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rscott posted:I think most people in this thread are willing to embrace change, like say changing the global capitalist hegemony to something more willing and able to address the needs of all the world's citizens Let's destroy the thing raising standards of living across the planet. Good idea!
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May 28, 2016 02:02
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Arkane posted:Let's destroy the thing raising standards of living across the planet. Good idea! .....capitalism raising standards of living? Hello? Gilded Age? We didn't learn a loving thing.
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May 28, 2016 05:25
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CommieGIR posted:.....capitalism raising standards of living? Hello? Gilded Age? We didn't learn a loving thing. I think we can all agree that no technological progress or anything would have happened without capitalism. The Soviets certainly never made any contributions.
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May 28, 2016 05:48
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eNeMeE posted:I think we can all agree that no technological progress or anything would have happened without capitalism. The Soviets certainly never made any contributions. That had more to do with Government and Public Sector R&D than capitalism. Hey, don't we still hitch rides on the Soyuz? 
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May 28, 2016 05:51
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Arkane posted:Let's destroy the thing raising standards of living across the planet. Good idea! Yeah man, enforcing a culture of "consumption at all costs" onto every society everywhere is totally paving our way to nirvana and not a dystopian nightmare which will kill billions.
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May 28, 2016 05:51
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Unless your ideal standard of living is subsistence farming, I would say capitalism has improved things. If you don't like picking berries, you can now chop wood for someone that likes building houses. If you don't like chopping wood, you can still pick berries. If it weren't for Stalin moving away from Lenin's state capitalist economy, the Soviet Union might still be around. Simply put, a lack of price discovery for finite goods led to accounting problems and shortages. Not that anyone had an incentive to find out what anything was worth and fix those problems anyway, especially after what happened to kulaks and those suspected of being kulaks.
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May 28, 2016 06:27
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Triglav posted:Unless your ideal standard of living is subsistence farming, I would say capitalism has improved things. If you don't like picking berries, you can now chop wood for someone that likes building houses. If you don't like chopping wood, you can still pick berries. First of all, let's not pretend the Soviet goddamned Union is some sort of poster child for socialism and/or communism. It was and probably still is a corrupt totalitarian state paying lip service to marxist ideals as a political unification tool. The thing to be discussing is a comparison between neoliberalist capitalism and western/northern european democratic socialism, so leave off the obvious red (heh) herring. So how has capitalism improved things? Industrialism and the industrial revolution improved the living standards of the people. Medical advances and discoveries in the same period - raising the average life expetancy - was not done by any corporations. Capitalism gave us consumerism which is nowadays touted as a prerequisite for progress, which it never was and never will be. Before the time of the labour union and the rise of social democracy, people were literal wage slaves existing at the whim of wealthy owner-class people, having little to no rights and the lowest lived on the brink of starvation in hovels with no hope for the future or advancement of any kind. The improvement in material living standards only came when the demand created by labour unions forcing the wealthy to pay them a living wage enabled people to afford things. Market liberalist capitalism as a system doesn't generate value. It creates and reinforces inequality and creates consumerism while at the same time attacking the social advances labour organisations have fought for, through the concentration of wealth on the top and the power and greed that results from it. Nobility under a different mantle. Unchecked capitalism is on the balance an evil thing, and on a global scale causes horrible misery for untold millions and enables the exploitation of the third world. The consequences of global climate change will not even touch the wealthiest among us, and it's more probable that those consequences and increasing automation of jobs (means of production solely owned by the wealthy with low cost and completely controllable - a capitalists wet dream) will most likely bring us back towards those robber baron ages of poverty and misery for most people. I disagree that we need to overthrow capitalism completely and replace it with something to begin combatting climate change effectively, but at some point something will have to break, because consumerism and unchecked industrial pollution will prevent us becoming sustainable. Capitalism as it exists today is inexorably linked to those things, so either it needs to change into something we wouldn't even regard as capitalism today, or it must be regulated into oblivion and replaced completely. That will be a process, and the change will have to come in increments alongside the implementation of global warming policies. TL;DR: Capitalism has never been a prerequisite for progress, nor ever been directly responsible for it. We dont' need to overthrow capitalism before fighting global warming, but capitalism will have to change alongside that.
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May 28, 2016 10:22
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Nice piece of fish posted:TL;DR: Capitalism has never been a prerequisite for progress, nor ever been directly responsible for it. We dont' need to overthrow capitalism before fighting global warming, but capitalism will have to change alongside that. Sure, but isn't that exactly what rscott was saying? You don't need to DESTROY CAPITALISM to fix the problem, you need to destroy the idiotic belief that exponentially increasing consumption is inherently necessary and therefore good. Actually getting rid of that belief is probably going to be impossible because there are billions of useful idiots like Arkane out there. So dehumanize yourself and face to snowless winters I guess.
