So China must be a paragon of eco-friendly, right? Right? Like, you wouldn’t place all your bets in a pseudo-imaginary concept that i never able to materialize and when it does it only seems to favor fascist behavior, right? Right? It must also mean that there aren’t capitalist nations the means and innovation for protection of the environment, right? Right? You totally aren’t setting yourself up for a scale you will define completely subjectively to suit your point, right? Right?
China is capitalist now
This wasn’t even true under Dengism, can you seriously look at their percentage of private sector now and say they’re capitalist?
Are they a liberal laissez faire capitalist market? No. However they operate as a capitalist market that is tied to the government. Their special economic zones operate in ways that even places like the US find under regulated. They have people running corporations and making billions in private capital, while investing their capital in shares/futures/etc markets. They are a capitalist country, they are also a dictatorship that ultimately controls everything. These things are not mutually exclusive.
However they operate as a capitalist market that is tied to the government. Their special economic zones operate in ways that even places like the US find under regulated. They have people running corporations and making billions in private capital, while investing their capital in shares/futures/etc markets.
https://redsails.org/china-has-billionaires/
https://youtu.be/M4__IBd_sGE?si=AQOKB0e9RRIuIxhw
also a dictatorship that ultimately controls everything.
http://us.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/zgyw/202112/t20211204_10462468.htm
Ok under the billionaires one it literally says it is mixes private business and capital investment as a venue that makes a strong economy due to pragmatism. They find it pragmatic to be capitalists when they want to make money and increase their capital holdings, because it make the economy better.
Great, ultimately, you get to vote for one party’s offerings, and they get that appointment for life, and control a police/surveillance state. Great democracy there. Recently they have purged a lot of high ranking party members, due to graft, making them a paper tiger, of sorts, in a lot of their most important new weapons developments. Not dictatory at all.
Look, person, I do not think China is the big evil, as portrayed by western media. However they are a highly authoritarian police state, with a single party dominance, the head of which is a life time appointment. They also participate in capitalism, not the open, liberal, laissez faire type, but they have a class of capital owners, investing that capital to increase said capital holdings. They just have big brother standing behind them, hand on their shoulder, watching what they are doing.
I also do not like the capital colonialism of the west. If I had to choose to personally live under one, or the other, I would stay where I am, because I am not the personality type to conform, at least publicly, to the legal framework China practices. China is shittier than the west in some ways, and the west is shittier than China in others. Both are surveillance states, China has proven more proactive in targeting people who publicly diverge from their party line. Where I am I can openly say nearly anything about my government, and I won’t be forced into a camp, and re-educated. We just have other prison industry issues. I am actually intimately aware of, as I used to do data analysis for the “corrections” system.
Basically, there are no “good guys”.
Honestly at this point it seems like you’re not really engaging with the material: your more reasonable concerns are straight up addressed in the material listed.
Where I am I can openly say nearly anything about my government, and I won’t be forced into a camp, and re-educated.
Do you see this as a good thing? I’d rather live in a society that re-educated people who were saying Nazi shit tbh
Yeah, I absolutely believe I should be able to say what I will, about my government, without being fucked by the state. The fact that you can not see why that is a better way to live informs me of you authoritarianism. The reasons you should be curtailed are few and far between. Like I understand that if I say I am going to assassinate a poltico, that should be illegal, and things of this nature. Also, being a nazi is a non-sequitur to my statement. That goes far beyond talking shit about your own government. That requires action.
Yeah, I read them, and the way they are addressed doesn’t sound good to me. I have read more in-depth pieces discussing the same things. Sorry, I am far too against the type of control they exercise. They practice a hierarchy that is even more rigid than where I am from, so that’s not gonna work for me. I am an anti-authoritarian leftist, China does not jive well with me.
Try Eastern Europe then, before the fall of the communist regimes there. The environment got fucked hard by the commies here.
I wasn’t arguing that point. I was saying China’s new economy is a form of capitalism. Everyone can fuck things up. Who is the most vested country int he world in renewable/clean energy sources? China.
So China must be a paragon of eco-friendly, right?
