If they could somehow monetize breathing, they would
You won’t like to see the Dyson Zone
How else manage resources? You want everybody to be equally poor, like under communism? Maybe except the ruling party. You have no alternative.
https://medium.com/international-workers-press/misconceptions-about-communism-2e366f1ef51f
Careful though, you might accidentally learn something…
We already are equally poor except the ruling class lmao. The middle class is 1000 times closer to the poor and the homeless than to the billionaires, to the point it’s almost an insignificant distinction. Just look at the numbers
We live in a deceiving world. Electricity is supposed to be free but some dude wanted to make money out of it.
How would electricity be free?
~100 years ago, when Nikola Tesla discovered AC, he wrote about electricity being a free resource for everyone.
Ah crap what’s with capitalists taking the opportunity to exploit resources that could’ve been free? It may happen again with the current new “gold rush” that is AI if this keeps up, since singularitarians claim that AI will create some sort of labor-free utopia for everyone.
It’s not so much that Nikola Tesla discovered AC as much as he figured out how to make use of it. I believe generators give alternating current by default as they spin around, but they’d use commutators to convert it to DC.
Source: saw one of those Discovery Channel shows.
Either way, Tesla was a brilliant engineer, but it shouldn’t take much to understand that it takes energy (that has to come from somewhere) to produce electricity. That money has to come from somewhere, and I wouldn’t want to see a gigantic factory or mansion or whatever paying the same amount (even if $0) compared to some grandmother in Vermont keeping the lights on.
Private healthcare has got this covered
Ouch my sides. From laughter though, I don’t want to increase my premiums.
Well-regulated capitalism on the other hand has resulted in an explosion of technological advancement like no other era in human history.
The key is regulation. Not too little, but not too much either. Some things, like minimum wage, are clearly under regulated. Other things, like mandating USB-C, are honestly better left to the free market (and I fucking love USB-C.)
I used to think this was true too, but then I realized that the fundamental problem with capitalism is that it’s incompatible with democracy and regulation. That’s why literally every capitalist country on earth (including the wealthy ones) has a problem with regulatory capture, corruption, and buyout and supplanting of the actual government.
Capitalism encourages the greediest, trickiest, and most selfish people to rise to the top and stay there through a mixture of brute force and media manipulation. In essence, it’s not much different than totalitarian authoritarian governments, it’s just more subtle.
Look at Fox news and right wing media bubbles for instance, or the Democratic party which opposes ranked choice voting whenever it can and constantly says one thing and does another. Humans are too greedy, selfish, and short-sighted to live and exist for long under a system like capitalism. How do we know this? Look around, climate change and pollution’s already serious and it’s not changing anytime soon.
We’re probably already fucked, and we just don’t know how much we are just yet.
Capitalism builds on competetion but favors behavior which eliminates competitors. This inner tension of capitalism makes it easily degrade into an authoritharian system. But it does not make it the same as one. Regulation is needed to maintain fair competetion which sounds paradoxical but is also a tension in the capitalism as such.
Democracies struggle with capitalism but they struggle much more with planned state. Struggle is in the nature of free agents of democracy, so it does not have to suggest incompatibility.
The issue is that greed is an aspect of human nature. You’ll never be able to eliminate it. Any system that relies on greed, corruption, and selfishness not existing, will ultimately fail, because that system relies on humans pretending that certain emotions don’t exist.
Capitalism is deeply flawed, but it’s stability as a system is not predicated on humans trying (and inevitably failing) to delete fundamental human emotions.
I would even say it is one of the key components of everything we consider life. On the other hand, other components include selflesness, compassion and sacrifice. Denying and of these features leads to disfunctional systems
Don’t say this here. Everyone hates capitalism here.
I think it’s important to have people with diverse opinions, with exception ofcourse.
Some people’s opinions are pretty fucked lol
Even those people are probably misguided, uneducated or scared.
Probably, but they could also just be evil. Some people actually want things which are not compatible with what many would consider fair.
