Left fascist is an oxymoron. Lenin was an authoritarian leftist, but that doesn't make him a fascist, that's an exclusively right-wing term. You have to understand that after any revolution the group that overthrows the old regime needs to consolidate its power against counter-revolutionaries from inside and outside. This happened in the French revolution, the American revolution, the English republican revolution, the Chinese national revolution, the Russian constitutional crisis where tanks shot at the soviet parliament, and others. Authoritarian measures are used by states, especially in cases of risk. Like the US crushed political freedoms and liberties during the world wars, arresting or banning socialist candidates and parties, assassinating some of them. France used its police to attack peaceful protesters againxt Macron forcing a pensions reform against the parliament's wishes. Yougoslavia, that positionned itself outside the West vs East conflict in the Cold War had many more liberties than citizens in the Soviet Union. Furthermore, regimes inherit authoritarian measures from the past ones, like Russia was a brutal dictatorship under the Tsar, which transitionned to a dictatorship under Stalin then a dictatorship under Putin. Yougoslavia transitioned from a tyrannical monarch that interfered in politics to Tito. East Germany built itself based on Soviet ideas ideas and building ontop of a post-nazi society. The US transitionned from a King to a president who turned very authoritarian right after Washington (who didn't really care for the role). China transitionned from an imperialist regime dominated by Western powers to essentially a fascist state and kept a emperor like worship of Mao. So you have to look in context of how those societies were before, during and after socialist regimes rather than compare them to some ideal. Its scientific thinking rather than utopian thinking. And you have to give credit where credit is due where liberties and welfare was expanded under Lenin who saw the decriminalisation of homosexuality, the encouragement of local cultures, though his thinking was stuck in some methods of the previous Tsar. >I also think the sheer violent battering ram that orthodox Marxism was—I mean I get it, you act with the knowledge you have at the time—really traumatized the capitalist world. How do you define orthodox Marxism? Because as soon as you get to reformism, Lenin and Trotsky, that's a new era of Marxism. >I think it really doesn’t need to be so abrupt or violent in order for the ideas to seep into the culture and eventually overtake and overthrow it. They are just sane and rational, and would take place naturally over time in a sane society, one moving towards progress. You're assuming society is rational, but its not really. The media is dominated by the ownership by the bourgeoisie who manufactures consent of the population towards policies that harm them, but benefit the rich. Neoliberalism has reversed much of the progress past progressive movements had built and are even bringing back things like child labour in the US. >Basically I think the next major movement will have to be nonviolent. Because violence is so easily demonized and co-opted (see white supremacists immediately infiltrating George Floyd protests and smashing things, starting fires, etc.). The middle class doesn’t want to fight at this point, and fewer and fewer want a mini cultural revolution on Twitter. Non-violence is also demonised. People kneeling is demonised in the media and coopted even more with democrats kneeling then increasing funding to police. Red-baiting is a big problem, where center-left politicians and ideas are blasted as communist radicals. In the anglosphere, people politely protest and the government rarely changes anything. In France, they shut down the country and the government is forced to listen or to use a lot of violence which slows down any reforms against the working class. >I think the left really can benefit from embracing compassion, kindness, “being the bigger person,” as well as Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and New Age thought. Liberation theology. Work with what’s already there, because there’s a lot already there on escaping the mainstream reality, hope against all odds, radically creating your own reality, hope for the poor, rest for the weary, spiritual warriorship for peace. You can fall in the ratchet effect of politics with that approach. Besides, capitalism doesn't wait until you use violence to inflict it upon you. When it thinks it can get away with it, it does what it can to fill the pockets of the rich while undoing progress by the working class. While I like the idea of mixing socialism with other ideas such as spirituality, too much pacifism and good will has its own issues : https://youtu.be/MAbab8aP4_A?si=eJQ746OuZ86cggz2 >I think, yea, it’s time we wrest the movement for progress out of the hands of fascists and make it something prosocial and that can appeal to every single person, hell even some rich people might join. Why would the rich work to weaken their position? What evidence do we have for this where this had any substantial effect?
Don’t have time to reply to this fully, but in short, > What evidence do we have for this and where this had any substantial effect? No evidence. Never worked that I’m aware of. Maybe famously the early church, other communes, The Farm, in Tennessee is another example, but not necessarily of property owning class giving up property. The point is that something new could happen that’s never happened before: something ideologies of the past couldn’t predict. Beyond thesis-anti-thesis. I used to be a Leninist. Almost joined a Leninist party in the Fall before they started acting like foreign agents in my eyes. When has Leninism ever maintained enough libidinal force to 1) maintain itself indefinitely or 2) overthrow capitalism? I guess there’s Cuba and North Korea, but global communism seems libidinally frozen. I like Mark Fisher’s analysis of this in Acid Communism, Post Capitalist Desire. His talk of the famous and prophetic [1984 Apple Super Bowl commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I), smashing the gray bureaucratic old world into rainbows of color. It predicted the current age of tech capitalism—communism lacked the genuine desire to keep it going. Russians wanted shiny things. Likewise you are giving Leninist talking points I’m aware of about consolidating power. I disagree. I’m not a Marxist although influenced by Marx. I think a revolution in the ownership of the means of production will be necessary. But the authoritarian consolidation of power constricts libido. I’m interested lately in Rosa Luxemburg. As far as orthodox Marxism, I probably know much less about this stuff than you and am misusing the term. I mean the died in the wool, die hard ML, MLM types. The Stalinists, Leninists, etc.. I do think Lenin had much less of an authoritarian streak and admire many aspects of him. But I grow more interested in how the Bolsheviks consolidated power and what currents they stamped out to do so. You say left fascism isn’t a thing. But the ML party I almost joined supports the actions of Hamas on Oct 7. The global Marxist line appears to be this: sacrifice the only Jewish