Bullshit. The internet is literally built on publicly funded infrastructure and initially developed by the military (again, publicly funded), and the world wide web was created by Tim Berners Lee while at CERN, once again, publicly funded.
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Anti-capitalists: what should fix/replace capitalism?
- Thread starter thefil
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Bullshit. The internet is literally built on publicly funded infrastructure and initially developed by the military (again, publicly funded), and the world wide web was created by Tim Berners Lee while at CERN, once again, publicly funded.
There needs to be a global push to replace our current for-profit economy with a socialized system based on need fulfillment. This system should be democratic and decentralized, with local communities cooperating on a national, regional, and global level to promote mutual development. Private control of public goods is prohibited and the world's wealth is slowly redistributed.
I'm personally a huge fan of dual power, in which strong grassroots organizations share some authority with the state. General labor unions and city councils will play a huge role in the shared economy of the future. Socialism needs to begin at home.
I'm personally a huge fan of dual power, in which strong grassroots organizations share some authority with the state. General labor unions and city councils will play a huge role in the shared economy of the future. Socialism needs to begin at home.
Tal Shiar Agent
Member
A social voluntary barter market. Or utopian liberal democratic state communism. Don't really know a word for it.
Basically no one needs to work to live. Renewable energy, AI, automation, and 3D printing have taken over all power generation, service, and manufacturing. Every citizen has free access to the necessities and luxuries of life. People are given homes based on need first, preference second. Dense, high rise focused living has become the norm. People are allowed to peruse what they love rather than be forced to work to provide a living. People can exchange unique goods and services between individuals.
Basically no one needs to work to live. Renewable energy, AI, automation, and 3D printing have taken over all power generation, service, and manufacturing. Every citizen has free access to the necessities and luxuries of life. People are given homes based on need first, preference second. Dense, high rise focused living has become the norm. People are allowed to peruse what they love rather than be forced to work to provide a living. People can exchange unique goods and services between individuals.
Joe Condor
Banned
Do you have any examples of countries with communism that are doing well?
IMO capitalism needs more regulations with certain sectors having some government involvement or be completely replaced by the government (such as healthcare).
A strong social safety net is also required, esspecially as automation will eliminate more and more jobs as technology advances.
In my mind total socialism is impossible without automation, and would result in a post scarcity society that differs in many ways from what many would call socialism.
A strong social safety net is also required, esspecially as automation will eliminate more and more jobs as technology advances.
In my mind total socialism is impossible without automation, and would result in a post scarcity society that differs in many ways from what many would call socialism.
Resident_UA
Member
Basically manufacturing business... yeah, those will never be easy to start. Only government or huge companies can afford such a huge investment. I guess the only question is if you would prefer government to build your cars or two corporations. This is the only "scale" we could have these conversations on...
I mean, that's essentially a gotcha argument. When people say Capitalism they don't mean totally state free anarcho-capitalism. It's more complicated, and ill-defined, than that. But depending on you're taste, Capitalism either emerged in Northern Italy, or the Netherlands and England. In neither context was the state hands off with the economy.
What people forget about Capitalism is that it's also a fundamental change in subjectivity. If it wasn't for the vulgar anti-Weberians saying Weber was wrong because of Scotland and random tiny German principalities that would have been the main lesson most people would have taken from him.
andythinkpad
Member
Easier to simulate growth
Easier to create job opportunities
A lot easier to help companies take over international market
I think US and China's gini coefficient numbers are pretty close, so no advantage in social fairness
Easier to impliment social reform in things like education, vacinnation etc
The disadvantage is mainly lose of individuality (religious freedom etc) this is for China. I am not familiar with SK society that much, but probably some form of lost of individuality.
GregLombardi
Member
Equity owners of any entity that sells things at cost would have to be factored into the "cost" of the products / services, at an unchanging and low rate of return.
The government would decide.
And let's be frank. Public ownership of giant corporate entities via shares of stock is an absolute shit show. It incentivizes mass abuse inside large companies by those executives at the top. That whole relationship would need re-assessment, as it is a "Finance" invention that, if it adds value, it doesn't do it enough in the right directions to make sense. Going public is simply a way for the original owners of a company to cash out in a big way. It doesn't actually add value except in letting them do so. That is, it very rarely improves the operations of a business.
He had good reason to be. In fact, he called the exact problems hitting education today: they've become jobs factories.
This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.
Sunster
Member
but he became a scientist coz he wanted that $$$. derp
He's almost certainly right if he's suggesting Capitalism had to exist at one point to have those things. He's wrong if he suggests that they can only emerge under Capitalism.
Capitalism needed to happen to build more advanced structures, as well as provide the context for alternatives to Capitalism that can use advanced structures. Jury's out on if those are good things of course.
There is no communist country.
Tal Shiar Agent
Member
No country has attempted communism.
Bolshevism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc is not communism.
