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A decent future for humanity is not compatible with a profit-driven world. The solution is to end the profit driven world in a way that will lead to a better fu

A decent future for humanity is not compatible with a profit-driven world. The solution is to end the profit driven world in a way that will lead to a better future, because like it or not, the profit driven world IS ending.

askafriend 11y ago
What makes you say that the profit driven world is ending?
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I'd say it's collapsing on itself. It's trying to optimize people out of the loop, but is not yet able to sustain itself without humans. Nor will the humans lay down and die without giving a fight.
  - adventured 11y ago
    Capitalism optimizes people into the loop in fact. It pulls more people into higher standards of living, and produces more jobs for people. We have four billion more people than 50 years ago, and more people have jobs today globally than at any other time in history, and less people are in poverty, and there's more food available for everyone, and famines are almost non-existent, and the infant mortality rate has been drastically reduced, and the global life expectancy keeps rising, and a hundred other things that prove you wrong.
    - beatpanda 11y ago
      "More people have jobs" is a completely meaningless sentence. There is an amount of work that all humans have to do to ensure the survival of themselves and all other humans. If we were doing it right, we would all he doing less work, not more, and we would have some kind of equality of access to the total product of society. Instead, and increasingly, the people doing the hardest work are disconnected from access to the product of their labor or the chance at ever getting access to it.
      - tracker1 11y ago
        As long as anyone has greed and/or desire, your idealistic scenario cannot work.
- zobzu 11y ago
  Fuck this kind of answer. Perfect capitalism ends up with a perfect world. Perfect socialism too. Or communism. It's the way we corrupt each of them which is the problem, corrupted by people who want power. There's no way we have found of solving that yet. None. So far, that we're still alive seems to be pure luck, and that we make it out alive or not, seems to also be pure luck or bad luck. We certainly ain't helping ourselves all that much.
- matt4077 11y ago
  The internet deals mostly in intellectual property, where socialism is actually working quite well. Github is essentially a communist marketplace: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"
necessity 11y ago
Yeah, socialism has worked so well throughout history and capitalism so bad.
- Eupolemos 11y ago
  Socialism works pretty well in Scandinavia (understatements may be present). Lot's of dictatorships have called themselves "socialist", maybe you are confusing the term? Capitalism and socialism works exceptionally well hand-in-hand.
  - toxik 11y ago
    I think, to put it short, the middle path is the right one: partway socialist, partway capitalist. The capitalist side has had an upswing in Sweden recently, and the development it started is noticeable. Socalism can and does lead to stagnation, while capitalism can and does lead to overexploitation.
  - necessity 11y ago
    I wouldn't call countries with strong property laws socialists because of their welfare programs. After wall socialists want to abolish property (as the comment I replied to mentions). Unless you're talking about some Keynesian welfare state "socialist". As to your comment on the dictatorships... https://i.imgur.com/41fsQ9z.jpg https://i.imgur.com/41fsQ9z.jpg
forrestthewoods 11y ago
Why is it not compatible? The profit driven world has lifted more humans out of poverty than any other system by leaps and bounds.
- beatpanda 11y ago
  "Poverty" is a relative condition that couldn't exist without Capitalism. There is no objective state of poverty anyone has been lifted out of by Capitalism.
  - simonh 11y ago
    That's complete rubbish. Anthropologists and historians use measures in terms of nutrition, health, life expectancy, child mortality and leisure time that apply regardless of the economic system in operation and track changes over time in order to characterize changes in lifestyle. You can set benchmarks to characterize poverty regardless of whether the population in question live in an agrarian, capitalist, Marxist or whatever system. Arguing that the massive objective improvements in living standards generated in capitalist economies somehow don't count on obscure technical semantic grounds is pure Marxist* sophistry. * It occurs to me that it's possible you might not be a Marxist, but the argument you're making is one often put forward by Marxists, along the lines that capitalism by establishing monetary systems to measure capital establish scales on which poverty is measured and therefore create that poverty. Of course every Marxist society ever created has also used a monetary system to measure and allocate capital. But then Marx never, in any of his publications or letters, ever described how a communist economy would actually function so obviously building one has proven somewhat problematic.
    - eludwig 11y ago
      Your starred comment beautifully allowed you to knock down your own strawman. Nicely done. :D It is worth looking at his comment with the "red" filters removed. The point is that every game has winners and losers. You actually can't have one without the other, by definition. One creates the other. The real question is just how far do you want to tilt the board before all of the pieces fall off? Money is just a representation of material and effort. Do you really want to leave the decision about where all material and effort are spent up to those who figured out how to win this game? To some degree that's fair, but to what degree? Remember: there are no self-made men. Anyone who thinks this is deluding themselves. We exist in an interconnected net, where everything is related. There is not one thing sitting within arms reach of you right now that you made completely by your own hand. You are standing, at all times, on the shoulders of others. Hopefully this is a true circle, where those at the top allow those on the bottom to stand on their shoulders.

askafriend 11y ago

What makes you say that the profit driven world is ending?