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May 28, 2016 11:55
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BEAR GRYLLZ posted:Sure, but isn't that exactly what rscott was saying? You don't need to DESTROY CAPITALISM to fix the problem, you need to destroy the idiotic belief that exponentially increasing consumption is inherently necessary and therefore good. 1. Nobody is suggesting destroying capitalism. Capitalism will have to change is what we are arguing 2. Snowless winters is the least of our worries. Drought, rising ocean levels, and crop failures are what we're worried about. You realize lower snow amounts are directly connected to increasing drought, right? CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 15:03 on May 28, 2016 |
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May 28, 2016 14:59
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CommieGIR posted:1. Nobody is suggesting destroying capitalism. Capitalism will have to change is what we are arguing Yes, thank you for exactly restating the point I was making. You're a dumb and consistently bad poster but I'm glad we agree that capitalism doesn't need to be destroyed but needs to be malleable and that dehumanizing yourself and facing to snowless winters is a humorous exaggeration.
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May 28, 2016 17:24
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BEAR GRYLLZ posted:Yes, thank you for exactly restating the point I was making. You're a dumb and consistently bad poster but I'm glad we agree that capitalism doesn't need to be destroyed but needs to be malleable and that dehumanizing yourself and facing to snowless winters is a humorous exaggeration. dehumanise you're self and face to brain death
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May 28, 2016 17:26
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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BEAR GRYLLZ posted:Yes, thank you for exactly restating the point I was making. You're a dumb and consistently bad poster but I'm glad we agree that capitalism doesn't need to be destroyed but needs to be malleable and that dehumanizing yourself and facing to snowless winters is a humorous exaggeration. It would help if you were actually good at making a point
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May 28, 2016 17:40
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CommieGIR posted:It would help if you were actually good at making a point Don't backtrack. Walk into your mistakes and face them with dignity. You're certainly not the worst poster in this thread making bullshit arguments.
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May 28, 2016 17:50
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To say that innate compulsions like greed were caused by capitalism is incorrect. A plant wants all the sun and water it wants, rooting far and wide, growing towards sunlight. Earlier I saw chickadees fighting over a dandelion, destroying it instead of sharing it. I presume neither plants nor animals would define themselves as participants in markets. Without demand, there is no supply. If someone demands something hideous and you're unwilling to supply it, someone with less scruples will supply it in your stead. All the triumphs and ills of capitalism rest solely on the willingness of one participant to make another happy, for their mutual gain. A labor union's demands can easily be interpreted as market demand. And if the factory owner has an equal demand for their labor, concessions are made for the continued supply of that labor. If participants demand to consume, someone will supply something to consume. Some demand energy, the cheapest of which is dirty, and the consumers might know that, but maybe it's all they can afford. If the developed world demands cheap goods but isn't willing to perform cheap labor, the only way satisfy that demand is by employing people in the developing world who are willing to work for wages low enough to make those goods possible. That process might lower the standard of living for some in the developed world, but it raises the standard of living of those in the developing. Automation is another option, but machines and maintenance might be more expensive, since they often aren't made from commodity parts. The world has finite resources. Capitalism provides an auction system for those resources to be priced appropriate to their scarcity and demand. If there's a famine, food prices will go up. If there's a surplus, food prices will go down. If the food can be stored, it will be stored in times of surplus for times of famine. That simple system is nothing new, but there is no incentive for an individual to save surplus for others in famine if they get executed for being a kulak. Capitalism promotes sharing through arbitrage. It is in an individuals best interest to move goods from a place with surplus to another in famine. Market socialism can accomplish that too, but without there being an incentive for participants to exploit inefficiencies, there won't be efficiency. Triglav fucked around with this message at 20:29 on May 28, 2016 |
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May 28, 2016 17:53
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BEAR GRYLLZ posted:You're certainly not the worst poster in this thread making bullshit arguments. Demonstrate it or stop posting.
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May 28, 2016 17:55
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blowfish posted:dehumanise you're self and face to brain death uspol posters drive me close to the brink, reading YCS where fishmech is the voice of reason pushes me over the edge madness takes hold...
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May 28, 2016 19:59
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The issues of capitalism and climate change are only really there because the things that cause climate change (coal et all) run the world. There's very little reason to think that a similarly socialist society wouldn't do basically the same thing (i.e., they would also preserve the status quo because they are the status quo). Like, here's one random example: the coal workers union exists to promote the interests of coal workers. This means, above all else, preserving their jobs and preventing them discomfort. Changing jobs creates a whole lot of discomfort, as does removing jobs. Therefore, it's in the coal workers union's best interest to preserve the institution of coal power.