If every country was doing as well as China right now, the world would be a much better place. But the Chinese advantage is largely in its cutting edge industrial capacity. A bit unfair to hold Vietnam or Cuba to the standards of a tech giant.
It must also mean that there aren’t capitalist nations the means and innovation for protection of the environment, right? Right?
Economic central planning that forecasts the consequences of ecological degradation on a 5, 10, and 50 year time horizon will lead administrators to policies that individual businesses fixated on quarterly profits and annual executive compensation packages don’t want to embrace.
Past that, a big part of what the Chinese environmentalist project has been about is experimentation. They’ve done manual reforesting along the Gobi Desert. They’ve done nuclear energy R&D. They’ve done carbon capture projects. They’ve invested enormous sums in their space program.
Most of the western R&D and infrastructure development has been limited by what the O&G industry is willing to directly invest in (carbon capture, converting from coal to nat gas with supplementary wind/solar, carbon credits and other forms of green financialization) all of which are designed to immediately enrich their bottom lines. That’s not even considering the deliberate efforts to maximize fossil fuel usage (the Texas ERCOT grid refusing to buy cheap renewable/nuclear power from outside the state, various states threatening to prohibit/tax electric vehicles and renewable energy power systems).
To conclude capitalist rent seeking isn’t guiding any of these policies is deeply irrational.
So, is China capitalist? Is it communist? Thank you for your totally not subjective reply.
So, is China capitalist?
They seem to be employing a central planning model out of a public sector unconcerned with maximizing personal profits. So… No?
Is it communist?
Not yet. They appear to be exploring Socialism, but with a particular set of Chinese Characteristics. I think they’re even a book on the subject.
Thank you for your totally not subjective reply.
No problem.
China’s economic system is called authoritarian capitalism. It has more billionaires than the United States.
Also, please don’t call China “socialist.” It’s offensive and feeds into the false right-wing narrative that socialism is fascistic.
China’s economic system is called authoritarian capitalism.
Under the colonial model, China exported a great deal of its wealth overseas. Post-WW2, they have domesticated their wealth and accumulated capital/infrastructure for the benefit of the local working population. This transition, from colonial expropriation to domestic social development, is a crucial stepping stone towards the Socialist mode of production.
Also, please don’t call China “socialist.” It’s offensive
eye-roll
So there’s one of two things happening here. Either,
- You’re a shill for the PRC fascist regime, or
- You genuinely don’t realize China isn’t socialist.
The former makes you malignant, the latter moronic. Either way, I’m out.
Americans are the most propagandized people on earth
China’s economic system is called authoritarian capitalism. It has more billionaires than the United States.
Please read China Has Billionaires. Nobody believes China to have achieved full socialization, but it does have strong central planning.
Also, please don’t call China “socialist.” It’s offensive and feeds into the false right-wing narrative that socialism is fascistic.
What is Socialism, and what is Fascism, in your eyes? You don’t appear to be working off of Marxism with respect to Socialism, and you don’t appear to be working off of Ur-Fascism for your point on fascism.
I’m always happy to discuss socialism, anarchism, fascism, or any other topic in political philosophy, which I’ve spent half my life studying, but not with people who link PRC authoritarian propaganda. I’ve blocked you so don’t bother replying.
You’re literally on a Marxist community, I am going to link Marxists. Red Sails is a Marxist site, and Roderic Day is a Marxist. I know you blocked me, but for anyone else wandering in here, please actually be willing to engage with Marxism, without wrecking and crying about it.
You evidently were not willing to discuss Socialism or fascism. This is ridiculous, and you are no useful member of any mass Leftist movement if you can’t be willing to confront your previously held biases for even a milisecond, even if to ultimately argue in favor of them.
Okay, but how much real communities can exist before a capitalist fucking kills them from Terraism and makes them a gorram capitalist?
I don’t even know if I want to argue anymore. Every endangered group needs a sanctuary. It’s like living museum. Curious and fascinating but thankfully with zero power or chance to get it.