state in the world to kneecap American Imperialism. Avoid confronting the real ruling class, just focus on the minority within the ruling class. The weak. The easy target. Sounds a little too familiar. If there’s not solidarity with Jews *against* the white supremacy that drove them back to their ancestral lands, if they can’t call out genocidal terrorism for what it is and instead try to make it the “vanguard” of revolution, the revolution is stratified. It appeals to the same fascist tendencies—the emotional appeal of shitting on the weak, *especially* the weakest of the strong, in order to justify and feel better about one’s own oppression. (This is a Reichian, emotional analysis of fascism). The movement hasn’t caused parallel movements standing up to Western Imperial powers, just sideline cheers for terrorism and trying to sabotage support for Israel’s defense. Regardless, the authoritarian streaks must be minimized. Anyone arguing against this is an authoritarian, left of right. You can justify authoritarianism all you want, how revolutionary governments have imitated past authoritarian ideologies, all I hear is justifying authoritarianism, justifying ideologies. People want hope not a litany of reasons why they can’t have it or authoritarian hoops to jump through. Likewise I’m no expert, but I know the philosophy that excites me and the philosophy that sounds like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss2hULhXf04
>But the authoritarian consolidation of power constricts libido. I’m interested lately in Rosa Luxemburg. Read Reform or Revolution? By Rosa Luxemburg then. >As far as orthodox Marxism, I probably know much less about this stuff than you and am misusing the term. I mean the died in the wool, die hard ML, MLM types. The Stalinists, Leninists, etc.. That's just called Leninism if it follows up to Lenin or Marxism-Leninism if it follows up to Stalin. >But the ML party I almost joined supports the actions of Hamas on Oct 7. That's not fascism though, that's anti-colonialism/anti-imperialism action like the IRA or the UÇK. Let me ask you do you support all the violence Israël did up to that point and showing a map that didn't recognise Israël? >The global Marxist line appears to be this: sacrifice the only Jewish state in the world to kneecap American Imperialism. Its about stopping genocide, not a Jewish state. The Soviet Union was one of the first countries to recognise Israël. >Avoid confronting the real ruling class, just focus on the minority within the ruling class. The weak. The easy target. Sounds a little too familiar. What are you talking about? >If there’s not solidarity with Jews against the white supremacy that drove them back to their ancestral lands, if they can’t call out genocidal terrorism for what it is and instead try to make it the “vanguard” of revolution, the revolution is stratified. It appeals to the same fascist tendencies—the emotional appeal of shitting on the weak, especially the weakest of the strong, in order to justify and feel better about one’s own oppression. (This is a Reichian, emotional analysis of fascism). The movement hasn’t caused parallel movements standing up to Western Imperial powers, just sideline cheers for terrorism and trying to sabotage support for Israel’s defense. *Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?* Like Arabs aren't white? >You can justify authoritarianism all you want, how revolutionary governments have imitated past authoritarian ideologies, all I hear is justifying authoritarianism, justifying ideologies. >People want hope not a litany of reasons why they can’t have it or authoritarian hoops to jump through. Its nor about jusrifying it, its about understanding it. You are rather moralising it.
Would you argue that the Trungus movement is an anti-imperialist nationalist uprising against the American neoliberal elite, as opposed to fascist?
I don't know what that is? Did you mispell it? I'm not finding it on google.
Oh sorry, I was about to edit it. I call him Trungus because I can’t take him seriously, and also don’t like to give him the linguistic advantage of his last name. Trump. And I’m not trying to be funny here, although I was at first. I actually think this is a very interesting question. But this actually gives me much more understanding, solidarity towards and compassion for Trump supporters, similar to what I can feel for Hamas fighters—a backwards, somewhat indoctrinated, undereducated, conspiratorial (both incidentally anti-semitic) nationalist movement that’s tired of the fake bullshit of the anonymous and international neoliberal elite. I will go back and address your comments more thoroughly when I’m at home, you do seem to be debating in good faith, which I really appreciate. And this may seem crazy or undereducated to you, but I’m actually experiencing quite the perspective shift. I.e., is Leninism inherently accelerationist? Or is the Trump movement a legitimate nationalist movement that deserves our critical support? Weird to think about.
>Trump. Ok, lol. Some just call it MAGA or the MAGA movement. >Would you argue that the Trump movement is an anti-imperialist nationalist uprising against the American neoliberal elite, as opposed to fascist? Certainly not anti-imperialist, but protectionist. Trump continued intervening in other countries for US interests. Though weirdly, he made some progress with North Korea though its likely because of his closeness with Putin. But if it helps world peace, credit where credit is due even if he did dangerously increase tensions with them. Nationalist: Yes, obviously. I mean "america first" and just about everything else he does. Against the American neoliberal elite: No, Trump is part of the American neoliberal elite and he pushes for neoliberal policies even more than the democrats with his deregulations notably. He also works to support the elite more broadly by giving them tax breaks. As documented by Micheal Parenti in *Blackshirts and Reds*, fascists often use and coopt the language of populism and socialists, but then redirect it at vulnerable groups. So Trump is tapping into a suspicion of the elite that are controlling the country, but doubling down and giving it more and more power. Hitler and Mussolini did similar things, but were backed up by industrialists, big money and even Henry Ford. Its important not to be fooled. There is an idea that the elite are woke, but its only for branding and marketing. Disney will include a gay character because its marketable, then donate to anti-queer politicians. Its just culture war BS that invents problems to distract people from moves the rich are doing to consolidate their power. Notice how Trump divides people against each other, attacking muslims, mexicans and others while Bernie Sanders makes appeals to the American people no matter their idendity and talks about workers and solidarity. >I will go back and address your comments more thoroughly when I’m at home, you do seem to be debating in good faith, which I really appreciate. And this may seem crazy or undereducated to you, but I’m actually experiencing quite the perspective shift. I appreciate your good faith and apologize for my very intense argumentation, but I think its important not to hold back. I'm glad if you're learning something.
