this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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While Capitalism definitely sucks ass, I feel like no matter what economic system you're in there's always going to be some treadmill to walk, because there will always be things you need, and you will need to work to earn them in some way.
Even communism doesn't just give everybody shit for free
Yes and no. I think the argument is to allow those to reach their full capabilities by removing necessities from the current economic model. Even more so when there's enough to go around for everyone and still have those that do more to get luxuries. We have poor and starving people in the world because someone wants it that way, and it personally benefits those in power. I like the Star Trek example. All poverty had been solved by simply just providing everyone's basic needs. Those that want more "work" for it but doesn't make an individual who wants to live a simple life less deserving of food, water, and shelter. We currently create enough to provide this for every human but simply choose not to. And that level of greed when you are not the one at the top creates that feeling of running on a treadmill
Lemmy's constant pro communist propaganda is one of the more annoying bits of this place.
Yeah... I get behind the fact that our current economic system is flawed as fuck, but acting like communism is some panacea for life is just dumb.
The problem isn't the economic system, it's us, or more specifically our greed. There are and always will be those who want more than their fair share in life and will more than happily fuck everyone else over to get it.
To be fair, on the meme they aren't saying communism is the solution (although there any many memes that do).
I think it's easy to criticise capitalism because people live with it on a daily basis. If these people lived under communism they would criticise it somehow.
This kinda reminds me of something I heard someone say. It's something like "Democracy is shit. But it's the best shit we have".
Is capitalism right? Nope. But I don't feel like communism would be a solution either. But I'm all up for criticising whatever needs criticising otherwise things don't improve/change.
Also speaking as an European we might not have it as bad as the US (which is where most people are from here). Just the fact that our healtcare is free is a huge plus. When I was younger I dreamt about living in the US or even just going to NY, SF etc. Now I'm afraid I might get shot, get a huge hospital bill and come back broke. 👌
(sorry, this comment turned out a lot longer than I wanted it to. ADHD is a bitch)
That was sort of where I was going with my original comment.
Capitalism isn't perfect, but that doesn't mean switching economic systems is going to help out, because every economic system will suck somehow... especially if the people at the top are corrupt.
Oh I absolutely agree, we don't have it as bad as the US. Having said that I'm from the UK, and it seems out government is very keen on trying the US style of capitalism.
Why do you conflate criticism of capitalism with a pro communism argument. I've seen that toy logic deploy so often, no wonder people in the 90s thought that we had reached the "end of history". If all criticism is communism and communism is dead, then surely this means the infinite slop machine of capitalism is the best humanity can ever aspire to.
https://redsails.org/why-cant-we-be-friends/
AI summary :
The article "Why Can't We Be Friends?" examines ideological divisions within leftist movements, particularly focusing on differing strategies for dismantling capitalism and patriarchy. It criticizes the tendency to support these goals in theory without agreeing on or committing to practical, effective steps for their realization.
It's a failure of imagination, to imagine a different way to do things. Because anything that would challenge the status quo has been made unthinkable to begin with. And then you have to rely on a critical mass of people, thinking the unthinkable and then agreeing and committing to practical and effective action to bring it about.
All this is itself a thought terminating cul-de-sac. Things do not start at the end. You don't start with a viable alternative before you criticize what you currently have and point out what is bad about it.
We're at the "shit is fucked, yo" stage. Your entire life you toil, get the bare minimum and then you die. That's the current state of things for most people. That's one of the few things we can agree with.
Thats utopian socialism. Idealizing something you want and then trying to bring it about. Scientific socialism is noticing the adjacent to good things that capitalism has caused and liberating them from the contradictions of capitalism that prevent them from being good. See: universal education, systematized Healthcare, public transportation, a centralized, dynamic labor force.
So, we need, fewer "capitalism has made my life an endless threadmill" memes and more "capitalism lets me have out of season avocados" memes ?
And then somehow devise a plan to reproduce the positive aspects but without relying on the profit motive and cut throat exploitation to do achieve it ?
No, more along the lines of "capitalism has developed a centralized and educated labor force out of serfs, which means we now have the tools to live a lot more comfortably if we stopped being exploited by the capitalists, and the easy communication from centralization and education means we have the tools to communicate and develop class consciousness"
Or "under capitalism, we have a lot more logistical ability to have doctors and have them see patients do to the transportation needs for profit extraction, but the profit motive reduces the amount of Healthcare people can receive, if we got rid of the middlemen we'd have the resources to teach more people to be doctors, everyone would have better Healthcare and doctors would have less stressful jobs"
It's not even remotely comparable. Let's take USSR as an example. Nobody worried about being fired and ending up on the street or about being able to retire in dignity. Everyone enjoyed over 20 days vacation, guaranteed work, and retirement by 60 for men, 55 for women. You had to work, but you basically had to do the bare minimum, and shit like overtime was basically unheard of. It's hard to describe how much stress is removed from people's lives when they don't constantly have to worry whether they're gonna be able to afford basic necessities of life.
I would argue that the same things were probably true in western capitalist countries at the time (I have no evidence)
There's never been a time under capitalism where there wasn't homelessness or exploitation. The whole system is built around people who own capital exploiting the workers. In fact, having destitute people is a core component of the system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour