Because the people that “rage against capitalism”, tends to put a lot of rollover effects occurring due to no guardrails. Onto being a fault of capitalism, rather than a fault of government.
We could tax inheritance 100% and most of the rollover issues are gone.
We could provide healthcare, public transportation and many other services. While maintaining a capitalistic based system.
Infinite growth is not a necessity of capitalism, that’s a necessity for consumer franctic societies.
Right now there’s a lot of countries looking towards Scandinavian models, they’re capitalistic by nature and imo still lack guardrails against intergenerational wealth. Inequality is skyrocketing everywhere, but that’s not a fault of capitalism. It will happen in unregulated capitalistic setups, but capitalism is really effective at guiding companies into providing the goods the populations need - And we have not theorised a better system yet.
The major problem here is that you aren’t looking at the system in its totality, and this leads you to make false conclusions. The reason capitalism cannot work and truly have guardrails is because the state is not a neutral entity, it belongs to whoever the ruling class of society is and takes on a definite form. Scandinavian countries are imperialist, relying on unequal exchange, and this is how they at least pacify their working class.
The solution is socialism. Workers already run the world, we should own it too.
Workers already run the world, we should own it too.
Cooperatives is the solution you’re looking for, and I agree. They work within capitalism.
Let workers inherit companies and you have the best of both worlds.
it belongs to whoever the ruling class of society is and takes on a definite form
And why can the majority not be the ruling class?
Scandinavian countries are imperialist
Two centuries ago, fair. Now? Not really, it does however benefit from knowledge transfer due to third world citizens seeking universities in richer countries.
Cooperatives are not the solution. They retain all of the core problems with capitalism, such as the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, class distinctions, the inherent chaos of markets, the inability to be coherently planned, and all of the major issues with producing for exchange, rather than use. Socialism is the answer, collective ownership at a societal level, not at the level of individual cells.
The majority can become the ruling class, but it must do so by creating a state in its own class interest. A capitalist state isn’t a state that happens to govern capitalism, it’s a specific form of state that exists exclusively with capitalism. Likewise, socialist states are their own specific forms.
Scandinavian countries are imperialist today. They all depend on super-exploiting the global south, through mechanisms like neocolonialism and unequal exchange. Monopoly finance capital expands outwards and preys on the overexploited countries. Systems like the IMF and NATO help maintain this system of international plunder. The bulk of what people in Scandinavia consume does not come from the sweat of their own brows, but through the labor of global south workers.
If you want to disparage socialists for mindlessly raging against capitalism, then I suggest you actually listen to what we say, rather than completely ignore core concepts like unequal exchange.
Capitalism has always sounded great in theory, just the way you described. But in practice it has never worked, it always results in the accumulation of wealth in few hands, who can then use that power to subvert democracy and get their way.
Why do you think inheritance, wealth, etc is taxed too little? Because wealthy elites have abolished and prevented those taxes through lobbying/corruption. Many countries had the exact social democracy model you describe, but abolished and privatized these systems because rich people paid the media and politics to make it happen.
Not to mention this analysis focuses only on material wealth. Capitalism brings with it a complete alienation, communities don’t own their land, people don’t own their work, and everything that was once a common good is slowly commodified and robbed of its soul. Art, music, relationships, capital fijds a way to monetize it eventually. But now we have online shopping and fast food! Hooray, happiness achieved!
we have not theorized a better system yet
That’s an incredibly offensive claim. You just spat in the faces of nearly two centuries worth of academics and thinkers in myriad disciplines that have worked tirelessly, in the face of often violent or even fatal backlash from capital powers, to create and implement alternative concepts. Not to mention humans have experimented with various ways of living together for our entire history before capitalism.
it always results in the accumulation of wealth in few hands, who can then use that power to subvert democracy and get their way.
But that’s not really capitalisms fault. We’ve seen higher degrees of inequalities in socialist countries and feudal economies could be claimed the inequality is a part of the design.
It’s due to a lack of government rules.
Capitalism brings with it a complete alienation, communities don’t own their land, people don’t own their work
It opens up for the possibility of either owning your work or owning the value (wage) of your work. 2 millennia ago, when everyone worked in their own workshops and sold to the market, that was ultimately also a capitalistic economy.
Communities now can own their land, because everything is a commodity. Under other systems, the government, noble or other highly ranked owns the land and leases it out - We could argue that’s still happening under capitalism, through property taxes.
I’m curious if you can expand on the alienation.
That’s an incredibly offensive claim
Yet you’re not highlighting any, because capitalism is a tad too efficient. The alterations we seek out to do, does not stop capitalism; Just changes the goals of it and the late stage setup to move more power/capital back to the people.
