I never said unregulated capitalism. If youre going to change my point in your first sentence to "clown" me then we're waisting our time here.
Praise Jesus
I've slowly come around to believing in "maximum wealth"
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I never said unregulated capitalism. If youre going to change my point in your first sentence to "clown" me then we're waisting our time here.
Praise Jesus
AlainLocke
Banned
It isn't in our nature to want more. The desire to want more is created in us to create more workers and more capitalists. Even the products we buy is crafted with marketing campaigns to incentive consumption. We are social cooperative species driven by the survival and the best way we have survived is by sharing. Capitalism and consumerism is a relatively new invention that has dominated our species. In fact, you could consider it our mid-life crisis.
For thousands of years, we been sharing resources and helping each other do things and then somebody invented the idea of private property. Then somebody invented the idea of royalty and then nation-states and then industrialization and races and until we reached this point with massive sprawling corporations that tracks our every move and sends us shyt to buy through targeted ads.
If you can't have a nice house, a nice living, free time working at McDonald's of course you gonna try to find the biggest job you can get. That's common sense. But with the more money you get, the more status you attain and us social creatures like status. So now it isn't just about survival, it's about hierarchy. The things you consume puts you in different social classes. Only a certain kind of people wear a certain clothing brand, only a certain kind of people shop at a certain grocery store, only a certain kind of people eat at a certain restaurant. You wanna be the kind of person that goes where the financially successful people go. Paying 200 dollars for a steak, it is really better than a $30 steak? Is that $100 shirt really more comfortable than a $20 shirt? Do you really think those $300 pair of shoes look better than the $80 pair of shoes you used to buy? What are you actually paying for? You are paying for status.
But what if you can have a nice house, nice living and free time without making six figures? What if you all you had to do is go to high school? What if you could work 6 hours for 4 days and have everything you wanted? Not that bullshyt you see on Instagram or in TV shows like Billions or in 90s Bling Bling Era music videos. What if all you wanted to do is be a painter and you really enjoyed art, now you got are secure and stable life with all this time to paint. You think you will be consumed with the idea of being wealthy? Do you think you would care about what people are buying or what they have? You think we would tolerate some ultra greedy person that wants to buy a yacht the size of the football field?
Most people who don't have a billion dollars, want a billion dollars so they can be secure and take care of all their financial needs. Most people who have a billion dollars want more money because money gives them status. It's not enough to have 1 billion, they need 10 billion next year because 1 billion is too close to being a millionaire and instead of being the 295th richest person in the world, they get to be the 126th next year.
I was born into this society, if I have to be here, I want the best I can get, in everything that matters to me. Yes, I want status, yes I want exclusivity, yes I can say that Michelin star is better than Applebees, but I also am not greedy or selfish, I cannot make meaningful change on my own, but I try to do what I can in my everyday life. I would do more with more money, not just for family and friends.
I write, I want to write for a living, if I could make 150-250 a year, just to write about things that are important to me, would I still want more? Probably. It is a sickness of sorts, I do agree. How can you stop when you see people with so much?
I 100% agree, people with hundreds of millions, it's just sick. But, where do you draw the line? Tax at the highest rate, demand people give back over a certain income, give a UBI, give every benefit to people possible. I am for all of it. Don't think I am some right wing free market maniac. I am not, but I am a product of a capitalistic society.
I write, I want to write for a living, if I could make 150-250 a year, just to write about things that are important to me, would I still want more? Probably. It is a sickness of sorts, I do agree. How can you stop when you see people with so much?
I 100% agree, people with hundreds of millions, it's just sick. But, where do you draw the line? Tax at the highest rate, demand people give back over a certain income, give a UBI, give every benefit to people possible. I am for all of it. Don't think I am some right wing free market maniac. I am not, but I am a product of a capitalistic society.
brick james
John piffington
It is just as easy to say that for as long as humans have been sharing resources and helping each other, humans have also been at war with each other over resources.. Pre-private property society, still had the concepts of personal property, a heirarchy, and material goods linked to a social status (think things that show off hunting skills, horses that they tamed).