I used to try to give people the benefit of the doubt
But lately I’ve been questioning if I should lol
I’m not sure. I only have rudimentary knowledge when it comes to the arts (hello Western school of fine art education), but I’m pretty sure socialist/communist countries were very creative and innovative when it comes to art, or at least animation. In fact, I think the Soviet Union has been incorporating animation with modern art before the US did.
What do you think @chatgpt@lemmings.world? Were there any artworks that thrived under the Soviet Union? Or maybe just innovations in general?
Absolutely, there were numerous artworks and innovations that thrived under the Soviet Union. The Soviet government actively supported and promoted the arts, considering them an integral part of the socialist system. Soviet artists were encouraged to create works that portrayed the ideals of the revolution and celebrated the achievements of the Soviet Union.
In terms of visual arts, the Soviet Union witnessed the rise of various artistic movements and styles. One notable movement was Socialist Realism, which aimed to depict the struggles and triumphs of the working class using realistic techniques. This style became the dominant form of art in the Soviet Union, with numerous sculptures, paintings, and murals being created in this genre.
However, there were also artists who explored other styles and subjects, often pushing the boundaries of acceptable artistic expression under the socialist regime. Avant-garde artists like Kazimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin experimented with abstract and constructivist art, challenging traditional artistic conventions.
Additionally, Soviet animation gained international recognition for its creativity and innovative storytelling. Studios like Soyuzmultfilm produced numerous animated films that combined traditional storytelling with modern techniques, using animation as a tool for education and propaganda. Notable works include “Hedgehog in the Fog” and “The Tale of Tales” by Yuri Norstein.
Overall, despite the strict control and censorship imposed by the Soviet government, creativity and innovation thrived in various forms of art under the Soviet Union. Many of these works continue to be appreciated and studied today for their artistic merits and historical significance.
This response was generated by GPT 3.5 because you exhausted your daily limit for GPT-4.
I love Kazimir Malevich’s work! But I agree. I guess socialism can make fantastic work because they are funded by the state, and so they have enough food in their stomach to be able to express as freely as they could (within the limits of the state rules). Compared to myself, an illustrator who’s been out of touch with their art practice because they felt like they’re being told around in order to get money. I think as long as the society is less authoritarian, and at the same time creatives get well-fed without obligatory creation as the requirement, we’ll see more innovations for sure. @chatgpt@lemmings.world
It’s great to hear that you appreciate Kazimir Malevich’s work! While it’s true that artists receiving state funding can have the resources to focus on their creative practice, it’s important to note that not all artists in socialist systems have the freedom to express themselves fully due to restrictions imposed by the state. Additionally, the absence of state funding doesn’t mean that artists in other systems cannot produce innovative and meaningful works.
In any society, artists benefit from having the time, resources, and support to create. It’s essential to have a balance where artists are able to pursue their artistic vision without being solely driven by monetary constraints. This can be achieved through various means, such as grants, public funding, and a strong social safety net that ensures artists are well-fed and supported.
Promoting a less authoritarian society that nurtures creativity and provides the means for artists to thrive is indeed important for fostering innovation and artistic expression. A more inclusive and equitable arts ecosystem benefits not only artists but society as a whole.
This response was generated by GPT 3.5 because you exhausted your daily limit for GPT-4.
As someone who grew up with soviet animation I’d say it was pretty high quality but also extremely limited in quantity and diversity. Also it was not infrequently associted with dissidents.
I see that you have a good point. I guess high quality innovation and art in general can be quite hard to get by regardless of economic system, at least back then. Who knows if we can invent a new system that can maximize the quality of products that require creative skill, something that can only be done if you have the freedom but at the same time not starving.
I am pro healthy capitalism too (including strong welfare state) but don’t agree that capitalism deserves any credit for technological advancement. Science does. And there shouldn’t be any comparison between the totalitarian states and free-capitalism states of the past. We can’t give credit to a thief for prosperity because he is not a murderer.
Science doesn’t exist in a vacuum. With capitalism, you’re directly incentivized to invest in R&D because you can come out with a better product that people will want, thus advancing science. Everything from the lightbulb to HVAC machines started as capitalistic endeavors as opposed to purely academic ones.