SentientStone
Member
But the thing is, if the system is controlled by capitalists then full proliferation of meditation actually becomes detrimental to consumerism because people won't need to feed their ego as much to quench some ambiguous missing feeling. Though currently the practice itself is being commercialized, just a way of coping with the stress from the story of capitalism I guess.
Based on my experience with scientists in general and computer scientists in particular, no thank you. As a community they border on extreme anti-humanism. That's not an outlook that leads to a good justice system I think.
cpp_is_king
Member
Do I really need to add "as it exists today"? That should be obvious. Do you want to use the same internet that the military invented? Or do you want to do actual useful things with it such as search for information, buy things, post on forums, etc?
Same goes for movies.
Nobody should care how we do it but just that we do it and do it properly: Get a grip on capital. Take the power over it away from the capitalists and back to those that produced it.
Now the socialist way is democratizing democracy, democratizing the use of capital, democratizing the use of labour power.
There is nobody that can honestly give you a nice Lego manual on how to do it. Partly because of the nature of public administration and economic theory (developing over time) but that's also because we aren't even at the point that there is a consensus about it. Research is done minimally and capital has been winning the past decades.
It's a struggle, not only political but also intellectual.
Now the socialist way is democratizing democracy, democratizing the use of capital, democratizing the use of labour power.
There is nobody that can honestly give you a nice Lego manual on how to do it. Partly because of the nature of public administration and economic theory (developing over time) but that's also because we aren't even at the point that there is a consensus about it. Research is done minimally and capital has been winning the past decades.
It's a struggle, not only political but also intellectual.
I H8 Memes
Member
Any truly communist country would have to have access to every resource it needs within its own borders and that isnt possible. Mixed in on a planet that uses money Communism is a flat out stupid idea.
And not that it solves every problem in the scenario I posted, but in a world without money I have no doubt that the people able to achieve employment as surgeons or engineers would be a status symbol itself irregardless of compensation.
http://www.gapminder.org/tools/#_locale_id=en;&chart-type=mountain
Or maybe bringing billions out of poverty? Lotta room to editorialize.
BoosterDuck
Banned
a technocracy using a resource-based economy should replace capitalism
Intellectuals generally aren't rewarded by the market itself, but they do rely on institutions that are connected to the market in Capitalistic societies.
smokeandmirrors
Banned
i mean how much of the internet is built on the backs of free open source software...
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
Plus, Neoliberalism has basically presented capitalism as the only viable political-economic system.
is this a joke poster?
Capitalism itself isn't alleviating poverty. Instead, capitalism crudely allows some capital to flow toward poorer parts of the world. This will never be enough, because our global economy relies on poor people (and poor countries) to do the hard labor.
Always-honest
Banned
Social liberalism.
Stop living the american lie. Change the country to be a shining example for the world. It's still possible.
Stop living the american lie. Change the country to be a shining example for the world. It's still possible.
There are a bunch of issues with this rather facile argument. For one it's not very good at suggesting that Capitalism itself is doing most of the work in decreasing policy. For another it's using the value metrics of Capitalism as an answer to whether or not Capitalism is good. That's a tautology of course. It must be good, because they system defines being good as doing what it does.
Capitalism has come with some advantages, but they came at a great cost. Evaluating those benefits and costs is tricky because capitalism has so impacted or subjectivities and culture.
It's the only realistic option if you want a utopian society. Humans can't realistically expect to create a society free of wants or needs on their own.
This isn't really true either though. Wallerstein's global systems are pretty clearly problematic historically. Capitalism does not require underdevelopment, but if underdevelopment exists it can take advantage of it.
Are you posting that image as a joke or are you actually serious?
entremet
Member
Capitalism is pretty good!
We're moving millions out of poverty per year. It's unprecendent in terms of human history. Not to mention those being connected to the electrical grid. Capitalism has problems, but those are rooted in human problems--lust for power, greed, etc. Those same human problems affected the implementation of Communism as well.
And no please stop with the goalpost moving saying that the USSR and China didn't implement Communism. Obviously ideals will never be implemented perfectly, but those are rather close. Even Capitalism is tainted with Crony Capitalism and Protectionism. That's not because the ideals are corrupted but because humans will never ever implement an ideology perfectly. It's impossible. I thought we learned that with religion.
However, I'd rather capitalism be implemented with those human foibles in tow than Communism.
We're moving millions out of poverty per year. It's unprecendent in terms of human history. Not to mention those being connected to the electrical grid. Capitalism has problems, but those are rooted in human problems--lust for power, greed, etc. Those same human problems affected the implementation of Communism as well.
And no please stop with the goalpost moving saying that the USSR and China didn't implement Communism. Obviously ideals will never be implemented perfectly, but those are rather close. Even Capitalism is tainted with Crony Capitalism and Protectionism. That's not because the ideals are corrupted but because humans will never ever implement an ideology perfectly. It's impossible. I thought we learned that with religion.
However, I'd rather capitalism be implemented with those human foibles in tow than Communism.
Who do you think makes the AIs? You're just stating this as a fact with no real justification.