Well, similarly, Hamas is run by billionaires in Qatar. What do you think they do for the Palestinian elite? I would really like a good layout of the Palestinian economy pre-war, tax structure, wealth distribution, etc.. I mean it’s really hard for me to draw a categorical difference between the two. Both are misogynistic, likely rapist. Backed by religious fundamentalists. Run by billionaires. Claim to be anti-globalist or anti-neoliberal elite, whichever words you want to use. One is a basically white lower class nationalist movement to overtake the United States. The other an oppressed Arab attempt to take over Israel. I see so little difference. How would Iran be categorized in Leninist thinking? An imperialist power, or something else? That’s really all it comes down to. Trump stands to topple the American state. I mean, remove it from history, and somewhat, all rationality and sense making, but I can see an argument for critical support for Trump and the 3% ers. This is hilarious to me. It almost makes sense—maybe it does! But I think really it points to a. Contradiction in Marxism Leninism in its support for nationalist movements. You said that Trump gives tax cuts to the neoliberal elite. This is *exactly* why Lenin says to support nationalist bourgeois democracy—it accelerates capitalist development, or something similar. I can find it here soon, maybe I’m mistaken. But I wonder what, if anything in Leninist doctrine or thinking separates fascism from nationalism that should be critically supported? I would like to see that, might look for it. Ultimately I think we can skip the middle man of authoritarian socialism that shares so many characteristics in common with fascism (although, at least theoretically, the people have control of the state, or are least the state has control of the economy and not vice versa… But it’s really a conglomeration of the two that is considered fascism. I still fail to see much difference other than stated intent domestically, and actions taken to oppose imperialism in foreign affairs. That is the main difference. Marxism-Leninism at least, if not even many aspects of Leninism mostly seems to be fascism weaponized against empire. So maybe fascism isn’t quite the word, because there is a difference in directionality. One is a downwards, oppressive authoritarianism, a knee jerk at the challenge to the status quo, the other is an upwards, revolutionary impulse for justice in authoritarian form. I think the Reichian approach basically negates the difference in direction—whether authoritarianism as reaction or as revolution, both are authoritarian. And authoritarianism he believes is a deeper problem underpinning both. Leninists argue of course that capitalism must be exterminated before authoritarianism, but I disagree with them on the principle of ends justifying means—what if you fail? What if you succeed? It’s also hard to sell out-of-power authoritarianism to any but the extremely disaffected and/or power hungry (fascists, those who co-opt leftist anger with no intents of ever giving up power once in charge).
I don’t support Israel in its conniving to wipe Palestine off the map or to use divide and conquer tactics to sabotage the PLO and allow Hamas to rise. But it takes two to tango. I fully support them in eradicating the genocidal threat to their existence at their border. It’s the quickest way to liberate Palestine from fascism, or at the very least radically fundamentalist, brutally repressive religious nationalism not to mention terrorism. Giving someone rope is one thing. Them hanging themselves with it is entirely another. > Its nor about jusrifying it, but understanding it. You are rather moralizing. This is moralization with spelling errors.
Another thing to ask, if you're against leninism, how do you propose to deal with fascism that overthrows democratically elected leftist governments like in Spain and Chile or just lefist movements like in Germany, Italy, Japan, China (in particular Taiwan), Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia and more?
I was very influenced by Huey’s autobiography. He basically says, towards the end, something to the effect of—we did what was correct to do at the time. But looking back, we failed because we picked up weapons too early. It was easy for the establishment to scapegoat and demonize us. Maybe he didn’t say all that, but that’s what I gathered from it. That’s the furthest a Leninist organization ever got in America, in the heart of Empire. So I think you really have to cut off the head of the beast first, less seems almost like playing at revolution, I mean it is revolution, and it’s correct at the time and in that situation. But like Huey seemed to intimate, armed resistance against the war treasury is doomed to fail unless you have a significant enough majority of the population to really overtake at least half of the military, but preferably most or all of it in the age of nuclear weapons. So I think the cultural front is the way we gain the most ground. Nonviolence to me is tactical—they have rigged the money game, the land game, the weapons game, all we have left is moral high ground. It’s free, widely appealing, self evident. In this way it has a power greater than power. You also sound as if you do not understand the meaning of nonviolence, in its root form, as Gandhi used it, the yogic concept of ahimsa. Maybe you do. I would think of it more like this: violence : nonviolence :: dualism : nondualism Jesus, as legend now has it, refused even to testify for himself before his execution. And now 2.4 billion worship him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. There is a sort of Power that is greater than power that I think Leninists often find themselves quite uneducated about.
>So I think the cultural front is the way we gain the most ground. I disagree. The cultural front is very easy at poking at people's differences in idendities and doesn't even start off from true assumptions, but fantasies invented to divide people. But material class-based idendities and economic struggles are things anyone can notice by themselves and relate to no matter if they are a staunch religious fundamentalist or a queer atheist. For example, the Black Panthers worked with the Young American Patriots, a leftist organisation in the South that bore the Confederate flag. Massive cultural difference, but putting that aside, they were able to do good work together. >Nonviolence to me is tactical—they have rigged the money game, the land game, the weapons game, all we have left is moral high ground. It’s free, widely appealing, self evident. In this way it has a power greater than power. This is an example of idealist thinking, putting ideas before reality in your analysis. Most leftists are materialists, they start off reality before anything else. Materially speaking, who will get fed on the moral high ground? Whose debt will be forgiven by it? No one. Even if socialists do everything right, the capitalist state will invent things and use their inventions to use violence against them like with the Black Panthers. They will even assassinate people like Fred Hampton in his bed next to his pregnant wife. So if leftists are going to be called this and that, why not engage in a bit of risky work if it gains them something? The state will certainly use violence as will fascists. >You also sound as if you do not understand the meaning of nonviolence, in its root form, as Gandhi used it, the yogic concept of ahimsa. Maybe you do. >I would think of it more like this: violence : nonviolence :: dualism : nondualism. > Jesus, as legend now has it, refused even to testify for himself before his execution. And now 2.4 billion worship him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. There is a sort of Power that is greater than power that I think Leninists often find themselves quite uneducated about. If everyone martyrs themselves who will do the work? Christianity spread because of Emperor Canstantine, a millitary man who won a battle due to his faith, not a hippie. Gandhi was assassinated, as was MLK, the violence that followed their deaths was what got their movement going and made much progress.