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May 28, 2016 20:18
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That's why monarchy
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May 28, 2016 20:26
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Triglav posted:Capitalism promotes sharing through arbitrage. It is in an individuals best interest to move goods from a place with surplus to another in famine. Market socialism can accomplish that too, but without there being an incentive for participants to exploit inefficiencies, there will be efficiency. Capitalism is a symptom rather than a disease; one of the biggest issues is that a huge chunk of western culture contains "the person with more wealth is better than you by default." We've created an economic system, a social system, and a political system that encourages getting as much for yourself as possible, at any cost, no matter who you have to gently caress over. This is why we have billionaires saying they can only really be happy if they have twice or even thrice the billions they already have and why the financial sector has been getting up to the fuckery it has been getting up to. Capitalism is also based on scarcity; we're approaching post-scarcity on some things and it's causing problems. Western capitalism, as it exists right now, is loving broken. It's also progressing away from capitalism and more toward oligarchy. The super rich own a thoroughly obscene amount of the wealth and are saying "hey this isn't enough, give us more." What they're advocating isn't capitalism at all; it's oligarchy on the level of the 19th century. They want slavery and indentured servitude back. They want to call in the militia again to force people back to work for starvation wages at the factory. The only thing that matters to western capitalism is stock prices this week, profit this quarter, and the CEO making more money. That's it. The entire system is based on funneling more money into the pockets of a tiny number of people and lol gently caress everybody else. This isn't free market capitalism at all and it's going to be disastrous in many, many ways. We're seeing it in both global warming and social unrest. An absolute gently caress load of people world wide are feeling the crunch in many, many ways and the powder keg is going to explode. If nothing is done poo poo is going to get very, very messy before we know it. You think the Syrian refuge crisis was bad? That's pennies on the dollar compared to some of the problems up and coming.
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May 28, 2016 20:29
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The person with more assets than you is only worth more than you if you and others value their assets as much if not more than they do. I can't speak to specific individuals and their personal mental processes, but capitalism isn't what drives a rich man to be richer. They themselves do that. What are the things we've approached post-scarcity on? Last I checked, this world of ours is a closed ecosystem, the only additional material being provided by meteorite. Stocks are only one asset class. Last quarter's financials are only discussed because stockholders own the company in question. Nobody wants their personal finite resources being squandered. CEOs are responsible for the proper use of those resources and are compensated appropriately, generally in equity themselves if shareholders and board members are intelligent.
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May 28, 2016 20:45
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computer parts posted:The issues of capitalism and climate change are only really there because the things that cause climate change (coal et all) run the world. There's very little reason to think that a similarly socialist society wouldn't do basically the same thing (i.e., they would also preserve the status quo because they are the status quo). That example is flawed since a large part of the reason unions seek to maintain the coal industry is because they understand that without it there is little incentive for a capitalist framework to invest in and provide employment in an area like Southern Wales or Appalachia without that key resource. The Socialist solution might involve deliberately moving industry to the region to maintain employment, regardless of whether or not its necessarily the best place to build a shoe factory or what have you. Inevitably that will get criticized for making 'fake' jobs or whatever but its better than depending on lovely industries like coal. It baffles me that this is up for debate, most of the solutions that are proffered in this thread sound distinctly un-capitalist in nature: large scale government programs to build energy infrastructure like renewables or nuclear regardless of profitability compared to fossil fuels? Heavy regulations that are well enforced to prevent companies from over-exploiting the environment? Hiked up taxes to take into account the effects of Carbon? Voluntary assistance and aid to poorer countries to disincentivize their own over-exploitation of the environment? The capitalist solutions seem to either rely on miracle technology being discovered and utilized under the whims of the free market (there is zero reason this could not happen under a Socialist system too) or companies and the rich voluntarily forgoing short term profits and self gain for the benefit of the rest of society (Bwahahaha). khwarezm fucked around with this message at 21:41 on May 28, 2016 |
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May 28, 2016 21:39
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I think you'll find that actually regulation and subsidies of private actors are both inherently capitalistic policies. As are cap and trade markets and to a lesser degree even carbon taxes rely on profit seeking behavior. Only the people engaging in wishful thinking are proposing non-capitalistic policies.