I'm a humanist. I think AIs could possibly be a useful tool on this front, but not if the project would be directed by computer scientists.
Yeah, you're absolutely correct. I really only cared about the third point but added the other two just because I was trying to summarize where people might see the problems. It was misguided.
cpp_is_king
Member
Completely irrelevant. Most work on open source software is done by for profit companies. Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier, it's not the science that requires incentive. It's the productization. Google exists for you to search on the internet because of profit. Amazon exists as an online market because of profit. This forum software exists because of profit.
Even if all the libraries that Google, Amazon, and phpbb used to make their software were free open source, that doesn't matter if nobody assembles them together into a product that makes money.
DeathoftheEndless
Crashing this plane... with no survivors!
Sure they are. Oppressive practices are an essential part of communism.
But the thing is, if the system is controlled by capitalists then full proliferation of meditation actually becomes detrimental to consumerism because people won't need to feed their ego as much to quench some ambiguous missing feeling. Though currently the practice itself is being commercialized, just a way of coping with the stress from the story of capitalism I guess.
You can see how the lifestyle of minimalists is kind of frowned upon in these cultures. While not everyone who is a minimalist is a meditator, I am quite sure monks are minimalists to the purest sense, especially renunciates. Just look at how the Millennial generation is being attacked by not being consumers of baby boomer industries! They're given shit for being decoupled from the system. Heaven forbid you choose to be a non joiner.
Of course it's detrimental, because this culture focuses on consumerism for two central reasons. First, the system is designed in perpetual short-term gains: every quarter must surpass the last, and if it doesn't it is doomsday. Nowhere are we asking the issues of consistently passing Ecological Debt Day, which if we are to assume trends of past years is anything, we would have wasted the annual "carrying capacity" of the Earth's resources by the start of August.
The other reason is far more sinister. By being a jobs cult culture, many people are likely doing things they see no value in -- what they do is "empty" in a genuinely dark sense, not the liberating "nonself" sense -- so they consume to fill the voids in their lives. This can be seen as an issue even beyond consumption but how people use their off time: how often are people just recharging after work, on days off, or even on vacation simply because what they do is so wasteful and draining to their lives? I don't simply mean people relaxing by a pool, I mean people who don't want to do anything, that they're burnt out. Days off in this sense or more like being in a social hospital room, for the sole goal is to recuperate enough health, primarily mental health, to get back out there.
This system absolutely emphasizes a sense of lack as its modus operandi from the end of the business to the people living in the society. And its in this manufacturing lack that we face profound issues: how many realize by being an American today they are part of the most prosperous period of human history? This is not seen in the lives of the majority, so something's gone wrong, and it's much more nuanced than the Great Decoupling, the creation of a precariat class once neoliberalism became the norm, but how we've truly, even in a material sense, concocted a society of emptiness, of voidness, both in personal lack and even material lack. One honest look at the world and you see these are mental and policy problems, and not a true, materialistic lack.
One look at technology is proof of this. In what culture can the idea of robots "taking our jobs" be seen as a normal thought to have? Where the response is genuine fear, hostility, and concern? What's gone wrong in a culture where the creation of better abundance is somehow a forced social death for tens of millions of people?
Of course not. You would get psychologists to do it.
It's not Goal-post moving. If you asked Communists in 1910 what Communism is, it was A. pretty well defined and B. not something that either the USSR or China even came close to doing. More importantly the roadmap for how it was supposed to happen was thrown out.
Communism requires high levels of development in order to be achieved. Neither Russia or China were anything close to being highly developed when they became communistic.
I'm not a communist by the way. I just think we need to deal with the near century of constant propaganda against it when discussing social systems.
Capitalism doesn't require abject poverty, but our current economic order couldn't exist without the third world as subordinate to the first.
entremet
Member
Yep! Capitalism does the heavy lifting and gets the product to the public. Sure NASA developed tons of great tech, but that tech never made it into the hands of regular folks without capitalists getting involved.
Skyball Paint
Member
There's other forms of reward then money, and US style capitalism can disincentivise people doing great things. Why try to create artistic masterpieces if it won't give you food in your belly and a roof over your head?
TheRagnCajun
Member
Regulated Capitalism. Taking an idealogy to an extreme leads to a breaking point. Capitalism is a good idea but it has to be done in moderation. The government has a vital role to play to set some ground rules and enforce them.
I'd want a team of historians, anthropologists, sociologists, economists, and philosophers foremost. Other disciplines could have representation as well I suppose, but those would clearly be the most important. Still, even then I'd think it was incredibly problematic, because it would overly value the ideas of a particular time.
Most people who do great things don't do them for financial reward.
It would be different but it could exist. Obviously Capitalism is taking advantage of the third world, though providing some benefits as well, but it does not require it.
Industrialization happened on the back of the domestic economy. Capitalism doesn't require underdevelopment. Wallerstein's theoretical argument was always weak, and it historically does not seem to hold up at all.
Do values of a particular time matter to a being that doesn't age, let alone an AI?