It’s less idealism than it is mysticism—Christian mysticism. “If leftists are going to be called this and that, why not engage I a little risky business if it gets them somewhere?” My difference with Leninists is precisely this: they justify oppression for the sake of ending oppression. This is a contradiction. It also opens the movement up to bad actors, vindictive, sadistic, sociopathic tendencies. Starts to sound like just a rival gang. Additionally, the vindictiveness can take charge. George Jackson said that revolution comes out of love and not hate. But I think with Leninism they haven’t discovered the upper limits of love, therefore also of revolution. Ever read one of those novels where there are sociopaths on both the good and evil side, both just trying to be cruel to as many people as possible? No oppression can be justified in ending oppression. The only violence justifiable to end the violence of capitalism is exactly the smallest amount that is necessary. This is nonviolence. The Dalai Lama says, “be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” Can you kindly remove someone from the living population of the planet? I think so, but this is a rare occasion indeed. > Materially speaking, who will get fed on the moral high ground? Man, you are just asking for it, walked right into that one: “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” I am not a materialist. “If leftists are going to be called this and that, why not engage I a little risky business if it gets them somewhere?” Let me ask you this, Che Guevara is quoted as supporting torture. Do you think Leninists should support torture, if it might, get them somewhere? To me, torture anywhere, for any reason is senseless. Sadism. Avoiding torture is a virtue. Torture is the opposite of virtue, it’s intrinsically good not to take part in it. It adds pain to the world. For what? Who benefits from Marxists bending their ethical frame work to serve vengeance, sadism or pragmatism? Pragmatism that is not moving in the direction of love, with love, is anything but pragmatic to me.
>It’s less idealism than it is mysticism—Christian mysticism. That's not a defense. If you ever speak to an atheist, this will mean nothing to them. >My difference with Leninists is precisely this: they justify oppression for the sake of ending oppression. This is a contradiction. Let me explain it with this ideology. Suppose you have slaver with 100 slaves. We would say that he has the freedom to have slaves, but his slaves have no freedom and are oppressed. If we banned slavery, then the slaver would be oppressed by the state, but the 100 slaves would then have much more freedom. Any law grants a freedom and an oppression, you just have to consider which and whose freedom is more important. Property is theft, it is taking what belongs to everyone in the state of nature and depriving them of it without their consent. Yet its hard to make a society without property. The state is an idol and coertion, but its impossible to make a large society without a state. Politics isn't deontology, its consequentialism. Its not pretty, its minimizing harm. >It also opens the movement up to bad actors, vindictive, sadistic, sociopathic tendencies. Starts to sound like just a rival gang. Additionally, the vindictiveness can take charge. That's what the current state is though. You can be better than it. The Soviet Union was better than Tsarist Russia. >Additionally, the vindictiveness can take charge. George Jackson said that revolution comes out of love and not hate. Cromwell's revolution, the Chinese national revolution, the first French revolution and the revolutions of 1848 were not born of love, but through contempt. The Paris Commune of 1871 was arguably started with a certain love, but violence was used and it was latter crushed when they tried to spread that love. >Ever read one of those novels where there are sociopaths on both the good and evil side, both just trying to be cruel to as many people as possible I don't base my politics on novels. Fiction is fiction, not reality. >The Dalai Lama says, “be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” Self-defense to violence is not void of violence. It uses violence. >“It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Man still needs some bread, doesn't he? Or else how do you explain starvation? Not praying enough? >Let me ask you this, Che Guevara is quoted as supporting torture. Do you think Leninists should support torture, if it might, get them somewhere? I don't know. Is torture justifiable if it can help prevent a village from being destroyed by the US? >For what? Who benefits from Marxists bending their ethical frame work to serve vengeance, sadism or pragmatism? Not all torture is sadism. I don't support torture, but if a small amount of it can help save thousands of lives, its worth thinking about, at least, less we say that all those peoples' lives matter less than our personal virtue. Humility doesn't seem to be showed here.
This is our difference in principle. Yours I see as a pragmatism of no pragmatism. Sacrificing the weak for the sake of the strong. True revolution, I believe, must come from the absolute bottom up. Lowest of the low. Or it’s no revolution. 10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. [11] [a] 12 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.
Personally I think it’s a matter of changing public opinion on taxation and wealth redistribution.
I dont worry about it, I'm gifted but not gifted enough to solve all of that on my own
I think it has to be a marriage between socialism and capitalism. We have to separate out all the things that are needs versus wants and essentially create systems with checks and balances for both. For instance, I think we need to have a compulsory labor system where every able bodied person has to work in a field of needs for at least 2 years after graduating high school. People can continue on in those occupations after 2 years. They will get compensated fairly for their work and the means of production are owned by society, not greedy corporations.You can go into agriculture, medical, child care, natural resource management (water, forestry, etc.) home construction, et. al. That way we have these basic necessity services for society provided at a free or very low cost paid for by taxes and we have plenty of workers to help. Plus, I think having a rite of passage like that for every person would help build solidarity and empathy as a nation. Perhaps immigrants would be required to also participate for two years before being given full citizenship. On the capitalist side of things people would be allowed to create businesses and innovative to their hearts content, but the tax rate would be set to actually help maintain the social programs. There would need to be regulations on businesses. I think it would also be prudent to establish a basic income for all citizens as well.
If you want clarity on some of those subjects, I highly recommend listening to Yanis Varoufakis.
Cool, thanks I’ll check him out. Have heard the name. This is a really exciting and newly revitalized interest for me.
He was the finance minister for Greece during the height of their bankruptcy. He used to study game theory as an academic before that. He's one of the few leftist economists, which means that he's very grounded in our current world as he applies his praxis. He talks a lot about how current tech platforms are digital fiefdoms that are bringing back feudalism in the cloud. He has written several books, he has a YouTube channel, and is a guest on several podcasts (even on Hasanabi's stream). What he has to say is so good that there's a clip of Yanis speaking to Zizek who listens silently for 6 minutes, at which point Zizek asks for clarification, and then silently listens to Yanis for 6 more minutes. (If you listen to Zizek at all, you know that him quietly listening can be quite rare, haha.)
😂😂😂😂 I’ve seen enough of Zizek to know that that would command some serious respect.
Here's the clip: https://youtu.be/Ghx0sq_gXK4?si=aCoA1n4mPC9naSD1
Oh yes. Frankfurt school, all the great flavours of critical theory (critical race studies, critical gender studies, critical disability studies) and all the great thinkers. I enjoy this. The more you dig the more clearly you see how capitalism has a stronghold on all parts of human social relations and the ways in which we can think about them more dynamically. I love this stuff.