Tho commies could clash with the alt right and both disappear while normal ppl live on
I stubbed my toe this morning, damn capitalism!
I’m not wrong, this sub just blames everything on capitalism, supports it all with slogans and cherry picked information, and everyone conveniently ignores how shit communism has worked out for the common folk since it’s inception.
How about this? Anyone who wants to know about communism should first watch “the chekist”, this sub would empty faster than Disney plus.
And yes, capitalism has loads of horrible issue that must (and can) be fixed, but everyone here conveniently ignores the simple fact that it’s the biggest system because it’s beyond by far the most successful system. Denying that is not wanting to look out of your window. Using your cell phone to write about denying that capitalism is successful is… crazy, really. Focus on fixing capititalism instead of dreaming about creating dictatorships, please?
You aren’t allowed to downvote me unless you waaaatch… let’s saaaaay The Land Before Time XIV: Journey of the Brave.
The capitalist system is large because it enriches the greedy and powerful. Why bite the hand that feeds you, even if it starves others. A system’s prevalence is also not any garuntee of goodness or fairness, just sustainability. Capitalism has beenaround for a few hundred years and it’s already falling apart. Monarchies governed almost all humans for thousands of years. So capitalism is worse than the system it replaced by your metric.
We don’t want eastern authoritarian communism, we want western socialism. Take the Nordic model and turn it up to 11. No dictators, but no billionaires, just people still working, just a little less often and getting a little more for it. That’s all. No homeless, no hungry, free university childcare and healthcare, otherwise life is not that different for the already doing okay working class.
Joke all you want, if that makes you feel better about the realities of communism
If you want communism you have to watch “the Chekist”. Not because I tell you to but because it is a telling of the red terror and shows quite well what communism works at its core. You will end up with mass murder because it’s the only way to keep the populace in line because you must take away their freedoms.
If you want your communism then first watch that, then tell me if you still want it. Think it’s western propaganda? It’s written by a guy who lived the shit you want.
You say you don’t want the dictators, but therein lies the problem. If you go for full communism, that is what you’ll need.
I’m all for a strict and limited capitalism with higher taxes the richer you get to 100% tax in income after a certain level. Tax houses heavily when you got more than one.l, that sort of thing. Use all the income for free medical care, free schools, strong safetynets and support for those at the botto, free infrastructure and public transportation.
Edit: here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_RSDqBn0bA shows nicely how communism always ends up. If communism isn’t your thing, great. The problem is that too many people here love it for some reason
Here’s a hot take: Both systems are shit and we need something better to replace both.
I’m not saying I have the solution; just that what we have now isn’t working very well.
That aside:
Democracy ≠ Capitalism, and Communism ≠ Dictatorship.
Those are four seprate terms that are not synonyms for each other. Just because people hate Capitalism does not mean they dream of a Dictatorship… Wanting to work together towards communal goals is not the same as wanting to be ruled by some King/Queen.
I agree that communism is not a dictatorship, but it does require one to get everyone in line.
I think the best way is a very well controlled capitalism with good taxation on the rich class to ensure you have a great and prosper economy and use the money for a great socialistic welfare system on top of that. Basically what the northwest European countries have. Add rules like “richest person should not surpass 10x the poorest person in wealth” or something oversimplified like that.
Yeah, you really don’t know history. Let’s do some basics.
Russia had a famine every 4 years for over a century while the West was industrializing. The rich didn’t care that famines killed entire families because they owned all the output and could keep themselves safe. By the time the revolution hit, the West was far more stable than Russia was and famines were things of the past. Then the revolution came and the owning class was abolished. Rapid industrialization commenced, the fastest industrialization the world had ever seen. Food security followed the mechanization of farms thanks to central planning. But within a couple years capitalists decided that the USSR posed an existential threat - if they inspired more workers’ revolutions, the gravy train would end for them. So fascism began to emerge in the West. Corporations in every country supported the development of fascism in Europe. Fascist rallies were held at Madison Square Garden. And then Hitler came to power after writing a book detailing his vision for invading Russia, enslaving the Slavic peoples, and using the USA’s highly advanced systems of slavery, apartheid, and reservations to do it. And he explicitly stated that it was the workers’ state that needed to go. So he fielded the world’s most advanced military at the time, supported by the combined industrial might of the West. And the USSR, society that was just coming out of their 4-year famine cycle and had just managed to industrialize it’s farms, had to defend itself against this advanced military threat using technology never before seen, using tactics never before seen, and without any industrial allies supporting them. And the USSR did it. They industrialized to produce a war machine that not only defended against 80% of the Nazi forces but allowed them to push out all the way to Berlin and capture Berlin before the “Allies” could even deal with 20% of the Nazi forces. During that time, famine returned to USSR, because they had not been allowed to develop themselves in peacetime. Why? Because capitalism decided they would not allow it and would rather launch a world war than let workers abolish ownership.
