Socialism: A system of government where the country’s wealth is concentrated into a small, ruling class of billionaires, who use the media they own to keep the lower classes fighting with each other while they . . . the rich . . . run off with all the farking money.
Oh wait. that’s capitalism. I don’t know how I got those two systems confused.
I literally had to tell people libertarianism fails harder and faster than communism was getting weird stares until I told them about the book “a libertarian walks into a bear”
I still look like a raging communist but idc
Then go live in China 🤡
Bro I just said I don’t want diabetics to pay 300usd per month for insulin jfc
The median cost for a daily dose of insulin in China is $0.59.
China which is… also capitalism, but instead of CEOs there’s The Party
US is a stone’s throw from these groups becoming one and the same.
And there is only one Party. Either you’re in, or you’re in the way.
Sounds pretty familiar
Nahh mate we got a choice in the US 🤡
How dare we want our country to be better and for our fellow citizens to not die in cartoonishly preventable ways? /s
Not to mention that those same people will post shit about “why are we helping foreigners when people at home are suffering”-sorry stop me if you’ve heard this one ten-thousand times before.
“I’m just gonna hit the pause button right there, bud. The US government doesnt help people.”
Big pharma got the patent mate… Respect the law, shitlord
Rheee
I have multiple times had the experience of explaining to non-Americans elements of our system, and they simply don’t believe me. They think I’m making it up to fuck with them because it’s so atrocious that it couldn’t be real.
Kind of has a point that modern “communist” systems in practice seem identical to all the bad parts of Capitalism.
Your problem is neither capitalism nor communism.
Your problem is greedy cunts. Both systems will end up putting them in charge.
That’s because people who aren’t greedy don’t seek that kind of position.
Phrase I picked up from Well There’s Your Problem: centrally unplanned economy.
One company, Baxter, makes 95% of the saline IV solution for the US. Most of it comes from one factory in Marion, N.C. It has been hit by natural disasters before and caused shortages. One happened just this past few months.
I donate plasma twice a week and there were rations for the past couple of months on saline. Instead of getting refilled with saline after the donation, we had to eat gold fish drink and drink a Powerade before the donation and drink a Powerade and sit for 15 min after. Last week was the first time they started doing saline again.
Tbqh the saline is only necessary because a lot people aren’t sufficiently hydrated in the first place. That Gatorade did basically the same thing on a ~24 hour delay.
Ofc, that’s easier to say for people with a decent amount of blood volume in the first place, and for people who aren’t losing that much plasma on a regular schedule.
Be very careful about donating that frequently if it’s a regular thing btw. Citrate reactions have compounding effects over time on bone density, it’s why civilized countries don’t let you sell or donate plasma as often as America does.
Technically speaking all of the warning material they make you sign tells you this, but in my experience they’re pretty shifty about making sure donors actually understand the risks.
Best thing you can do is to buy some Tums/chalk tablets and eat one before you donate. If you ever get a tingling feeling in your lips while donating it’s because the citrate anti-coagulant is binding with the calcium in your blood that is supposed to be going to your daily needs, the Tums both works pretty quick to relieve the tingling and makes sure you’re getting enough calcium to negate the loss.
It can be. It is not inherently. That’s why people think you’re spreading propaganda (because you are).
The best propaganda is the truth.
Can you point me to a real first world developed country not run by a dictator that doesn’t have capitalism? I need a reference to see that the alternative is better. Genuinely asking.
not run by a dictator
The catch here is that in the west, we label anyone anti-capitalist a dictator. You can be the very definition of dictatorial, but if you align with western interests, you’re just a “president” or a “leader” or something. But start nationalizing your oil industry and 🚨 dictator! dictator! 🚨
So yeah, within the bounds of the narrative that capitalism is the only way, you’ll find that capitalism is the only way, unsurprisingly. But the fact that this narrative is baked into us from childhood doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s aligned with reality.
At anything bigger than city scale, it’s pretty much impossible to implement any “real” alternative without fuckloads of work - we’re talking 10+ years. Making a commune on a farm with ~15-ish people is easy (lots of hard work, but doable, there are historical examples of success), but even that group has to participate with the capitalist mother state whenever they need to get stuff they can’t produce themselves. If the commune grows too much, it becomes impossible to keep things running smoothly because, well, there’s just too many people involved now.
No, because we live in a global society where if you don’t participate in global trade (especially with the USA in the past couple hundred years), your country will fail.
The USA has played a massive part in making communist experiments fail, most notibly the USSR.
The closest thing that the western world has is the nordic countries’ social democracy, which is still capitalist by nature. They only implemented it, though due to communism being literally right around the corner (USSR)
I don’t think you can get to communism where there’s a relatively small group in power tasked with dividing the means of production. That power will be abused like oligarchs do now.
Yeah, I agree with that. Mass centralization is bad regardless of the situation IMO. We need collaboration instead.
I’m personally a fan of Prof Wolff’s idea to force all corporations to surrender ownership to their workers, converting them into worker-owned coops. This would largely mitigate the ability for extreme wealth concentration to happen to begin with, especially if combined with other wealth-limiting regulations.
What would be the motivation then to even start a company/corporation if every time it happens, it is seized and given away?
Really good question!