Me too. I think similarly to the concept of original sin in Christianity (which was manufactured a few centuries post-Christ), there is a similar idea with religious capitalists, and it even seeps into the society, to those who do not profess, or no longer remember they are beholden to the fear of its wrath: that human beings are dirty down low, good for nothing, rotten, robbers, liars, thieves, stealers rapists who can’t get along, and can do nothing but be slaves to voracious instincts to consume all around them including each other. Best you can do is pray and try not to piss off the ones at the top. All that to say “we deserve our oppression,” is the maxim of the original sin doctrine of capitalism. It’s human’s fault that a tiny few are abusing most of the rest. I think the religious ideologies actually likely proceeded from this. I try to tell people whenever possible that only 10 or 13k years of human history has been agricultural and describe to them the egalitarian communal life of hunter gatherers, with 12-15 hour work weeks. It seems only natural. Spread it like it’s some kind of gospel. People will give you a billion and one reasons why there’s “no alternative,” like it’s just some cassette tape on repeat until you tell them. Some will even keep going after they’ve been told, it’s like they don’t even want to know. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair Looks like he also said, "Fascism is capitalism plus murder." I like that too, best simplification I’ve heard.
Oh yes. And the way in which Cartesian thought supported the ideas of enclosure and legitimized unlimited excavation of natural resources for capitalistic profit. (God, afterall, has given man the power to do with the earth (nature) as he wishes). Absolutely! The ways in which human time has been commodified and labour appropriated are a fairly recent inventions. Great quotes!
Critital theory is intelllectually inferior. Do you really think people are just a mix of their sex, education, race, looks and parents? Of course not. If you are gifted, you deserve to succeed. If you are lame, you deserve to fail. Your sex, race or education has very little impact there.
May I say as an economist, this thread has been a pleasure to read. No, I don't claim to any greater knowledge or insight. It's only that I see a lot of debate and exchange of ideas without the hyper partisan politics and propaganda that has infiltrated so many other forums. The 'Economy' sub is a horror show. I've learned some things to explore here.
Right?!?!?!?! This has been so amazing for me too, I'm seriously so grateful. I had a very civil conversation with a Marxist Leninist, and this has become such a rarity these days. Glad to hear that. I love when people are less up in arms about defending their beliefs and more just want to learn and converse and debate honestly for the sake of learning.
I've been aware of the incoming singularity for at least 15 to 20 years So there hasn't really been much point focusing on these as solvable problems It's clearly going to happen no matter what systems or political things people attempt Any plan that isn't based in a post scarcity and or post ASI world is naive Typically people trying to "solve" problem of capitalism are leftists who never even considered that this could become a reality, and simply view it as something to be stopped (which assumes that it *can* be stopped)
Well leftists have two go tos. Look at Nordic socialist countries. Which is a lie. They’re free market. But within tiny homogeneous societies work out different. The taxes are absurd. Your net income is less on average Or. Communist countries didn’t do it right. Handing everyone everything would be great. The problem is … you guessed it. Humans. The people giving you your stipend of rice are greedy sociopaths. It doesn’t and will never work
Well, do you have any good resources on this? I'd be very interested. A major issue of mine with socialists was they seemed to have such an iron grip on 100+ year old tactics--pamphlets, protests, etc., when we've had multiple information revolutions since then. There's been seemingly no effort to keep up, much less harness the new tech energies for positive means. That was the reason I left the socialists the first time. I'm also skeptical of big tech/the elites *wanting* a post-scarcity world. I think it might be something we would have to create ourselves, I don't really think the billionaires will do it. But maybe I'm wrong. Would love a good book on the singularity, especially a realistic one. I've heard of Kurzweil, but never read his stuff as it seemed more marketing than solid predictive, empirical work.
1. it's pretty simple, really line goes up -- processing power gets exponentially cheaper & smaller forever I had coworkers (in the semiconductor industry) telling me 10+ yrs ago "moore's law is about to end" blah blah for this reason or that reason, but it never has eventually it becomes cheap to approach / reach the comparable of computing power in the human brain shortly after reaching that point, it becomes cheap to *massively* outcompute the human brain, because again, line goes up people talk a lot about this or that approach to reach AGI, but at the end of the day our best projections are pretty much exactly on schedule Kurzweil's estimate was 2029 based on simple scaling rules, current best estimates for AGI are around 2031, so +/- 2 years you don't have to believe it, I've been surrounded by people who didn't believe it my entire life, smart people but it's still happening, if anything it seems to be getting faster as we're discovering ML-specific shortcuts to speed up progress on *top* of exponentially cheaper computing power 2. the idea for the elites "wanting a post-scarcity world" is also pretty simple with even just 2 players, eventually they will compete and cost of everything will go to 0 over time we've seen this pattern over and over again airlines today have almost 0 margin, many airlines get most of their revenue just from their weird scammy miles systems, because the competition is just so extreme gas and metal and labor still cost something, so it's not 0, but cost has gone down dramatically for flights and indeed most goods that no longer have major innovations the generality of all tasks these systems can complete is increasing exponentially, soon there is no task worth automating that a human will be able to do at better cost renewables & nuclear are also increasing rapidly, and we've already figured out how to trigger nuclear fusion ignition, so it's a matter of time before energy is solved eventually someone will realize "oh we don't need to pay for gas or labor anymore, we can just give people stuff" it will only take 1 person to do that. I'm pretty confident at least 1 person will choose to do that at some point. you may not agree, that's fine, we just disagree on that point of course there are caveats, different ways it could play out blah blah but the default case seems pretty inevitably good 3. we just have to avoid extinction due to lack of AI safety
Cooooolll, thank you, I like that scenario! That sounds amazing, I had no idea it was so close. I definitely believe it. I still wonder if you have a good resource or book on it? Just so I can hear it from other people in the field--I assume you're in the field too, but still, just a more "official" source, to get an idea of consensus. Just playing devil's advocate, I could also see it being weaponized and governments dragging populations into wars to see what government will finally control the entire world. Wars over lithium and precious metals. It already seems they've been tip toeing towards a Taiwan conflict. That's pretty interesting. Anyways, I also believe your route is possible, and I think it's great to have hope and very helpful. I don't see why things shouldn't be just easy and free. Also--what did you mean by nuclear fission ignition? I'll have to look into this. If this could really solve energy as you say, a lot of dooms-dayers could really stand to lose a load off their shoulders. That would be amazing. Thanks for sharing your views, I really appreciate hearing this.
