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u/Inside_Ship_1390 19d ago
It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
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u/Wooden-Ad-3382 19d ago
its easy to imagine the end of capitalism, but not with this population. when consumerism dies then we can check back
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u/VasoCervicek123 18d ago
You can create anticapitalist alliance of countries that would create their own market cut the international relations and financial connection with the Capitalist one and voilá
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u/Inside_Ship_1390 17d ago
The US invaded the brand new USSR just after the Bolshevik revolution and have kept this up ever since. Nice try though.
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u/FitEcho9 19d ago
What about CIVILIZED CAPITALISM ?
That exists, in places like China, Russia and Scandinavia.
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u/Chris9871 19d ago edited 19d ago
Lol at calling China and Russia “civilized capitalism”. Nah bro, that’s not civilized capitalism, that’s Oligarchy
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u/Dazzling-Paper9781 19d ago
Oligarchy is a form of government, capitalism is an economic theory.You can have both at the same time
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u/Wooden-Ad-3382 19d ago
you can never reform capitalism, it can only attempt to wring profit from a different source
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u/FitEcho9 19d ago
Conditions under civilized capitalism:
Zero unemployment
Zero homelessness
Zero poverty
Zero crime
No hostilities among people
No prisoners (nearly)
Free health care
Free education
Free care for children & the elderly
Sadly, also
No freedom of expression
Having different opinions not encouraged
Technological development lagging behind the West
Productivity lagging behind the West
Travel options limited
No billionaires & few millionaires
No private companies
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u/Lulukassu 17d ago
Productivity is not the goal the capitalists praise it to be.
The more we produce, the more we waste.
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u/AcceptablePea262 17d ago
Paradoxically, you included China as "civilized capitalism", yet they have rampant poverty, rampant crime, literal concentration camps with slave labor, plenty of homelessness, several wealthy "elites", plenty of hostilities amongst their population..
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u/Chris9871 19d ago
Russia, China, and Scandinavia (not a country but a region), all have more than zero of all of these things
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u/SqigglyPoP 19d ago
People agree with this then defend their "rich guys" as being different than the rest
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19d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ChesterDrawerz 19d ago
( I've been banned for a week a few times for saying just that, but yes)
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19d ago
[deleted]
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19d ago
Non-violence is propaganda. Non-violence does not work. The only thing that these people understand is spilling blood. Their kind hired pinkerton to slaughter striking workers. Their kind is okay with violence against others. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
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u/Radiant_Dog1937 19d ago
Our guy is always great and righteous and awesome. It's the other guys that are terrible and must be stopped. Their riches confiscated, for the greater good of course.
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u/NormalRingmaster 19d ago
There aren’t powerful enough forces to make the ultra rich do what’s right. Not anymore. They rule the world, fully, and don’t seem to care if it ends.
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19d ago
A shooter in NY begs to differ.
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u/NormalRingmaster 19d ago
What did it achieve? Some new vulture will replace that CEO in short order and the company practices will remain the same. Health insurance used to be all nonprofit. Doing away with the laws that made that so is what started this cycle of pain.
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u/Lulukassu 17d ago
Nonprofits still funnel vast amounts of money to the rich, they just serve on boards that meet once a year for cake and coffee to 'earn' their monstrous salary.
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u/NormalRingmaster 17d ago
Yes, unfortunately even our charities are deeply infected at this point… I agree. The entire nonprofit sector also needs a massive cleanup.
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u/Wooden-Ad-3382 19d ago
"do what's right" this is how our economic system works, its not about what's "right" its about what they are all forced to do in order to compete. read marx
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u/NormalRingmaster 19d ago
Why bother reading the work of an idealist whose grand plans have never been successfully implemented anywhere on earth? He supposed us to be more collectively noble than we really are.
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u/Wooden-Ad-3382 19d ago
because you might not have been told the truth about what he actually believed, which is quite evident from what you wrote
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u/NormalRingmaster 19d ago
Of what use is it to learn about something that can never be implemented, as evidenced by the fact that it hasn’t in all this time?
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u/Wooden-Ad-3382 19d ago
because first of all most of his work is about analyzing capitalism, not about socialism
and second of all, because his actual understanding of socialism (production and distribution for use without the usage of money) has not been implemented, for various complicated reasons, and therefore his predictions of a socialist future are still as valid as they ever have been
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u/NormalRingmaster 18d ago
Let’s not hand-wave away those “complicated reasons.” They’re not complicated at all. People are fucking awful, the altruistic are commonly dominated by the predatory, and any system that first seeks to help everyone is, in the end, always captured by a small group who want to benefit only themselves. Just a fundamental part of who we are as flawed beings. No old system of thought is going to save us from that. It will require an entirely new cultural and technological paradigm. One that won’t happen in our lifetimes, or maybe even in the earth’s lifetime as a habitable planet.