TeMPOraL 11y ago
I'd say it's collapsing on itself. It's trying to optimize people out of the loop, but is not yet able to sustain itself without humans. Nor will the humans lay down and die without giving a fight.
- adventured 11y ago
  Capitalism optimizes people into the loop in fact. It pulls more people into higher standards of living, and produces more jobs for people. We have four billion more people than 50 years ago, and more people have jobs today globally than at any other time in history, and less people are in poverty, and there's more food available for everyone, and famines are almost non-existent, and the infant mortality rate has been drastically reduced, and the global life expectancy keeps rising, and a hundred other things that prove you wrong.
  - beatpanda 11y ago
    "More people have jobs" is a completely meaningless sentence. There is an amount of work that all humans have to do to ensure the survival of themselves and all other humans. If we were doing it right, we would all he doing less work, not more, and we would have some kind of equality of access to the total product of society. Instead, and increasingly, the people doing the hardest work are disconnected from access to the product of their labor or the chance at ever getting access to it.
    - tracker1 11y ago
      As long as anyone has greed and/or desire, your idealistic scenario cannot work.
zobzu 11y ago
Fuck this kind of answer. Perfect capitalism ends up with a perfect world. Perfect socialism too. Or communism. It's the way we corrupt each of them which is the problem, corrupted by people who want power. There's no way we have found of solving that yet. None. So far, that we're still alive seems to be pure luck, and that we make it out alive or not, seems to also be pure luck or bad luck. We certainly ain't helping ourselves all that much.
matt4077 11y ago
The internet deals mostly in intellectual property, where socialism is actually working quite well. Github is essentially a communist marketplace: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"

necessity 11y ago

Yeah, socialism has worked so well throughout history and capitalism so bad.

Eupolemos 11y ago
Socialism works pretty well in Scandinavia (understatements may be present). Lot's of dictatorships have called themselves "socialist", maybe you are confusing the term? Capitalism and socialism works exceptionally well hand-in-hand.
- toxik 11y ago
  I think, to put it short, the middle path is the right one: partway socialist, partway capitalist. The capitalist side has had an upswing in Sweden recently, and the development it started is noticeable. Socalism can and does lead to stagnation, while capitalism can and does lead to overexploitation.
- necessity 11y ago
  I wouldn't call countries with strong property laws socialists because of their welfare programs. After wall socialists want to abolish property (as the comment I replied to mentions). Unless you're talking about some Keynesian welfare state "socialist". As to your comment on the dictatorships... https://i.imgur.com/41fsQ9z.jpg https://i.imgur.com/41fsQ9z.jpg

forrestthewoods 11y ago

Why is it not compatible? The profit driven world has lifted more humans out of poverty than any other system by leaps and bounds.

beatpanda 11y ago
"Poverty" is a relative condition that couldn't exist without Capitalism. There is no objective state of poverty anyone has been lifted out of by Capitalism.
- simonh 11y ago
  That's complete rubbish. Anthropologists and historians use measures in terms of nutrition, health, life expectancy, child mortality and leisure time that apply regardless of the economic system in operation and track changes over time in order to characterize changes in lifestyle. You can set benchmarks to characterize poverty regardless of whether the population in question live in an agrarian, capitalist, Marxist or whatever system. Arguing that the massive objective improvements in living standards generated in capitalist economies somehow don't count on obscure technical semantic grounds is pure Marxist* sophistry. * It occurs to me that it's possible you might not be a Marxist, but the argument you're making is one often put forward by Marxists, along the lines that capitalism by establishing monetary systems to measure capital establish scales on which poverty is measured and therefore create that poverty. Of course every Marxist society ever created has also used a monetary system to measure and allocate capital. But then Marx never, in any of his publications or letters, ever described how a communist economy would actually function so obviously building one has proven somewhat problematic.
  - eludwig 11y ago
    Your starred comment beautifully allowed you to knock down your own strawman. Nicely done. :D It is worth looking at his comment with the "red" filters removed. The point is that every game has winners and losers. You actually can't have one without the other, by definition. One creates the other. The real question is just how far do you want to tilt the board before all of the pieces fall off? Money is just a representation of material and effort. Do you really want to leave the decision about where all material and effort are spent up to those who figured out how to win this game? To some degree that's fair, but to what degree? Remember: there are no self-made men. Anyone who thinks this is deluding themselves. We exist in an interconnected net, where everything is related. There is not one thing sitting within arms reach of you right now that you made completely by your own hand. You are standing, at all times, on the shoulders of others. Hopefully this is a true circle, where those at the top allow those on the bottom to stand on their shoulders.