But then we have China, a story in many ways far worse than the story I just told. China had not developed industrial technology by the time Europe had, and that head start for Europe factors in greatly here. Capitalists in Europe wanted the wealth of China, but it turns out that they could produce nothing that China wanted - China produced better ceramics, textiles, foodstuffs, and many other trade goods. China only traded mostly in silver, and that meant capitalists needed silver to buy things from China, like tea. The capitalists invaded “the Americas” and found huge deposits of silver, so they inenslaved the indigenous population and forced them to mine silver to feed their trade with China. But after scouring the globe, enslaving millions on every continent, and dominating entire nations, they hit upon something that worked. Opium. The capitalists sold opium to China, and did so well that by some estimates 2/3s of the Chinese population had become addicted. It got so bad that the flow of silver reversed entirely and the European capitalists were suddenly booming because they were drug dealers of the most addictive substances of the era. China decided that this was bad for their country, so they banned opium. So the Europeans bombarded them with their ironclads, destroyed cities, and sacked the capital, forcing the government to reverse the ban on opium at gun point. Not only that, but they also got full immunity from Chinese law in the 5 major port cities, Britain owned Hong Kong, and administration of trade tarrifs was handed over to the Europeans who starved China of tarrifs revenue. This was the century of humiliation. Then WW2 happened. The People’s Liberation Army spent a long time trying to gain control of China and force out the Japanese and ultimately the Europeans. By the time it was all over, the PLA had proven they were ideologically superior by recruiting thousands of enemy soldiers to their side. Some battalions of the PLA had a casualty rate higher than 100% and fought to the end of the war because they were consistently replacing their fallen soldiers with KMT soldiers who saw the truth of the conflict. By the time the PLA won, China was now over 100 years behind Europe in development, their wealth had been extracted by Europe, and they were still experiencing famines literally every 2 years. Chinese people were the poorest in the world. And in 75 years of communist party control, they executed the fastest ever industrialization, they raised so many people out of poverty they account for 80% of all poverty alleviation in the world, their people have a purchasing power parity that now exceeds the richest capitalist country in the world, they produce the greatest quantity of advanced academic research in hi-tech fields, they are brokering peace deals among decades-long enemies that capitalism has stoked for its own benefit, and they are building alternative systems that allow the rest of the world to finally break free of the abusive shackles of the capitalist West. In 75 years.
No. Capitalism is not the best system we have ever seen. We have seen better systems. The fact that communism is a better system was also recognized by capitalism, which is why they are willing to launch devastating wars - they know they can’t win without mass murder, genocide, environmental devastation, and carpet bombing the production of other nations.
is capitalism really democracy?
In the US, hard no.
In other countries, probably.
Can it be better, absolutely
Capitalism isn’t democratic. Democracy is the mode of governance where control rights over an organization are assigned to those governed by or in it. In the capitalist firm, the workers are the ones governed by management, yet control rights lie with the employer
Your definition of a democracy is interesting but also quite made up.
All definitions are made up.
This definition captures the underlying notion.that
consensual democracy = self-governmentHere is A. Chayes making a similar point:
“The shareholders were the electorate, the directors the legislature, enacting general policies and committing them to the officers for execution. Shareholder democracy, so-called, is misconceived because the shareholders are not the governed of the corporation whose consent must be sought.”