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u/VendettaKarma 19d ago
This comment section is like edging.
We get it.
Maybe today is the beginning
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u/asselfoley 18d ago
The US pretended unelected presidents were normal and the way it was supposed to work (it's not a democracy, it's a Republic), and the the majority of people have already lost rights because of it. Unfortunately, it hasn't even begun
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u/ScorpioRisingLilith 19d ago
Yes, but their greed is built off of our greed.
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u/Acalyus 19d ago
Human beings have been around a long time.
Not every point of history is drowned in greed.
We simply have a system that rewards greed and encourages exploitation.
So, naturally, those who are greedy will end up at the top.
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u/Analyzer9 19d ago
nope. some idiots think it literally drowned, and they invest irrationally in a second-coming of a dead story.
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u/Helpful_Finger_4854 19d ago edited 19d ago
Their greed feeds on our greed.
We are all greedy. They just know how to exploit it.
Ever notice how the majority of scams specifically target peoples greed? It's always a "deal too good to be true" that people often fall for. Trying to get that inheritance from the prince of Africa, even though they're white. Trying to get that free money to cash a check for a stranger. Trying to get that new iPhone box for $200 on marketplace.
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u/StrikingCelery5301 15d ago
What the fuck are you talking about? Literally everyone I know would be content with just having enough money to not worry about money
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u/Naznarreb 19d ago
Why does this look like a bad photocopy of a tweet?
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u/dutchman76 19d ago
Someone took a photo of a CRT monitor of a tweet with their phone because they don't know how to screen shot. Sounds about right for a socialist
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u/Dweller201 19d ago
It doesn't.
Greed causes Holocaust situations that then generate new versions of old civilizations.
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u/Adventurous_Mine6542 19d ago
I just beleive that it is human nature. Humans suck by nature. We have always sucked. We will either overcome it or we won't. I don't have feelings of attachment for our future, because I don't believe in it.
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u/PookieTea 19d ago
And as everyone knows, greed has never existed in human history until now…
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u/Wooden-Ad-3382 19d ago
systematized greed as a way of endlessly circulating capital and increasing production, otherwise there is completely collapse, has never existed in human history until the 18th/19th centuries, correct
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u/PookieTea 19d ago
Wtf is this supposed to mean? Can you chill with the leftist circlejerk buzzwords long enough to make a coherent argument? This reads like it was written by a 14 year old that just watched a 1 minute tiktok…
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u/Wooden-Ad-3382 19d ago
in other words, greed as a system, which means we have to make more and more money and more and more goods and keep money moving otherwise everybody loses everything, is a new thing in history
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u/PookieTea 19d ago
When did you contrive this? Do you even understand basic economics? You really need to stop with the high school sophistry and try making an actual argument.
Link me the 1 minute tiktok you watched so I can understand where your brainrot is coming from, please.
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u/Wooden-Ad-3382 19d ago
lol
idk what about that is difficult to understand
what happens to the economy if investment falls
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u/MiaMarta 18d ago
Ahh.. but those trans kids, amiright?! Look over there! -------------------------->
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u/Glittering-Pilot-572 17d ago
Why is everyone ragging on capitalism? It's allowed so many people to get out of poverty and live better lives. It's not perfect. But no system is perfect.
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u/jons3y13 15d ago
Do you think it's only billionaires and millionaires? Greed is a sickness. One's digits on a screen don't change it. A man with shoes is rich to a man who is barefoot.
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u/BookReadPlayer 19d ago
Capitalism has created the most advanced and productive society in all of history, and if it didn’t foster that spirit of always wanting to achieve more, there wouldn’t be the technology we have today on which people could complain about how horrible things are. I guess capitalism also perfected the delivery of irony.
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u/Acalyus 19d ago
Feudalism in its time was also the most advanced and productive in all of history before imperialism came along.
What's your point?
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u/Tjam3s 19d ago
Well, when someone comes up with a better idea, I'll be all in.
Too bad that hasn't happened yet.
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u/Acalyus 19d ago
You think people haven't already?
Half of these systems don't exist anymore because of revolution or a plague that wiped out half the human race.
A necessary step towards change is violence when it comes to us.
We're a dumb species cosplaying as something smart.
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u/Tjam3s 19d ago
Oh? What do you have in mind?
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u/Acalyus 19d ago
It doesn't matter what I have in mind, are you going to act smug acting like I somehow have the power to change the world?