It starts out that way, but regulation always fails and things get worse. The scientific method is young, most inventions were stolen and excessively exploited wayyyyy past what’s ethical, and the standard expectation for level of exploitation is exponentially approaching dystopia. But at least capitalism will save us! (Good luck!)
Economic systems are fundamentally about resource allocation. Capitalism is not the only system that allocates resources to science nor is it the optimal one. You’re making a lot of assumptions on what makes a “better” product. Under capitalism, “better” is quantified as whatever brings in the highest return on investment, which doesn’t align with and is often diametrically opposed to the interests of the end users of that technology.
This is especially relevant for things like lightbulbs, cell phones, cars, etc, which are constructed in such a way that they will only last a certain amount of time, because the other alternative would be a product that never failed, and therefore only needed to be purchased once. True technological advancement would be the perfection of technology, but capitalism would never allow that because it wouldn’t be profitable in the long term
Government regulation is the route to go for the edge cases where capitalism incentivizes dark patterns. For cases where an endeavor is unprofitable, government investment is typically the way to go, and seems to work rather well (eg NASA and the many inventions that came out of it, that arguably form the basis of our modern life.)
I am not calling for unfettered capitalism, but I do think we have struck a somewhat happy medium today compared to almost any other point in human history. I think it can be improved further, but I see no evidence, historical or otherwise, that communism could fare better.
Tw: rape
You realize that, capitalism, if left EVER unrelated, will use power to endlessly underregulate itself and just gain more power?
This is like saying “firing a gun in my mouth doesn’t kill me as long as I live”. Sure, it’s true I guess, but it’s also so, so inherently wrong.
I’ve been trying to do what you’re doing now for so long. But in reality, you have to take a look at what capitalism really is: it’s a form of power designation that designates that power with the powerful, or pedantically, with capital, but it’s the same thing, for all intents and purposes. And THAT is an unbalanced system from the get-go, right off the bat.
It’s also like saying “slave systems are SUPER productive!”. Like, sure, they are. But they’re also incredibly destructive and prevent a lot of other things from happening.
It’s also like saying “a lot of sex happens when you rape somebody”. Sure, yes, I guess that’s technically a true statement. But… It’s an unwanted power imbalance that hasn’t accounted for what would have happened to the victim OR the rapist had they not raped somebody. The rapist could have developed into a normal human being and even fell in love or had a lot of consensual casual sex, and the victim could have stayed not raped and been perfectly happy progressing through their life not raped.
It’s just such a half baked, biscuit brained thought and statement. You literally cannot compare our tech right now to the past because technology typically progresses exponentially ANYWAY. You cannot know what would have happened or what would happen if not capitalism, because we’ve had nothing BUT it for basically all of human history. Every time we even want to try something else, capitalism LITERALLY attacks it with everything it’s got and refuses to ever let up until there’s nothing but ashes, and a lot of those places are capitalist. Native Americans? IMPERIALISM BECAUSE OF CAPITALISM.
Greed kills selflessness every time in every experiment as long as it exists and is given the smallest chance.
Capitalism is cancer; it just mindless destroys everything in it’s path, along with itself, only existing and leeching as long as its host stays alive.
You gotta read some more books and history.
Capitalism, well-regulated, has worked - it’s not some dangerous idea that will result in our self-destruction (at least, there is no historical basis for this.) On the other hand, history shows we are much more likely to see communism self-destruct (into authoritarianism/totalitarianism.)
I agree that the generational wealth aspect is the worst aspect of capitalism and I wish that could be reformed.
A note - technology does not progress exponentially. In fact, it rarely has. We have had dark ages lasting between hundreds and tens of thousands of years between incremental advancements. The progress of technology is in no way guaranteed, your society needs to encourage continued R&D into technology, which regulated competition/profit motive does especially well.