Robert Dahl had a similar understanding
All definitions are made up
By you? Because that paragraph you (not you) wrote is not the made up definition of democracy.
And though everything is made up, a definition of anything is something we all agree on, not just you.
No, the financial system a country uses has technically no bearing on the political system.
But are most capitalist countries also democratic? Yes. Are there any democratic communist countries? No.
technically, no. but i dont think its democratic for money to have a disproportionate impact in the system, by definition.
Could you explain further how having money leads to a disproportionate impact? Everyone can still vote.
You could argue that democracy doesn’t exist anywhere due to your high standards but I don’t really agree. There are worse democracies like the USA and better democracies (most others), but saying democracy doesn’t exist at all is odd (because really, are there any countries that can be considered democracies that aren’t capitalistic?)
Pretty much everyone agrees that what a lot of the western world and some others have is democracy. It doesn’t really matter what you specifically believe about that.
moneyed interests choose the candidates you are voting for. it doesnt really matter if they let you choose between the candidates they choose for you.
the US is not the only place where this happens because the US imposes their will everywhere else. its the same shit over here and most of the planet, trust me.
No, I don’t trust you. Provide sources please.
then you are gonna have to look for it. you didnt source any of your claims either.
i tought this was obvious in the communism sub of all places but look into how the washington consensus and draconian IMF rules for the third world are imposed, and you will have a pretty good starting point for your research.
also read up on how marxists understand neocolonialism.
Human caused environmental devastation didn’t start in the 1600s, capitalism did. I don’t think humans are a virus, but I don’t think that abolishing capitalism is the only critical step in preventing environmental catastrophe.
Given that the environmental depredation of this planet is driven by
- the farming of animal products,
- the production and consumption of energy, and
- the extraction and transformation of material resources,
can people explain why they believe that without capitalism everyone would be a vegan who doesn’t take vacations, use air conditioning, fly on airplanes, or drive a car? I also assume they’re wearing hemp and have no interest in fashion.
Keep in mind there are 8 billion people on this planet, so presumably they wouldn’t be having children either.
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We know and can develop superior methods in agriculture, energy production and recycling material resources. The rapid transformation of the economy to make use of these superior methods will require state intervention and economic planning like never before seen in human history.
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It is much easier to limit resource use when a certain segment of the population (the bourgeoise) are not consuming resources at 100s of times the rate of the ordinary person.
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Eliminating advertising will reduce the pressure for overconsumption.
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Given that the environmental depredation of this planet is driven by […] can people explain why they believe that without capitalism
capitalist industry and commerce have been the driving force of the mass extinction of the last 500 years[0][1][2]. climate change didn’t begin until the late 1800s with the rise of tycoons, and accelerated with mass production in the mid-1900s.
can people explain why they believe that without capitalism everyone would be […]
could be, not necessarily would. because a humanistic, socialised means of production would: allow for truly ‘democratic’ control over what is produced; remove nested interests and subsidies to overgrown polluting industries[3]; and make alternatives viable without the need to bend or break to top-down market pressures and monetary policy dictated by dragons.
I also assume they’re wearing hemp and have no interest in fashion.
capitalism has existed for less than 300 years. consumerism has existed for less than 100 years. when you have an economic system which emphasises the independent individual — simultaneously a motivator and a mere cog in the machine — and posits that the mere potential to own things is the source of value: buying wasteful, exotic, unnecessary shit is a way to define yourself and your status. it’s called conspicuous consumption, and it happens from the micro to the macro in the lower and the upper classes, and there’s top-down pressure to do so to keep currency current.
i recommend the documentary The Century of the Self for an overview of the commodification of identity and culture.
Keep in mind there are 8 billion people on this planet, so presumably they wouldn’t be having children either.
we are already producing enough food to sufficiently feed 1.5x the world population[4], and could continue to do so even within planetary boundaries[5].
i didn’t cover everything here, because i recommend:
- the book Less Is More.
- familiarising yourself with the concept of the superstructure; it’s a very helpful analytical tool.