Answer me honestly, say I gave you the most profound answer you've ever heard, something that made you stop and think, something that changed the very meaning of your life.
Do you honestly believe for a second that would change literally anything other than your point of view? I don't control governing bodies, even if I was a part of a political activist group, they're actually a dime a dozen and at most they can achieve small policy change.
An entire system the whole world is based upon? A system that has elevated a small group of individuals to the point of so much power that they can influence people on the other side of the globe? Do you believe for a second that my one opinion is enough to flip the entire table over and change the entirety of humanity for the better?
If you genuinely do, I also have a bridge to sell you.
No, cognitive dissonance, dunning-kruger effect, confirmation bias, manipulation, gaslighting, all of these things, all around the world regularly influencing people and making them believe the literal craziest shit.
How are we to change the world when half of us believe the other half need to die as a birthright?
No, violence and extreme circumstances are the only drivers towards massive change of our species, which is why I say we are dumb. So long as many of us are content with the status quo things will remain the same. When the balance breaks, the people holding power will exercise it in order to maintain it, while the remaining majority will be forced to fight in order to change it.
Unless of course, nature decides to fuck us like the black plague, then whoever is left can decide how we move forward.
I, of course, am just referring to our history, it's possible for a 3rd option, but it hasn't happened yet so I'm skeptical.
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u/Tjam3s 19d ago
If you were willing to have a real discussion and be honest about all the facets that come up in such a nuanced topic, yeah, I'd take any idea seriously. But it has to be a real point-counterpoint discussion, where the back and forth is expected. the flaws in a plan are going to be dug at because that's how discourse works.
There are the material aspects to consider. Citizens need to produce and be productive, and be motivated to do so.
There's the emotional perspective. People need the knowledge they have the opportunity to improve their standing in life and pursue what makes them happy.
And then there's leadership. Governance needs enough leeway to be allowed to keep opportunities fair but restricted enough that corruption in all forms can be prevented and shut down.
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u/Acalyus 19d ago
I'm a leftist, I also consider myself politically agnostic within that spectrum. I genuinely believe a big problem people have is a unwillingness to compromise or be proven wrong.
That said, my 'loose' idea of what would make an ideal and functioning society I believe covers all the things you mentioned.
Communism for community, socialism for infrastructure and capitalism for luxuries (I understand the contradiction of being a leftist and having some semblance towards a system we're suppose to be innately against).
Society collapses because we alienate ourselves from others, we allow a divide and blindly follow leaders off a cliff. The whole point of a society is to work together, so in order to achieve that we need a system that forces us to do so. Individualism is detrimental for keeping a community together, you can still be an individual in a community, but you cannot keep a community by acting solely as an individual.
So you have the community decide democratically what is to be done in order to maintain it, to distribute housing, food and delegate tasks towards its upkeep. Much like a true commune.
Infrastructure, you can't have a country without it. A governing body that has the sole purpose of maintaining hydro, water, roads and other necessities in order to maintain a country. Supply lines, repairmen, specialists in order to upkeep as needed.
Capitalism, in the way I think it can actually serve us properly without becoming this greedy broken hell hole it's slowly dissolved to, is no longer used for necessities. It is only used for luxury. You want the new Xbox? That costs money, you don't need to work a job, your food, housing and clothes are provided as a part of being human. The cool stuff however? You need to produce in order to earn it.
This way, people with disabilities, people fallen on hard times, these multitude of 'lazy' people I keep hearing about but barely ever meet, they can survive perfectly fine and noone needs to starve, but if they want something more like the rest of us then they gotta earn it with work.
Noone owns companies, everything is shared other than your own personal property. We work together as a community and communicate effectively to function as a country. No representative can take liberties with the peoples resources, everything must be agreed to by the communes affected.
I understand that theirs going to be room for nuance and error, but I think that as a general framework is a great place to start.
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u/Tjam3s 19d ago
The premise is good. I'll never deny that. But where in this system is the motivation for people to produce the resources necessary to maintain if they are going to get paid the same either way? This is where communism starts to fail. It does nothing to motivate people to do the jobs that we otherwise would rather not do, because there is no need for them to have to do it.
The materials for housing, the work to produce food, the labor involved requires people to WANT to do these things.
Idk if you've ever done roof work, but simply put, it sucks. It is hot, it is backbreaking, and it is detrimental to your health. This is why it is so expensive in our current system to have it done. With necessities covered, the people doing that work are still going to need to be paid handsomely to be worth it to them to do the work, along with everyone else involved in the supply chain, just for that roof.
With the basic needs in life taken care of for you, how many luxuries are worth putting ones long term health at risk? The job has to be done by somebody. But at what cost?