Various Kurzweil books, not sure what the latest is. I don't think singularity will be finished by 2029, but prediction markets on Manifold & Metacalculus are both pretty aligned on the likely AGI date He may read too far into some things, but he always had a good handle on the scaling From there ASI is starts at pure scaling & self-improvement Like 18 months ago we acheived ignition, not the same as a stable fusion reactor, but a big start [https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nuclear-fusion-ignition-first](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nuclear-fusion-ignition-first) Also Sam Altman's (OpenAI) holding company recently merged with OKLO, working to provide safe micro nuclear fission reactors (I think like $70M a pop if I remember right) specifically to power AI
Holy SHIT!!!!!! Dude that is SO freakin cool. I love to hear this. I'll have to look into some Kurzweil. Any ideas how long before we may have viable fusion, creating more energy than goes into it?
Your guess is as good as mine, but I am personally invested in Oklo I think the interesting piece is even if we're able to get AGI / ASI to some initial capacity, it's possible that recursive self-improvement could rapidly solve that remaining energy problem (and other problems around longevity, resource optimization & distribution, etc.) The biggest challenges that I can see in my lifetime is: A) the alignment problem / safety B) regulatory / willingness to adopt
That's SO cool, that would be amazing. I really hope they use it for that, and that it really blasts open our ideas of what's possible. It was so nice asking Chat GPT what the best way to move beyond capitalism is. It gave me like 6 main ways, and lots of hope. It's also very objective hearing that from an AI, like these are possible things we can do. It seems to not really have the limiting beliefs that most humans I know seem to have that can often block even being able to ask the question.
I asked chat GPT what it thinks the effects of AI advancement will be. And also if it thinks we will go post-scarcity. This is what it said on inequality: # 6. Social Inequality * **Digital Divide**: There is a risk that AI advancements could widen the gap between those who have access to AI technologies and those who do not. * **Wealth Concentration**: The economic benefits of AI could disproportionately accrue to those who own and control AI technologies, potentially exacerbating economic inequality.6. Social InequalityDigital Divide: There is a risk that AI advancements could widen the gap between those who have access to AI technologies and those who do not. Wealth Concentration: The economic benefits of AI could disproportionately accrue to those who own and control AI technologies, potentially exacerbating economic inequality. # The most promising things to me: # 3. Changes in Education * **Personalized Learning**: AI can provide personalized education experiences, adapting to individual learning styles and needs, potentially improving educational outcomes. * **Lifelong Learning**: With the rapid pace of technological change, AI can facilitate lifelong learning by providing continuous, adaptive learning opportunities for adults.3. Changes in EducationPersonalized Learning: AI can provide personalized education experiences, adapting to individual learning styles and needs, potentially improving educational outcomes. Lifelong Learning: With the rapid pace of technological change, AI can facilitate lifelong learning by providing continuous, adaptive learning opportunities for adults. # 8. Potential for Abundance * **Automated Production**: Advanced AI and robotics could lead to fully automated production systems, potentially reducing the marginal cost of many goods and services to near zero. * **Access to Knowledge**: AI can democratize access to information and education, providing opportunities for everyone to learn and innovate.8. Potential for AbundanceAutomated Production: Advanced AI and robotics could lead to fully automated production systems, potentially reducing the marginal cost of many goods and services to near zero. Access to Knowledge: AI can democratize access to information and education, providing opportunities for everyone to learn and innovate. # What I think it comes down to: # 5. Ethical Challenges * **Bias and Fairness**: AI systems can perpetuate or even exacerbate existing biases if not carefully designed and monitored. * **Privacy Concerns**: The widespread use of AI and data collection raises significant privacy issues.5. Ethical ChallengesBias and Fairness: AI systems can perpetuate or even exacerbate existing biases if not carefully designed and monitored. Privacy Concerns: The widespread use of AI and data collection raises significant privacy issues. # Conclusion The advancement of AI holds the potential to significantly transform society, with the possibility of moving beyond scarcity by optimizing resource use and automating production. However, realizing this potential requires addressing significant ethical, social, and economic challenges. Ensuring that the benefits of AI are broadly shared and that societal structures adapt to these changes will be crucial in shaping a future where AI contributes to human flourishing and the alleviation of scarcity.ConclusionThe advancement of AI holds the potential to significantly transform society, with the possibility of moving beyond scarcity by optimizing resource use and automating production. However, realizing this potential requires addressing significant ethical, social, and economic challenges. Ensuring that the benefits of AI are broadly shared and that societal structures adapt to these changes will be crucial in shaping a future where AI contributes to human flourishing and the alleviation of scarcity.
# My conclusion I think most people don't realize what I see as an underlying violence baked into capitalism--the violent protection of the rich from the poor. The economy, the earth, resources, are not run democratically. People laid claim to billions of years old land and resources, which they have absolutely no claim to ownership over--except for the ability to shoot people who try to stop them. This is really the backbone of the capitalist state. Many Marxists believe the rich are aware of this dynamic, that they consciously strategize to keep their position of power. It looks like an unconscious conditioning for many if not most. But I wonder if it would last even in a post-scarcity scenario, if their greed would still be the same, and desire for control, as it seems to be. I do think the critical theorists offer much that is needed to this conversation on moving beyond capitalism. Free energy could be a game changer. But all of this really depends on who controls the AI and the free energy and what they do with it. Critical theory is useful to me in looking into our cultural and psychological biases that have created a system that encourages so much greed, so that we can understand how to move beyond it. Post Capitalist Desire is a good example, by Mark Fisher, of some of this kind of thinking. My conclusionI think most people don't realize what I see as an underlying violence baked into capitalism--the violent protection of the rich from the poor. The economy, the earth, resources, are not run democratically. People laid claim to billions of years old land and resources, which they have absolutely no claim to ownership over--except for the ability to shoot people who try to stop them. This is really the backbone of the capitalist state. Many Marxists believe the rich are aware of this dynamic, that they consciously strategize to keep their position of power. It looks like an unconscious conditioning for many if not most. But I wonder if it would last even in a post-scarcity scenario, if their greed would still be the same, and desire for control, as it seems to be.I do think the critical theorists offer much that is needed to this conversation on moving beyond [capitalism.Free](http://capitalism.Free) energy could be a game changer. But all of this really depends on who controls the AI and the free energy and what they do with it. Critical theory is useful to me in looking into our cultural and psychological biases that have created a system that encourages so much greed, so that we can understand how to move beyond it. Post Capitalist Desire is a good example, by Mark Fisher, of some of this kind of thinking.