- going back to the last time you were on your malthusian debatebro bullshit and really trying to engage your imagination with much of the same arguments made there.
We don’t produce 1.5 times the food we need, as you said. We produce 1000 times the food we need. Know why? To feed the billions of sentient animals that are tortured to death each year in factory farms. Do you have any idea how sustainable that is? It’s not. So…
You’ve taken a roundabout way to tell me that mass adoption of veganism (literally the only way to save this planet) has nothing to do with our economic system.
We produce 1000 times the food we need.
no, we don’t.
You’ve taken a roundabout way to tell me that mass adoption of veganism […] has nothing to do with our economic system.
no, i didn’t.
(literally the only way to save this planet)
no, it isn’t.
no, it isn’t.
says the person who cannot read, ignores sources, puts words in other people’s mouths, and makes simplistic, baseless, harmful assertions.
To feed the billions of sentient animals that are tortured to death each year in factory farms. Do you have any idea how sustainable that is?
i — a vegan — and the two sources i provided advocate for sustainable plant-based diets, and point to the systemic economic obstacles: agribusiness lobbying; little to no farmer control; subsidised incentives and poor farmers’ dependence on these subsidies; and severe economic and political inequality.
to quote another vegan in this thread who you’ve insulted:
for every animal I don’t eat, a billionaire throws a meat party and goes hunting for exotic animals. Again, why are you blaming me? Even if I ate meat every meal I wouldn’t come close in a year to doing as much damage as a billionaire does in a day. So again, stop telling me about it and go after them.
you’re arguing for a vote-with-your-wallet approach, which ignores conspicuous consumption, ignores the plight of the lower classes, and greatly favours the wealthy elite and the state (who can always outbid you). this is not to say we shoudn’t change (our) individual behaviour, but that it cannot be the sole solution, and that there are systemic changes which would boost mass adoption of sustainable choices.
i once again point you to my book suggestion, the concept of superstructures, and to the responses to your last malthusian tangents.
if you have anything else to say: tell it to a mirror.
you’re arguing for a vote-with-your-wallet approach
You quoted someone else and then accused me of arguing for something I’m absolutely not. Did you reply to the wrong person? For the benefit of anyone who stumbles over this bizarre exchange, my question is super simple:
How will you convince 8 billion people to dramatically lower their standard of living?
Currently we are consuming about 2 earths worth of resources (if everyone lived like Americans it would be 20 earths). Obviously capitalism makes this worse, but the question remains. What then?
Once we abolish capitalism, this will raise standards of living. More people will want cars and air-conditioning and so on. More people will want to eat meat. So what’s the plan?
we are producing 1000 times the food we need
no we are not
You’re technically correct. It’s closer to 100, but my point stands.
They would simply consume less and not be as driven to consume. Capitalism drives up the consumption to ridiculous levels, greed is not actually good. We could focus the economy on needs first and ensure it exists so people can still acquire goods and services in exchange for money so no one is working for nothing. But no more wealth accumulation into the stratosphere. There’s a lot that would need to change
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that’s woefully inadequate. We need 20 earths just to maintain our current standard of living, and keep in mind this number rises as poverty falls.
The only and I mean the only solutions that can support our absurd population is
- veganism
- tech advancements bordering on magic
It’s just math. I wish things were otherwise, I really do. But that’s what we need to save the rainforests and oceans and wild fauna that are still clinging to existence. Everything else is ideology.
We’ve been here 200,000 years, we’ve been farming for the last 12,000 of those. Environmental destruction is, reletively, a very very new phenomenon.
That’s an a-historical point of view. There have been several environmental catastrophes, including some causing massive climactic shifts introduced by prehistoric humans, some of them are documented in 1491, by Charles Mann. Poor farming practices, including some that have been practiced for thousands of years, are a huge factor in desertification. I completely agree that the rate and scale of environmental catastrophe is new, but the risk of it and tendency towards it is not. While I think capitalism is ABSOLUTELY the single greatest barrier to addressing the catastrophe, the scale and speed of that catastrophe could be just as easily tied to population growth as the emergence of capitalism.