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May 28, 2016 21:59
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Trabisnikof posted:I think you'll find that actually regulation and subsidies of private actors are both inherently capitalistic policies. As are cap and trade markets and to a lesser degree even carbon taxes rely on profit seeking behavior. Just because they happen to Capitalists in Capitalist countries does not make them inherently Capitalistic policies. Considering that modern neoliberal ideology tends to consider the sanctity of the free market untouched by the deathly touch of government(until they need them to bail them out) to be the most important loving thing in the world I have no idea how anybody expects to move forward on this issue without seriously confronting the nature of Global Capitalism. Also markets still exist under many extremely socialist ideologies.
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May 28, 2016 22:21
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If you're alluding to the financial crisis, that bailout was not about crying to mommy. Many banks and institutions believed mortgage-backed securities issued by government-sponsored enterprises were government bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the United States, i.e. riskless assets. Countless institutions modeled their risk off that assumption. Assets and liabilities don't disappear. When Bear Stearns and its mortgage-backed securities funds went down, its custody-holder had to pick up the slack. The easiest way to bare the balance sheet was to spread it out to others. Institutions were only willing to take on that pain because they believed those assets were backed by government credit. When it became clear that the government would not back those securities, nobody would take them anymore, leaving the ones still holding those assets with toxic balance sheets. Underwriters of mortgage loans were defrauding banks by lying about borrower creditworthiness. They didn't care, because they were going to sell that loan to a city bank, who'd bundle and sell it to a regional bank, who'd bundle and sell it to an investment bank, who'd bundle and sell it to university endowments, pension funds, and local governments who preferred holding riskless assets. Loan bundling is the only way to manage a high-risk pool, since you must assume some percentage of borrowers will never make payment. Thanks to lying loan originators, no-job-no-income "ninja" loans were over-represented in the risk pool. People give investment banks poo poo for selling those bundles, but blame for the financial crisis lies with your local credit union, the ones that didn't have to hold the poo poo they were knowingly selling up the chain. Unfortunately now Dodd–Frank makes it harder for uncreditworthy borrowers to take out loans, so their only options are payday and auto-title lenders, who are arguably worse.
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May 28, 2016 23:13
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khwarezm posted:Just because they happen to Capitalists in Capitalist countries does not make them inherently Capitalistic policies. Considering that modern neoliberal ideology tends to consider the sanctity of the free market untouched by the deathly touch of government(until they need them to bail them out) to be the most important loving thing in the world I have no idea how anybody expects to move forward on this issue without seriously confronting the nature of Global Capitalism. You seem to be confusing some specific consumerist ideology with the concept of capitalism. You're also incredibly disconnected from reality if you think the "sanctity of the free market" rules the world. Very few markets are "free" in the way libertarians wants. Most are regulated to one degree or another.
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May 29, 2016 00:07
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Trabisnikof posted:You seem to be confusing some specific consumerist ideology with the concept of capitalism. quote:You're also incredibly disconnected from reality if you think the "sanctity of the free market" rules the world. Very few markets are "free" in the way libertarians wants. Most are regulated to one degree or another. Are you loving serious? Did the last thirty five pass you by? Yes truly free markets don't actually exist because such a concept is realistically impossible, and because leftists the world over have managed to safeguard various rights for workers, the environment etc, but you're a fool if you don't think that the free market remaining free and unsullied by the interference of government isn't a golden calf that gets trotted out at every opportunity to defend the interests of Capital. Have a look at every argument concerning raising the minimum wage and see how much 'might hurt business' pops up, look at the uproar in France right now as a supposedly socialist government is attempting to batter through legislation that will contract workers rights for the benefit of business. Most of all I would have thought that the denialist movement and the incessant conflict between serious action against climate change and what gets called damaging for business interests would be evidence enough that unfettered Capitalism is a lot of the problem.
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May 29, 2016 01:05
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Actually I think you'll find that regulations, rule, and law are the result of demand forces within a free market.
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May 29, 2016 02:29
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khwarezm posted:That example is flawed since a large part of the reason unions seek to maintain the coal industry is because they understand that without it there is little incentive for a capitalist framework to invest in and provide employment in an area like Southern Wales or Appalachia without that key resource. The Socialist solution might involve deliberately moving industry to the region to maintain employment, regardless of whether or not its necessarily the best place to build a shoe factory or what have you. Inevitably that will get criticized for making 'fake' jobs or whatever but its better than depending on lovely industries like coal. From historical records, the Socialist solution was forcibly moving the people elsewhere. Which is really lovely. And even if you are right, that *still* doesn't disprove the fact that retraining is a grueling process even with a good support system, especially the older your workers are.