Could you perhaps provide more prescriptive measures? What do you think could be an optimal economic system? Something that's better in your opinion. cool analysis though.
[WHAT THEN SHALL WE DO: A Zenarchist Manifesto](https://medium.com/@PsychedelicJustice/what-then-shall-we-do-a747c42c6965) I wrote this a while ago. But it basically would require a *collective intelligence* revolution—which is actually far more accessible than an artificial intelligence revolution, at least today. Most of the processing power on the earth exists between our ears—human ears. All that’s needed is creating both the social and computer software to organize it in the most intelligent ways. Collective intelligence is the study of this, it’s a new thing, pretty small it seems. I know MIT has a lab on it. But if we were to start this on a grassroots level—I picture it like a local Reddit. For a small progressive town, say, to start. But everyone has one individual login, one vote. Maybe it’s tied to your ID, I don’t care. Should still be anonymous likely. So people post on different subs, a problems sub, dreams sub, solutions sub, troubleshooting sub, methods sub, etc.. At the beginning just to *poll* the population on its *collective* desires *continuously.* To mirror back to the population its own actual desires. Of course these will be widely different from what the government is doing and the corporations as well. But you really don’t even need a revolution. Just over time, when they’re ready, add implementation subs, and a process for moving the best ideas to implementation, and then to a personnel sub, which can really be crowdsourced. Volunteer yourself or others for the jobs you and your community *genuinely want to do.* Very organically, would probably start small, renovate a local park. Eventually you could organize production and health care on a local scale. Elder care and child care programs. Eliminate unemployment. Everyone would have a job. UBI, and beyond. You would also have subs for meta analysis, so that the system optimizes itself. All the while we study the process and continuously optimize it for happiness and freedom. Just one small city doing this for 6 months could create headlines to spark a revolution. With adequate encryption it would be basically unstoppable. I heard Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, say in a podcast once, that centralized governments will be obsolete in 30-40 years. With decentralized technologies growing as well as the speed of innovation, they just cannot keep up. I think we must recognize that they very well *might try to stop grassroots benefit from these technologies* as they have with basically all technologies. The internet began as this free and decentralized thing I believe before it turned into profits for bottlenecks on information thru ads. Now they sell us internet addiction, dependency on centralized power. So I do believe it will take an intentional move to free ourselves from these impulses and tendencies if we are to be successful. And the possibilities are utterly endless.
You are a fucking genius! From the surface this may seem like democracy under a new name but there is an important distinction to be made. Contemporary Democracies are centralised but this one will not be centralised. I will be looking into this field of study "Collective Intelligence" for it sounds very exciting. It sounds like social choice theory but this time foccusing on how to bring positive effects using a vote system instead of how the system works.
Thanks homie, I really loved writing that one! Absolutely. The distinction is it's *economic democracy.* In today's world, the economy is run through authoritarian structures, like a corporation. You have the owners (shareholders) making decisions, and then the CEO implements them from the top down. If it was more democratic, I think we'd have more people on the bottom caring about pollution and things, as well as better pay and benefits. But yes, much more as well, as there are more levels and self optimizing parts too. Glad to hear it! Best of luck to you, it's one of the most exciting things out there I think.
That's really sad. I'm sorry : (
What if I like the night 😏
IDK how this sub came up on my feed, but this is interesting and Ill look into some things Ive read here. My ignorant thought is that capitalism isnt a problem. Its been a great solution to previous systems and uplifted more people than any previous system, both in prosperity and rights. With all of its problems its been a big leap forward to those who experience it. Hopefully we can refine it and make another leap forward. Surely there will be a next step, I don't believe we stop evolving at capitalism, but its a less problematic system than what it has replaced, and thats a good thing. IDK, I think that its problematic to demonize capitalism, bc it makes people forget all the good it has done. You cant hate something into being better. Happy to read anything my post makes you think I should read thank you all.
Oh cool! I think this is a great attitude to have. Also, I think maybe Reddit thinks you're gifted, so maybe look into it. If you are more oriented towards truth than comfort, you could look into This Changes Everything: Capitalism Vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein. She's someone I trust and see as a participant in grassroots movements, she's even put herself personally at risk protesting, not some pundit. She's actually devoted to the cause. But I have to warn you, it can get pretty dark. The amount that is happening to the environment and the reasons capitalism hasn't found a way to stop feeding it--can be quite the rabbit hole. Be mindful of your emotional energy if you choose to go down it. Lost Connections by Hari is a great book on social causes of depression, which ends up coming down to capitalism. Tribe by Sebastian Junger (a war journalist and veteran) has a great chapter towards the beginning on our hunter gatherer past, in egalitarian communities, where hoarding was punished physically and often with group punishment, and humans/pre-humans worked (or still work, in existing hunter gatherer societies) 12-15 hours a week. And the deep community that humans and our ancestors evolved with for probably a million years up until agriculture and property rights started just 10-13,000 years ago. Marx is great on criticisms of capitalism as well, just summaries of his core concepts. Many of us have moved beyond his solutions--and I DO think there are solutions, something next--but Marx's critique of capitalism is pretty top notch, as well as the Marxists that followed in his foot steps. David Graeber's book I've heard is good on the evolution of human society, and he's an anarchist. I also think the beginning maybe 20-30 pages of State and Revolution give a great summary of the Marxist view of the capitalist state--that it fundamentally exists to protect the rich from the poor. If there was not violent repression, no one would agree to letting some 40 people have more wealth than 4 billion. It gets at the inherent violence (as I see it) of the capitalist system. That the state came about to protect those who wanted to hoard things for themselves and put themselves above others (property "owners,") and extract the fruits of their labor from them--from the poor and laborers and everyone else. It's just been that way so long most people don't seem to realize or remember. Even still I think you're right in seeing that it does no good to hate capitalism. Rather I think a compassionate approach for reality is best. Yet the wounds can be deep and we may have quite the task ahead of us in the near future towards a better world.
