this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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People blame capitalism, but capitalism isn't the problem. The problem, as always, is power.
Under feudalism things were much worse. Serfs worked 6 days a week, 12+ hours a day. Up to 3 days of that week was spent tending your lord's lands for free.
Under absolute monarchies, dictatorships and police states you work as hard as you can for whatever hours your employer sets, and you keep any complaints to yourself or you're dragged off to a camp, or summarily executed.
So far, every time "communism" has been tried, it was just a dictatorship or police state where the leaders pretend that there's a higher ideal.
Capitalist republics don't give people at the bottom much power, but they get a little bit. And, that little bit is the best that the people at the bottom have ever had, even if it isn't much.
The fact that there are people at the bottom isn't the fault of some political system, and especially isn't the fault of capitalism, it's the fault of human nature.
Capitalism is better than feudalism, yes. The problem is that Capitalism inevitably gets to the point where it is more detrimental to the population as a whole than it is beneficial (Global Warming, Wealth inequality, power imbalances, etc.), and that point is now.
Capitalism did bring us many advancements, but we have outgrown it. Just because it did good things at some point doesn't mean that there isn't something better. We should all be striving towards better as a species, but we aren't.
That's humanity, not capitalism. The Olmecs weren't capitalists. But, they formed a hierarchical society and there were some very rich people. "This highly productive environment encouraged a densely concentrated population, which in turn triggered the rise of an elite class.[14] The elite class created the demand for the production of the symbolic and sophisticated luxury artifacts that define Olmec culture." They grew and expanded until they caused "very serious environmental changes that rendered the region unsuited for large groups of farmers". After that, they died out and the region was sparsely populated for centuries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmecs
It's not Capitalism that causes this, it's humanity. Also, no political/economic system is beneficial to the population as a whole. The whole purpose of political/economic systems is to allow the many to exploit the few. You can have an egalitarian society if you only have a few dozen individuals. More than that and you get hierarchies, and when you get hierarchies, the people at the top want to find efficient ways to make use of the people at the bottom. Capitalism is at least better than serfdom or slavery, both for the people at the top and the people at the bottom. The people at the bottom have a bit more freedom and a bit more agency. That makes revolutions and collapses less likely, which makes bigger hierarchies possible, which benefits the people at the top. But, it's not like feudalism, capitalism, or any other "ism" is designed for the benefit of the people at the bottom. The people who have the power to make the changes are the ones at the top, so they're only ever going to adopt systems that are beneficial to them.
You were two steps away from discovering libertarian socialism/democratic confederalism and then you crawled backwards.
If your political system is based on hierarchy, there will always be someone at the bottom of said hierarchy. It's the logical consequence.
This is literally capitalist propaganda. Humans are a social specie, by nature they seek cooperation, not competition.
There will always be hierarchy with complex, large scale production. Management and administration are necessary roles in production. It is better to make said hierarchy work for the people through the abolition of classes, and democratization.
Riiight, a tried and true political/economic system which is sure to work perfectly as soon as it's tried, just like communism.
If you're human, your political system will involve hierarchy as soon as more than about a dozen individuals are involved.
Suuure... it's capitalist propaganda to acknowledge that all mammals act in ways that are hierarchical and unfair.
I agree with most of your individual points... But your thesis relies on a false assumption.
Capitalism is the current problem for 95% of the world.... Just like monarchies were a problem for that particular country. Just because many political and economic systems throughout history reflect an aspect of human nature to control and bequeath that control to their offspring, doesn't take capitalism off the hook. Hell, if that were the case, we could blame everything on the evolutionary drive to be sexually successful, and not place the blame on anyone or anything else. That's what those at the top would love the rest of us to believe.
Capitalism isn't the current problem for 95% of the world. The problem for 95% of the world is 1% of the people who have the power/wealth. Whatever "ism" you use, there will always be people at the top who are exploiting people at the bottom. Capitalism succeeded because it provided a new and more efficient form for the people at the top to exploit the people at the bottom. But, it was also better for the people at the bottom. Instead of being tied to the land where they were born, born into a trade, and so-on, now they at least had a tiny bit of agency in their lives.