Not to mention how all megafauna got extinct wherever modern humans showed up
Both can be true.
Capitalism didn’t create itself… She’s just looking at the root of the problem instead of its effects.
Yeah, I just can’t stop pooping out capitalism. It’s literally a natural thing that I do. /S
They typed into their smartphone.
“how dare u criticize slavery when u eat the food the master gives u sleep in the barracks the master owns and works the masters fields u have no legs to stand on”
It’s a good meme, but in all seriousness, why do you think that without capitalism everyone will stop eating meat, driving cars, taking vacations, and having children? Would we all be hemp-wearing, bicycle-riding vegans if not for capitalism?
Yes to all but the last 2. Reducing meat consumption for a communist society is as simple as allocating less resources to meat production or stopping it altogether. Reducing car use is also simple if you have efficient city designs. For example, the USSR made plenty use of micro-districts (today they would be called “15 minute cities”), which allowed the population to go around using public transport. And the Chinese HSR system allows chinese citizens to travel around the country very efficiently and have vacations and such.
reality is that the disproportionate consumption of the rich far outweighs the consumption of the working people but even putting aside the easy gains of no more private jets and the like, there are things we do and buy that dont even make us happy and are terrible for the planet and often for our bodies like cars. The real question is why people would buy tons of useless garbage they dont want nor need and ultimately dont even use in a society were people arent flooded with propaganda to buy said shit all the time and in a society were ur ability to consume isnt the only measure of a persons worth. And that not even saying anything about repeatability and planned obsolescence.
Why would people buy tons of useless garbage
Meat, cars, houses, fresh water, cell phones. That is the top of that list of ecological depredation. Billionaires for all their evil aren’t the ones eating over 50 billion animals per year. Yeah you read that right. It’s a large number.
reality is that the disproportionate consumption of the rich far outweighs the consumption of the working people
Unless by “rich” you mean “middle class Americans” you’re mathematically wrong by many orders of magnitude.
Now I’m down to kill the billionaires, very eager, but it won’t solve our ecological woes. Not even close.
Communism will fix it, right? Right?
Hopefully something will fix it. Maybe it’ll be communism. It’s just a little ridiculous to believe that humans are hardwired to be capitalists. Especially since we’ve had two major economic systems prior to capitalism.
I’d be open to a bottom-up communist-like path of change. I’ve given it some thought but haven’t come up with anything viable that doesn’t easily succumb to corruption.
What do you mean “bottom-up Communist-like path to change?” What’s wrong with a democratic worker state?
Like a democracy?
What Communist argues against Democracy?
I don’t know, my human body feels like some kind of ailment. Let me ascend into spiritual existence.
I kinda disagree with this. There’s too many of us in India. We are replaceable wage-slaves - since we are “resources” in high supply, our demand is less. And therefore, capitalists have a justification to pay us shit wages, because “it’s the free market”. Maybe if some of us were aborted, we’d have had an assurance to quality life, if not economic growth and technology transfer.
capitalists have a justification to pay us shit wages
That’s still a capitalism problem. 10 people working produces more than 10x the wealth of 1 person’s labor. It’s capitalism that causes the uneven distribution of that greater wealth.
I wanna argue the 10x bit: specialization and organization is a force multiplier in terms of production.
Correct
Jesse what the fuck are you talking about
I don’t know, you tell me…
It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
There is not too many of us in India. India is an urbanizing society, meaning that there is a large amount of migration from rural areas to urban areas, leaving urban areas with a surplus population and driving down urban wages. This is a process that all capitalist countries went through at some point in their lifespans, including England, whose example Marx analyses 200 years ago. Back when its population was on the order of 10 million (it is over 80 million today).
By providing full employment, the communist countries were able to industrialize very rapidly while maintaining decent wages. It is a capitalism problem.
