this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
453 points (76.6% liked)

Asklemmy

43952 readers
1072 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hi all,

I'm seeing a lot of hate for capitalism here, and I'm wondering why that is and what the rationale behind it is. I'm pretty pro-capitalism myself, so I want to see the logic on the other side of the fence.

If this isn't the right forum for a political/economic discussion-- I'm happy to take this somewhere else.

Cheers!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] Bazzatron@lemmy.world 116 points 1 year ago

Capitalism rewards exploitation.

You've probably heard "There is no ethical consumption under capitalism" - and historically speaking, and in my experience, this holds to be true. I couldn't be typing this on my glass god rectangle if there weren't some children in a cobalt mine somewhere - at some rung on the ladder, people are dying, because where's the incentive to lift others out of poverty? Why would any capitalist elevate their source of cheap labour and materials out of the blood and sand?

There's also the interaction we have between the capitalist and socialist aspects of our society - for instance nationalised healthcare cannot be administered by capitalists because there is no incentive for the system to function for the good of the patients, but eventually the system will be optimised out of existence (by which I mean, broken into smaller units for budgetary reasons, small units degraded continually until they are canned, and the whole system is sunset because of "sound economic decisions").

Capitalism is the antithesis of what I think any reasonable person wants in society save for those with an amount of blood on their hands. Capitalism is a Mad Max dystopia where a handful of people live as deities whilst the rest of us kill each other in the streets for scraps.

Capitalism might have seemed viable when everyone was suffering from lead poisoning, but it's killing us today, and I support any means to remove this cancer and push for a more equitable life for everyone.