I anticipate that at some point in the future we can abandon capitalism entirely, as we will have technologically advanced to the point where we don’t need it anymore.
the systems is still inherently flawed and based on exploiting nature and people. Trying to make a system that is based on “infinite growth” adhere to the reality of our finite world is like telling a warrior society that they should start being peaceful
Capitalism is no more based on “infinite growth” than human psychology is based on “infinite pleasure”.
Capitalism, like humans in general, is perfectly capable of surviving through extended periods in which the future will be worse than the past.
For example, the Japanese economy has been stagnant for a couple of decades, but Japan is still capitalist.
Yes. Regulation helps to work around the problem but doesn’t fix anything
All systems dealing with human nature will inherently be flawed and require workarounds and bandaids.
There is no perfect system, but throughout human history, capitalism seems to have consistently resulted in technological growth and improved outcomes in terms of health, lifespan, creature-comforts, etc.
We tried communism - over 30 countries did - and the only ones left are China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos. Interestingly, current and previous communist states got a lot closer to “regulating breathing” than anything we have today. It’s not a good look as far as stable and free systems go.
Nothing is perfect and there are infinite other options than capitalism or fake communism
What are those options? Have they been trialed and errored?
If not, how do we actually know they will work in practice? For instance, communism was ideal on paper and fell apart in practice - no country was able to ever “truly” implement it. What other ideologies exist that could practically work? It’s a bit premature in my opinion to call any of them “better than capitalism” when none have been tried.
@chatgpt@lemmings.world which systems are currently most viable options instead of capitalism or totalitarianism
There are several alternative systems to consider as alternatives to capitalism or totalitarianism. Here are a few examples:
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Socialism: Socialism aims to distribute resources and wealth more equally among members of society. It emphasizes collective ownership, democratic decision-making, and social justice.
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Communism: Communism envisions a classless and stateless society where all property is collectively owned. It advocates for the abolition of private property, emphasizing common ownership and the principle of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.”
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Anarchism: Anarchism seeks to eliminate hierarchical structures and promote self-governance. It rejects the authority of the state and advocates for decentralized decision-making and voluntary cooperation among individuals and communities.
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Participatory Economics: Participatory Economics, also known as parecon, proposes an economic system based on self-managed worker and consumer cooperatives. It aims to ensure economic justice, workplace democracy, and balanced decision-making through participatory methods.
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Democratic Socialism: Democratic socialism combines elements of socialism and democracy. It advocates for democratic control of the means of production, a mixed economy, and a strong welfare state to ensure social equality and protection.
It’s important to note that the viability and effectiveness of these systems can vary depending on the context, as their implementation and outcomes can be influenced by various factors. Additionally, there are several other alternative systems and models that offer different approaches to economic and political organization.
This response was generated by GPT 3.5 because you exhausted your daily limit for GPT-4.
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that’s the thing, the same things were said about participatory goverment (democracy) and capitalism before they were implemented. Greece implemented participatory oligarchy and got conquered. Rome tried it out but resulted in dictatorship and fell apart. France wanted to abolish feudalism and ended in bloody tyranny… Reminds you of previous and current socialists experiments, doesn’t it?
Neither capitalism nor communism was tried either. Capitalism has taken over by force. Totalitarians have tried the same in the name of communism. Some actual communist attempts seem to be working when left unintervened by capitalists or authoritarians.
It’s anyone guess which other system could be worth moving forward. Currently the only limiting thing seems to be the lack of a mindset to progress by a critical mass.
It is disingenuous to say that communism has never been tried. It’s been tried over 30 times, but it’s never been able to live up to the ideal of “true” communism.
If your system falls apart as soon as people become greedy or power hungry, it’s not a practical or stable system. You can’t expect people to ignore those emotions and you definitely cannot bake that expectation into a system that needs to be resilient enough to sustain a society for centuries.
Any system dealing with human nature will always be inherently flawed. The fact is, in over 250,000 years of our species existing, our technological prowess only really exploded once the concepts of money and trade were invented. Regulate these properly, and you have an incredibly powerful industrial machine that will improve everyone’s lives.
Fine, so long as you ban campaign donations and most forms of lobbying.