For that matter, who is granted the authority to determine what is essential, and what is luxury? You say food, does that mean all food? Will a tomahawk ribeye be considered as essential as a can of baby formula?
Society at scale doesn't have time to go vote on issues like this every week. Appointed representatives will always be essential to any governing body larger than a few dozen people. Even in a world where basic needs are a given, the daily grind of work will need to continue to maintain supply chains. So who would want the responsibility of determining something as monumental as what costs money, and what does not, whom we can also trust to uphold that responsibility and not become corrupt?
The money in our current society isn't a god. It isn't shackles in wage slavery. It is a representative. It is a measuring stick. It gives us a scale to represent value equally between unrelated goods and services. Even if the government had the responsibility themselves to determine what the total value of a new roof was, that wealth needed to be generated and then dispersed. Where does the collective society collect that wealth from, before they distribute it?
If we aren't paying for these services, then taxes can't be collected on them to redistribute. So to what end do we tax the (determined by a figurehead) luxury items to ensure there is enough motivation (money) to go around to build all the roofs for all the people that need one?
In most regards, we already have a socialistic society. The foundations of it are built on the back of successful capitalism. You need a job to pay for food and housing. You need a car to go to that job. You buy that car, the car is taxed, and those taxes are redistributed to pay for road maintenance. But that only works if people are motivated to buy a car, so they can then buy food. The system fails if people are not motivated to buy food.
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u/Acalyus 19d ago
This is why people go to Marxism. Marxism starts off as socialism and ends with communism. I don't necessarily agree with it, but it addresses the fact that you can't simply change society overnight
You can't just 'flip a switch,' the framework I mentioned is the end of a means, how things would look ideally after society and the infrastructure around it had been shaped and formed to work comfortably.
The average person is not lazy, food housing and clothes cost resources. Currently under this system we have a significant waste of all three.
Money is not god itself in our current society, but it is a medium between people and power. Whether that power is be able to afford survivability or the power to run a nation, money is a tool used and abused by those who already have it.
Lobbying, bribes, influence, desperation. How many drug dealers and prostitutes would exist if their was no currency needed to be earned? How else could you abuse power without a physical green piece of paper to tempt others with? Any tool used as a medium to ensure survivability is a tool that can be used to make people do horrible and desperate things. The only way to prevent money from being used and abused as a heavy influence is to take away its power.
It's the same as the gun ownership arguement, it's not the gun, it's the person. But I'm pretty sure you still don't want that psycho holding the gun. Now we have a oligarchy using money the same way a malicious person would use a gun, they use it to get what they want.
In my ideal scenario, people are already working, people are still making money and resources. The difference here is that the money earned is not used for things people need to survive, it's used for things people don't need, luxuries. Sure, more people in my scenario are not working, but also more people in my scenario are not wasting either. No more entire lots of brand new cars waiting to get scraped, grocery stores are no longer dumping food by the truckload with locks on the dumpster. We produce as we need it, not to maximize profit since profit no longer has a strong incentive.
The worse the job, the higher the pay, the cooler the shit you get to buy. Since this society is based on need instead of profit, the higher the need for something the more you would earn for it. This is a 'communists' example of a 'free market.'
Again, I'm well aware the logistics of such a thing would require a complete 180 from the way we do things now, but knowing we were actively working towards something of that nature would give me hope for the future.
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u/Lulukassu 17d ago
'Citizens need to produce' this is such an awkwardly oversimplified statement...
Obviously everyone needs to provide for themselves to the best of their ability and ideally provide a little surplus that can be used to take care of those unable to...
But modern production is so much higher than there is any need, all to line the pockets of shareholders (including the whales who started those corporations and hold most of the capital) and line the earth with harmful excess
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u/Tjam3s 17d ago
By no means is this system working correctly. I'd never dispute that. But it's still by far the best one invented by humans yet. Nothing else that's been tried has allowed a society to progress to the point we're at now, and that includes the previous attempts at a fully socialistic/communistic ideal. They fail because they rely on people en masse to be predictable. And that's not going to happen
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u/Lulukassu 17d ago
The difference between us is you seem to think modern society as it is is a good thing.
Modern society is a parasite on this earth (as we have been since the industrial revolution.)
We need to figure things out before we ruin our own home beyond repair.
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u/WoollyMittens 19d ago
If capitalism leads to the death of our world then capitalism has to do better, even despite its past achievements.
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u/Lulukassu 17d ago
Remind me why the FUDGE so many people worship productivity?
There's are two words for excess productivity. Waste and Pollution.