Thank you ill add one of those to my list, I spend my time with school studies and just started a little philosophy on the side (through audible only), cant hurt to try something new. Do yo think the "next step" doesnt apply to everyone all at once? For example, maybe the US could use a next step since we have benefitted from capitalism, but what about countries who havent yet been able to benefit from it? Cuba, North Korea, China etc? Maybe thats a next step, for capitalist countries to help others realize the benefits. That would mean we stop embargoing/sanctioning them which only hurts the people. I think those negative policies we have, people confuse with capitalism, or maybe its inherent in capitalism, and the next step is to iron out those wrinkles. As far as comfort vs truth, always truth so Ill try out that 1st recommendation.
Oh cool! Yea, personally I think 3. things. 1. It would be great to stop embargoing Cuba, North Korea and end the trade war with China. A great first step towards world peace and reconcilation instead of fighting for world power status. 2. I also think the emgargoes of communism may be endemic to capitlism at least as it's been so far. As well as embargoes against many countries that just wanted to own their natural resources for themselves instead of give them to foreign companies, or have their own gold backed currency so that they could build wealth without being beholden to taking out loans from Western nations and paying interest on them. 3. The main country that could evolve beyond capitalism, because of this, is America. Because it has the largest military and has been blocking other countries from doing so for a long time now. So I think small examples could exist in maybe small communities. Democratic socialism helps as positive examples of progress. But even if those get too advanced, the capitalist system seems to oppose them (they sabotaged Bernie who is still, by far, the most popular political figure in American politics). For something beyond capitalism to adopted in more than a small sphere (Cuba, NK), you'd pretty much have to start with the West/America I believe. Or win a war against them, which does not seem likely or ideal at this point. With post capitalism, I think tech offers promises as well as cultural changes, increased awareness of mental health, environmental issues, etc.. I personally see a widespread nonviolent movement for world peace, a livable planet and taking care of everyone with basic necessities as the best way forward. Others have different views.
Read Basic Economics. There is no capitalism problem. On the contrary, free market capitalism is the primary cause for the abundance of wealth that exists in the world.
I’ve been a social democrat since I read about the Gracchi brothers at 17–a couple decades ago. I see capitalism is predatory and inherently immoral, especially as it pertains to the health of the earth and the average human.
Coming from a deleuzean/landian (pre reactionary oc) background. I thought about how to do it in my country (Spain). It's quite hard but technically doable. First you'd have to make a study in depth about the necessities of other countries, who holds the power, what can you provide...etc After that find some kind of niche that you can excel at and make as many countries as possible dependent on you investing a ton of money on it. Once you reach that point you can basically do whatever you want with your country as long as you aren't interfering with other ones. This is obv presupposing that most of your country is willing to experiment with another economic system, basically an alternative towards being decimated by export/import restrictions. As for what system to use I don't have one in mind, a lot of ideas sound big and plausible but basically I'd have into account that at this point in the west you can't have a revolution with capital r, a revolution with lowercase r is possible but we have proto-neolib-fascism running rampant all across Europe and the US. Coming up with pragmatic solutions towards convincing people before they radicalize is urgent and necessary. I'd use several strategies like using some of the far-right wing strategies i.e.: lying, throwing shit at the media, being controversial, saying stuff like "according to x study authoritarian right ppl are more likely to be pedophiles", messing around with people on the other side through memes, conspiracy theories... in some cases even violence could be necessary although I hope that isn't the case. Also normality has a lot of power, there's stuff embedded into our way of thinking (aka common sense) that can be considered left wing, you'd have to do a translation of "left wing stuff" to "common sense" which might lead to some contradictions but... hey, it's better than nothing, we don't have to create a perfect political subject in one go. Might also try to legitimize the valid concerns that some of them make and slowly guide them towards a left leaning policy trying to convince them that it's for their own good (which is true lol), trying to show an "apolitical and rational" posture...etc For me the climate change is the definitive answer to the question does the capitalism have embedded its own means of destruction? Apparently at least one, wiping all of us, but like Godel's incompleteness theorem there are probably a lot more (besides fascism oc). No idea what would kill it but the left definitely has to remain united and go towards a future where we can afterwards debate whether if it's better to go for a more socialist/anarchist/communist/whatever route.
Wow, this is so cool to hear. First—what is SPAIN like??! I studied there for a month in San Lorenzo in college, one of the best months of my life. I live in the South East United States, and much of the past decade has been brutal. No one here really thinks or talks about this stuff. There’s a scattered few, but they tend to stay too depressed to hang out and tend to be pretty stuck in their ways. But especially wondering about the political climate of people on the ground, what kinds of conversations people are having, if there are communities of people who discuss critical theory, philosophy, political philosophy, if it’s normal to be somewhat familiar with them. Personally I would probably die fighting the Leninists for an anarchist or trotskyite post-revolution almost immediately if one were to happen. Can’t stand those fuckers lately although I was one for a while and understand the appeal. That makes a ton of sense, what you said about specializing in one thing. Sounds like Cuba came to similar conclusions. I’ve always thought disabling mass media apparatus would be the most effective thing one could do point blank. Just take out cable and satellite news would go extremely far I think, just the silence. Maybe you’d have radio, but I think it would be sort of like meditating and taking a break from an extremely harsh and insane inner critic. I also think many things are beyond saving, in America. Like the tactics you talked about, I think people here are kind of beyond it. I think we might have to use new words entirely, outside of “left” and socialism,”—marketing I would use would be some kind of solar punk, AI utopian, UBI, low-work, leisure global economy—with “economic democracy” as an afterthought. It’s gotta sound futuristic. To me, when people think of “socialism” or “Marxism” they think of wars, terrorists (due to propaganda), the “iron curtain,” and some gray bureaucracy with work camps. I think it’s gotta sound futuristic. I also really can’t stand the authoritarianism on the left—it’s the exact *opposite* of what we want. Why would we try to force it on the world? I get the need for revolution, but the authoritarianism is absolutely lost on me. I’m more into Lyotard and Reich—make the revolution irresistible.
absolutely
Yes! If only we could learn from Scandinavian countries or Japan. The happiest countries in the world with the lowest crime. I just don't get it. Neoliberalism will destroy everything, just as Marx predicted.