Capitalism isn't the cause of any of these problems, humanity is the cause of the problem. Humanity forms hierarchical groups, and people at the top exploit people at the bottom. In fact, you could probably extend it well beyond humanity. This is pretty common even in apes, and even in other mammals. Dolphins don't know about capitalism, yet they still have hierarchies.
Ok, so what puts capitalism on the hook? In what ways are people exploited more under capitalism than any other previous system? What makes capitalism so uniquely bad that you have to call it out rather than just acknowledging that it's human, or even animal nature?
communism is classless. there is no top or bottom. same with anarchism.
Communism will have administrators, planners, managers, etc so it keeps some form of authority and hierarchy, to be clear, it's just that these are a necessity for large-scale production and aren't classes.
so there is no one "at the top" "exploiting people at the bottom"
Yes, technically there is a top and a bottom, like an upper level administrator and a lower level worker, but this is not a relationship of exploitation just like it isn't your manager that exploits you under Capitalism, but the Business Owner(s).
under communism, there is no exploitation
Correct. I am a Communist, I am just offering technical clarification that hierarchy exists under Communism, but not exploitation.
Yes, and there's a reason that those can't exist in actual human communities of more than about a dozen people.
this is a lie.
Ok, then disprove it. Show a counterexample.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stateless_societies?wprov=sfla1
the Paris commune
How did that end?
invaded by imperial france
After a whole 2 months. Clearly if one of your prime examples is something that couldn't even last a quarter of a year, you don't have a leg to stand on.
being invaded by a superpower is not an indictment of a societal structure
The point is that anarchism historically has not succeeded and cannot succeed in the real world that we actually live in today, in the face of monopoly capitalist/imperialist states that will do everything in their power to plunder the resources of all other states.
Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds:
what is your measure for success? I think liberating people from oppression is the standard, an anarchism has a great track record.
Not being able to defend itself is indeed an indictment of a societal structure.
what city could have survived an attack from France? none. you will never find any true Scotsman.
Moscow has survived attacks from France. Every viable political/economic system has to be able to defend itself. I hope you realize how ridiculous your argument is by giving an example of something that lasted just barely 2 months. That's like claiming that a perpetual motion machine exists by showing some swinging pendulum for 10 seconds.
this is just a denial that anarchist and communist societyies function. you're shifting the goalposts
They don't. There has never been a communist or anarchist society that has functioned for an extended length of time as its own sovereign entity.
now you're moving the goalposts
Moscow isn't a city state
No, it isn't. You're so very smart.
the swamp maroons
How did that end?
seems like you're no true scotsmanning.
say what you want to say
I already said it.
exarcheia
What about it?
it's an anarchist community of 55,000
And it's not in a country?
more no true scotsmanning
K
You have a very simplistic view of cause and effect. No one thing is ever the cause of anything. Everything is a result of multiple factors. Just because something isn't the sole cause of another thing doesn't mean you ignore it. Only shills would think otherwise when the issue of capitalism is involved.
A better angle might be that currently in the US capitalism is rarely actually scrutinized for the disadvantages it does have. Capitalism is almost synonymous with America and people often see critiques of capitalism as an attack on the nation itself, even though most of them don't actually know the principles or characteristics of capitalism.
It goes the other way too where people automatically think that characteristics of America are capitalist
As an example a majority of Americans probably think that American politics and democracy is part of capitalism, or that the economy is pure capitalism.
If people were more willing to critically evaluate capitalism without feeling attacked it could increase support for more worker friendly policies that are generally socialist in nature while still having a capitalistic foundation.
Inequality isnt the fault of the system that creates inequality. It just is.
The system doesn't create inequality, the inequality was always there.
We already produce enough food to feed all of humanity, we already have enough houses to house everyone, and we have the means to prevent and cure most diseases, yet people at the top gatekeep access to those resources to increase their profits.
But sure, inequality just happens spontaneously. There's nothing we could do about that 😒
Yes, because we're humans, and humans are mammals. Dolphins have a 1:1 male/female sex ratio, and yet male dolphins team up to control breeding access to females. Damn capitalism, making dolphins not share fairly!