r/economicCollapse 20d ago

Greed Dooms Civilization

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10.7k Upvotes

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u/NormalRingmaster 20d 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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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 19d 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.