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May 29, 2016 02:37
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computer parts posted:From historical records, the Socialist solution was forcibly moving the people elsewhere. Which is really lovely. That's also the capitalist solution
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May 29, 2016 02:48
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Triglav posted:We over-populated and over-consumed. Maybe the best way to save the Earth is to burn it all down and start again from bugs. Future earthlings might even find our mass graves turned into the hydrocarbons we loved.
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May 29, 2016 02:48
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Triglav posted:Actually I think you'll find that regulations, rule, and law are the result of demand forces within a free market. No, its the result of the Free Market poisoning/killing/sickening/abusing people. Gilded. loving. Age.
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May 29, 2016 02:59
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computer parts posted:From historical records, the Socialist solution was forcibly moving the people elsewhere. Which is really lovely. I guess if your historical records begin and end with Stalinism you might think that (also Capitalism does it too, you should look into indentured servitude among Southern Asians in the British Empire and the demographic effects this had in places like Guyana, South Africa and Fiji), look at something like the EU's cohesion fund where they spend significant sums of money attempting to keep people and employment in poorer regions like Southern Italy, sometimes in fairly Byzantine ways. quote:And even if you are right, that *still* doesn't disprove the fact that retraining is a grueling process even with a good support system, especially the older your workers are. And? The point remains, a pure Capitalist system wouldn't have much incentive to do anything for those workers so long as they have nothing to offer, hence why places like West Virginia had to latch onto and defend dangerous polluting industries for so long, the only way out is for retraining and incentives for other industries to set up in the region to come from somewhere and nine times out of ten that will have to be from the government.
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May 29, 2016 03:05
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khwarezm posted:I guess if your historical records begin and end with Stalinism you might think that (also Capitalism does it too, you should look into indentured servitude among Southern Asians in the British Empire and the demographic effects this had in places like Guyana, South Africa and Fiji), look at something like the EU's cohesion fund where they spend significant sums of money attempting to keep people and employment in poorer regions like Southern Italy, sometimes in fairly Byzantine ways. So which historical Socialist systems are you pointing to? And isn't the EU's program proof that Capitalism doesn't do that too?
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May 29, 2016 03:07
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khwarezm posted:And? The point remains, a pure Capitalist system wouldn't have much incentive to do anything for those workers so long as they have nothing to offer, hence why places like West Virginia had to latch onto and defend dangerous polluting industries for so long, the only way out is for retraining and incentives for other industries to set up in the region to come from somewhere and nine times out of ten that will have to be from the government. West Virginia, the Coal Belt, and the Rust Belt are also prime indicators of how badly capital fucks up the political system too. Parts of this region of the world are so heavily economically dependent on coal mining that you have oodles of people who will vote against whoever says "coal is bad" and for whoever says "I'll keep your coal jobs." This is a major, major part of why coal is hard to get rid of.
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May 29, 2016 03:10
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computer parts posted:So which historical Socialist systems are you pointing to? The Social Democratic systems that have had a big impact in Europe in the last two centuries? It might have to make certain concessions to Capitalism (chiefly its continued existence) but its been integral to quality of life here. Its difficult to disentangle that from the EU too, which isn't entirely an institution that exists to enrich the upper class, its just mostly that, especially now. khwarezm fucked around with this message at 03:24 on May 29, 2016 |
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May 29, 2016 03:20
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khwarezm posted:The Social Democratic systems that have had a big impact in Europe in the last two centuries? It might have to make certain concessions to Capitalism (chiefly its continued existence) but its been integral to quality of life here. Its difficult to disentangle that from the EU too, which isn't entirely an institution that exists to enrich the upper class, its just mostly that, especially now. Yeah, Social Democracy is not Socialism. The EU is firmly capitalist.
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May 29, 2016 03:32
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computer parts posted:Yeah, Social Democracy is not Socialism. The EU is firmly capitalist. Hasn't stopped the Tea Party from calling FDR a Commie 
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May 29, 2016 03:40
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computer parts posted:Yeah, Social Democracy is not Socialism. Oh we're doing this particular hair splitting. quote:The EU is firmly capitalist. It may well be, and way too much so in my view, but not all policies are based off of what the captains of industry demand and have to take into account the needs of working people so it can maintain its legitimacy. Likewise the United States is and always has been extremely Capitalist but it didn't stop the New Deal from being a thing despite being very loudly denounced as unamerican and practically Communist by the standards of the country.
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May 29, 2016 04:11
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Is there a point somewhere in all this?
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May 29, 2016 04:12
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CommieGIR posted:No, its the result of the Free Market poisoning/killing/sickening/abusing people. How can you say that? Do you believe people are powerless to demand change?
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May 29, 2016 04:13
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