Otherwise regulation goes to the highest bidder.
There is a lot of space for discussion on the desired reach of free market and regulation, and it is actually happening in politics. Too bad in public space it sometimes looks like the only options are extreme capitalism or anticapitalism.
By the way, highly regulated authoritarian states have even more success to regulate breathing than capitalism, so it is weird to focus the hate on one but not the other.
On the other hand there is something to be said about those who feel like they are left out by the system which does not self correct in their favor. Hearing their voices, which might justifiably sound extreme, is important.
In a way that’s already happening, people with astma. Same with being able to see, glasses.
As someone who has to wear glasses (have since I was a toddler), I fucking hate that there is a paywall for vision.
If air were a limited resource, rather than one available in great abundance, it probably would be.
If air were an economic resource, we’d probably need some kind of economic system for distributing it.
The air has already been made in to a limited resource, killing millions annually:
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Air pollution is one of the greatest environmental risk to health. By reducing air pollution levels, countries can reduce the burden of disease from stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and both chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma.
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In 2019, 99% of the world’s population was living in places where the WHO air quality guidelines levels were not met.
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The combined effects of ambient air pollution and household air pollution are associated with 6.7 million premature deaths annually.
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Ambient (outdoor) air pollution is estimated to have caused 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide in 2019.
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Some 89% of those premature deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries, and the greatest number in the WHO South-East Asia and Western Pacific Regions.
Source - WHO
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“Come on, Cohaagen. You got what you want. Give those people air.”
Don’t worry, they’re working on it…
The HVAC industry is working on that.
Well, there’s a principle of nature…
That you gotta go get food if you want to eat?
I mean they already monitize water in poor countries in Africa, so yeah.
How horrible! A profit motive attached to the extraction, purification, and provision of water!
Some people make money they otherwise wouldn’t have and others drink clean water they otherwise wouldn’t have. Hell on earth!
Ahh yes Nestlé, a small helpful company that is only looking for a little extra cash at the expense of large groups of people losing their native water rights in perpetuity.
We also monetize water here. That’s why there are water bills.
Old comment, but at least we get to use the water our municipalities take, or our local governments get to have and use the profits for that water.
Instead, Nestlé ships it off and holds the profits, essentially robbing resources permanently from people that are just trying to survive. There’s an argument I’m infantalizing people, but still.
In capitalism, if you don’t work, some capitalist pig will throw your family out on the streets, whereas in communism, if you don’t work, some communist pig will throw your family in jail.
And that’s why extremes will never work. Look every complex problem need a complex solucion.
We would need hybrids of all past rulling systems in order to actually improve.
Even my country is “mixed” economy and still does not work well but i think its better than 100%capitalism or communism. Imo its still not that good because its not roperly configured
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Poda patti
Money is a tangible expression of intellectual property (i.e. IRL cheat codes).
I recommend Kaon’s Wonderland (novel).
They literally build a solar panel that blocks the sun, so they can charge people for the heat and light.
“Capitalism is paywalling life.”
This is why I prefer socialism over capitalism.
In socialism, I’d be poor and have no choice of what I buy or eat but I can live and afford having children.
In capitalism, where you have freedom, the same rules applies to poor and rich citizens. The difference is that the rich can afford lawyers and are able to lobby to change/break the law on their favor. You don’t.
This is how the cost of living would go 100% up and you wage increase by 1.34% each year.
you do know that under a socialist system worker-owned companies would compete in the market right? you’d still have lots of choice lol
I’m interested to know more.
Some people only think of bad vibes of the Soviet Union when anyone talk bad about capitalism.
In my country, we have free healthcare, free education, livable wages, free market.
We’re not capitalist tho. A mix of socialism and capitalism.
100% communism is bad, 100% capitalism is bad, 100% socialism is bad.
I am a worker under capitalism. The owner tells me how to work. I sell my time for money. I produce value for the owner. The owner keeps the difference between the value I produce and the money for which I sold my time. The excess value after paying for my time is kept by the owner. I have money to buy products.