We look at the motivations for starting businesses through a modern-day capitalist lens, but the motivations would change under a different economic system (not entirely, though, depending on the economic system).
Making money is still the goal here for most people, but this would be combined with a strong social welfare program that makes all basic human needs (housing, food, utilities, internet, etc.) available to everyone, so fear of failure is vastly reduced.
As for the motivation to create a startup, there could be a few different cases, such as only having large businesses (determined by either employee count or total annual profit or revenue) be impacted by that regulation that forces all businesses to be worker-owned.
Another reason could simply be wanting to create something new for the betterment of humanity. If all basic human needs are met, then the profit motive, while not going away entirely, is greatly reduced, as the need for survival is already met, so more experimentation with different ideas can happen with the fear of failure being greatly reduced, as it would be simple to restart from scratch with a strong safety net. There could still be a profit motive here, but it would be secondary to the actual idea.
You’re an artist, but you’re not popular and you don’t make money off your work? Cool, you can do that full time.
You’re wanting to open a (non-chain/franchised) corner store with 5 well-paid employees? Go for it.
Your business expanded to over 50 employees, or makes more than $10 million in annual profit (completely arbitrary numbers here)? Now your business gets equally split up amongst the workers. The stock market in this situation would no longer exist, where external parties can both gamble on a company and influence the direction of that company, usually in favor of short term gain. When employees own the business, they tend to favor long term sustainability and stability, as that is what most people are seeking for themselves.
There should also be a hard cap on wealth, as nobody could ever possibly need more than $50 million for their entire life (again, arbitrary number). If wealth had a hard cap, that would also reduce incentive to constantly try to seize more power in any field (wouldn’t limit it entirely, but I don’t think anything can).
This will not eliminate the profit motive, as most people aren’t going to be satisfied with just the bare minimum for survival, but the lack of profit/business failure will not lead to homelessness/starvation/etc.
The USSR didn’t fail because of the USA…the fuck is with you tankies.
I’m sure fighting a global proxy war for most of a century has absolutely nothing to do with the (state) failure of the USSR.
Now, excuse me, I have to go to the ER because of all the compounded brain damage it takes to both think that and say anyone that believes otherwise is a tankie.
Democratic socialism is not unheard of…
Democratic socialism without the support of capitalism is truly and completely unheard of.
Capitalism is a tool, use it and beat it back into submission when it fails.
But don’t worship it. Make it work for the nation, don’t make the nation exist for the sake of the economy. This is what we do in America, and it’s fucking wrong.
There is more than one alternative and some of them involve having capitalism…
Would that be propaganda in favor of Communism, who’s every real world iteration so far has led to corruption, tyranny, and human rights abuse on a scale that would put Capitalism’s to shame? Gwon you’re making us blush. Oh, you talking about aspirational Communism, but not actual real life experienced Communism, lol. Yes, that’s what we need, fairy tales of the world to come, like Christianity.
corruption, tyranny, and human rights abuse on a scale that would put Capitalism’s to shame?
Funny how you’re describing capitalism and trying to pretend you’re not.
Ah yes the only two possible political systems, Chinese style autocracy or American Style Oligarchy.
Clearly if it hasn’t been implemented before and doesn’t currently exist today, it’s impossible to ever happen. We live at the end of history, you see.
We live at the end of history, you see.
You say that in jest, but human civilization is coming apart on easy paradise mode, and even then it took us about 200,000 years of wandering around in the dirt to even start trying, and in trying we’re irrevocably destroying the place eyes wide open.
The idea that humanity will exist as more than scattered animals clinging to old hardened structures having destroyed our temperate climate for millions of years is laughable. The insurance industry is having a stroke about its continued survival after just a few of the teensiest little tastes of our good, irreversible work.
The long arm of recorded history is ending, by our own capitalist hands, for short term profit.
We’re literally razing the forest so there will be no shade for future generations, only clinging to base survival on a hostile planet they probably won’t even know their ancestors were directly responsible for.
Relax, bro.
The octopi will inherit the Earth, and one day pick through our ruins!
Assuming they evolve the ability to actually live after breeding at least. Kind of important for creating an enduring culture and educational system, though I suppose they might just evolve biological immortality first instead.
on a scale that would put Capitalism’s to shame
You say that like capitalism isn’t ongoing massacres and abuse in various forms all day, every day. As if the t-shirt you’re probably wearing wasn’t made by someone who’s exploited in Bangladesh so that minimum wage Americans can still afford to buy it without forgoing food because they’re purposely underpaid by service industry corporations. As though you’re not also talking about some sort of aspirational capitalism where the “free market” actually exists and doesn’t inevitably lead to corruption and tyranny…
Meanwhile, the richest man in the world is about to secure control over US government agencies because he gave the most money to the current president.
You say that like capitalism isn’t ongoing massacres and abuse in various forms all day, every day.
OOhh, but it’s not capitalism’ fault!! It’s just stuff happening that’s totally unrelated to capitalism!!! <- answer I got to a similar discussion back in ~2014. Either that or “a few bad apples” when complaining about shitty companies.
How dare you? Those billion dollar corpos are doing you a favor by paying a “just good enough” wages to allow you to eat.
Source: Radio Free Asia told me so.