Capitalism includes the capitalist state, which is why these supposed guardrails do not exist. Further, capitalism with guardrails still has fundamental problems like the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, crisis of overproduction due to an inability to be coherently planned, not to mention surplus value exploitation leading to enshittification and all the problems with the profit motive.
crisis of overproduction due to an inability to be coherently planned
Is your claim planned economy is better? Because history shows planned economies tends to underproduce on necessities.
not to mention surplus value exploitation leading to enshittification
There’s still issues of people skimming, but because essential monopolies has been created historically. No one has others to buy from, so enshittification has no way to be challenged.
Capitalism is just really effective at sending signals back, as it hurts every part of the chain if the seller can’t sell their goods.
The one socialist society that almost succeeded their market, but USA unfortunately fucked them hi Latam, essentially build market signals into their models and wasn’t centrally planned.
like the tendency for the rate of profit to fall,
And why isn’t this a positive? Goods being traded at the cost to produce. Not at some random markup, just because.
Planned economy is better once highly developed productive forces are achieved, and history shows that planned economies dramatically expanded production as compared to what came before. Rather than underperforming, the USSR was one of the fastest growing economies on the planet during its existence, while never once facing a crisis of overproduction:
The DPRK also outperformed the ROK until the ROK was flooded with western investment, and this was further hampered by the dissolution of the USSR. Today, however, the DPRK is steadily progressing (largely based on increased arms sales, such as to the Russian Federation), while the ROK appears to be in crisis.
Markets serve a progressive role historically when they stitch together disconnected production into production on a national and international scale. However, once they reach the national level, they quickly lose any amount of progressive quality and immediately become an impediment to further progress. At this point, planned economy becomes far better. This isn’t a binary either, socialist countries like China leverage planned economy for their large firms and key industries, and marketize underdeveloped sectors.
Surplus value exploitation is not merely people “skimming.” Capitalist profits come from exploitation of labor, paying workers less than the actual value they create. Ownership does not create value, labor does. Further, the fact that the monopoly stage has been reached does not mean we can work backwards, with monopoly scale comes technologies and productive techniques that can only be employed by monopolies. This is why markets lose their progressive character to planned economy as monopolies form, as planned production can make much better use of the scale developed by markets.
As for the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, it leads to crisis of profitability and economic collapse. This is a key force behind what turns monopoly capitalism into its imperialist stage, as capitalists chase increased absolute profits through market expansion to fight this. If they can establish an absolute monopoly globally, they can then price fix as they please, accelerating enshittification.
Because the people that “rage against capitalism”, tends to put a lot of rollover effects occurring due to no guardrails. Onto being a fault of capitalism, rather than a fault of government.
We could tax inheritance 100% and most of the rollover issues are gone.
We could provide healthcare, public transportation and many other services. While maintaining a capitalistic based system.
Infinite growth is not a necessity of capitalism, that’s a necessity for consumer franctic societies.
Right now there’s a lot of countries looking towards Scandinavian models, they’re capitalistic by nature and imo still lack guardrails against intergenerational wealth. Inequality is skyrocketing everywhere, but that’s not a fault of capitalism. It will happen in unregulated capitalistic setups, but capitalism is really effective at guiding companies into providing the goods the populations need - And we have not theorised a better system yet.
The major problem here is that you aren’t looking at the system in its totality, and this leads you to make false conclusions. The reason capitalism cannot work and truly have guardrails is because the state is not a neutral entity, it belongs to whoever the ruling class of society is and takes on a definite form. Scandinavian countries are imperialist, relying on unequal exchange, and this is how they at least pacify their working class.
The solution is socialism. Workers already run the world, we should own it too.
Cooperatives is the solution you’re looking for, and I agree. They work within capitalism.
Let workers inherit companies and you have the best of both worlds.
And why can the majority not be the ruling class?
Two centuries ago, fair. Now? Not really, it does however benefit from knowledge transfer due to third world citizens seeking universities in richer countries.
Cooperatives are not the solution. They retain all of the core problems with capitalism, such as the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, class distinctions, the inherent chaos of markets, the inability to be coherently planned, and all of the major issues with producing for exchange, rather than use. Socialism is the answer, collective ownership at a societal level, not at the level of individual cells.
The majority can become the ruling class, but it must do so by creating a state in its own class interest. A capitalist state isn’t a state that happens to govern capitalism, it’s a specific form of state that exists exclusively with capitalism. Likewise, socialist states are their own specific forms.