If it isn't in our nature to want more how would you explain the current state of the world? People who embraced agriculture, livestock and the concept of private property were able to organize a more advanced, populous society and make faster technological progress. They then used the advantages they had to conquer people who didn't adopt those changes.
AlainLocke
Banned
Human beings are adaptable that's our nature, we change and adapt to survive, I am not appealing to nature, I am saying to horde wealth to point of destroying the world due to crippling inequality and destruction of our eco-system is insane. The worship of people that have more wealth than 80 percent of the human population is insane. It make no sense. The people that appeal to human nature and talking about some dead old White guys that were in the slave trade and writing a justification for getting rid of royalty. All of us in the West have been fed pro capiitalist enlightenment philosophy since we were born. You take a business or an economics or a history class, they'll tell you this shyt is natural nd rational behavior. (And just because something is "natural" doesn't mean it is good.)
This is a tiny blip in history. Like take human history, and we can be generous and say capitalism started in the 16th century, meaning capitalist started between 1500-1600. IThat's not a lot of time. To say that this state of the world we live in is natural to us, is to say we are suicidal self-destructive psychopaths. There is nothing good about this behavior, we are destroying the world and each other, just so about a couple thousand people and 10 countries can have everything and everybody else can have nothing and live at their mercy.
We are more wealthy yet more unequal than our human ancestors, that makes no sense. The Enlightenment talked about equality and fraternity and this is what we have. Think about how much power the average person in the world has now, compared to back then.
With the Highest Inequality in Human History, Societies Are Ripe for Social Change - Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
The USA is more unequal than most pre-capitalistic societies according to the Gini-Coefficient, the closer it is to one, the more unequal the society is.
The Archaeology of Wealth Inequality | History | Smithsonian
Human beings have a concept of personal property, status and personal property, but no cave man issued a stock and sat on his ass while everybody does the work and he reaps the benefits. No caveman had a multinational corporation had a multinational marketing campaign to buy all his goods. Material goods are fine, but nobody in cave man days thought it worth it to make himself giant rock castles all over the world, when he can only live in one at a time.
We are talking about extreme psychopathic impractical accumulation of wealth. This is not "normal". This is not "wanting more" this is anti-social behavior. This is hell.
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Socialism and communism have not been immune from corruption either.
Having no real elections was one of the reasons for Communism's downfall. No leader should get a carte blanche to do what he wants or supress opposition. If you immune to the danger of losing power through elections you can easily become corrupt.
I would Account the raise in living Standards to the spread of democracy instead to the raise of capitalism. A lot of africans dictatorships were capitalistic and the the living standard for the poor was the worst. A lot of that changed when dictators were overthrown and the profits of capitalism were distributed a bit fairer since democracy was installed. If these new democracies evolved and cut down corruption the profits of capitalism will benefit the poor. But the sole adaption of capitalism is not the solution to raise living standards.
GPBear
The Tape Crusader
I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
"bu bu bu... freer the market, the freer the people
"
"bu bu bu... freer the market, the freer the people
"
GPBear
The Tape Crusader
Everything you mentioned had very little to do with capitalism, and most of them were the results of decades of progressive socialist workers movements fighting for better conditions, meanwhile the capitalists would deny them their rights. Correlation is not equal to causation. And it wasn't a "widespread adoption of capitalism" in many cases, it was colonially enforced. Yes, medical practices became better over time, but that had nothing to do with Henry Ford. Children were still being sent to work in coal mines. I can link you to countless court cases where workers were exposed to terrible conditions, that their capitalist employers KNEW were medically harmful, yet they continued to put them to work to make a profit. Radium Girls - Wikipedia "The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint. Painting was done by women at three different sites in the United States," or the Triangle Shirt Fire, where people worked in dangerous conditions and died because of their exploitative bosses.