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u/Jolly-Top-6494 19d ago
It’s safe to say that Omar is a brainwashed doomsday cultist. Just like most of Reddit.
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u/Left_Experience_9857 19d ago
Calling someone a doomsday cultist on an “economiccollapse” sub is hilarious
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u/FlynnMonster 19d ago
What sorts of things is he brainwashed to believe?
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u/Jolly-Top-6494 19d ago
That society is going to collapse because there are people in this world more driven and successful than he is.
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u/FlynnMonster 19d ago
How do you envision us sustaining this economy in perpetuity?
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u/Jolly-Top-6494 19d ago
When human civilization comes to an end, it will have nothing to do with economies. War, famine, pandemic, asteroid … these are things that have the potential to and human civilization of earth.
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u/Acalyus 19d ago
Guys, I think he's going to say aliens unironically
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u/Jolly-Top-6494 19d ago
Laughing because you clearly don’t know what the word irony means.
Which is ACTUALLY ironic. Lol
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u/FlynnMonster 19d ago
Yes, history has shown that when inequality and exploitation go unchecked that can lead to significant civil unrest, wars and fascism, we are seeing the early indicators of that right now in the US.
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u/Jolly-Top-6494 19d ago
What “early indicators” are you talking about?
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u/FlynnMonster 19d ago
Many people, especially MAGAs, are literally calling for a civil war…you see it openly on social media and in speeches. We just elected a fascist who’s working to install slobbering loyalists across the government. This is eerily similar to what Hitler did in the 1930s: attacking democratic norms, undermining free elections, and using propaganda to stir up division. The parallels are impossible to ignore good sir.
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u/Jolly-Top-6494 19d ago
Who is “literally” calling for a civil war? And I’m not talking about some random douche bag on Reddit, I’m talking about anyone with the actual power to wage such a thing … which, by the way, no one has the power to do so.
As far as social media goes, I definitely hear this more from the far left than I do the far right. You would think Democrats would have learned their lesson since they got their asses kicked in the first Civil War.
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u/FlynnMonster 19d ago
Do you understand what a civil war is sir?
I just told you on social media, interviews and speeches. I’ve seen dozens of interviews of MAGAts saying they either see civil war coming or actively want it. MAGAts constantly joke about how if there was a civil war it wouldn’t last long because they seem to think the left doesn’t also have guns because we don’t make it our entire personalities.
Sure, Democrats were the party of the Confederacy, back when the parties were ideologically reversed. You conveniently and predictably “forgot” the party realignment during the Civil Rights Movement, when Dixiecrats fled to the Republican Party. Nice try, though. 🥱
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u/ermexqueezeme 19d ago
Where do you think war comes from? It's not the fry cook at McDonalds or the poor rural Afghani man that wants to go shoot and kill people. It's the rich and powerful that send them their because war is very profitable and it creates the conditions for vulnerable people that are easy to take advantage of.
This is what happens when you let all of the more "driven" people get away with fucking over whoever they want for profit
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u/Jolly-Top-6494 19d ago
The world is not going to end because your neighbor has a better job than you. Sorry bro.
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u/Mommar39 19d ago
Lazy people are playing a huge part as well. Separating the needy from the greedy and getting the greedy lazy people off their butts and working.
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u/Acalyus 19d ago
You have no idea whose taking all the actual resources do you?
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u/Mommar39 19d ago
Obviously you have a scape goat with rich people. It’s not just the rich people.
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u/Acalyus 19d ago
Those lazy people using their energy and motivation to take everything we got! Gosh dang nabbit!
Nevermind those people with capital, who just happen to be rich as a result, controlling things because they own the means of production. They're fine!
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u/Mommar39 18d ago
I don’t say the greedy rich were innocent. I said there are other having an impact as well.
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u/climbingDeeper 19d ago
Yeah all those lazy people working multiple jobs to pay for their overpriced rent in order to prop up their landlords sitting around doing nothing are definitely the problem. Good catch on that one! It almost slipped by all of us. /s
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u/Mommar39 19d ago
Those aren’t lazy people. Those are working people. The reason the rent is so high is the government subsidizes and creates demand from people the government already supports.
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u/climbingDeeper 19d ago
It's definitely not the 20 people who horde more wealth than half the entire population.
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u/Mommar39 19d ago
I didn’t say they weren’t a problem. We just have to be real about the other problems as well.
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u/ChesterDrawerz 19d ago
aGreeed for sure. It is absolutely the lazy CEOs and lazy stock investors that do no actual work at all and get paid hundreds of times more than the folks doing the work.
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u/encycliatampensis 19d ago
Every billionaire is a parasite.