Scandinavian countries are imperialist today. They all depend on super-exploiting the global south, through mechanisms like neocolonialism and unequal exchange. Monopoly finance capital expands outwards and preys on the overexploited countries. Systems like the IMF and NATO help maintain this system of international plunder. The bulk of what people in Scandinavia consume does not come from the sweat of their own brows, but through the labor of global south workers.
If you want to disparage socialists for mindlessly raging against capitalism, then I suggest you actually listen to what we say, rather than completely ignore core concepts like unequal exchange.
Capitalism has always sounded great in theory, just the way you described. But in practice it has never worked, it always results in the accumulation of wealth in few hands, who can then use that power to subvert democracy and get their way.
Why do you think inheritance, wealth, etc is taxed too little? Because wealthy elites have abolished and prevented those taxes through lobbying/corruption. Many countries had the exact social democracy model you describe, but abolished and privatized these systems because rich people paid the media and politics to make it happen.
Not to mention this analysis focuses only on material wealth. Capitalism brings with it a complete alienation, communities don’t own their land, people don’t own their work, and everything that was once a common good is slowly commodified and robbed of its soul. Art, music, relationships, capital fijds a way to monetize it eventually. But now we have online shopping and fast food! Hooray, happiness achieved!
That’s an incredibly offensive claim. You just spat in the faces of nearly two centuries worth of academics and thinkers in myriad disciplines that have worked tirelessly, in the face of often violent or even fatal backlash from capital powers, to create and implement alternative concepts. Not to mention humans have experimented with various ways of living together for our entire history before capitalism.
I dunno, “People who don’t do the work get rich” sounds kind of shitty.
But that’s not really capitalisms fault. We’ve seen higher degrees of inequalities in socialist countries and feudal economies could be claimed the inequality is a part of the design.
It’s due to a lack of government rules.
It opens up for the possibility of either owning your work or owning the value (wage) of your work. 2 millennia ago, when everyone worked in their own workshops and sold to the market, that was ultimately also a capitalistic economy.
Communities now can own their land, because everything is a commodity. Under other systems, the government, noble or other highly ranked owns the land and leases it out - We could argue that’s still happening under capitalism, through property taxes.
I’m curious if you can expand on the alienation.
Yet you’re not highlighting any, because capitalism is a tad too efficient. The alterations we seek out to do, does not stop capitalism; Just changes the goals of it and the late stage setup to move more power/capital back to the people.
Capitalism includes the capitalist state, which is why these supposed guardrails do not exist. Further, capitalism with guardrails still has fundamental problems like the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, crisis of overproduction due to an inability to be coherently planned, not to mention surplus value exploitation leading to enshittification and all the problems with the profit motive.
Is your claim planned economy is better? Because history shows planned economies tends to underproduce on necessities.
There’s still issues of people skimming, but because essential monopolies has been created historically. No one has others to buy from, so enshittification has no way to be challenged.
Capitalism is just really effective at sending signals back, as it hurts every part of the chain if the seller can’t sell their goods.
The one socialist society that almost succeeded their market, but USA unfortunately fucked them hi Latam, essentially build market signals into their models and wasn’t centrally planned.
And why isn’t this a positive? Goods being traded at the cost to produce. Not at some random markup, just because.
Planned economy is better once highly developed productive forces are achieved, and history shows that planned economies dramatically expanded production as compared to what came before. Rather than underperforming, the USSR was one of the fastest growing economies on the planet during its existence, while never once facing a crisis of overproduction:
The DPRK also outperformed the ROK until the ROK was flooded with western investment, and this was further hampered by the dissolution of the USSR. Today, however, the DPRK is steadily progressing (largely based on increased arms sales, such as to the Russian Federation), while the ROK appears to be in crisis.
Markets serve a progressive role historically when they stitch together disconnected production into production on a national and international scale. However, once they reach the national level, they quickly lose any amount of progressive quality and immediately become an impediment to further progress. At this point, planned economy becomes far better. This isn’t a binary either, socialist countries like China leverage planned economy for their large firms and key industries, and marketize underdeveloped sectors.
Surplus value exploitation is not merely people “skimming.” Capitalist profits come from exploitation of labor, paying workers less than the actual value they create. Ownership does not create value, labor does. Further, the fact that the monopoly stage has been reached does not mean we can work backwards, with monopoly scale comes technologies and productive techniques that can only be employed by monopolies. This is why markets lose their progressive character to planned economy as monopolies form, as planned production can make much better use of the scale developed by markets.
As for the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, it leads to crisis of profitability and economic collapse. This is a key force behind what turns monopoly capitalism into its imperialist stage, as capitalists chase increased absolute profits through market expansion to fight this. If they can establish an absolute monopoly globally, they can then price fix as they please, accelerating enshittification.