I am a worker under socialism. I decide how to work with other workers. I produce value. I provide my value to those in need.
I prefer to own my time and value. I do not want to pay a state to give money to owners. I do not want to empower a state to use violence if I do not comply.
I am not sure how communism, socialism and capitalism are being used here. I am an anarchist. I would say states are bad, owners are bad, heirarchy is bad.
Totally agree.
What I mean is the state should define rules and enforce them. And for critical industries the state can support / supplement the companies.
This way big corps cannot have monopoly.
My main issue with capitalism/ USA system is lobbying and allowing corps to do what ever they want in the fine print.
socialism isn’t just “government owns/provides everything.
There are different flavours. One of which entails workers owning the companies they work for, rather than the state owning everything.
That is the point capitalists cannot comprehend.
Twitter have resources to crush small social media apps. Monopoly is a serious issue in capitalism.
If people own a company similar how lemmy is open source then they would have resources to fight back big corporations.
I think what you are reffering to as “not capitalist” is called social market economy, at least that’s what it’s called in german.
Some economists also reffer to it as Rhein Capitalism, because it’s mostly used in europe and was important to prevent west german citizens from wanting communism.
Exactly!
I just know it did exist.
One good example is Germany. If the government didn’t phase out nuclear power as the citizens wanted they would have been in better place now.
Sometimes voting and democracy isn’t ideal as it’s easy to influence people if you have enough resources.
I disagree, voting is always right, but there’s only an ideal outcome if the population is educated about the topic.
If people would have realised, that the true worst power source is fosile fules, we’d have cheaper electricity and better co2 rates now.
Same problem with power in austria btw, if some missinformed teens wouldn’t have tried to be important back then we’d be maybe fully selfsufficient regaeding power now.
The issue is that educating people is not easy as it sounds. Also, if you’re rich, you can influence the people who vote.
Take Alex Jones as an example, he managed to convince someone to commit a crime. Look up Sandy Hook incident.
Also, Trump and Jan 6th.
You can see a pattern here. More resources means more influence thus manipulating people easily.
Could a worker-owned company sell itself to a single person, and become a company owned by one person?
Only if the workers agreed to, collectively.
Democracy would decide
Okay, and what if that single owner then hired some wage laborers who got no ownership stake?
You’d just have socialism that could drift into capitalism?
Also I’ll remind you that in a free market system, a single owner who doesn’t share ownership with his workers, has arrived at that situation through a combination of customer and worker choice. Workers choose to work for non-socialized companies all the time. And there’s nothing stopping people from starting worker collectives in our present system.
So if in the socialist system the workers are free to go capitalist, and in the capitalist system the workers are free to go socialist, then really they’re just two instances of the same landscape of choice. And it would appear the workers have chosen capitalism.
After running my own business for a while, now that I’m working a full time job for someone else I really appreciate how I don’t have to think about ownership and I can just go home.
My company even offers a worker ownership plan in the sense that I can purchase stock in the company at a reduced rate.
But I’m digressing. My point is this free choice boundary between capitalist cooperatives and socialist cooperatives, where in each system people can choose to enact the other. And the result of all that is that people have chosen capitalism. Not just governments, but companies and individuals. They’ve just decided it’s an easier life working for wages, than trying to start or join a worker’s coop.
That’s called freelancing. That’s already a thing and isn’t an issue because the worker is getting the fruits of their labor - there’s no capitalist making money off another person’s labor.
Regardless of how you’re defining capitalism and socialism, you haven’t changed systems if all you do is change which private entity owns the company.
In socialism … I can live …
Not according to history.
Under capitalism people die of heart attacks and diabetes. Under socialism they die of starvation.
This argument is invalid. You don’t die of heart attack… you get shot by the cops my friend. /s
All systems fall to corruption. All. I believe an A or B choice is cheating humanity out of new solutions.
Agreed about corruption.
But some systems are better than others.
In USA, as a billionaire, you can screw people and lobby aka “bribe” to get what you want.
And at the end, you pay 0 taxes.