And you conveniently fail to mention all the undeniably detrimental byproducts of capitalism. The rise in global pollution and climate change due to the industrial revolution, and petroleum capitalism run amok (see: There Will Be Blood). Exploitation of third world laborers. Countless other devastatingly negative impacts that globalist corporations on the world at large. Massive inequalities in wealth, and how that impacts democratic governments because oligarchs buy out candidates, and campaigns run in the billions - so politicians are forced to sell out to the capitalist sector just to fund a decent campaign.
In short, all the beneficial outcomes of capitalism you listed are arguably the result of capitalism, and you failed to mention all the negative aspects of capitalism that are impossible to deny.
GPBear
The Tape Crusader
No, we have Trump because of the mega-banks you work for, a$$hole.
Not just his election, but the man himself. He was repeatedly given massive loans by massive multi-nationals, which allowed him to fund his entire bullshyt empire, which was the foundation for his campaign in the first place, that of some "self-made businessman" when really he was just a stooge propped up by other rich people and banks with invested interest in supporting a reaganite, white supremacist, neo-fascist.
You really have to be a massive douchebag to work for a megabank and yet try to blame progressive socialists for Donald Trump.
Progressive Liberalism is still capitalism, my friend. And I acknowledged the bad, my point was that you can't ignore all the good because of the bad. The point of Progressivism is to keep Capitalism but identify where it fails and correct it through government regulation. That's not socialism. Your whole post is a waist of time.
Everything you mentioned had very little to do with capitalism, and most of them were the results of decades of progressive socialist workers movements fighting for better conditions, meanwhile the capitalists would deny them their rights. Correlation is not equal to causation. And it wasn't a "widespread adoption of capitalism" in many cases, it was colonially enforced. Yes, medical practices became better over time, but that had nothing to do with Henry Ford. Children were still being sent to work in coal mines. I can link you to countless court cases where workers were exposed to terrible conditions, that their capitalist employers KNEW were medically harmful, yet they continued to put them to work to make a profit. Radium Girls - Wikipedia "The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint. Painting was done by women at three different sites in the United States," or the Triangle Shirt Fire, where people worked in dangerous conditions and died because of their exploitative bosses.
And you conveniently fail to mention all the undeniably detrimental byproducts of capitalism. The rise in global pollution and climate change due to the industrial revolution, and petroleum capitalism run amok (see: There Will Be Blood). Exploitation of third world laborers. Countless other devastatingly negative impacts that globalist corporations on the world at large. Massive inequalities in wealth, and how that impacts democratic governments because oligarchs buy out candidates, and campaigns run in the billions - so politicians are forced to sell out to the capitalist sector just to fund a decent campaign.
In short, all the beneficial outcomes of capitalism you listed are arguably the result of capitalism, and you failed to mention all the negative aspects of capitalism that are impossible to deny.
Maybe try reading some instead of citing a goddamn Hollywood movie to make your case.
Merica.
So you don't think Democracy and capitalism go hand in hand? You don't think that people, by and large, will always votes for their own personal interests above everything else?
I'm not busting balls but Democracy isnt even an economic system. I'm honestly curious what economic system all you anti-capitalists would recommend?
GPBear
The Tape Crusader
I was just mentioning it as a brief example, go read Oil! by Upton Sinclair, if you want an in-depth investigation into the evils of early American capitalism.
Also, you’re trying to be a pretentious prick, but it’s hard to buy your schtick when you say dumb shyt like “waist of time”
Again, you’re just attributing these things to capitalism because capitalism was concurrent with those events. Correlation doesn’t equal causation.
You have to be completely historically ignorant to try and attribute the products of social welfare programs to capitalism. That’s some high level bullshyt.
“Thanks to capitalists, we have things like general education and healthcare
” is so historically backwards. Yeah florence nightingale was a regular ol’ lasseiz faire objectivist. thats not the ONLY problem with capitalism at all. its inherently unfair and inherently has a master/slave type relationship which is what needs to be abolishedBecause the problem is corruption