Fail enough, I would say. Job migration in a culturally sensitive place like India has been disastrous, and often at times, the tribal folks are at the receiving end of this - like I see in places like Jharkhand and Odisha. I understand that wage theft and stagnation is very real, as I’ve seen scummy CHWTIA companies practice this proactively - but I was talking with respect to unemployment here. But from what I believe, doesn’t this idea fail against meritocracy and job specialization. Or is my suffering-reductionist view a convenient narrative for proletariat to self-gaslight themselves, and a nice fodder for right-wing eugenics narrative?
The earth has enough resources to give a good quality of life to everyone living on it and more besides. The failure of capitalism to provide well planned urban communities, fair wages or QoL is not reflective of human nature.
That is literally eco-facist rethoric. Stop trying to shift the blame away from capitalism when it’s obviously the problem
I just read a few essays on Marx vs Malthus briefly, and it kinda makes sense why this is an eco-fascist, right-wing and pro-euthanasic rhetoric. Although I’m still not sure on how Marx tried to address stabilizing population in a post-communist world - does he equate better condition to cause population rates to drop? Or that a highly-efficient work-force under communism leads to high-employment rates, scientific advancements and possibly newer ways to sustain a huge population?
Did capitalism destroy this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
The Aral Sea is considered an example of ecosystem collapse.[42] The ecosystems of the Aral Sea and the river deltas feeding into it have been nearly destroyed, largely because of the salinity being dramatically higher than ocean water.[5] The receding sea has left huge plains covered with salt and toxic chemicals from weapons testing, industrial projects, and runoff of pesticides and fertilizer. Because of the shrinking water source and worsening water and soil quality, pesticides were increasingly used from the 1960s to raise cotton yield, which further polluted the water with toxins (e.g. HCH, TCCD, DDT).[43] Industrial pollution also resulted in PCB and heavy-metal contamination
This was the result of this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plan_for_the_Transformation_of_Nature
Exploiting nature and fucking things up is not limited to capitalism.
Anyone unironically writing things like “humans aren’t the problem” better be vegan. Animal consumption is arguably the number one cause of ecological destruction on this planet. Ignoramuses aren’t even willing to give up torturing billions of animals to death per year, or maybe they think burgers only exist under capitalism? Like everyone will give up chicken nuggets to save the planet or something? Good luck with that. People are obdurate and gross.
Getting rid of capitalism is a step in the right direction, sure, but unless folks are willing to give up meat, cars, airplanes, and who knows what other amenities, we are still just as fucked.
The extinction of animals because of human action predates agriculture. This comic is the middle of the bell curve meme.
ITT: The environmental consequences of precapitalistic modes of production confuse lemmies to defend a nonsense statement in a totally different paradigm.
These can exist at the same time. It is not binary.
I have corporations running ads telling me to save the earth and do my part. Mother fuckers, I do my part and your CEO destroys all my work in one day. I’m kinda getting sick of the blame being put on my poor ass who can barely afford to survive.
So, I assume you’re vegan? The ecology of this planet will collapse unless most of humanity stops consuming animal products. That or magic.
I am. And for every animal I don’t eat, a billionaire throws a meat party and goes hunting for exotic animals. Again, why are you blaming me? Even if I ate meat every meal I wouldn’t come close in a year to doing as much damage as a billionaire does in a day. So again, stop telling me about it and go after them.
The number of animals killed annually for human consumption is somewhere north of 50 billion. That’s 50 thousand million.
I want the billionaires dead as much as the next guy, but what you’re saying is not the mathematical reality, and while changing economic systems will lead to justice and fairness, it won’t even begin to solve our ecological problems. It might even worsen them, since our goal would be, presumably, to end poverty and increase standards of living.
Or is that not the plan?
I didn’t create the meat industry as it exists. Corporations did. I don’t eat an animal unless it’s local, sustainable fish. Even the poor people eating meat aren’t to blame. We didn’t create this system
I’m not blaming you. It’s a chicken and egg problem when it comes to any industry. The fact is that people like eating fish and pigs and cows, and we need them to stop. That’s the bottom line.
Is this tankie stuff or normal tankie lemmy stuff
Israel keeps massacring Gazans and yet the carbon emissions of the region aren’t falling. I don’t understand. I was told it was an overpopulation problem. What else could it be?
